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The Plot Twist Kidnapping That Exposed A Serial Killer · The conspiracy

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On August thirty first, twenty sixteen, two people got in
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a car and drove to work. But they never came home.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: No goodbye, no warning, and no trace. Just two people
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: hear one moment and gone the next, leave them behind
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: nothing but questions and a little dog with no food
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and no water. This is the terrifying disappearance of Caleb
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Brown and Charlie Carver. Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: all things that I love to consume. And I know
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful, intellectually minded freak
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: that today we are talking about a very mysterious case.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: So without further ado, let's unbuckled seapbout's go mot fire
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to the highway, slamm of the brakes, and bustle the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: windshield into this mysterious case together. I know that email
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: from your dentist that says you're due for cleaning, Well,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I've archived that same email for about fourteen months, and
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I just have like a whole graveyard of healthcare emails
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I keep meaning to get to, you know, the weird
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: mole on my back. I just am keeping an eye on.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: At some point I'll deal with it later. Just started
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: to become my personality trait. So this past year, I
• 1:26
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• 2:08
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• 2:11
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• 2:14
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  Speaker 1: you love today. That's zeocdoc dot com, slash CCCM, zoc
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• 2:33
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• 2:36
  Speaker 1: let's get back to it. Caleb Victoria Brown was born
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: on November seventeenth, nineteen eighty five, in Anderson, South Carolina,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: a small city tucked into the northwest corner of the state,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: close enough to the Georgia line that people sometimes forget
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: which Carolina they're in. And there are no headlines from
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: her childhood, no stories that made the news. The world
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: wasn't paying attention to CAYLEB. Brown, not yet, but her mother,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Bobby Knewsome, raised her there and by her late twenties,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Anderson was still home. And at thirty years old, Kayla
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: stood five foot eight with reddish brown hair and green eyes,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and people who knew her described her as someone warm
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and someone very present. Now Dan Herron knew the family well,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: and he dated Kayla's mother years earlier and stayed close
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: to both of them, and he called Kayla a very
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: close friend of mine. She had a Pomeranian named Romeo,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and that dog went everywhere with her, And if you
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: asked anyone close to Kayla who mattered most in her life,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: it was Romeo. Her dog, and her mother, Bobby put
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: it simply saying, quote that dog is her baby, unquote.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I can relate. I can relate to have five babies
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: in the real dogs. But to make some extra money,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Cayla picked up cleaning jobs on the side, and she'd
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: been acquainted with a local real estate broker named Todd
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Colap for years, connected through Facebook. After she posted looking
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: for extra work, Nicola hired her a handful of times
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: to clean houses tied to his listings, and she usually
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: brought her boyfriend along with her to help. But the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: work was straightforward and the pay was decent overall a
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: pretty good gig now. Charles David Carver was born on
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: November nineteenth, nineteen eighty three, in Anderson, South Carolina, the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: same town as Kayla, two years and two days apart,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and most people called him Charlie, and he was five
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: to eleven with brown hair and blue eyes and about
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty pounds, and before settling into civilian life,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: he'd done time in the Army National Guard, and he'd
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: also been an explorer cadet with the Anderson County Sheriff's Office,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and by his early thirties he'd settled into civilian work
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: as a printing machine operator at a company called First
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Quality Tissue. But the job was just how he paid bills,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: and which Charlie loved, was everything else. The man loved pool.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: He played in both nine ball and eight ball leagues
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: around town. And he was a writer, and he was
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: working on his fifth Mister novel. And his father, Chuck
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Carver said about Charles, quote he never hurt anybody. He
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: would give you the shirt off his back or the
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: last two dollars in his pocket. That was just the
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: guy he was unquote. And his mother Joanne saw it
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the same way, saying, quote, he could bring a smile
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: to the saddest person. He loved to laugh. He loved
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: making people laugh unquote. Now, Kenzie Durham had known Charlie
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: since high school, and even after the romance ended, the
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: friendship held for sixteen years. That was just the kind
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: of person. He was, the kind that people just held onto.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: So Kayla and Charlie started dating sometime in the spring
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: of twenty sixteen, and by August they were sharing an
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: apartment in Anderson, and at this point it had only
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: been a few months. It happened fast, the way things
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: sometimes do when two people just fit, and Charlie situation
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't uncomplicated though, because his divorce from his wife, Nikki
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: hadn't been finalized yet and on paper he was still
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: a married man and Dan Harrin's coming and didn't hold
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: back saying quote, I warned her, I said, Kayla, you're
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: dealing with a married couple here, unquote. But Kayla and
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Charlie pushed forward anyway, and their friends could see this
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: wasn't a fling. Marriage was already part of the conversation,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: and they'd only been a couple for around four or
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: five months at this point. But both of them are
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: very serious about it and they were happy together, but
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: they were also broke. Making ends meet was a constant struggle,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: so any chance they had to pick up extra work
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: they took. So on August twenty ninth, twenty sixteen, a
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: friend came by the apartment that evening and the three
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: of them set down for dinner together. Just a normal night,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: And on August thirtieth, Kayla was still texting people back
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: and several friends heard from her that day, nothing unusual,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: but then came August thirty. First that morning, Charlie clocked
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: out of a shift at work, and he was caught
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: on the building surveillance feed heading out the door. But
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: this would be the last time anyone saw him on camera.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And after that, both of their phones went quiet, and
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: the texts stopped, and so did the calls. Everything stopped.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Now Kayla and Charlie's day was pretty simple. Todd Kullap,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the real estate broker Kayla had cleaned houses for over years,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: had asked them to come out to a piece of
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: property he owned near Wooddrift, South Carolina, and their job
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: was to clear brush. Now, Kayla did consider asking a
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: different person to come, but she ended up just getting
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: her boyfriend to come along with her, as he usually
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: did on a lot of her jobs. So the two
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: of them drove out together to a property that stretched
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: across nearly one hundred acres of woods and open land
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: in rural Spartanburg County. The communities surrounding the property were
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: places where people recognized each other at the grocery store
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: and the football field. In Greenville, News reporter Michael Burns
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: described them as quote typical small southern towns home to
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: high school football and Sunday dinners after church unquote, so
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Kayla Brown and Charlie Carver would do what they were
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: supposed to do and go to their job, but this
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: would be the day they would mysteriously go missing. Now,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Joanne Shifflet, Charlie's mother, had a rule with her son.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: A day didn't pass where the two of them didn't
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: talk in some way, a text, a call, something, and
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: days of silence turned into a week, and Joanne picked
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: up the phone and called the front office at the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: apartment complex where the couple lived, and she asked someone
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: to go knock on their door. So the manager knocked,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: but no answer, and so she let herself in and
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: everything inside was untouched and the place felt abandoned. But
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: she did find one thing, and that was Romeo, Kayla's Pomeranian,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and left behind with no food and no water, and
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Charlie's mother reported him missing on September third, and two
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: days later, a friend of Kayla's went to the police
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and filed her own missing person's report, and both cases
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: would go through Anderson PD and what investigated found inside
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the apartment only deepened the family's panic because Kayla's glasses
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: were still there and her contact lenses were two and
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: also the medication she took regularly, and her car sat
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: untouched in the parking lot, and the only thing unaccounted
