Crime, Conspiracy, Cults and Murder - Ep. 108 | The Kidnapping That Exposed A Serial Killer | Kala Brown

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to https://zocdoc.com/CCCM When Kala Brown disappears with her partner, the case goes cold - until a shocking rescue uncovers a sinister truth hidden in plain sight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Leaving behind nothing but questions and a little dog with nigh, no food and no water. This is the terrifying disappearance of Kayla Brown and Charlie Carver. Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder, all things that I love to consume and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful, intellectually minded freak.

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and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C-C-C-M. Zocdoch.com slash CCCM. Thank you so much to Zocdoc for sponsoring the video and supporting the channel, and let's get back to it. Kayla Victoria Brown was born on November 17, 1985 in Anderson, South Carolina, a small city tucked into the northwest corner of the state, close enough to the Georgia line that people sometimes forget which Carolina they're in. And there were no headlines from her childhood, no stories that made the news. The world wasn't paying.

attention to Kayla Brown. Not yet. But her mother, Bobby Newsom, raised her there. And by her late 20s, Anderson was still home. And at 30 years old, Kayla stood five foot eight with reddish-brown hair and green eyes. And people who knew her described her as someone warm and someone very present. Now, Dan Heron knew the family well. And he dated Kayla's mother years earlier and stayed close to both of them. And he called Kayla a very close friend of mine. She had, a Pomeranian named Romeo. And that dog went everywhere with her. And if you asked anyone close to Kayla

who mattered most in her life, it was Romeo her dog. And her mother, Bobby, put it simply, saying, quote, that dog is her baby, unquote. I can relate. I can relate, I have five babies, and they're all dogs. But to make some extra money, Kayla picked up cleaning jobs on the side.

And she'd been acquainted with a local real estate broker named Todd Kohlup for years, connected through Facebook after she posted looking for extra work. Nicole up hired her a handful of times to clean houses tied to his listings, and she usually brought her boyfriend along with her to help. But the work was straightforward and the pay was decent. Overall, a pretty good gig. Now Charles David Carver was born on November 19, 1983 in Anderson, South Carolina, the same town as Kayla, two years and two days apart. And most people called him Charlie. And he was 5-11 with brown hair and blue eyes and about 180 pounds. And before

settling into civilian life, he'd done time in the Army National Guard, and he'd also been an explorer cadet with the Anderson County Sheriff's Office, and by his early 30s, he'd settled into civilian work as a printing machine operator at a company called First Quality Tissue. But the job was just how he paid bills, and what Charlie loved was everything else. The man loved pool, he played in both nine ball and eight ball leagues around town, and he was a writer, and he was working on his fifth mystery novel. And his father, Chuck Carver, said about Charles, quote, he never hurt anybody.

He would give you the shirt off his back or the last $2 in his pocket. That was just the guy he was, unquote. And his mother, Joanne, saw it the same way, saying, quote, he could bring a smile to the saddest person. He loved to laugh. He loved making people laugh, unquote. Now, McKenzie Durham had known Charlie since high school. And even after the romance ended,

the friendship held for 16 years. That was just the kind of person he was, the kind that people just held onto. So Kayla and Charlie started dating sometime in the spring of 2016. And by August, they were sharing an apartment in Anderson. And at this point, it had only been a few months. It happened fast the way things sometimes do when two people just fit. Charlie's situation wasn't uncomplicated, though,

because his divorce from his wife, Nikki, hadn't been finalized yet. And on paper, he was still. a married man. And Dan Heron saw it coming and didn't hold back, saying, quote, I warned her, I said, Kayla, you're dealing with a married couple here, unquote. But Kayla and Charlie pushed forward anyway, and their friends could see this wasn't a fling. Marriage was already part of the conversation. And they'd only been a couple for around four or five months at this point, but both of them were very serious about it, and they were happy together. But they were also broke. Making ends meet was a constant struggle, so any chance they had to pick up extra work they took. So on August 29th,

2016, a friend came by the apartment that evening and the three of them sat down for dinner together. Just a normal night. And on August 30th, Kayla was still texting people back. And several friends heard from her that day, nothing unusual. But then came August 31st. That morning, Charlie clocked out of his shift at work and he was caught on the building's surveillance feed heading out the door. But this would be the last time anyone saw him on camera. And after that, both of their phones went quiet. And the texts stopped and so did the calls. Everything stopped. Now, Kayla and Charlie's day was pretty simple. Todd Kola, the real estate broker, Kayla had cleaned houses for over years, had asked them to come out to a piece of property he owned near Woodruff,

South Carolina. And their job was to clear brush. Now, Kayla did consider asking a different person to come, but she ended up just getting her boyfriend to come along with her, as he usually did on a lot of her jobs. So the two of them drove out together to a property that stretched across nearly 100 acres of woods and open land in rural Spartanburg County. The communities surrounding the property were places where people recognized each other at the grocery store and the football field. Greenville news reporter Michael Burns described them as, quote, typical small southern towns, home to high school football and Sunday dinners after church, unquote. So Kayla Brown and Charlie Carver would do what they were supposed to do and go to their job.

But this would be the day they would mysteriously go missing. Now, Joanne Schifflett, Charlie's mother, had a rule with her son. A day didn't pass where the two of them didn't talk in some way. A text, a call, something. Days of silence turned into a week. And Joanne picked up the phone and called the phone. front office at the apartment complex where the couple lived and she asked someone to go knock on their door so the manager knocked but no answer and so she let herself in and everything inside was

untouched and the place felt abandoned but she did find one thing and that was romeo caleb's pomeranian and left behind with no food and no water and charlie's mother reported him missing on September 3rd. And two days later, a friend of Kayla's went to the police and filed her own missing person's report. And both cases would go through Anderson PD. And what investigators found inside the apartment only deepened the family's panic because Kayla's glasses were still there, and her contact lenses were too. And also the medication she took regularly. And her car sat untouched in the parking lot. And the only thing unaccounted for was Charlie's car, a white, 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix with the plate number HWY-224. And the woman who managed Anderson

