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The Banging Inside the Container: The Todd Kohlhepp Case · Crime Incident

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: On the afternoon of November 3rd, 2016, sheriff's deputies walking
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a 96-acre tract of land near Woodruff, South Carolina, stopped
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: because they heard something. A banging sound, metal on metal,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: coming from inside a locked shipping container. They cut five
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: padlocks off the door, and inside they found a woman
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: with a chain around her neck, alive, who had been
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: in that box for 65 days. The land, the container,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and the chain all belonged to a successful local real
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: estate broker, a man who ran his own brokerage, employed
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: a dozen agents, and was, at that exact moment, one
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: of the most ordinary-looking professionals in Spartanburg County. That is
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: where this story ends, so that is where we are
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: going to start. Most accounts of this case run forward,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: from crime to capture. We are going to run it backwards.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: We start at the container door, and then we walk
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: this man's life in reverse, through the brokerage, through two
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: years of product reviews on Amazon that read very differently now,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: through a motorcycle dealership in 2003, all the way back
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to a street in Arizona in 1986. Because the question
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: this case asks is not who did it. He confessed
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: to everything. The question is how a man carried this
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: double life across three decades in two states, in plain sight,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: until a woman he had chained inside a metal box
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: calmly handed investigators the key to all of it.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: So, the rescue.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Two months earlier, at the end of August 2016, a
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: young couple from Anderson, South Carolina, Calla Brown and her
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: boyfriend Charlie Carver, had simply stopped existing online and off.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Friends noticed.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Their apartment was left as if they would be back
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: in an hour. Strange posts appeared on Charlie's Facebook account,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: posts that people who loved him said did not sound
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: like him at all, which had the effect, investigators later concluded,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the intended effect of muddying the search. What finally cut
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: through was not a witness.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It was math.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Investigators traced the couple's last cell phone signals, and those
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: signals pointed at a fenced, wooded property near Woodruff owned
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: by a broker named Todd Kohlhepp. Understand what that property
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: represented before you picture the search. Nearly a hundred acres
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: of rural Spartanburg County ringed with fencing he had paid
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: to install, far enough from any neighbor that a person
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: could scream into that landscape and reach no one. On
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: November 3rd, deputies arrived with a search warrant, and as
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: they moved across the land, they heard the banging. I
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: want you to sit inside that moment for a second,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: because it is one of the most extraordinary rescue scenes
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: in modern American crime. The deputies cut the locks and
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: opened the door. And Carla Brown was there, chained, in
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Sheriff Chuck Wright's words, like a dog. She had been
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: held in that container for 65 days. She had been fed.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: She had been restrained by the neck and ankle. And
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: early reports that she was found unharmed were wrong in
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the way early reports often are. The criminal charges would
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: later establish that she had been repeatedly sexually assaulted during
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: her captivity. What she had also been for 65 days
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: was awake, watching, remembering, cataloging, Because when deputies got her
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: clear of that box, she did not just tell them
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: who had taken her. She started solving murders. She told
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: investigators on the spot what she had witnessed. On August 31st,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: she and Charlie had come to the property to do
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: brush-clearing work for Kohlhepp, a job ordinary paid work. And
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: in front of her, Kohlhepp shot Charlie Carver dead, three
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: shots to the chest by her account. His stated reason,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: in his own words as she relayed them, was that
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Charlie had a smart mouth. That is the entire motive
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: he offered for ending a 32-year-old man's life. Then he
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: chained her inside the container. And she told deputies one
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: more thing. The thing that turned a rescue into an excavation.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: There were bodies buried on this land. Charlie's, and at
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: least two more. Picture the shift that ripples through a
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: sheriff's office in that hour. Deputies arrived working a missing
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: persons case. By nightfall they were standing on a burial ground,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and every acre of that fenced property had become a question.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: The next day, November 4th, investigators found Charlie Carver in
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: a shallow grave on the property. Kohlhepp was already in custody.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Arrested on site the day of the rescue, denied bond
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: within days. A kidnapper now. A murderer now. But hold on,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: because you have not heard the part that made this
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: case national news.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Here is the hinge of the whole story.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: In the days after the rescue, with Calla Brown's account
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: in front of them, investigators sat across from Todd Kohlhepp.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: and he began to talk about a crime nobody had