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: for was Charlie's car, a white two thousand and two
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: pontiec Gram Prix with a plate number Hwy two two four.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: And the woman who managed Anderson Crossing told reporters Charlie
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: had rented there going on three years, and when his
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: rent was unpaid, she said that was a red flag.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: He never missed a payment. Charlie just didn't do that.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: So both families were certain of one thing, Kayla and
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Charlie hadn't left on their own, and the proof to
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: them was the dog. Kayla wouldn't walk away from Romeo.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: That was not a possibility. Anyone who knew her would believe.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: But days would turn into weeks, and no one knew
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: what to do. Two mothers, Bobby and Joanne, went to
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: the apartment together that weekend and they would just box
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: up every last thing their kids owned and they would
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: just move it into storage, waiting for a return that
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: might not come. And Joanne tried to explain the weight
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: of it to Dateline, saying, quote, it's so much worse
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: than you can think, not knowing it's like you have
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: a hot skillet and they are two drops of water
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: you put on it and they just disappear. And the
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: community stepped in where the investigation stalled, and volunteers printed
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: flyers and papered them across Anderson, and Facebook groups sprang
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: up overnight sharing the couple's photos, pushing the story further
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: than local news could ever carry it, and Dateline picked
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: up the case on October tenth, running the couple's story
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: over a month later as part of the Missing in
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: America series. But as the weeks dragged on, something strange
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: started happening. On Charlie's Facebook page. Posts kept appearing, more
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: than fifty of them after the couple vanished. In fact,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: one entry slow it into July said Kayla was pregnant
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: with a baby girl, and another in August said they
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: closed on a home. Third, dated September first, announced a
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: wedding and photos were uploaded too, presented as if they
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: were recent, and the family recognized them immediately they'd been
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: posted more than a year earlier. Joanne knew her son's voice.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Whoever was writing those posts wasn't Charlie, at least that's
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: what she thought, and then the content would start to
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: turn dark, and the account started filling up with disturbing
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: memes in violent imagery. One read quote I weren't crazy,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I'd be insane unquote, and another said quote, sometimes late
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: at night, I dig a hole in the backyard to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: keep the nosy neighbors guessing unquote. The family's adamant Charlie's
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: account had been hijacked, but the damage was already done,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: and the stream posts gave some people a reason to
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: believe the couple had simply walked away from their lives.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: It kind of muddied the urgency, and it created doubt
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: where there should have been alarm, and it bought the
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: person responsible for their disappearance exactly what he needed. Time.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: And while someone was using Charlie's account to muddy the search,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Todd Colp was posting on his own page the guy
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: who hired Kayla and Charlie multiple times. Two weeks after
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the couple vanished, he wrote a post actually mocking missing
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: persons cases, saying quote, people go missing all the time,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: they always turn up somewhere unquote, and then he added
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: a line about himself, saying, quote, in the event I
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: become missing, please note no one would take me, I
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: eat too much and I am crabby unquote. So who
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: really was Todd Colop? Todd Christopher Samsell was born on
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: March seventh, nineteen seventy one, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: he was an only child and his parents, Regina and
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Willie sam Sell, split up when he was just two
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: years old, and Regina won the custody battle, and a
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: year later she married again, and by nineteen seventy six,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the new husband had legally adopted Todd, and that's how
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: he became Todd Klep. The home he grew up in
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: was anything but stable, though, and he and his stepfather
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: clashed constantly because his mother and stepfather divorced, then reconciled,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: and then would divorce again. And therapists who evaluated him
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: over the years saw the same thing every time. Todd
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: resented his stepfather and the father he actually wanted to
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: be with was his biological dad, but that was someone
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: he hadn't seen in eight years. But the warning signs
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: showed up early, as far back as nursery. School teachers
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: watched him go after other children and break their things,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and by age nine he was in counseling and the
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: clinical language in his file was pretty blunt. It was
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: just explosive and for a nine year old, a disturbing
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: fixation which was quote preoccupied with sexual content unquote. And
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: he also hurt animals and he shot a neighbor's dog
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: with a babie gun, and he killed a goldfish by
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: pouring chlorox'x bleach into the bowl. And years later his
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: birth father tried to describe his son's emotional rage and
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: all he could come up with was anger and madness,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: and that was it, and those were the only two settings.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Just a rageful, mean, little nine year old asshole, essentially.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: So at nine years old, Todd was admitted to the
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Georgia Mental Health Institute as an impatient and he stayed
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: for three and a half months, and he couldn't get
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: along with the other children. And while there, the therapist
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: documented two things. Todd still openly hated his stepfather, and
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: his fixation on sexual content persisted, and the marriage between
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: his mother and stepfather collapsed again in nineteen eighty two,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and that summer Todd was sent to stay with William Samsell,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: his biological father, and it was the first real time
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: they really had together. But the visit would end, and
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Todd returned home to his mother, and that's when he
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: would take a hammer to his own bedroom and just
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: tear it apart. And then he told his mother he'd
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: kill her if she didn't let him go back to
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: his father's. And that October the Spartanburg School District flagged
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the twelve year old now for an evaluation. His teachers
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: just could not control this kid, because he would blow
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: up at the smallest provocation, defy authority on reflex, and
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: shut down completely if anyone corrected him. The evaluation stretched
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: from December nineteen eighty two grew May nineteen eighty three,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and once the evaluation wrapped up, Regina agreed to let
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Todd go, and he packed up and moved to Arizona,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: where his father was waiting. And her neighbor described the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: boy as a devil on a chain, and Todd forced
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: her son into a dog kennel, sealed it shut, and
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: sent it rolling across the yard. And then he grabbed
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the kid and cracked his head against clay pipes, and
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: while her son cried, Todd just laughed. He thought it
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: was hilarious. And once settled in Arizona, Todd dropped the
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: colep name temporarily and went by Samsell again. And he
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: started working whatever odd jobs he could find nearby. And
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: his father actually collected weapons and taught the boy how
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: to handle them. That is not good parenting for a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: child that is literally diagnosed as crazy and angry and rageful.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: But what do I know. I'm not a parent, you know.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: And he would also show Todd how to blow things
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: up and make bombs. I guess the apple doesn't fall
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: far from the tree. Essentially, is what we're seeing right now.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Little nature, little nurture work in fifty to fifty in
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: this one. But this father son relationship would fall apart too,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: because William was constantly gone, spending his time with a
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: string of girlfriends, and Todd asked to go back to
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: his mother, but Regina didn't want him back, not surprising,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and every time Todd asked to come home, she found
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: another reason to delay. So neither parent, it seemed, wanted
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: to be the one holding the devil on the chain.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: And on November twenty fifth, nineteen eighty six, fifteen year
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: old Todd kidnapped a fourteen year old girl named Christy
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Grenado in Tempe, Arizona, and he forced her at gunpoint
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: with a twenty two caliber revolver, and he marched her
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: back to the house where he was living, restrained her,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: covered her mouth with tape, and s her and afterward
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: he walked her home and he told her if she
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: said a word, he'd kill her entire family. Oh my god.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: But luckily she would tell them anyway. And Collap was
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: charged with kidnapping and assault and committing a day jerous
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: crime against children, and a guilty play on the kidnapping
