Investigators unearthed a body Sunday from a wooded section of the property of a South Carolina man who was charged with murder that day as the painstaking search for more remains on the site continues Monday.
The unidentified body was the second found buried on the expansive property owned by Todd Kohlhepp, the 45-year-old real estate broker and convicted sex offender after his arrest Thursday. He was charged last week with kidnapping 30-year-old Kala Brown, who was found alive, chained by the neck and ankles, inside a metal storage container on his land.
In addition to the kidnapping charge, Kohlhepp was charged Sunday with four counts of murder related to a 2003 quadruple homicide, and authorities have said he could be linked to as many as seven deaths in all. Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright did not know when further charges might be brought against Kohlhepp, but Solicitor Barry Barnette said other charges are likely.
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The search for bodies has extended beyond the Woodruff, S.C., property to other locations linked to Kohlhepp, though Wright declined to say where investigators were looking. The investigation is widespread and no longer limited to South Carolina, Wright said.
Just how far and for how long the search will continue is unclear, but with a private pilot’s license since 2006 and as a real estate broker in Greenville and Spartanburg who owned his own property management business, the search may prove vast.
He has yet to be charged in relation to the two bodies that have now been found buried on his property. The remains of Charles David Carver, 32, who was Brown’s boyfriend and had gone missing along with her in late August, were recovered Friday. Carver had been shot multiple times, said Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger.
Crews were still working to recover the body of the unidentified person whose remains were found Sunday.
“We can’t tell anything about the cause of death, gender or how long or any of that stuff,” said Wright at news conference.
Wright said it is believed to be one of the two bodies the suspect told investigators about when he was brought to the scene Saturday morning. Neither Wright nor Clevenger would speculate on an identity, or whether Kohlhepp had identified who might be in those graves.
The search Sunday kept to the woods well away from Wofford Road, with South Carolina Law Enforcement Division personnel working the site with local law enforcement agencies. Wright said the FBI and Homeland Security have been assisting with the case as well.
The process of recovering the body has been meticulous, Clevenger said.
“You go to the point where they reference, where they tell you, and you very meticulously take off small layers of soil until you can identify potential for human remains,” Clevenger said. Experts meticulously dig around and underneath the body to preserve every bit of evidence possible, he said.
Wright and Clevenger declined to say whether the remains were skeletal or how long they may have been buried on the property, and would only classify them as “human remains.”
Earlier Sunday, Kohlhepp appeared in court in Spartanburg and was officially charged with four counts of murder. The charges are for the four deaths at a Chesnee motorcycle shop 13 years ago Sunday.
Kohlhepp was denied bond and his next court appearance was scheduled for Jan. 19.
He is currently charged in the deaths at Superbike Motorsports of Scott Ponder, 30, Ponder’s 52-year-old mother and part-time employee Beverly Guy, and employees Brian Lucas, 29, and Chris Sherbert, 26, Wright said. The four were found “brutally murdered” on Nov. 6, 2003, at the business on Parris Bridge Road. The case was Spartanburg County’s first quadruple homicide.
Wright said Brown believed there could be four bodies buried on the property.
On Thursday Brown drew attention to deputies on site to serve a search warrant related to her missing persons case by “knocking” from within the metal building. Kohlhepp was on site, too, and taken into custody.
Carver’s stepbrother, Nathan Shiflet, who has visited the property, said his family is only beginning to process what happened.
Shiflet said that even as his family struggles with their grief, they are thankful the case has helped investigators solve the 13-year-old quadruple homicide.
“My emotions are running so many different ways,” Shiflet said. “David was just the best person you could ever meet. He always had that smile. He is a hero taken from us the wrong way, but David brought closure to other families.”
Shiflet said his family is seeking privacy as they deal with Carver’s death and as they learn more about Kohlhepp.
“We will always love David,” Shiflet said. “We need a little time to process this tragedy this psycho monster brought to our family.”
Many people drove past Kohlhepp’s property Sunday, some even got out of the car.
One of the onlookers was Kerin Hannah of Spartanburg, one of Kohlhepp’s former clients. Kohlhepp had sold her house for her in 2006.
“I’m stunned,” Hannah said shaking her head. “Completely stunned. He was in my house. I was in a car with him.”
She said the person she knew in 2006 and the person she saw on TV the other day were different.
“He was young,” Hannah said. “He was not the same guy he is right now or he didn’t appear to be.”
When she met him 10 years ago, she said he was smart, arrogant, and told her about his grandfather teaching him to shoot guns, and going for his pilot’s license.
They were Facebook acquaintances, but didn’t keep in contact much after he helped sell her house. But she remembered his Facebook posts started to become odd about the time he bought the land on Wofford Road.
Hannah’s friend Tammy Whaley, of Spartanburg, met Kohlhepp once after a friend suggested she use him as her real estate agent about three or four years ago. Just 15 minutes into a conversation with him, she decided she didn’t like Kohlhepp.
“I had an adverse reaction to him,” Whaley said. “He made me feel uncomfortable…I will never doubt my intuition. How can someone be pure evil and operate in normal society as well?”