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: asked him about. Thirteen years earlier, in November 2003, someone
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: had walked into a motorcycle dealership called Superbike Motorsports in
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the small town of Chesney, about 30 miles away, and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: shot four people dead. It was Spartanburg County's most infamous
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: unsolved case. A quadruple murder with no arrest, no weapon,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: no answer, for 13 years. And Kohlhepp confessed to it,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: not vaguely. A sheriff's report said he supplied details of
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the shooting sequence inside that dealership that only the killer
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: would know. The woman he had kept chained in a
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: box had told investigators he had spoken of other killings,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and she was right. Calla Brown did not just survive.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Her testimony broke open a cold case that had haunted
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: four families for over a decade. Remember that when we
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: talk about her later, because she deserves to be remembered
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: as the person who did that. Now the story runs backwards,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: as promised. Come with me to the morning of November 6th,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: 2003 in Chesmee, South Carolina. Superbike Motorsports was not a
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: struggling shop. It was a local success story, a Suzuki
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: dealership that had won an award from the manufacturer that
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: very year. It was built by two best friends, Scott Ponder,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: 30 years old, the owner, a racer who loved everything
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: on two wheels, and Brian Lucas, 29, his closest friend
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: and the service manager. They had opened the place together
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: in 2001. Scott's mother, Beverly Guy, 52, kept the books
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: and ran errands, and mostly just liked being around her son.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: In the service bay worked Chris Sherbert, 26, the mechanic,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: shooby to the people who knew him. That morning, someone
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: walked in and shot all four of them. By the
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: killer's own later confession, it took less than a minute.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Beverly Guy was shot as she came out of the bathroom.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Chris Sherbert was found bent over as though still working
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: on a bike, killed mid-task, apparently never seeing it coming.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Nothing was stolen. An envelope of cash sat in plain sight, untouched.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Which meant investigators had a quadruple homicide with no robbery,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: no witnesses, and no motive anyone could see. It was,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: at the time, one of the worst mass killings in
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the county's history. And it landed on a town small
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: enough that everyone knew someone connected to that shop. Customers
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: had been in and out all morning. A customer, in fact,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: was the one who found them. Think about what an
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: unsolved case does to the people left behind. Because for
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: these families it was 13 years, and the investigation itself
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: made it crueler. Scott Ponder's wife Melissa was pregnant with
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: their son when her husband was murdered. And for a time,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: because of a DNA mix-up that was later corrected, investigators
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: wrongly floated a theory involving her. A supposed love triangle
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: that never existed.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: She was cleared.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: But she had to live under that shadow while grieving
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: a husband and raising a boy who would never meet
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: his father. Brian Lucas's mother went on national television, on
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Unsolved Mysteries, pleading for answers. Nobody had any. Detectives chased
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: theory after theory over the years, disgruntled customers, business disputes,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: random violence, and every lead died the same quiet death.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Thirteen anniversaries came and went. Thirteen Novembers of families laying
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: flowers and reporters writing the same unresolved paragraph. Here is
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: a detail that should stop you cold. Todd Kohlhepp's name
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: was actually in the 2003 case file, early. He had
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: been a customer of the shop. Investigators talked to a
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: lot of customers. He was never charged, never seriously pursued,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and the file went cold with his name sitting quietly
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: inside it for 13 years until he handed himself over.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Why did he do it?
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: The only answer that exists is his, so take it
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: for exactly what it is worth. He claimed the staff
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: had mocked him, teased him over a motorcycle he had
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: bought months earlier. That is his confessed account, uncorroborated by anyone.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Four people, a mother and three young men, over an
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: insult he may or may not have actually received. If
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: that motive sounds too small to be real, hold on
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to that feeling, because.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: It will come back.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: A man who killed over a perceived slight in 2003
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: and killed over a smart mouth in 2016. Keep rewinding,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: because you need to know who was walking around Chesney
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: that morning. Todd Christopher Kohlhepp, born in Florida in 1971,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: a childhood so troubled it included institutionalization, moved to Tempe,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Arizona at 12 to live with his father. And on
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: November 25, 1986, he was 15 years old. He forced
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: a 14-year-old neighbor from her home at gunpoint, tied her up,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: and raped her.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: 15.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Arizona charged him as an adult. He was convicted of
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: kidnapping and served 14 years in prison, where he earned
