Search grows for remains on confession
Print Edition
A South Carolina man’s confession to a decadelong crime spree has cracked open a cold case that had haunted the victims’ relatives and has prompted law enforcement investigators to expand their search for human remains beyond the property where they discovered a woman chained inside a storage container.
Todd Kohlhepp became a suspect in at least seven deaths in the days after a woman was found Thursday chained by her neck and ankle in a metal storage container on his 38-hactare property near rural Woodruff.
Following his arrest, he confessed to a 2003 quadruple slaying at a motorcycle shop in the small town of Chesnee, investigators said. He was denied bond Sunday during a brief court appearance on four murder charges for those slayings.
He’s also charged with kidnapping the woman, and more criminal counts are expected. Authorities suspect he killed at least three people in addition to the motorcycle shop victims.
A Spartanburg County Sheriff’s investigative report says Kohlhepp “confessed to investigators that he shot and killed” the motorcycle shop’s owner, service manager, mechanic and bookkeeper, giving details only the killer would know.
Now, Sheriff Chuck Wright, who was first elected about a year after the Superbike Motorsports killings, has a wide-ranging investigation of a crime spree over more than a decade.
The investigation has expanded to other properties that Kohlhepp, a real estate agent, either currently or used to own. Those properties are not limited to South Carolina, Wright said Sunday, declining to be more specific.
Both the FBI and Homeland Security are involved, he said.
Kohlhepp showed investigators Saturday where he says he buried two other victims on the property he bought two years ago. Human remains were uncovered Sunday at one of those sites, Wright said.
“We’re not even close” on identifying the remains or cause of death, he said. “We can’t tell anything.”
Kohlhepp did not tell investigators who was buried there. Removing the remains to “preserve every bit of evidence” is a meticulous, time-consuming process, said Coroner Rusty Clevenger.
The gravesites Kohlhepp pointed to are in addition to the body found Friday in a shallow grave at the site. Authorities identified that victim as the boyfriend of the woman found Thursday. Clevenger said he died of multiple gunshot wounds.
The woman was not name because the suspect is a sex offender, but authorities have not said whether she was sexually assaulted.
On Sunday, Kohlhepp appeared in an orange jumpsuit for the brief bond hearing and declined to make a statement. He didn’t have an attorney.
After he left the courtroom, Magistrate Judge Jimmy Henson told the family members they could address Kohlhepp later in court.
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