Inside the mind of serial killer who ‘kept woman chained like a dog’ and left trail of clues to grisly crimes . . . on Amazon
Twisted Todd Kohlhepp teased cops by leaving 5-star reviews for murder weapons used in sickening crimes all over the internet giant’s website
“KEEP in the car for when you have to hide the bodies.”
It seemed like a cheeky comment on a five-star review on Amazon — but estate agent Todd Kohlhepp wasn’t joking.
He has now confessed to seven murders after leading cops to his three latest victims in freshly dug shallow graves.
The alleged serial killer apparently left clues to his planned crimes all over the internet giant’s site.
On a review of a knife posted in September 2014 under the username “me” he wrote: “Haven’t stabbed anyone yet . . . yet . . . but I am keeping the dream alive and when I do, it will be with a quality tool like this.”
The same month he wrote of a shackle lock: “Works great . . . also if someone talks back, go old school on them by putting this in a sock and beating them. They will not appreciate the hardened steel like you will.”
The review ended with the line: “Works great on shipping containers.”
Local county sheriff Chuck Wright said: “She was bound. There was a chain from the top of the cage to something else that went around her neck. She was distraught, panicked.”
Kala had been missing for more than two months with her partner Charlie Carver, 32.
His body was found in one of the three graves on the ranch. The others contained the bodies of another missing couple, Meagan and Johnny Coxie, aged 25 and 29.
Kala told detectives Kohlhepp had shot Charlie dead in front of her and had held her captive since August 31.
Kala says he told her: “Kala, if you try to escape you’re going directly into one of those graves.”
Meanwhile Kohlhepp was also keeping busy on the internet — and reportedly not just on writing product reviews.
He is suspected of logging into victim Charlie’s Facebook account and pretending to be him in disturbing status updates posted after the printer went missing.
It was these posts that first drew the case of the missing couple to national attention in the US.
One message proclaimed he and Kala had got married, another that they were expecting a daughter and another that they had bought a house.
Charlie’s family were convinced they were not written by him and begged whoever was messaging to let them talk to him about the missing couple.
The Facebook user refused. Another message was soon put up sneering: “What colour ribbon supports the people who can’t keep their noses out of other people’s business?”
Other sinister posts mentioned digging holes late at night and sword violence.
On October 1 there was a post of the lyrics from The Eagles’ hit song Hotel California, ending with the line, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
Finally, 11 days ago, following a tip-off from a sex-crime investigator, police searching for the couple went to the land which Kohlhepp had bought two years ago. It is 60 miles from Anderson, where the couple lived.
There they heard banging coming from a green shipping container — and found Kala inside.
He added it was “a hellish place to be locked in hot weather. No lights, no windows, no air flow.”
It is believed that Kala knew Kohlhepp and she and Charlie may have gone to the ranch to do a cleaning job for him.
Kohlhepp was arrested on the property and declared he would co-operate if police would allow him three favours — to talk to his mother, to give her a “special picture” and to transfer some money to a friend’s daughters college fund.
That done, Kohlhepp then showed detectives the three graves.
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Then out of the blue, Kohlhepp confessed that he had carried out an unsolved quadrouple murder in 2003.
The Superbike Killings, as the cold case became known, had seen four workers at a motorcycle shop in nearby Chesnee gunned down.
Two were shot and killed in broad daylight outside the store.
Another was shot in the back while servicing a bike and a fourth appeared to have been ambushed as she left a bathroom.
Cops failed to get significant leads despite plastering the area in Wanted posters with a sketch of a suspect. No motive could be found.
Kohlhepp had never been a suspect in the murders but he had a criminal record which chronicled his lust for sickening violence.
He had been released from jail in 2001 after serving 15 years in jail for raping a 14-year-old girl at gunpoint when he was just 15.
Court records showed he had threatened the girl, his neighbour, with his father’s weapon before he ordered her into his home, tied her up and attacked her.
Testimony from the 1986 case also revealed how he had vowed to murder his mother, who had split up from his father when he was a baby,
He had even allegedly poured bleach into his goldfish’s bowl because he wanted a gerbil instead of a fish.
The teen also shot a dog with a BB gun and smashed a newly remodelled bedroom.
Kohlhepp was kicked out of the Boy Scouts for behaviour issues and at ten attended a mental health clinic.
Progress reports from the clinic described him as antisocial, self- centred and obsessed with sex.
His father told a probation officer the only emotion the lad was capable of showing was anger.
In a darkly accurate pre-sentence report on the teen, his probation officer admitted: “It is this writer’s opinion that it is this type of individual, one with little or no conscience, who presents the greatest risk to the community.”
None of this stopped single Kohlhepp getting his estate agent licence after leaving prison, and he set up a successful business.
Kohlhepp appeared in court last week, where he was denied bail after he confessed to killing four people in the motorbike murders.
More charges are pending.
Before his arrest he was confident enough to make sick jokes about murders under his own name on Facebook.
In April this year he posted: “Serial killers need love too.”
But it was Amazon where the most disturbing posts were written in the account linked to his name.
There were 140 reviews, including this one for a stun gun that he gives five stars: “Seriously trying to find a reason to zap one of my agents for being lazy. It’s going to be the new office motivational tool.”
A padlock wins the opinion: “Sure will slow them down til they are too old to care.”
And a review for a chainsaw says: “Getting the neighbour to stand still while you chase him with it is hard enough without having . . . to use chainsaw.”
But perhaps most disturbing and most accurate was one posted for an unidentified black plastic gadget in November last year, reading: “It’s blacker than my soul.”
