S.C. Serial Killer Reportedly Claims to Have Killed More People — But Won't Give Specifics
Serial killer Todd Kohlhepp, who is serving seven consecutive life sentences in prison for murdering seven people, claims he has more victims — but is declining to give any specifics.
In an eight-page letter on Nov. 28 to the Herald-Journal, Kohlepp implied that he has killed many others and not just in South Carolina.
“Yes there is more than seven,” he wrote in the letter, claiming. “I tried to tell investigators and I did tell FBI, but it was blown off.”
“It’s not an addition problem, it’s an [sic] multiplication problem,” he continued. “Leaves the state and leaves the country. Thank you private pilot’s license.”
Kohlhepp, a former real estate agent, pleaded guilty earlier this year to seven murders committed over 13 years, from 2003 to 2016. The plea deal spared him the death penalty, but he is spending the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.
If there are truly more victims, Kohlhepp did not seem ready to provide any more details. “At this point, I really don’t see reason to give numbers or locations,” he wrote.
Local authorities and the FBI declined to comment to PEOPLE on the killer’s latest claims, but an FBI spokesman told the Herald-Journal they still have a “pending investigation” into Kohlhepp’s crimes. (Kohlhepp’s attorney in his murder prosecution could not immediately be reached for comment.)
“We don’t have anything active right this second, but we’ve always left it open-ended in case he wants to say there’s some stuff we need to check,” Spartanburg County, South Carolina, Sheriff Chuck Wright told the newspaper.
“If he’s got something to say, we’re more than willing to listen,” Wright said.
Kohlhepp was initially taken into custody last November after police freed missing woman Kala Brown from where she was chained in a metal shipping container on his nearly 100-acre property in Woodruff, South Carolina. Brown had disappeared more than two months earlier.
Kohlhepp also killed Brown’s 32-year-old boyfriend, Charlie Carver, who vanished along with her. His body was later found on Kohlhepp’s property.
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While in police custody, Kohlhepp confessed to the 2003 quadruple slayings of Beverly Guy, Brian Lucas, Scott Ponder and Chris Sherbert — all fatally shot inside Superbike Motorsports in Chesnee, South Carolina.
Kohlhepp’s final murder charges came in connection with the 2015 deaths of Johnny, 25, and 29-year-old Meagan Coxie, whose bodies were found on his property after Brown’s rescue.
Kohlhepp’s criminal history began long before his murderous rampage, however. In the 1980s, when he was 15 years old, Kohlhepp was arrested for allegedly raping a 14-year-old neighbor at gunpoint in Tempe, Arizona.
He ultimately pleaded guilty to kidnapping, served prison time from 1987 to 2001 and was placed on the sex-offender registry, according to records.
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Allen Bickart, a defense attorney in Arizona who represented Kohlhepp at the time, described him to PEOPLE as “a very troubled, very vicious kid.”
“He had some very, very, very serious issues,” Brickart said. “He was off the edge.”
During an appearance on Dr. Phil in February, Brown alleged that Kohlhepp admitted to having more victims and even bragged that he was “nearing the triple digits.” She said he had also claimed to have been an international assassin for the government while previously incarcerated.
“He would brag about how many people he’s killed, how good he was at it,” she alleged.