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: a computer degree. In 2001, he was released, registered as
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: a sex offender, and moved to South Carolina to start over.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: And here is the part of the story that is
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: about systems, not monsters. The registry worked. in the narrow sense.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: His name was on it, publicly searchable, for anyone who looked,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and it changed nothing. He obtained a South Carolina real
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: estate license, reportedly by misrepresenting his record on the application.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: He built a brokerage.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: He hired around a dozen agents. He made real money.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Ask yourself how many gates he passed through in those years.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: A licensing board, employers, lenders, clients handing him the keys
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: to their houses, and how many of them ever looked.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: As a convicted felon and a registered sex offender, He
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: was legally barred from possessing so much as a single firearm.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: When investigators finally searched his property in 2016, they recovered
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: an arsenal. By 2014, he could buy a 96-acre tract
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: of woodland near Woodruff and pay to have it fenced.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Clients trusted him with their homes. Colleagues described a smart, abrasive,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: successful man. Two years after he bought that land. You
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: already know this because you have seen the end. A
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: couple came to clear brush and never left. A registered
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: sex offender, a convicted violent kidnapper, rebuilt himself into a
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: pillar of the local economy, and no gate ever closed
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: in front of him. The registry that was supposed to
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: be a warning functioned, in practice, as wallpaper. Now, the
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: strangest chapter, the one that gave this case its nickname.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Between 2014 and 2016, Kohlhepp wrote scores of product reviews
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: on Amazon, over a hundred by most counts. Under an
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: anonymous handle, he reviewed knives, he reviewed shovels, he reviewed padlocks,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: and he did not write normal reviews. Of a folding shovel,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: he wrote that you should keep it in the car,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: for when you have to hide the bodies. Reviewing a
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: tactical shirt, he joked that it, has been known to
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: cause severe anger issues when hostages aren't cooperating. He reviewed
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: locks very much like the ones that would one day
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: be cut off a container door. Line after line for
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: two years, a killer live annotating his own toolkit and
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: daring the internet to notice.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Nobody noticed. Why would they?
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Dark jokes are the native language of online reviews. But
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: here is the detail that turns it from tasteless to chilling.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Those reviews were posted during the exact window, 2014 to 2016,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: when he went from landowner to active serial killer. When
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: he wrote about hiding bodies, there came a point when
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: there were bodies.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: On his land. Real ones.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: This was not foreshadowing. It was documentation, hidden in plain sight,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: and after his arrest reporters and investigators matched the account
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: to him and read the whole archive back in the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: light of what he was. Because in December 2015, a
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: young married couple named Johnny and Megan Coxie, he was 29,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: she was in her mid-20s, and they had a little boy,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: went to that property, reportedly for work.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Days before Christmas.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: They were reported missing just before the holiday. According to
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the arrest warrants, Kohlhepp shot Johnny, held Megan captive for
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: about a week, and then shot her on Christmas Day
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: or the day after. Their family spent nearly a year
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: not knowing, a year of missing person flyers and unanswered questions,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: and a child asking where his parents were. They were
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: buried on the property, unmarked, while their killer showed houses
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: and answered emails and wrote his reviews. And notice the
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: pattern hardening here, because it matters. Work is the lure,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: The Coxies came for work. Charlie and Kala came for work.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: A man whose entire public identity was employment. The broker,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the boss, the guy with jobs to offer, used the
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: most ordinary transaction in American life as a trap. It
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: was Kala Brown's rescue 11 months later that finally brought
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: investigators to that ground. In the days after his arrest,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Cole had personally walked investigators to two grave sites. On
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: November 7-9, 2016, the remains were recovered and identified as
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Johnny and Megan Coxie. Seven murder charges now. Two crime scenes,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: 13 years apart, one man. One more thing belongs in
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: this ledger, and it has to be framed with care.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Kohlhepp has claimed, in letters and interviews since his conviction,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: that there are more victims, more bodies, he says, that
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: were never found. Investigators took it seriously. They searched, including
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: along Interstate 26. Nothing was ever found, no claim was
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: ever substantiated, and no additional charge was ever filed. His
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: confirmed count is seven. Everything beyond that number exists only
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: in his own words, and given that notoriety is the
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: only currency he has left, you should weigh his words accordingly.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: So how does the state answer a man like this?