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: count came in nineteen eighty seven and the s charge
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and the charge for crimes against children were dismissed as
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: part of the deal, and the sentence was fifteen years
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: in prison. And court records from the case painted a
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: clinical picture and he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: and his IQ tested at one eighteen, which is above average,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: and the sentencing judge saw exactly what he was dealing with.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: On paper, the kid had potential quote very bright and
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: should be advanced academically unquote, but that package came with
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: something the court just couldn't fix quote behaviorally and emotionally
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: dangerous unquote, So rehabilitation, the judge concluded, was unlikely, and
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: his probation officer noted in the court file collapse quote
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: felt the world owed him something unquote, and in prison,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the early years looked like a continuation of everything before,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: and he racked up violations and some of them were violent.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: But after he turned twenty, something shifted and there were
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: no more incidents on his record, and whether that meant
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: he'd changed or simply just learned how to hide was
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: a question no one seemed to ask, so while looked up,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Colep earned a degree in computer science from Central Arizona College,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and in August of two thousand and one, after fourteen
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: years behind bars, he would walk out. And he was
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: now thirty years old, and he moved to South Carolina
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: to live with his mother, and on November thirtieth, two
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: thousand and one, he registered as a defender. And for
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the next few years he bounced between jobs and classrooms,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: and he worked graphic design at a Spartanburg company for
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: almost two years, and he enrolled at Greenville Technical College,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and then in two thousand and six he applied for
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: a South Carolina real estate license and the application asked
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: about prior felony convictions and collop naturally lied on that question,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: and the license was granted doing criminal background checks in
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: two thousand and six, or what's going on there anyway,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And by two thousand and eight he had a bachelor's
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: degree from the University of South Carolina Upstate in business
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: administration and marketing. And by then he was already building
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: his empire at his real estate brokerage grew fast. At
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: its peak, twelve agents worked under him, and other agents
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: knew his name, and he ranked among the top sellers
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: in the Carolinas. And on top of all that, he
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: got certified to fly planes and started buying real estate
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: in other states. And the people around him saw a driven,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: confident professional, and Cherry Lawrence, who worked for him, said, quote,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: he was an excellent boss. He stood up for us
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: whenever we needed him, unquote. And everyone in the office
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: knew about the registry. That actually wasn't a secret, but
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Colb had a story for that. Of course, of course
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: he had a backup story for that. But he told
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: people the whole thing was overblown. He'd gone joy riding
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: with a girl and her father blew it out of proportion.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: In his neighbor, Ron Owens saw nothing alarming either, quote
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Todd was, in my opinion, a likable guy unquote, but
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: cracks showed if you knew where to look. And a
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: woman who'd done a real estate deal with him said
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the charm was real at first, but the longer you
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: talked to Coleop, the more he drifted, guns kept coming up,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: and his comments took on a sexual edge that made
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: people uncomfortable. He was a regular at a waffle house
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: in Roebuck, and the women on staff dreaded seeing him
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: walk in, and eventually the cook a man took over
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: serving him because none of the waitresses wanted to go
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: near his table, and one of those waitresses was a
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: young woman named Megan Lee McCraw Coxy Now. On November sixth,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: two thousand and three, a customer walked into Superbike Motorsports,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: a motorcycle dealership in Chesney, South Carolina. He found four
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: people shot, two inside the shop and two outside. They
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: were dead, and one of those people was Scott Ponder,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: who was thirty, who owned the shop, and the other
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: was his mother, Beverly Guy, fifty two years old, the bookkeeper.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: And then there was Brian Lucas who was twenty nine
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: years old and was the service manager, and lastly there
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: was Chris Sherbert, who was twenty six year old and
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: was a mechanic. And Scott's wife Melissa didn't see him
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: leave that morning, she was still in bed and she
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: was seven weeks pregnant. She never saw him alive again,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: but all four died from multiple gunshot wounds, and investigators
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: pieced together a theory of what happened. Sherbert was the
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: first to die, shot while working in the back of
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: the building, and Beverly Guy was next killed on the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: showroom floor, and Brian Lucas went down near the front door,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: and Scott Ponder was gunned down outside in the parking lot.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Detectives collected eighteen nine millimeters shell casings from the scene,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a mix of brass and nickel plated rounds and two
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: different types of ammunition, which complicated the ballistic analysis. From
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: the start, and the case consumed the small community of Chesney,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: and rumors would spread fast, and some people blamed a
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Mexican drug gang and others whispered about a love triangle.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: The speculation crushed the victims' families, and as the years
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: dragged on, detectives ran ballistics on every weapon they thought
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: might be connected, and twenty seven guns in total, and
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: not one of them match the casings from the scene though,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: and at one point the shell casings crossed the Atlantic
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: and a lab in England had advanced fingerprint technology that
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: didn't exist in the US at the time, and even
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: that came back empty. Nothing worked, and Sheriff Chuck Wright
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: later explained why colep had never been on their radar, saying, quote,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: there was no reason to interview everybody. There was nothing
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: in the gentleman's background that screamed I did this, unquote.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: So the case went cold, and it stayed that way
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: for thirteen years, and when the truth finally came out,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the motive would be almost impossible to believe because he
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle and they
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: laughed at him when he fell over on the bike.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: So four people dead because someone felt humiliated. And while
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the superbike investigation stalled, Coleop was quietly building something else.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: The property he bought in May twenty fourteen sat about
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: nine miles outside More, South Carolina, nearly one hundred acres
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: of rule land, and the price tag was three hundred
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: and five thousand, six hundred and thirty two dollars, and
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: then he spent another eighty thousand on a chain link
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: fence around the entire perimeter and motion activated deer cameras
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: went up in the tree line to monitor anyone approaching,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: and bear traps were scattered across the grounds as well.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: And his neighbor, Scott Waldrop, had lived next door for
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: over two decades. In to Waldrop, the guy next door
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: was just another survivalist type, someone who wanted to be
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: left alone and took it more seriously than most. Nothing
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: threatening about that quote. He didn't seem like a threat unquote.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: And he would assume he was a survivalist because Collop
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: had a shipping container he purchased on his property, actually
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: that his girlfriend purchased for him, Holly Udy. So Holly
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: would put up the money for the shipping container in
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, and as far as she knew, it was
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: just for storing supplies like food, AMMO standard prepper gear
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: and as a convicted felon, Colop couldn't legally buy firearms,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: so he used a man named Dustin Lawson to do
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: it for him, and over a four year stretch from
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: twenty twelve to twenty sixteen, Lawson made purchase after purchase
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: on Coleop's behalf twelve firearms, five silencers, and every time
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: he filled out the federal paperwork claiming he was the
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: buyer in every single form was a lie. And the
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: weapons were spread across the property, some hidden in drawers,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: others sitting out in the open on shelving, and some
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: mounted underneath a work bench where you'd never spot them
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: unless you were looking, and a gun safe, a stockpile
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: of ammunition. So the property wasn't a farm, it was
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: a retreat. It was trapped. So on August thirty first,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, the day Kayla and Charlie disappeared, this is
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: what actually happened. Kayla and Charlie pulled up to the
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: entrance of Todd's property expecting a day of yard work,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: and Colop told them he needed to unlock the front
