South Carolina Woman, 30, Missing Since August Found Alive ‘Chained Like a Dog’

A South Carolina woman has been found alive after being held captive inside a metal storage container at a property in Woodruff, South Carolina, local authorities confirmed on Thursday.

Kala Brown, 30, of Anderson County was found over two months after she went missing on Aug. 31. Police found Brown “chained inside the container like a dog,” Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright told NBC-WYFF. The owner of the property, Todd Kohlhepp, a registered sex offender, was taken into custody and will be charged with kidnapping.

According to Wright, Brown said she had been held in the container for two months with a chain around her neck. It was “by the grace of God that she was found alive,” he told reporters, adding that there could be four bodies still on the property. “We’re trying to make sure we don’t have a serial killer on our hands.”

On Thursday morning, officers heard loud banging noises coming from the metal storage container while they were searching Kohlhepp’s property, after receiving a tip about a sex crime. Also on the 100-acre property were various weapons, ammunition and Brown’s car and cell phone in the parking lot.

Though Brown was found alive, her boyfriend Charlie Carver – who disappeared around the same time – remains missing.

Brown’s friend told police that she had dinner with her on Aug. 29 at her apartment, then spoke to Brown the next day before all form of communication stopped the day she disappeared.

Brown was taken to a medical facility after being found. The search for Carver is continuing.