Crossing told reporters Charlie had rented there going on three years. And when his rent was unpaid, she said that was a red flag. He never missed a payment. Charlie just didn't do that. So both families were certain of one thing. Kayla and Charlie hadn't left on their own. And the proof to them was the dog. wouldn't walk away from Romeo. That was not a possibility anyone who knew her would believe. But days would turn into weeks, and no one knew what to do. So the two mothers, Bobby and Joanne, went to the apartment together that weekend

and they would just box up every last thing their kids owned and they would just move it into storage, waiting for a return that might not come. Joanne tried to explain the weight of it to Dateline, saying, quote, it's so much worse than you can think, not knowing. It's like you have a hot skillet and they are two drops of water you put on it, and they just disappear." And the community stepped in where the investigation stalled, and volunteers printed flyers and papered them across Anderson. And Facebook groups sprang up overnight sharing the couple's photos,

pushing the story further than local news could ever carry it. And Dateline picked up the case on October 10th, running the couple's story over a month later as part of the Missing in America series. But as the weeks dragged on, something strange started happening on Charlie's Facebook page. Posts kept appearing. More than 50 of them after the couple vanished, in fact. One entry slotted into July said Kayla was pregnant with a baby girl. And another in August said they closed on a home. Third dated September 1st announced a wedding. And photos were uploaded too, presented as if they were recent. And the family recognized them immediately.

They've been posted more than a year earlier. Joanne knew her son's voice. Whoever was writing those posts wasn't Charlie. At least that's what she thought. And then the content would start to turn dark. And the account started filling up with disturbing memes and violent imagery. One read, quote, I weren't crazy, I'd be insane, unquote.

And another said, quote, sometimes late at night, I dig a hole in the backyard to keep the nose, neighbors guessing." The family was adamant. Charlie's account had been hijacked, but the damage was already done. And the stream posts gave some people a reason to believe the couple had simply walked away from their lives. It kind of muddied the urgency, and it created doubt where there should have been alarm.

And it bought the person responsible for their disappearance exactly what he needed. Time. And while someone was using Charlie's account to muddy the search, Todd Cola was posting on his own page, the guy who hired Kayla and Charlie multiple times. Two weeks after the couple vanished, he wrote a post actually mocking missing persons cases, saying, quote, people go missing all the time. They always turn up somewhere, unquote. And then he added a line about himself, saying, quote,

in the event I become missing, please note, no one would take me. I eat too much and I am crabby, unquote. So who really was Todd Colep? Todd Christopher Samsell was born on March 7, 1971, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And he was an only child, and his parents, Regina and William Samsell, split up when he was just two years old. And Regina won the custody battle, and a year later, she married again. And by 1976, the new husband had legally adopted Todd. And that's how he became Todd Colep.

The home he grew up in was anything but stable, though. And he and his stepfather clashed constantly. Because his mother and stepfather divorced, then reconciled, and then would divorce again. And therapists who evaluated him over the years saw the same thing every time. Todd resented his stepfather, and the father he actually wanted to be with was his biological dad, but that was someone he hadn't seen in eight years. But the warning signs showed up early. As far back as nursery school, teachers watched him go after other children and break their things.

And by age nine, he was in counseling. And the clinical language in his file was pretty blunt. It was just explosive. And for a nine-year-old, a disturbing fixation, which was, quote, preoccupied with sexual content, unquote. And he also hurt animals. And he shot a neighbor's dog with a BB gun. and he killed a goldfish by pouring Clorox bleach into the bowl. And years later, his birth father tried to describe his son's emotional rage.

And all he could come up with was anger and madness. And that was it. And those were the only two settings. Just a rageful, mean little nine-year-old asshole, essentially. So at nine years old, Todd was admitted to the Georgia Mental Health Institute as an inpatient. And he stayed for three and a half months. and he couldn't get along with the other children. And while there, the therapist documented two things.

Todd still openly hated his stepfather and his fixation on sexual content persisted. And the marriage between his mother and stepfather collapsed again in 1982. And that summer, Todd was sent to stay with William Samsell, his biological father. And it was the first real time they really had together. But the visit would end and Todd returned home to his mom. mother. And that's when he would take a hammer to his own bedroom and just tear it apart. And then he told his mother he'd kill her if she didn't let him go back to his fathers.

And that October, the Spartanburg School District flagged the 12-year-old now for an evaluation. Because teachers just could not control this kid. Because he would blow up at the smallest provocation, defy authority on reflex, and shut down completely if anyone corrected him. The evaluation stretched from December, 1982, were May 1983. And once the evaluation wrapped up, Regina agreed to let Todd go. And he packed up and moved to Arizona,

where his father was waiting. And our neighbor described the boy as a devil on a chain. And Todd forced her son into a dog kennel, sealed it shut, and sent it rolling across the yard. And then he grabbed the kid and cracked his head against clay pipes. And while her son cried, Todd just laughed. He thought it was hilarious.

And once settled in Arizona, Todd dropped the Kolep name temporarily and went by Samsell again. And he started working whatever odd jobs he could find nearby. And his father actually collected weapons and taught the boy how to handle them. That is not good parenting for a child that is literally diagnosed as crazy and angry and rageful. But what do I know? I'm not a parent, you know. And it would also show Todd how to blow things up and make bombs. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, essentially is what we're seeing right now.

Little nature, little nurture, working 50-50 in this one. But this father-son relationship would fall apart too, because William was constantly gone, spending his time with a string of girlfriends. And Todd asked to go back to his mother, but Regina didn't want him back. Not surprising. And every time Todd asked to come home, she found another reason to delay. So neither parent, it seemed, wanted to be the one holding the devil on the chain. And on November 25, 1986, 15-year-old Todd kidnapped a 14-year-old girl named Christy Granado in Tempe, Arizona.

and he forced her at gunpoint with a 22 caliber revolver, and he marched her back to the house where he was living, restrained her, covered her mouth with tape, and s-aed her. And afterward, he walked her home, and he told her if she said a word, he'd kill her entire family. Oh my God. But luckily, she would tell them anyway,

and Kolep was charged with kidnapping and sexual assault and committing a dangerous crime against children. And a guilty plea on the kidnapping count came in 1987. And the SA charge and the charge for crimes against children were dismissed as part of the deal. And the sentence was 15 years in prison. And court records from the case painted a clinical picture. And he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. And his IQ tested at 118, which is above average.

And the sentencing judge saw exactly what he was dealing with. On paper, the kid had potential. Quote, very bright and should be advanced academically, unquote. But that package came with something the court just couldn't fix. Quote, behaviorally and emotionally dangerous, unquote. So rehabilitation, the judge concluded, was unlikely. And as probation officer noted in the court file, Co-Leb, quote, felt the world owed him something, unquote.

And in prison, the early years looked like a continuation of everything before. And he racked up violations and some of them were violent. But after he turned 20, something shifted and there were no more incidents on his record. And whether that meant he'd changed or simply just learned how to hide was a question no one seemed to ask. So while lucked up, Kolap earned a degree in computer science from Central Arizona College. And in August of 2001, after 14 years behind bars, he would walk out. and he was now 30 years old. And he moved to South Carolina to live with his mother.

And on November 30th, 2001, he registered as a sex offender. And for the next few years, he bounced between jobs and classrooms. And he worked graphic design at a Spartanburg company for almost two years, and he enrolled at Greenville Technical College. And then, in 2006, he applied for a South Carolina real estate license. And the application asked about prior felony convictions, and COLAP naturally lied, on that question and the license was granted.

Sh, not doing criminal background checks in 2006 or what's going on there. Anyway, and by 2008, he had a bachelor's degree from the University of South Carolina upstate in business administration and marketing. And by then, he was already building his empire. And his real estate brokerage grew fast. At its peak, 12 agents worked under him and other agents knew his name. And he ranked among the top sellers in the Carolinas. And on top of all that, he got certified to fly planes and started buying real estate in other states.

And the people around him saw a driven, confident professional. And Cherry Lawrence, who worked for him, said, quote, he was an excellent boss. He stood up for us whenever we needed him, unquote. And everyone in the office knew about the registry. That actually wasn't a secret. But Kolap had a story for that. Of course. Of course he had a backup story for that.

But he told people the whole thing was overbeats. blown. He'd gone joyriding with a girl and her father blew it out of proportion. And his neighbor, Ron Owen, saw nothing alarming either. Quote, Todd was, in my opinion, a likable guy, unquote. But cracks showed if you knew where to look. And a woman who'd done a real estate deal with him said the charm was real at first. But the longer you talk to Kola, the more he drifted. Guns kept coming up. and his comments took on a sexual edge that made people uncomfortable. He was a regular at a Waffle House in Roebuck, and the women on staff dreaded seeing him walk in. And eventually, the cook, a man, took over serving him because none of the waitresses wanted to go near his table.

And one of those waitresses was a young woman named Megan Lee McCraw-Coxy. Now on November 6th, 2003, a customer walked into Superbike Motorsports, a motorcycle dealership in Chesney, South Carolina, and he found four people shot. Two inside the shop, and two outside. They were dead. And one of those people was Scott Ponder, who was 30, who owned the shop, and the other was his mother, Beverly Guy, 52 years old, the bookkeeper, and then there was Brian Lucas, who was 29 years old, and was the service manager. And lastly, there was Chris Sherbert, who was 26-year-old, and was a mechanic. And Scott's wife, Melissa, didn't see him leave that morning,

as she was still in bed, and she was seven weeks pregnant. She never saw him alive again, but all four died from multiple gunshot wounds, and investigators pieced together a theory of what happened. Sherbert was the first to die, shot while working in the back of the building, and Beverly Guy was next,

killed on the showroom floor, and Brian Lucas went down near the front door, and Scott Ponder was gunned down outside in the parking lot, Detectives collected 18 9mm shell casings from the scene, a mix of brass and nickel-plated rounds, and two different types of ammunition, which complicated the ballistic analysis from the start. And the case consumed the small community of chestney, and rumors would spread fast. And some people blamed a Mexican drug gang, and others whispered about a love triangle. The speculation crushed the victim's families, and as the years dragged on,

detectives ran ballistics on every weapon they thought might be connected, and 27 guns in total. Not one of them matched the casings from the scene, though. And at one point, the shell casings crossed the Atlantic, and a lab in England had advanced fingerprint technology that didn't exist in the U.S. at the time, and even that came back empty. Nothing worked. And Sheriff Chuck Wright later explained why Kolep had never been on their radar, saying, And quote, there was no reason to interview everybody. There was nothing in the gentleman's background that screamed, I did this, unquote.

So the case went cold, and it stayed that way for 13 years. And when the truth finally came out, the motive would be almost impossible to believe, because he wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle, and they laughed at him when he fell over on the bike. So four people dead because someone felt humiliated. And while the super bike investigation stalled, Kohlup was quietly building something else. The property he bought in May 2014 sat about nine miles outside Moore, South Carolina, nearly 100 acres of rural land.

And the price tag was $305,632. And then he spent another $80,000 on a chain-link fence around the entire perimeter. And motion-activated deer cameras went up in the tree line to monitor anyone approaching, and bear traps were scattered across the grounds as well. And his neighbor, Scott Waldrop, had lived next door for over two decades. And to Walldrop, the guy next door was just another survivalist type, someone who wanted to be left alone and took it more seriously than most. Nothing threatening about that.

Quote, he didn't seem like a threat, unquote. And he would assume he was a survivalist because Kolep had a shipping container he purchased on his property, actually that his girlfriend purchased for him. Holly Udi. So Holly would put up the money for the shipping container in 2014. And as far as she knew,

it was just for storing supplies like food, ammo, standard prepper gear. And as a convicted felon, Kolep couldn't legally buy firearms so he used a man named Dustin Lawson to do it for him. And over a four-year stretch

from 2012 to 2016, Lawson made purchase after purchase on Kolep's behalf. 12 firearms, five silencers, and every time he filled out the federal paperwork claiming he was the buyer, and every single form was a lie. And the weapons were spread across the property. Some hidden in drawers, others sitting out in the open on shelving,

and some mounted underneath a workbench where you'd never spot them unless you were looking. And a gun safe, a stockpile of ammunition. So the property wasn't a farm, it was a retreat. It was trapped. So on August 31st, 2016, the day, Kayla and Charlie disappeared. This is what actually happened. Kayla and Charlie pulled up to the entrance of Todd's property expecting a day of yard work. And Kolap told them he needed to unlock the front gate first. So they followed his vehicle through.