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: gate first, so they followed his vehicle through, and after
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: they drove through, Colop secured the gate so no one
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: could get in or out, and Kayla didn't think anything
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: of it because they had worked for cole Op several
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: times before, so the three of them kept driving and
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: a two story garage came into view first, and then
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: a metal shipping container sitting off the side. And inside
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the garage, Coleop handed them each a bottle of water
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: and a pair of hedge clippers, and he told them
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: he'd walk them out to the trail where he wanted
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: it to be clear. So they stepped outside, and then
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Coleop paused and said he'd forgotten something, so he went
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: back inside by himself, and Kayla and Charlie would just
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: stand together in the quiet, hand in hand, and a
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: few minutes would pass, and then Colop came back through
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: the door, but now he was holding a gun and
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: he didn't say a word, but three rounds would hit
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Charlie in the chest, and Colip was completely calm, and
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: after he shot Charlie, he would swing around toward Kayla
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: and he would take her by the hand and order
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: her into the garage and he would tell her if
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: she didn't she would join Charlie. So once they were inside,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: he shoved her down. Metal cuffs went around her wrists
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: first and then her ankles, and after that he forced
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: a ball gag between her teeth, and then he stood
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: up and told her he had to go deal with
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Charlie and Meanwhile, at this point in time, the outside
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: world hadn't noticed a thing in Kayla's phone and stopped
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: sending replies on August thirty first, as we know, and
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Charlie's went dark around the same time. So for the
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: first couple of days, nobody panicked, but the days kept
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: passing and neither one of them came back, and kayleb
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Brown and Charlie Carver were now gone. And while the
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: people who loved them were beginning to realize that something
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: was wrong, Kayla was already locked up inside a shipping
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: container less than an hour's drive away. So that first day,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: after Cola handcuffed and gagged Kayla, he took Kayla to
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: that storage container sitting on the property, and it was
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide, but pitch black inside,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: and a chain also went around her neck and he
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: fastened it to the wall at the back of the container,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: and then he chained her ankle in the opposite corner.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: And the length of the chain around her neck was
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: two and a half maybe three feet long, So essentially
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: she was shackled in this container like a dog. So
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: at this point in time, she's real that she's a prisoner,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: and also dealing with the fact that the love of
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: her life just died in front of her. And at
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: some point afterward, Kayla caught sight of Charlie's body. It
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: had been rolled into a blue tarp, and he put
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Charlie in the ground and Kayla didn't know where, and
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Charlie's car vanished along with him. Cola changed its color
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: from white to brown with spray paint and then drove
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: it into the woods and buried it under branches until
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: it was very difficult to see. And Colab killed Charlie
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: to just take him away from Kayla and to more
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: easily control her. But Charlie Carver was dead before the
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: afternoon was over, and there were rations stacked inside the
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: container and bottles of water, but that was it. No light,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: no ventilation beyond whatever crept through the metal seams, and
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: it was late August in South Carolina, and the heat
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: inside that box was suffocating, and even imagine she was
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: alone in the dark for hours before he showed up again.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: And he would tell her that if she tried to run,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: he would kill her, and if she tried to hurt him,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: he would kill her, and if she ever fought back,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: he would kill her, so Todd Colep would come back
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: after disposing of Charlie and his car, and he would
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: repeatedly Kayla. And this was just the first day that
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Kayla would spend her captivity on two thin dog beds
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: pushed against the wall of the container, and she would
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: eat crackers and peanut butter and cheese that was sometimes moldy,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: and when she needed a bathroom, all she had was
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: a five gallon bucket and Coleop had placed an air
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: freshener on the lid, and for the first seven days,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the heat inside the metal box was so brutal that
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: she stripped down to her brad and underwear just to breathe.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: And once fall arrived and the air inside the container
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: turned cold, he showed up with sweatpants and yoga pants
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: for her to wear, and Collop gave her things to
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: pass the time, like books and coloring books made for adults,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and a small MP three player loaded with music and
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: small comforts designed to make a cage feel like something
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: less than a cage. But his routine would never change.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Two times every day he'd unlock the container and give
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: her between thirty to forty five minutes outside of it,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: and those breaks happened in a two story garage on
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the grounds, and she was allowed food there and on
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: some visits, access to an actual toilet. Every second day
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: he handed her a small basin of water, and that
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: was as close to bathing as she got because there
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: was no bathtub, and she was never fully unchained during
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: any of this. He would just consistently put more chains
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: on as he took her off, the other chains, always
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: keeping her chained up, and every single day he would her,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: often multiple times a day, which is just I mean,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: the level of evil in this man is unprecedented. It's
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: just absolutely disgusting. And at one point he dragged her
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: across the property to show her something, and it was
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: three mounds of earth that looked like graves, and he
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: would tell her, Kayla, if you try to escape, you're
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: going directly in one of those graves. But the threats
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: weren't the only tool he used. He would tell Kayla
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: she was beautiful, that she was smart, that he'd chosen her. Specifically,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: he would sit her down and explain Stockholm's syndrome to
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: her by name. He would tell her that the happiness
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: would kick in and they would be happy together at
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: some point, just absolutely delusional, ludicrous, And he laid out
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: plans for a room with soundproofed walls, and that's where
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: she would be kept long term. And he told her
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: that someday, if she proved herself loyal, the entire property
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: would be open to her, all ninety five acres. And
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: then in the same breath he'd remind her that nothing
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: about her survival was guaranteed, but as long as she
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: served her purpose, she would be safe. And he would
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: just brag constantly about how many people he'd actually killed
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: and about how skilled he was at it. And he
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: described a woman named Megan, and she'd been locked up
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: on the same property. The Megan we talked about before
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: that worked at the restaurant, and eventually he murdered her
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: as well. And he claimed his body count was close
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: to a hundred and those people he killed meant nothing
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: to him. They were objects. There was one thing he
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: struggled with, though, looking someone in the eye while he
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: did it, if a person was staring straight at him,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: he said he couldn't quite pull the trigger. And he
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: also told her about other targets, a woman named Holly,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: and Holly's boyfriend and Coleb said he was planning to
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: kill them both if he could figure out way to
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: get them alone, and through all of it kept telling
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Kayla that nobody was coming, and he just minimized everything
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and made her feel so small and just forgotten, and
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: he just told her no one was looking for you
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: anymore and that the world had just moved on without her.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: But Kayla didn't believe him, and she would soon figure
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: out that survival meant making Coleb think he was in
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: total control. At about a month in, something shifted and
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Colop had made his terms clear from the beginning. No escape, attempts,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: no resistance, and she lives. So four weeks in, Caleb
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: finally believed him, and that realization didn't make her compliant.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: He was not going to kill her, not as long
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: as she played along, and if he wasn't going to
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: kill her, then he couldn't take anything from her that
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: she didn't hand over. It made her dangerous. So in
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: those weeks there were only two occasions where she saw
