Videos show S.C. serial killer Todd Kohlhepp’s confession, rape victim’s rescue

Nikie Mayo | Anderson (S.C.) Independent-Mail

Show Caption Hide Caption Video shows Kala Brown's rescue from Todd Kohlhepp's property WARNING: The content of this video may be disturbing for some to watch. The Greenville News and Independent Mail do not typically name victims of sexual assault, but Brown has openly spoken of her ordeal in a national television interview.

ANDERSON, S.C. — The recorded confessions of a South Carolina serial killer and the rescue of one of his victims were among the hundreds of records made public late Friday by the 7th Judicial Circuit Solicitor's Office.

Disturbing video footage shows officers' discovery of Kala Brown inside a dark metal storage container on Todd Kohlhepp's property near Woodruff. Officers walk past cases of bottled water and find Brown on makeshift bedding, dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, sweatpants and flip flops. She has a large chain around her neck. Her movement is limited.

"My neck's attached to the wall," Brown tells officers.

One officer tells her: "We're getting bolt cutters, honey."

Soon an officer asks her: "Where's your buddy?" referring to her boyfriend, Charles David Carver.

Brown tells them that Kohlhepp shot Carver three times in the chest and wrapped his body in a tarp.

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She said that soon afterward, Kohlhepp locked her in the container. As to Carver: "I never seen him again."

The officers on the scene included Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office deputies and at least one investigator from the Anderson Police Department, according to other records obtained by the Independent Mail.

In a separate video, Kohlhepp talks to investigators last November about how he killed four workers at Superbike Motorsports in Chesnee in 2003.

"I cleared that building in under 30 seconds," Kohlhepp said.

In other video footage, Kohlhepp appears relaxed with investigators. He talks at length about his weapons and which ones he believes work well. He jokes that his handwriting is hard to read and makes small talk with officers, asking them whether they think Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will win the presidential election, which was just days away.

The video of Brown, footage of Kohlhepp and other records were released Friday in response to Freedom of Information requests made by the Independent Mail, The Greenville News and other media outlets.

Todd Kohlhepp: Looming in the Upstate A look into the crimes Todd Kohlhepp is accused of and his troubled past.

Kohlhepp, 46, pleaded guilty May 26 to killing seven people in South Carolina and chaining Brown in a storage container alive. In a Spartanburg courtroom, he was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences in prison, plus 60 more years for offenses including the kidnapping and sexual assault of his surviving victim, Brown.

The Greenville News and Independent Mail do not typically name victims of sexual assault, but Brown has openly spoken of her ordeal in a national television interview.

Kohlhepp, a real estate agent in the Upstate region of South Carolina for more than a decade, was arrested in November after investigators searching his 95-acre property near Woodruff heard Brown banging on the metal storage container where she had been kept for more than two months.

Brown and Carver disappeared from their Anderson apartment Aug. 31 and had gone to Kohlhepp's property believing they would work to help him clean and clear it.

After Brown was found alive, Kohlhepp led investigators to a shallow grave where Carver’s body was buried. He also showed investigators where he buried the bodies of husband and wife Johnny and Meagan Coxie, who disappeared from Spartanburg in December 2015.

After Brown was found, Kohlhepp confessed to the Superbike Motorsports killings in Chesnee. The 2003 killings of Superbike workers Scott Ponder, Beverly Guy, Brian Lucas and Chris Sherbert were unsolved until Kohlhepp confessed to them last fall.

Kohlhepp is now incarcerated at Kirkland Correctional Institution, a maximum-security prison in Columbia.

Follow Nikie Mayo on Twitter: @Nikie Mayo