And after they drove through, Kolup secured the gate so no one could get in or out. And Kayla didn't think anything of it because they had worked for Kolup several times before. So the three of them kept driving and a two-story garage came. into view first, and then a metal shipping container sitting off the side. And inside the garage, Kolup handed them each a bottle of water and a pair of hedge clippers, and he told them he'd walk them out to the trail where he wanted it to be cleared. So they stepped outside. And then Colip paused and said, he'd forgotten something, so he went back inside by himself. And Kayla and Charlie would just stand together in the quiet hand in hand, and a few minutes would pass. And then,

Colip came back through the door, but now he was holding a gun. And he didn't say a word, but three rounds would hit Charlie in the chest. And Colip was completely calm. And after he shot Charlie, he would swing around toward Kayla, and he would take her by the hand and order her into the garage. And he would tell her, if she didn't, she would join Charlie. So once they were inside, he shoved her down. metal cuffs went around her wrists first and then her ankles. And after that, he forced a ball gag between her teeth, and then he stood up and told her he had to go deal with Charlie.

And meanwhile, at this point in time, the outside world hadn't noticed a thing. And Kayla's phone stopped sending replies on August 31st, as we know, and Charlie's went dark around the same time. So for the first couple of days, nobody panicked. But the days kept passing, and neither one of them came back. And Caleb Brown and Charlie Carver were now gone. And while the people who loved them were beginning to realize something was wrong, Kayla was already locked up inside a shipping container less than an hour's drive away.

So that first day after Kolo handcuffed and gagged Kayla, he took Kayla to that storage container sitting on the property. And it was 30 feet long and 15 feet wide, but pitch black inside. And a chain also went around her neck. and he fastened it to the wall at the back of the container. And then he chained her ankle in the opposite corner. And the length of the chain around her neck was two and a half, maybe three feet long. So essentially, she was shackled in this container like a dog.

So at this point in time, she's realizing that she's a prisoner and also dealing with the fact that the love of her life just died in front of her. And at some point afterward, Kayla caught sight of Charlie's body. It had been rolled into a blue tarp and he put Charlie in the ground. Kayla didn't know where, and Charlie's car vanished along with him. Kolap changed its color from white to brown with spray paint and then drove it into the woods and buried it under branches until it was very difficult to see. And Kolap killed Charlie to just take him away from Kayla and to more easily control her.

But Charlie Carver was dead before the afternoon, was over. And there were rations stacked inside the container and bottles of water, but that was it. No light, no ventilation beyond whatever crept through the metal seams. And it was late August in South Carolina. And the heat inside that box was suffocating.

I can't even imagine. She was alone in the dark for hours before he showed up again. And he would tell her that if she tried to run, he would kill her. And if she tried to hurt him, he would kill her. and if she ever fought back, he would kill her. So Todd Kolepp would come back after disposing of Charlie and his car, and he would repeatedly rape Kayla.

And this was just the first day. But Kayla would spend her captivity on two thin dog beds pushed against the wall of the container, and she would eat crackers and peanut butter and cheese that was sometimes moldy. And when she needed a bathroom, all she had was a five-gallon bucket. And Kolap had placed an air freshener on the lid. And for the first seven days, the heat inside the metal box was so brutal that she stripped down to her bra and underwear just to breathe. And once fall arrived in the air inside the container turned cold, he showed up with sweatpants and yoga pants for her to wear.

And Kolap gave her things to pass the time, like books and coloring books made for adults, and a small MP3 player loaded with music, and small comforts designed to make a cage feel like, something less than a cage, but his routine would never change. Two times every day he'd unlock the container and give her between 30 to 45 minutes outside of it. And those breaks happened in a two-story garage on the grounds. And she was allowed food there and on some visits access to an actual toilet. But every second day he hand her a small basin of water and that was as close to bathing as she got because there was no bathtub. And she was never fully unchained during any of this. He would just consistently put more chains on as he took her off the other chains,

always keeping her chained up. And every single day he would rape her, often multiple times a day. Which is just, I mean, the level of evil in this man is unprecedented. It's just absolutely disgusting. And at one point, he dragged her across the property to show her something, and it was three mounds of earth that looked like graves. And he would tell her, Kayla, if you try to escape, you're going directly in one of those graves. But the threats weren't the only tool he used. He would tell Kayla, she was beautiful, that she was smart, that he'd chosen her specifically.

He would sit her down and explain Stockholm syndrome to her by name. He would tell her that the happiness would kick in and they would be happy together at some point. Just absolutely delusional ludicrous. And he laid out plans for a room with soundproofed walls. And that's where she would be kept long term. And he told her that someday, if she proved herself loyal, the entire property would be open to her, all 95 acres. And then, in the same breath, he'd remind her that nothing about her survival was geared. guaranteed. But as long as she served her purpose, she would be safe. And he would just brag constantly

about how many people he'd actually killed and about how skilled he was at it. And he described a woman named Megan. And she'd been locked up on the same property. The Megan we talked about before that worked at the restaurant. And eventually, he murdered her as well. And he claimed his body count was close to a hundred, and those people he killed meant nothing to him. They were objects. There was one thing he struggled with, though, looking someone in the eye while he did it. If a person was staring straight at him, he said he couldn't quite pull the trigger. And he also told her about other targets, a woman named Holly and Holly's boyfriend. And Kolab said he was planning to kill them both if he could figure out a way to get them alone. And through all of

Colip kept telling Kayla that nobody was coming, and he just minimized everything and made her feel so small and just forgotten. And he just told her no one was looking for you anymore, and that the world had just moved on without her. But Kayla didn't believe him. And she would soon figure out that survival meant making Colup think he was in total control. And about a month in, something shifted. And Colup had made his terms clear from the beginning, no escape it.

escape attempts, no resistance, and she lives. So four weeks in, Kayla finally believed him, and that realization didn't make her compliant. He was not going to kill her, not as long as she played along. And if he wasn't going to kill her, then he couldn't take anything from her that she didn't hand over. It made her dangerous. So in those weeks, there were only two occasions where she saw anything beyond the garage or the inside of a metal box. And once, he chained her to a four-wheeler and drove her around part of the property. And after weeks in total darkness, with barely enough room to shift positions, being outdoors felt like something close to grace.

Because every day inside the container she would talk to God. And no matter what, Colip told her, she held on to the certainty that people on the outside were searching. And there were moments where the weight of everything pressed in close enough to break her. So Anderson PD's position from day one was that nothing pointed. to a crime. Even with the abandoned apartment, even with the dog, even with two cell phones that went dead on the same day. The official line was non-committal. They couldn't say it was a crime at this point, but they couldn't say it wasn't. Behind the scenes, though, they were pulling data.

And according to police chief Jim Stewart, they had a ping request running on Kayla's phone within 48 hours of the missing persons report. And the phone pinged somewhere in Spartanburg County. and then it went dark. Two days. That was all they got. So a request for the couple's cell phone records went out on September 9th, and those records didn't come back until September 22nd. But the data told a clear story.

On August 31st, both phones hit the same tower, and after that, neither phone registered again. Still, ping in a rural area doesn't hand you an address. It just gives you a radius. And without more, investigators couldn't really act on it. So Lieutenant Mike Akins was honest about where the case stood, saying, quote, we tracked down the leads we had, but there isn't very much, unquote. And one trail they did follow was Nicole Carver, Charlie's estranged wife.

Because on September 6th, investigators went to speak with her, and Nicole told detectives the apartment door had been unlocked, and she'd let herself in. And she walked out with Charlie's computer and Romeo, Kayla's Pomeranian. And according to Nicole, Charlie's browser history had Myrtle Bee searches in it. And detectives had heard through other sources that Nicole claimed Charlie's car was parked at her place with mechanical problems. And they asked to see it, but they didn't find it there. And on September 11th, Joanne brought detectives a set of messages. And she said,

Nicole had sent them. And one claimed Charlie had called Nicole from a hospital in Myrtle Beach, and another said his car had turned up at the Greenville-Spartenburg International Airport. And investigators chased both leads, but both would come up and And September 21st brought a different kind of lead. Because a caller tipped off police about suspicious posts going up on Charlie's Facebook account, as we know. And this time, it wasn't just memes and fake milestones. Someone was using Charlie's account to DM people. And the message just said he was doing fine and asked for cash to be sent to Nicole, his ex.

An officer's trace the IP address behind the activity, and it led to Nicole Carver's home. So one trail kept looping back to the same person, but it never connected to any answer. And there was another problem. Because despite the bizarre Facebook activity, despite private messages being sent from a missing man's account, Anderson police had not sought a warrant from Facebook. And Lieutenant Dave Kramer acknowledged as much to the Daily Beast, saying, quote, to do anything like that, we'd have to issue a search warrant to Facebook. I don't know if we've done that, but I'm pretty sure we have not done that, unquote.

And over a month into the investigation, they still hadn't. And dozens of tips poured in over those weeks, and people called in claiming they'd seen Kayla or Charlie or the Grand Prix. And some passed along spots the couple used to frequent, but none of them led anywhere. And then on October 13th, something different came in. The friend who'd filed Kayla's missing persons report came back to the police because she had something new, a secondhand tip from someone else. And his claim was specific, because he said he'd run into Kayla the day before she vanished, and that her body was on a hundred acre parcel somewhere in Spartanburg County. A hundred acres in Spartanburg County and a body.

So investigators went to Kayla's Facebook page and, with a search warrant, combed through her messages. And inside her messages was a thread with Charlie, and they'd been making plans to meet someone named Todd Colip on August 31st. And he lived in Moore and was supposed to bring them out to a property for work. And when they ran Colip's name, a 95-acre property in Woodruff, South Carolina came back under his ownership. Everything clicked at once. And Kayla's phone had last pinged off a cell tower in Spartanburg County. And the Facebook messages placed her with Colep on the same day she vanished.

And his property sat within the range of that tower. And on top of all of it, as we know, Todd Colep was a registered sex offender. And for six weeks, Anderson PD had been running the investigation as a local case. It wasn't until mid-October that they understood the trail led into Spartanburg County. So on October 18th, Spartanburg County Sergeant Brandon Letterman got a phone call. Quote, you need to meet with these detectives from Anderson. I said, okay, for what? They've got a missing person's case that might lead up here. They are here now, unquote. So they walked Lutterman through the whole picture. Two people who vanished on August 31st, cell data placing both

of them near Woodruff that same day and a tip claiming someone was buried on a large rural property in his county. Letterman checked the map and there was only one property that size within two miles of the cell tower and it belonged to Todd Colup. So they moved fast after that and they subpoenaed Colip's phone data and it showed his cell hitting the same tower as Kayla's and Charlie's phone on the day they disappeared. And the sheriff's office sent aerial surveillance over that same property the same day. And first, a drone and then a helicopter. And dense forest swallowed everything below, though, so they really didn't see anything. And two weeks later, why was it two weeks later? What is going on? Letterman's court order for Colip's full-sell

records came through. And the records backed up what they already believed. Colip's phone and Kayla's were pinging off the same tower on August 31st, right around the same time she went silent. And combined with everything else, it gave them probable cause for a search warrant. So on November 3rd, 2016, two teams deployed at the same time. A three-person team headed to Colap's house on Winsong Way and Moore,

and one detective from Anderson, two from Spartanburg County, and the rest converged on the Woodruff property. And at the house, they'd sit across from Colep and start picking apart his story. And at the property, they'd start cutting through locks. And he didn't know it yet, but both halves of his life were about to collapse

at the exact same moment. So on November 3rd, 2016, the search party hit Collepps Woodruff property around 8.30 in the morning. And they would go to the barn first. And on the second floor in a loft that had been converted into a crude apartment, they found a U-bolt chains fastened around a bed frame,

but nobody was there. But the chains told them they were in the right place, so they moved onto the shipping container. And it was green, metal, and sealed tight. And one of the deputies brought a sledgehammer down on the lock holding the container shut. And from inside, someone screamed, help. And Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright was miles away when the call came in. He didn't hesitate. Quote, I got there in six minutes. It was 25 minutes away and I made it in six, unquote. And by the time, right arrived, his deputies were already working on the container door, and five separate locks

held it shut, and they cut through every one. And body cam footage shows them pushing inside, and flashlight beams cutting through pitch black, weapons up, shelves lined the walls, plastic water bottles by the case, and supplies stacked everywhere, something that looked like a cage sat in the middle of the space, all the way to the back of the bin, and there, was Kayla Brown. Sixty-five days after she vanished, a chain ran from her neck to the wall, and her ankle was locked in a separate shackle, and she had on glasses and a black shirt, gray pants, and sandals, like she'd been dressed for a normal day that never ended, and she was surrounded by the remnants of her captivity. Dog beds, a bucket with an air fresher

sitting on top, crackers, books, and coloring books, that MP3 player, and when rescuers asked about Charlie, Kayla didn't hesitate. And she said, he shot him. And then, while deputies were still working to unchain her, she gave them everything. Todd Cole Hep shot Charlie Carver, three times in the chest, wrapped him in a blue tarp, put him in the bucket of the tractor, locked me down here, I never seen him again. He says he's dead and buried. He says there's several bodies dead and buried out here. And when the questioning was done, she began to cry. And she told them, Kolop had shot her boyfriend because of her. So they would get the chains, off of her and someone wrapped a towel around her.

And then they walked her out into the open air. And it was the first sunlight she'd seen in more than two months. And Detective Bradley Whitefield of Anderson City Police Department was one of the first people to reach her, saying, quote, unquote, I was shocked and amazed. And Detective Charlin Ezell was right beside him. And Kayla looked at her and said, quote, Thank you so much for finding me, unquote.

And Whitfield broke down later when he tried to describe what he was. he'd witnessed that day, saying, quote, I think we all saw a lot of things that day that are going to stay with us, unquote. And Kayla described that moment from her side of the container wall, saying, quote, I think it was nine o'clock. I start hearing noises and then I heard somebody's voice and I couldn't say anything. I couldn't breathe like I panicked. Somebody came up and like asked if I was in there, they said, we're going to get you out, unquote. And on the way to the hospital, Kayla kept talking. And in the ambulance, she started giving up what Kolop had told her. A husband and wife he'd murdered before she was ever taken.

And then she told them something bigger. Four people gunned down inside a motorcycle dealership in Spartanburg County. Nobody had ever been arrested. And that was 13 years ago. That shooting we talked about previously. And Sheriff Wright spoke to reporters that evening. Kayla was alive and well, he would say. But she was obviously traumatized.

And when pressed again on her. condition later that night, he offered a small consolation. And he told reporters she was in good spirits and that she looked good for someone who'd spent 65 days in a metal box. And Wright credited two things for the outcome. Finding Kayla, he said, came down to divine intervention from God himself, and the rest, he said, was good investigative work, the kind that put boots on the right piece of ground. And Dan Heron, the family friend who'd been searching for Kayla since Labor Day, learn the news the way most people learn impossible things. Out of nowhere.

Quote, I found out they were missing on Labor Day weekend. After searching for her for two months, I then got a text message from another good friend of mine and she said they found Kayla. She's alive, unquote. And Kayla's family released a statement through In Missing Pieces Network the next day. Physically, she was doing well,

but on the emotional side, it was a different story. Quote, unquote, good moments and bad moments. I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine, my God. And they would ask for privacy. Saying, quote, right now, Kayla needs time to process and begin to cope with the events that have occurred, unquote.

So while Kayla was being pulled from that container, Todd was sitting in his living room on Winsong Way in Moore talking to a different set of investigators. And they'd shown up that morning to ask about his cell phone. And the conversation started politely. At that point, neither side knew what the other team had just found. And then the phone calls started coming in. And updates started filtering in from the team out in Woodruff.

And each call changed the temperature in the room. And the tone in the room shifted. And they cuffed him. And then they told him what his colleagues had just pulled out of that container. My sergeant service search for it on your property. We have Kayla. Excuse me? She was locked in a container.

She has told us that you shot and killed Charlie. You're under arrest right now for kidnapping. All right. They're going to search your property. They're going to continue. They got cadaver dogs down there. Okay. And when asked directly why he shot Charlie, he answered, quote unquote,

I didn't shoot anybody, sir. And they asked about the container, about why a woman was chained inside it on his property, and he had no answer at that time. And he asked for a lawyer. And the arrest happened just before 2 p.m. on November 3, 2016. And Kolab was taken into custody at his own home. And back on the property, investigators began,

began tearing the place apart. And they found Charlie's formerly white sedan in the woods, and they found Charlie's grave. And a tattoo on a shoulder confirmed it was Charlie. And the coroner's report told the rest, his multiple gunshot wounds all clustered in his upper body. And over the next few days, they found more. And investigators kept digging.

And on November 6th, they recovered a body, and on November 7th, another. And they belonged to a husband and a wife. Johnny Joe Coxie, 29 years old, and Megan Lee McCraw-Coxy, who was 25 years old. And the couple had been reported missing on December 22, 2015, out in Spartanburg. And the Coxies had been standing on the corner of Raidville and Blackstock Road, panhandling, when Cola pulled up and offered them a job on his land, and both had extensive tattoos. And that's how the coroner was able to identify them.

And the coroner's findings told two different stories. Johnny died first, a bullet to the torso. and Megan survived him by about a week, alone on that property with the man who killed her husband. And she was killed on Christmas Day or the day after, with a single gunshot wound to the head. And Kolup later explained the gap. He shot Coxie on the spot, and McCraw-Coxy he tried to keep

just the same pattern he tried to repeat with Kayla. And his reason was that she'd tried to burn her way out because he'd given her cigarettes and she used them to start a fire inside of the container. So three bodies total recovered from the 95 acres, along with a stockpile of weapons that shouldn't have existed, suppressed 9mm, semi-auto rifles and ammunition, so much of it that no one even tried to tally the count.

And not one firearm on the property had a background check tied to Kolop's name. As we know, his friend bought him for him, so obviously they wouldn't be tied to Kolap. And every weapon on the property had been obtained illegally. And upstairs in the second floor living area, Colop had built for himself. Investigators opened the top drawer of a dresser, and inside they would find a set of handcuffs. Now, Colap asked for an attorney the day he was arrested, but two days later, on November 5th, he changed his mind, and he contacted Tommy Clark and Mark Gatty himself. No lawyer, no conditions, just a willingness to talk.

And he rode out to the Woodruff property with the two detectives and showed them where the bodies were buried. and his price for cooperating was small and specific. He wanted to talk to his mommy, and he wanted to give her a picture, and he wanted to transfer money into the college fund of a friend's child, and in exchange he gave up everything, and he confessed to the mass shooting at Superbike Motorsports in 2003, the cold case that had haunted Spartanburg County for 13 years. There's four people executed inside a motorcycle dealership and not a single arrest,

And his account of Superbike included information no one outside the investigation had ever heard. And Sheriff Wright, put it bluntly, saying, quote, he told us some stuff that nobody ought to know, unquote. And he described going back through the building after the initial shots and putting a single round into the forehead of every victim. Quote, I proceeded to walk back into the building again to clear, and I went. I put one round in each person's forehead, unquote. And in interrogation footage, his demeanor was absolutely. chilling and he spoke about the massacre with the detachment of someone reviewing like game tape.

So it's like that one it's almost like a video game. It's not a game but it's almost like you you're focused on you've been there sir you know what I'm talking about. My golf game was weak, I kill a game is wrong. Jesus. Just just throw him in a deep dark hole. But he laughed after the last one and he bragged about the precautions he'd taken to avoid being caught. Every round he loaded into that weapon, he did it wearing gloves. And that way, no prince would end up on the brass. And when it was over, he disassembled the gun. Each piece went into a separate trash can and he buried the barrel at the bottom of a bag of dirty cat litter. And for 13 years, that was enough. Investigators had actually known his name the entire time. Kolep was a former

superbike customer. And 10 years after the killings, his name came up on a mailing list. and the mailing list was for former customers. And detective sent out a generic letter in 2013, hoping someone might talk, but obviously he never responded. A Melissa Ponder was living in Arizona by then, just 13 years of silence. And then her phone rang, and it was a detective from the original Superbike investigation,

and he told her about the arrest, and the detective told her something she'd waited 13 years to hear. The man in custody knew things about the murders that had never been shared outside that investigation. investigation. So 13 years of silence broken in a single phone call. As the scope of his confessions widened, so did the contradictions. And inside the container, Kolop had told Kayla he killed Charlie for control. And in those first hours after rescue, Kayla told investigators something different, that Kolop had been quote unquote mad at her. And Kolop's mother offered yet another version.

According to her, Charlie's mouth got him killed because he had a really smart mouth. She said, and that was something her son would never let slide. And in his own confession, Kolop gave a fourth explanation. I don't know how to answer that. I don't know to answer that, obviously. I was angry to her. I was angry. He just went very quick. So four different versions and none of them agree, but Kolop wasn't done talking. And his mother came to see him after the arrest. And he told her the body count was higher than investigators had found. And she asked, how many? Quote, you do not have enough fingers, unquote. And he claimed he'd shot a man in Arizona when he was 14, and Tempe PD started pulling cold case files, and 30 years worth of unsolved killings looking for anything that might

match. A beyond the basic claim, he had almost nothing to offer. No names, no specifics, no charges ever came from it. After the arrest, journalists began combing through Kolop's digital footprint, and someone had been leaving product reviews on Amazon for years, and the account was registered under the name, me. And the wish list attached to it carried a different name, Todd Kolep. And the first review went up in 2014. The same year, Kolap bought the 95 acres. And there were 140 of them.

And the products ranged from tactical gear and weapon accessories to field medical kits and books on sniping, rappelling, and battlefield surgery, and a shopping list for someone preparing for war. And the reviews included one about a lock stating, quote-unquote, solid locks, have five on a shipping container, won't stop them, but sure will slow them down till they are too old to care. That is so incredibly disgusting and disturbing that an Amazon review, a serial killer, is putting up Amazon reviews about a victim, just, oh my God, it makes my stomach turn, holy shit. But these reviews would later earn him the nickname

Amazon Review Killer. But before the weekend was over, the state had four new murder charges on the books, and all of them tied to the 2003 Superbike Motorsports killings after 13 years of dead ends. Solved because a woman in a shipping container refused to die. So on May 26, 2017, Todd Kolepp stood in Spartanburg County courtroom and pleaded guilty. Seven counts of murder.

Four counts of possessing a weapon during a violent crime, and two counts of kidnapping, and one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, and 14 charges in all, and the sentence came down the same day, 17 consecutive life terms without parole, plus 30 years for the kidnapping of Kayla Brown, plus 30 more for sexual assault,

all running back to back. Every piece of it was negotiated in advance, and the solicitor put everything on paper, and the agreement ran nine pages long and everyone involved signed it. Colep, his lawyer's solicitor Barry Barnett, Caleb Brown, a representative for each of the seven murder victims,

Sheriff Wright, and an attorney from the South Carolina Department of Probation, parole and pardon services. And under the terms, Colip gave up his right to appeal in any court state or federal. And parole was off the table permanently, thank God, and he couldn't seek it.

And if someone offered it anyway, the agreement required him to turn it down. So there's no way this guy's getting out of jail. And one more clause sat at the bottom. Any escape attempt, any violation of any term, and the whole agreement dissolved. And the state could then resentence him on every charge and put the death penalty back in play. Which raised the obvious question, why not seek it from the start? When Barnett addressed that directly, saying, quote, Todd Kolop deserves the death penalty.

But the reality of the situation is that our state doesn't have a functioning. death penalty. The last execution occurred in 2011 and the state's supply of lethal injection drugs expired shortly thereafter." So it was a practical calculation wrapped in an ugly truth. The plea plea spared Kayla from testifying on the stand, thank goodness, and it spared the families of seven victims from years of appeals. And it meant that Kolop's confessions to the Superbike killings, the Cole case that had hollowed out a community for 13 years would finally stand as a matter of legal record. And the families showed up, and they filled the benches in the courtroom and waited for the words they'd spent years needing to hear. And one of Megan McCraw-Caw-Coxy's family members stood

and addressed the court, saying, quote, today is not so much his day in court as it is Megan's day of justice and retribution, unquote. And he said he could never forgive Colep, not today, not ever. And Kayla was also there. And her legal. team told the court she'd planned to be there and she wanted to look at Colup directly. But post-traumatic stress disorder kept her away and she agreed with the plea deal and her message to the court was delivered through her legal team quote unquote he's the killer not me and after the criminal proceedings closed the civil cases began and Kayla went after Colup's estate in civil court and the complaint listed kidnapping

assault battery intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence and the The initial filing asked for $360 million. And that number accounted for everything, including medical costs, the pain she'd endured, and the emotional wreckage, and the future she'd been robbed of. And when Kolo didn't respond to the filing, the court entered a default judgment, and the award totaled $6.3 million, roughly $1.5 million in actual damages and 4.7 million in punitive damages. And her attorney put it in perspective saying, quote, no amount of money will ever compensate Kayla for what Todd Colette did to her, unquote. And Charlie's dad, Chuck, filed a wrongful death

suit of his own. And Cindy Coxie, the mother of Johnny Coxie, filed another. And the families of the Superbike victims filed theirs as well. And in December of 2018, the Superbike families came face-to-face with Colep during a civil damages hearing. And Thomas Lucas, Brian's father, tried to describe what 15 years of grief felt like, saying, quote, we have some answers, we have some information, but the pure heartache never goes away, unquote. And Lorraine Lucas, Brian's mother

refused to look away, saying, quote, I'm not afraid to stare him down. He took my son's life and the life of three other people for whatever stupidity. He gave me eye contact. I'm sure my eyes said everything that was in my heart, unquote. And to pay for those judgments, Colip's assets were liquidated,

and his personal belongings went up auction. And over 550 items in total, power tools, gas cans, rain barrels, books, a gun safe, and ATV, even a handcuff key. Every item was sold. Nothing was left on the table. And the 95-acre property was sold separately in a foreclosure auction. And every dollar raise was directed towards settlement payouts for the people Kolup had destroyed. But Chuck, Charlie's dad, watched the bidding and felt something other than justice. The idea of strangers collecting objects connected to his son's murder, made no sense to him. And some buyer said the money was their way of helping the families, but Chuck wasn't buying it.

And he figured most of those people would turn around and resell what they'd bought. So three months before the plea deal, Caleb Brown sat across from Dr. Phil McRaw for a two-part interview that aired on February 13th and 14th, 2017. And it was her first time telling the story on national television. And she did not flinch. Quote, no matter what he did to me, he did not break me. He cannot destroy who I am, and I won, unquote. And she talked about Charlie saying, quote, I'll always miss Charlie.

I'll always wonder what our life would have looked like. But as far as what Todd did to me, I am not going to let that man rule my life, unquote. And at one point in the interview, Dr. Phil asked the question directly, had she thought about ending things in that container? And Kayla said, Charlie's face in the image of her mother, waiting at home shut that door before it could open. And she described the moment rescue stopped feeling like a dream and started feeling real, saying, quote, I didn't feel safe until I had mama in my arms, unquote. And the public saw someone just incredibly strong, someone unbroken. But what they couldn't see is that survival doesn't end when the locks come off. And in the months that followed

her rescue, Kayla began seeing a man named Adam Mason. And they would get engaged at the wedding would never happen because Adam stabbed himself in the chest at his home. Oh my God, Jesus Christ. And he was rushed to the hospital but went into cardiac arrest and didn't survive. And later, she began dating James Devin Moore. And in July of 2019, both were arrested on domestic assault charges. And when the Greenville News reached out, Kayla's spokesperson, Jenny Dial, said she had stopped taking her medication before the incident. And after that, the headline stopped. And after 2019, she stepped back from all of it. No interviews, no public appearances.

Almost nothing is known now about where she is or what she's doing. His trauma doesn't follow a straight line. And it doesn't resolve on schedule or dissolve under bright lights. The domestic incident was not excusable, but it doesn't erase what she endured. And it confirms how deep the damage went. And Charlie's family buried him in a different way. And his memorial service was held on November 19th, 2016, at North Anderson Baptist Church. And it was the day he would have turned 33.

And the people who came to the service remembered a man who worked at a tissue factory and dreamed bigger than his paycheck allowed. A pool player who competed in leagues around town, a veteran of the National Guard, and an author with four completed mysteries behind him. And a fifth, nearly done that never got finished. And a son whose father said he'd hand you whatever he had. What this case peeled back was something most people would rather not look at. Because how does a man with a felony kidnapping conviction and a spot on the sex offender registry walk into a licensing office and walk out a real estate agent? One question on the application stood between Todd Colep and a professional career.

And he lied and nobody checked. But Todd Colup is serving seven consecutive life sentences. He cannot appeal, he cannot seek parole, and if those terms, feel redundant they were meant to be. Because for years after his conviction, he was housed at Broad River Correctional Institution, and that changed in June 2025. And Fox Carolina ran an investigation

into what Colup had been up to behind bars. And the findings got him shipped to Kirkland Correctional Institution, a supermax facility on an indefinite basis. And he'd been selling merchandise, t-shirts, stamped with the letters, SKTK, serial killer, Todd Cole up. And on top of that, he'd been talking to a producer who he wanted to help him

package his story for an audience. And he'd been sent autographed confession documents, autopsy reports of his own victims, which is disgusting, and assigned Superbike Motorsports business card to a woman outside the prison with instructions to sell them. People were paying up to $65 a pop for that kind of material on a website that trade in serial killer memorabilia. And none of this was on the Department of Corrections radar. It took a Fox Carolina news team bringing the evidence to their attention before anyone inside the system realized what was happening. And Kohlup lost his tablet privileges indefinitely, and South Carolina's inspector general got involved too looking into whether profiting off the murders could land Kohlup with new criminal charges. The state law in South

Carolina makes it illegal for a prisoner to earn money from acts that put them behind bars. And he told investigators there were more victims, but he wouldn't say how many and he wouldn't say where. So investigators wanted him to walk them to the graves, but he wouldn't do it. And a search of the property turned up nothing and Spartanburg County called it off and Wright drew a line. His department was done digging until Kolop gave them real information they could actually check. He wasn't going to let a man in a cage control the narrative from behind concrete walls. There may be names that haven't been spoken yet. Families somewhere in Arizona in South Carolina in places no one is thought to look,

still waiting for someone who never came home. And nearly a decade later, he says he wished he'd held the line. Quote, had I known nine or ten years later that we would still be doing the same thing, I should have stuck to my guns and said, no, I'm not signing that agreement, unquote. The story was never about him. It was about the people he took. Charles David Charlie Carver, Scott Dean Ponder, Beverly Elaine Guy, Brian Thomas Lucas, Christopher Michael Shoebe Sherbert, Johnny Joe Coxie, Megan Lee McCraw Coxie, and Kayla Brown.

And that is it for this case. Let me know what other cases you would like me to deep dive into down below. I always read the comments and until next time, stay beautiful and stay safe. and a big, fuck you, you piece of shit to Todd Colette. See you in the next one.