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: anything beyond the garage or the in of a metal box,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and once he changed her to a four wheeler and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: drove her around part of the property, and after weeks
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: in total darkness, with barely enough room to shift positions.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Being outdoors felt like something close to grace, because every
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: day inside the container she would talk to God, and
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: no matter what collib told her, she held on to
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the certainty that people on the outside were searching, and
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: there were moments where the weight of everything pressed in
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: close enough to break her. So Anderson p D's position
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: from day one was that nothing pointed to a crime,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: even with the abandoned apartment, even with the dog, even
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: with two cell phones that went dead on the same day.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: The official line was noncommittal and they couldn't say it
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: was a crime at this point, but they couldn't say
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: it wasn't. Behind the scenes, though, they were pulling data,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: and according to police Chief Jim Stewart, they had a
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: ping request running on Kayla's phone within forty eight hours
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: of the missing person's report, and the phone pinged some
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: where in Spartanburg County and then it went dark two days.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: That was all they got. So a request for the
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: couple's cell phone records went out on September ninth, and
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: those records didn't come back until September twenty second. But
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the data told a clear story. On August thirty, first,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: both phones hit the same tower, and after that neither
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: phone registered again. Still, a ping in a rural area
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: doesn't hand you an address, It just gives you a radius,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: and without more investigators couldn't really act on it. So
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Mike Aikins was honest about where the case stood, saying, quote,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: we tracked down the leads we had, but there isn't
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: very much unquote. And one trail they did follow was
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Nicole Carver, Charlie's estranged wife, because on September six, investigators
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: went to speak with her and Nicole told detectives the
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: apartment door had been unlocked and she'd let herself in
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: and she walked out with Charlie's computer and Romeo, Kayla's Pomeranian,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: And according to Nicole, Charlie's browser history had Myrtle Beach
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: searches in it, and detectives had heard through other sources
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: that Nicole claimed Charlie's car was parked at her place
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: with mechanical problems, and they asked to see it, but
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: they didn't find it there. And on September eleventh, Joanne
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: brought detectives a set of messages and she said Nicole
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: had sent them, and one claimed Charlie had called Nicole
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: from a hospital in Myrtle Beach, and another said his
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: car had turned up at the Greenville Spartanburg International Airport,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: and investigators chased both leads, but both would come up empty.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: And September twenty first brought a different kind of lead
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: because a caller tipped off police about suspicious posts and
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: going up on Charlie's Facebook account. As we know, and
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: this time it wasn't just memes and fake milestones. Someone
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: was using Charlie's account to DM people and the messages
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: said he was doing fined and asked for cash to
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: be sent to Nicole. His ex and officer's traced the
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: IP address behind the activity and it led to Nicole
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Carver's home. So one trail kept looping back to the
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: same person, but it never connected to any answer. And
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: there was another problem because despite the bizarre Facebook activity,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: despite private messages being sent from a missing man's account,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Anderson Police had not sought a warrant from Facebook, and
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Dave Kramer acknowledged as much to The Daily Beast, saying,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: quote to do anything like that, we'd have to issue
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: a search warrant to Facebook. I don't know if we'd
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: done that, but I'm pretty sure we have not done that, unquote,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: And over a month into the investigation they still hadn't
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: and dozens of tips poured in over those weeks, and
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: people called in claiming they'd seen Kayla or Charlie or
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: the Grand Prix, and some passed along spots the couple
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: used to frequent, but none of them led anywhere. And
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: then on October thirteenth, something different came in and the
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: friend who'd filed Kayla's missing person's report came back to
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: the police because she had something new, a second hand
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: tip from someone else, and his client was specific because
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: he said he'd run into Kayla the day before she vanished,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: and that her body was on one hundred acre parcel
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: somewhere in Spartanburg County. One hundred acres in Spartanburg County
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: and a body. So investigators went to Kyla's Facebook page
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: and with a search warrant combed through her messages, and
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: inside her messages was a thread with Charlie and they'd
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: been making plans to meet someone named Todd Colep on
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: August thirty first, and he lived in Moore and was
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: supposed to bring them out to a property for work.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: And when they ran Collip's name, a ninety five acre
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: property in Woodruff, South Carolina, came back under his ownership.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Everything clicked at once and Kayla's phone had last pinged
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: off a cell tower in Spartanburg County and the Facebook
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: messages placed her with Colep on the same day she vanished,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: and his property sat within the range of that tower
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: and on top of all of it, as we know,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Todd Colep was a registered offender, and for six weeks
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Anderson PD had been running the investigation as a local case.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until mid October that they understood the trail
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: led into Spartanburg County. So on October eighteenth, Spartanburg County
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Sergeant Brandon Letterman got a phone call quote, you need
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: to meet with these detectives from Anderson. I said, okay,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: for what they've got a missing person's case that might
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: lead up here. They are here now unquote. So they
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: walked Letterman through the whole picture. Two people who vanished
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: on August thirty, first cell data placing both of them
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: near Woodriff that same day, and a tip claiming someone
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: was buried on a large rule property in his county.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Letterman checked the map and there was only one property
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: that size within two miles of the cell tower, and
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: it belonged to Todd coleb. So they moved fast after that,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: and they subpoenaed Collop's phone data and it showed his
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: cell hitting the same tower as Kayla's and Charlie's phone
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: on the day they disappeared. And the Sheriff's office sent
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: a real surveillance over that same property the same day,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: and first a drone and then a helicopter in dense
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: forest swallowed everything below though, so they really didn't see anything.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: And two weeks later, why is it? Two weeks later,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: what is going on? Letterman's court order for collipse full
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: cell records came through and the records backed up what
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: they already believed. Collop's phone and KLA's were pinging off
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: the same tower on August thirty first, right around the
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: same time she went silent, and combined with everything else,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: it gave them probable cause for search warrant. So on
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: November third, twenty sixteen, two teams deployed at the same time,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: A three person team headed to Colop's house on Windsong
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Way and more and one detective from Anderson, two from
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Spartanburg County, and the rest converged on the Woodruff property.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: And at the house they'd sit across from Collop and
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: start picking apart his story, and at the property they'd
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: start cutting through locks. And he didn't know oh it yet,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: but both halves of his life were about to collapse
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: at the exact same moment. So on November third, twenty sixteen,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: the search party hit Collapse Woodriff property around eight thirty
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: in the morning, and they would go to the barn
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: first and on the second floor, in a loft that
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: had been converted into a crude apartment, they found a
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: U bolt chains fastened around a bed frame, but nobody
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: was there, but the chains told them they were in
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the right place, so they moved onto the shipping container
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: and it was green metal and sealed tight, and one
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: of the deputies brought a sledgehammer down on the lock
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: holding the container shut, and from inside someone screamed help
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: and Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright was miles away when
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: the call came in. He didn't hesitate. Quote I got
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: there in six minutes. It was twenty five minutes away,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: and I made it in six unquote. And by the
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: time right arrived, his deputies were already working on the
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: container door in five separate laws held it shut and
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: they cut through every one, and bodycam footage shows them
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: pushing inside, and flashlight beams cutting through pitch black weapons
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: up shelves lined the walls, plastic water bottles by the case,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: and supplies stacked everywhere. Something that looked like a cage
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: sat in the middle of the space, all the way
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: to the back of the bin. And there was Caleb Brown,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: sixty five days after she vanished. A chain ran from
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: her neck to the wall, and her ankle was locked
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: in a separate shackle, and she had on glasses and
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: a black shirt, gray pants, and sandals like she'd been
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: dressed for a normal day that never ended. And she
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: was surrounded by the remnants of her captivity, dog beds,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: a bucket with an air fresher sitting on top, crackers,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: books and coloring books that MP three player. And when
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: rescuers asked about Charlie, Kayla didn't hesitate, and she said
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: And then while deputy were still working to unchain her.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: She gave them everything, Charlie Carver three times in the chest,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: wrapped him in a blue tart, put him in the
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: bucket of the tractor. Wants me down here. I've never
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: seen him again. He says he's dead and buried. He says,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: there's several bod he's dead and buried out here. And
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: when the questioning was done, she began to cry, and
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: she told them Colop had shot her boyfriend because of her,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: so they would get the chains off of her, and
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: someone wrapped a towel around her, and then they walked
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: her out into the open air and it was the
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: first sunlight she'd seen in more than two months. And
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Detective Bradley Whitefield of Anderson City Police Department was one
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: of the first people to reach her, saying, quote unquote,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: I was shocked and amazed, and Detective Charlone Ezel was
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: right beside him and Kylea looked at her and said, quote,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for finding me unquote, and Whitfield
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: broke down later when he tried to describe what he'd
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: witnessed that day, saying, quote, I think we all saw
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of things that day that are going to
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: stay with us, and Kayla described that moment from her
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: side of the container wall, saying, quote, I think it
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: was nine o'clock. I start hearing noises and then I
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: heard somebody's voice and I couldn't say anything. I couldn't
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: breathe like I panicked. Somebody came up and asked if
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: I was in there. They said, we're going to get
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: you out, unquote, And on the way to the hospital,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Kyla kept talking, and in the ambulance she started giving
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: up what Cola had told her, a husband and wife
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: he'd murdered before she was ever taken, and then she
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: told them something bigger. For people gunned down inside a
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: motorcycle dealership in Sparberg County, nobody had ever been arrested.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: And that was thirteen years ago, that shooting we talked
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: about previously, and Sheriff Wright spoke to reporters that evening.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: Kayla was alive and well, he would say, but she
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: was obviously traumatized, and when pressed again on her condition
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: later that night, he offered a small consolation, and he
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: told reporters she was in good spirits and that she
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: looked good for someone who'd spent sixty five days in
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: a metal box, and Wright credited two things for the outcome.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Finding Kayla, he said, came down to divine intervention from
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: God himself, and the rest, he said, was good investigative work,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the kind that put boots on the right piece of round.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: And Dan Harron, the family friend who'd been searching for
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Kayla since Labor Day, learned the news the way most
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: people learn impossible things out of nowhere. Quote. I found
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: out they were missing on Labor Day weekend, after searching
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: for her for two months. I then got a text
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: message from another good friend of mine and she said
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: they found Kayla. She's alive unquote. And Kayla's family released
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: a statement through in Missing Pieces Network the next day.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Physically she was doing well, but on the emotional side
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: it was a different story. Quote unquote. Good moments and
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: bad moments. I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: my God. And they would ask for privacy, saying quote
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: right now, Kayla needs time to process and begin to
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: cope with the events that have occurred. Quote. So while
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Kayla was being pulled from that container, Todd was sitting
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: in his living room on Winsong Way in More talking
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: to a different set of investigators and they'd shown up
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: that morning to ask about his cell phone, and the
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: conversation started politely. At that point, neither side knew what
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: the other team had just found. And then the phone
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: calls started coming in an updates started filtering in from
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: the team out in Woodruff, and each call changed the
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: temperature in the room and the tone in the room shifted,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: and they cuffed him and then they told him what
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: his colleagues had just pulled out of that container. My
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: sergeant service searched for on your property. We have kla
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: excuse me, she was locked in a container. She has
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: told us that you shot and killed Charlie. You're under
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: a restaurant now for kidnapping, all right there, so you
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: to search for your property. They're going to continue the break.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: They got kidnaverdogs down there. Okay, okay. And when asked
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: directly why he shot Charlie, he answered, quote unquote, I
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: didn't shoot anybody. So and they asked about the container,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: about why a woman was chained inside it on his property,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: and he had no answer at that time, and he
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: asked for a lawyer, and the arrest happened just before
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: two pm on November third, twenty sixteen, and Colab was
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: taken into custody at his own home and back on
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: the property, investigators began tearing the place apart, and they
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: found Charlie's formerly white sedan in the woods, and they
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: found Charlie's grave and a tattoo on a shoulder confirmed
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: it was Charlie, and the coroner's report told the rest
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: his multiple gunshot wounds, all clustered in his upper body,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: and over the next few days they found more and
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: investigators kept digging, and on November sixth they recovered a body,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: and on November seventh another and they belonged to a
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: husband and a wife, Johnny Joe Coxy, twenty nine years
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: old and Megan Lee Mccrawcoxy, who was twenty five years old,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: and the couple had been reported missing on December twenty second,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, out in Spartanburg, and the Coxeys had been
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: standing on the corner of Reidville and Blackstock Road panhandling
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: when Cola pulled up and offered them a job on
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: his land, and both had extensive tattoos, and that's how
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: the coroner was able to identify them and the corner's
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: findings told two different stories. Johnny died first a bullet
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to the torso, and Megan survived him by about a
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: week alone on that property with the man who killed
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: her husband, and she was killed on Christmas Day or
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: the day after with a single gunshot wound to the head.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: And Colap later explained the gap. He shot Coxy on
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: the spot and McCraw Coxy he tried to keep just
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: the same pattern he tried to repeat with Kayla, and
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: his reason was that she'd tried to burn her way
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: out because he'd given her cigarettes and she used them
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: to start a fire inside of the container. So three
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: bodies total recovered from the ninety five acres, along with
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: a stockpile of weapons that shouldn't have existed, suppressed nine
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: millimeters semi auto rifles and ammunition, so much of it
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: that no one even tried to tally the count, and
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: not one firearm on the property had a background check
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: tied to Colop's name, as we know his friend Bottom
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: for him zone, obviously they wouldn't be tied to Colip,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: and every weapon on the property had been obtained illegally,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: and upstairs in the second floor living area, Colb had
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: built for himself. Investigators opened the top drawer of a
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: dresser and inside they would find a set of handcuffs.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Now Colb asked for an attorney the day he was arrested,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: but two days later, on November fifth, he changed his
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: mind and he contacted Tommy Clark and Mark Gaddy himself,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: no lawyer, no conditions, just a willingness to talk, and
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: he rode out to the Woodrowe property with the two
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: detectives and showed them where the bodies were buried. And
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: his price for cooperating was small and specific. He wanted
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: to talk to his mommy, and he wanted to give
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: her a picture, and he wanted to transfer money into