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Here is where the case becomes a study in cold arithmetic.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: On May 26, 2017, in the Spartanburg County Courthouse, Todd
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Kohlhepp pleaded guilty to everything. Seven counts of murder, two
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: counts of kidnapping, first-degree criminal sexual conduct, four weapons counts,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: 14 charges in all. The sentence, fixed by a negotiated
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: plea agreement, seven consecutive life terms, plus 60 years, no parole, ever.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: And the deal went further than most.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Kohlhepp signed away his right to appeal, his right to
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: any post-conviction challenge, even his right to accept.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Parole if it were somehow offered.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: The contract contains one final clause that reads like something
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: out of fiction. If he ever escapes or violates the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: agreement in any way, the state regains the right to
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: resentence him and to seek the death penalty. Nine pages,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: signed not just by Kohlhapp and the prosecutors, but by
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Kala Brown, by representatives of the victims' families, by the
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: sheriff himself. It was designed to be the last legal
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: document this case would ever need, a resolution engineered to
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: be appeal-proof. Why not seek death from the start? The solicitor,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Barry Barnett, was blunt. This was a death penalty case,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: no doubt about it. But South Carolina's lethal injection drugs
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: had expired years earlier, and the state had not executed
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: anyone since 2011. In Barnett's words, the state did not
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: have a functioning death penalty. There was an evidentiary problem, too.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Kohlhepp had first confessed the Superbike murders to his mother,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and she had since died, taking her testimony beyond the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: reach of any cross-examination. And there were the families, who
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: were offered a choice between certainty now and decades of
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: capital appeals. An endless wait for justice, as the solicitor
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: put it.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: They chose certainty. So did the one living victim.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Calla Brown supported the plea deal, sparing herself a trial
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: and the family's a capital ordeal. And her reported explanation
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: deserves to be quoted, because it is one of the
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: clearest sentences anyone has ever spoken about surviving. He's the killer,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: not me. She sat for a single television interview in
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: early 2017, told her story once, on her terms, and
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: then largely reclaimed her privacy. Notice the shape of that choice.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: She was, briefly, one of the most sought-after interview subjects
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: in America, and she declined to become a permanent character
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: in her own worst chapter. One interview, then silence. The
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: story stayed hers. Melissa Ponder, the widow who was falsely suspected,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: who waited 13 years for the truth about her husband,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: publicly called Calla Brown the real hero of the case.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: She is right, and it is worth saying plainly. A
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: woman chained in the dark for 65 days kept her
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: mind intact, preserved every detail, and her testimony closed seven murders.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: That is not a story about a victim. That is
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: a story about agency. At the sentencing, more than 50
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: family members and friends of the seven victims filled the courtroom.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and about a dozen of them stood and spoke, just
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: feet from him. He showed no visible reaction. Cindy Coxsey,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Johnny's mother, described having to tell Johnny's seven-year-old son that
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: his father was dead, and then she looked at Kohlhepp
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: and delivered the line that hangs over this whole case,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: he hates you with his little heart.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: You might think that is the end. It should have been.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: But this case has a coda, and it is recent.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: In 2025, An investigation by a South Carolina television station
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: uncovered that Kohlhepp had been attempting to profit from his
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: crimes from inside prison, autographed documents offered to collectors, and
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: a merchandise scheme built around the initials SKTK, serial killer
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Todd Kohlhepp.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: As a brand.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: The reporting prompted a corrections investigation into how a man
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: serving seven life sentences was running a memorabilia operation from
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: his cell, and it collides directly with South Carolina's limits
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: on inmates profiting from their crimes. Read that against the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: plea deal he signed. the one where any violation revives
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the state's right to seek death, and you understand why
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: it made headlines. Nine years into forever, he is still
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: trying to convert seven graves into a signature worth money.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: The families, asked for comment, said what you would expect.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: One relative's reaction became the headline itself.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: It makes me sick.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Todd Kohlhepp remains in the custody of the South Carolina
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Department of Corrections, serving seven consecutive life sentences plus 60 years.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: No appeal exists. No parole hearing will ever be scheduled.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: In the nine years since the plea, there has been
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: no litigation, no filing, no legal motion of any kind,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: by design. The only door out of that sentence is
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the one that leads to a death penalty trial, and
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: it opens only if he breaks the deal he signed.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: But do not leave this story holding his name. Leave
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: it holding theirs. Scott Ponder, who built a business with
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: his best friend and never met his son. Beverly Guy,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: who just liked spending days at the shop her boy built.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Brian Lucas, who turned a shared love of motorcycles into
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: a livelihood. Chris Sherbert, Shuby, who died at his workbench.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Johnny and Megan Coxey, who went to work before Christmas
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: and left a little boy who was carried in his
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: grandmother's words by a heart that remembers. Charlie Carver, who
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: was killed for nothing at all. And Kala Brown, who
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: walked out of a steel box after 65 days and,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: with what she had refused to let captivity take from her,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: gave 13 years of unanswered questions their answer. Seven people
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: did not get to finish their stories. She finished one
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: for all of them. Next time, We move from a
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: fenced property in the Carolinas to a case where the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: danger did not hide behind locks at all. It wore
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: a uniform, held a position of trust, and was invited
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: through the front door for years, while the people who
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: could have stopped it filed the warnings away.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening.