S. Carolina man charged in 7 killings also charged with rape

By Meg Kinnard, The Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. – A South Carolina real estate agent facing seven murder charges, some in deaths dating back more than a decade, has now been charged with rape.

According to documents filed Tuesday in Spartanburg County court, Todd Kohlhepp was indicted last week by a grand jury on a charge of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Kohlhepp, 45, was arrested in November after authorities found a woman chained inside a metal container on his expansive rural property in Woodruff. Authorities said that Kohlhepp killed the woman’s boyfriend, then held her captive for two months.

Court listings available online didn’t provide additional details for the new charge. The Associated Press does not typically identify alleged victims of sexual assault. But Kala Brown, the woman rescued from the container, told the “Dr. Phil” show earlier this month that Kohlhepp sexually assaulted her each day of her captivity.

“He told me as long as I served my purpose, I was safe,” Brown told television psychologist Phil McGraw. “He would rape me twice a day, every day.”

Police say Brown’s Nov. 3 rescue helped them solve seven killings in the area dating back 13 years. They say Kohlhepp killed Brown’s boyfriend, a couple who had been missing nearly a year, and four people at a motorcycle shop in 2003, deaths known as the Superbike Motorsports killings.

The day after her rescue, investigators found Carver’s body in a shallow grave on Kohlhepp’s property. Brought to the site in handcuffs, Kohlhepp showed authorities the graves of Meagan and Johnny Coxie, missing since December 2015. Kohlhepp told Brown he held that woman captive, too, before killing her.

Police said Kohlhepp acknowledged the grisly 2003 cold case after authorities granted him several requests, including letting him speak to his mother.

Along with the rape charge, Kohlhepp has now been officially indicted on murder charges for the seven deaths, as well as four counts of possession of a firearm during commission of a violent crime and two counts of kidnapping. He had already been charged with those other offences.

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Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP . Read more of her work at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/meg-kinnard/

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Information from: WSPA-TV, http://www.wspa.com

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