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: the college fund of a friend's child. And in exchange,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: he gave up everything, and he confessed to the mass
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: shooting at Superbike Motorsports in two thousand and three, the
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: cold case that had haunted Spartanburg County for thirteen years.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Just four people executed inside a motorcycle dealership and not
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: a single arrest. And his account of Superbike included information
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: no one outside of the investigation had ever heard, and
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Sheriff Wright put it bluntly, saying, quote, he told us
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: some stuff that nobody ought to know unquote, and he
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: described going back through the building after the initial shots
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: and putting a single round into the forehead of every victim. Quote.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: I proceeded to walk back into the building again to
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: clear and I went I put one round in each
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: person's head unquote. And an interrogation footage his demeanor was
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: absolutely chilling, and he spoke about the massacre with the
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: detachment of someone reviewing like game tape. So like a
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: video game. It's not a game, but it's almost a
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: gear focused on the binis or you, And I'm talking
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: about my golf games week. I feel game is wrong. Jeezus,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Just throw him in a deep, dark hole. But he
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: laughed after the last one, and he bragged about the
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: precautions he'd taken to avoid being caught. Every round he
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: loaded into that weapon, he did it wearing gloves, and
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: that way no prince would end up on the brass.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: And when it was over, he disassembled the gun. Each
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: piece went into a separate trash can, and he buried
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: the barrel at the bottom of a bag of dirty
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: cat litter. And for thirteen years that was enough. Investigators
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: had actually known his name. The entire time. Colep was
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: a former Superbike customer, and ten years after the killings,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: his name came up on a mailing list, and the
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: mailing list was for former customers, and detective sent out
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: a generic letter in twenty thirteen, hoping someone might talk,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: but obviously he never responded. Melissa Ponder was living in
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: Arizona by then just thirteen years of silence, and then
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: her phone rang and it was a detective from the
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: original Superbike investigation, and he told her about the arrest,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: and the detective told her something she'd waited thirteen years
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: to hear. The man in custody knew things about the
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: murders that had never been shared outside that investigation. So
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: thirteen years of silence broken in a single phone call.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: And as the scope of his confessions widened, so did
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: the contradictions. And inside the container, Colop had told Kayla
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: he killed Charlie for control, and in those first hours
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: after rescue, Cayla told the investigators something different, that Colop
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: had been quote unquote mad at her, and Collop's mother
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: offered yet another version. According to her, Charlie's mouth got
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: him killed because he had a really smart mouth. She said,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: and that was something her son would never let slide.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: And in his own confession, Colop gave a fourth explanation,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know as that obviously I was angry her
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: I was angry in just whatever. Quick were so four
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: different versions and none of them agree. But Colop wasn't
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: done talking. And his mother came to see him after
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: the arrest, and he told her the body count was
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: higher than investigators had found. And she asked, how many
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: quote you do not have enough fingers unquote, And he
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: claimed he'd shot a man in Arizona when he was fourteen,
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: and temppd started pulling cold case files and thirty years
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: worth of unsolved killings looking for anything that might match.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Beyond the basic claim, he had almost nothing to offer,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: no names, no specifics, no charges ever came from it.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: That after the arrest, journalists began combing through collipse digital footprint,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: and someone had been leaving product reviews on Amazon for years,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: and the account was registered under the name me, and
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: the wish lists attached to it carried a different name,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Todd Colep and the first review went up in twenty fourteen,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: the same year Colop bought the ninety five acres, and
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: there were one hundred and forty of them, and the
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: products ranged from tactical gear and weapon accessories to field
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: medical kits and books on sniping, rappeling and battle field surgery,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: and a shopping list for someone preparing for war. And
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: the reviews included one about a lock, stating quote unquote,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: solid locks have five on a shipping container. Won't stop them,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: but sure will slow them down till they are too
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: old to care. That is so incredibly disgusting and disturbing
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: that an Amazon review a serial killer is putting up
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: Amazon reviews about a victim. Just oh my god, it
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: makes my stomach turn. Holy shit. But these reviews would
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: later earn him the nickname Amazon review killer. But before
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: the weekend was over, the state had four new murder
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: chargers on the books, and all of them tied to
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the two thousand and three Superbike Motorsports killings. After thirteen
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: years of dead ends solved because a woman and a
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: shipping container refused to die. So on May twenty sixth,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, Todd Colep stood in Spartanburg County courtroom and
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: pleaded guilty seven counts of murder four counts of possessing
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: a weapon during a violent crime and two counts of
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: kidnapping and one count of first degree criminal sexual conduct,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: and fourteen charges in all, and the sentence came down
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: the same day, seventeen consecutive life terms without parole, plus
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: thirty years for the kidnapping of Caleb Brown, plus thirty
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: more for assault, all running back to back. Every piece
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: of it was negotiated in advance, and the solicitor put
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: everything on paper, and the agreement ran nine pages long,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: and everyone involved signed it. Colep, his lawyers, Solicitor Barry Barnett,
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Caleb Brown, a representative for each of the seven murder victims,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Sheriff Wright, and an attorney from the South Carolina Department
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services. And under the terms,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: Collop gave up his right to appeal in any court,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: state or federal, and parole was off the table permanently,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: thanked God, and he couldn't seek it. And if someone
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: offered it anyway, the agreement required him to turn it down.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: So there's no way this guy's getting out of jail.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: And one more clause sat at the bottom, any escape attempt,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: any violation, of any term, and the whole agreement dissolved,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: and the state could then resentence him on every charge
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: and put the death penalty back in play, which raised
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: the obvious question why not seek it from the start,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: when Barnett addressed that directly, saying, quote, Todd Coleop deserves
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: the death penalty, but the reality of the situation is
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: that our state doesn't have a functioning death penalty. The
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: last execution occurred in twenty eleven, and the state's supply
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: of lethal injection drugs expired shortly thereafter unquote. So it
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: was a practical calculation wrapped in an ugly truth. The
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: police spared Kayla from testifying on the stand, thank goodness,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: and it spared the families of seven victims from years
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: of appeals. And it meant that Collop's confessions to the
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: superbike killings, the cold case that had hollowed out a
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: community for thirteen years, would finally stand as a matter
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: of legal record. And the families showed up, and they
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: filled the benches in the court room and waited for
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: the words they'd spent years needing to hear. And one
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: of Megan McCraw Coxey's family members stood and addressed the
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: court saying, quote today is not so much his day
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: in court as it is Megan's day of justice and
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: retribution quote, and he said he could never forgive Coleop,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: not today, not ever. And Kayla was also there, and
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: her legal team told the court she'd planned to be
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: there and she wanted to look at coll Op directly,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: but post traumatic stress disorder kept her away, and she
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: agreed with the plea deal, and her message to the
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: court was delivered through her legal team quote unquote, He's
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: the killer, not me. And after the criminal proceedings closed,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: the civil cases began and Kayla went after Colep's estate
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: in civil court, and the complaint listed kidnapping, assault, battery,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence, and the initial
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: filing asked for three hundred and sixty million dollars number
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: accounted for everything, including medical costs, the pain she'd endured
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: and the emotional wreckage and the future she'd been robbed of,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: And when Coleop didn't respond to the filing, the court
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: entered a default judgment and the award totaled six point
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: three million dollars, roughly one point five million in actual
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: damages and four point seven million impunitive damages, and her
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: attorney put it in perspective, saying, quote, no amount of
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: money will ever compensate Kayla for what Todd Colep did
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: to her unquote, And Charlie's dad, Chuck, filed a wrongful
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: death suit of his own, and Cindy Coxy, the mother
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: of Johnny Coxy, filed another, and the families of the
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: superbike victims filed theirs as well, And in December of
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, the Superbike families came face to face with
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Colep during a civil damage's hearing, and Thomas Lucas, Brian's
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: father tried to describe what fifteen years of grief felt like,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: saying quote, we have some answers, we have some information,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: but the pure ache never goes away quote, and Lorraine Lucas,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: Brian's mother refused to look away, saying quote, I'm not
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: afraid to stare him down. He took my son's life
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: and the life of three other people for whatever stupidity
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: he gave me eye contact. I'm sure my eye said
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: everything that was in my heart unquote. And to pay
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: for those judgments, Colep's assets were liquidated and his personal
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: belongings went up for auction, and over five hundred and
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: fifty items in total, power tools, gas cands, rain barrels, books,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: a gun, safe, and ATV even a handcuff key. Every
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: item was sold, nothing was left on the table, and
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: the ninety five acre property was sold separately in a
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: foreclosure auction, and every dollar raise was directed towards settlement
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: payouts for the people Collop had destroyed. But Chuck, Charlie's
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: dad watched the bidding and felt something other than justice.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: The idea of strangers collecting objects connected to his son's
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: murder made no sense to him, and some buyers said
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: the money was their way of helping the families, but
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: Chuck wasn't buying it, and he figured most of those
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: people would turn around and resell what they'd bought. So
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: three months before the Plea deal, Kayla Brown sat across
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: from doctor Phil McRath for a two part interview that
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: aired on February thirteenth and fourteenth, twenty seventeen. And it
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: was our first time telling the story on national television,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: and she did not flinch. Quote, no matter what he
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: did to me, he did not break me. He coundnot
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: destroy who I am, and I wont unquote, And she
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: talked about Charlie, saying, quote, I'll always miss Charlie. I'll
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: always wonder what our life would have looked like, But
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: as far as what Todd did to me, I am
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: not going to let that man rule my life, unquote.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: And at one point in the interview, doctor Phil asked
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: the question directly, had she thought about ending things in
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: that container, and Kayla said, Charlie's face and the image
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: of her mother waiting at home shut that door before
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: it could open. And she described the moment rescue stopped
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: feeling like a dream and started feeling real, saying, quote,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: I didn't feel safe until I had Mama in my
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: arms unquote. And the public saw someone just incredibly strong,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: someone unbroken. But what they couldn't see is that survival
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: doesn't end when the locks come off. And in the
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: months that followed her rescue, Caylea began seeing a man
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: named Adam Mason, and they would get engaged at the
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: wedding would never happen because Adam stepped in the chest
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: at his home. Oh my God, Jesus Christ, and he
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: was rushed to the hospital, but went into cardiac arrest
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: and didn't survive, and later she began dating James Devin Moore,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: and in July twenty nineteen, both were arrested on domestic
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: assault charges. And when the Greenville News reached out, Kyla's spokesperson,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: Jenny Dile, said she had stopped taking her medication before
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: the incident, and after that the headline stopped, and after
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen she stepped back from all of it. No interviews,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: no public appearances. Almost nothing is known now about where
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: she is or what she's doing. His trauma doesn't follow
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: a straight line, and it doesn't resolve on schedule or
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: dissolve under bright lights. The domestic incident was not excusable,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't erase what she endured, and it confirms
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: how deep the damage went. And Charlie's family buried him
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: in a different way. And his memorial service was held
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: on November nineteenth, twenty sixteen, at North Anderson Baptist Church,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: and it was the day he would have turned thirty three,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: and the people who came to the service remembered a
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: man who worked at a tissue factory and dreamed bigger
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: than his paycheck allowed. A pool player who competed in
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: leagues around town, a veteran of the National Guard and
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: an author with four completed mysteries behind him and a
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: fifth nearly done that never got finished. And a son
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: whose father said he'd hand you whatever he had. What
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: this case peeled back was something most people would rather
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: not look at, because how does a man with a
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: felony kidnapping conviction and a spot on the registry walk
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: into a licensing office and walk out a real estate agent?
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: One question on the application stood between Todd Coleup and
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: a professional career, and he lied and nobody checked. But
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: Todd Collop is serving seven consecutive life sentences. He cannot appeal,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: he cannot seek parole. And if those terms feel redundant,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: they were meant to be, because for years after his
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: conviction he was housed at Broad River Correctional Institution, and
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: that changed in June twenty twenty five and Fox Carolina
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: ran an investigation into what Colup had been up to
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: behind bars, and the findings got him shipped to Kirklin
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: Correctional Institution, a supermax facility, on an indefinite basis. And
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: he'd been selling merchandise T shirts stamped with the letters
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: SKTK serial killer Todd Collop, And on top of that,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: he'd been talking to a producer who he wanted to
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: help him package his story for an audience, and he'd
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: been sent autographed confession documents, autopsy reports of his own victims,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: which is discuss using, and assigned Superbike Motorsports business card
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: to a woman outside the prison with instructions to sell them,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: and people were paying up to sixty five dollars a
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: pop for that kind of material on a website that
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: trade in serial killer memorabilia, and none of this was
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: on the Department of Corrections radar. It took a Fox
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: Carolina news team bringing the evidence to their attention before
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: anyone inside the system realized what was happening, and Coleop
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: lost his tablet privileges indefinitely, and South Carolina's Inspector General
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: got involved too, looking into whether profiting off the murders
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: could land Collop with new criminal charges, and state law
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: in South Carolina makes it illegal for a prisoner to
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: earn money from acts that put them behind bars, And
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: he told investigators there were more victims, but he wouldn't
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: say how many, and he wouldn't say where, so investigators
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: wanted him to walk them to the graves, but he
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: wouldn't do it, and a search of the property turned
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: up nothing, and Spartanburg County called it off and right
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: drew a line. His department was done digging until Colop
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: gave them real information they could actually check. He wasn't
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: going to let a man in a cage control the
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: narrative from behind concrete walls. There may be names that
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: haven't been spoken yet, families somewhere in Arizona, in South Carolina,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: in places no one has thought to look, still waiting
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: for someone who never came home. And nearly a decade later,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: he says he wished he'd held the line quote, had
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: I known nine or ten years later that we would
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: still be doing the same thing, I should have stuck
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: to my guns and said, no, I'm not signing that agreement, unquote.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: But the story was never about him. It was about
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: the people he took Charles David, Charlie Carver, Scott, Dean Ponder,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Beverly Elaine Guy, Brian Thomas Lucas, Christopher, Michael Shoeby, Sherbert
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: Johnny Joe Coxy, Megan Lee McCraw Coxey, and Kayla Brown.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: And that is it for this case. Let me know
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: what other cases you would like me to deep dive
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: into down below. I always read the comments. And until
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: next time, stay beautiful and stay safe and a big
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: piece of shit to Todd co Web. See you in
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: the next one.