CRIME HUNTER: Amazon Review Killer delivered murder

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Published Jan 11, 2025  •  Last updated 13 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

Sex slave Kala Brown miraculously survived the Amazon Review Killer. SSO

The killer’s brazen antics were mind-numbing in their callousness.

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Not content to merely snatch souvenirs from his victims’ lifeless bodies, this vile monster posted reviews on Amazon of his preferred implements of death.

In one review for a chainsaw the homicidal maniac used, he wrote on Amazon: “Works excellent – getting the neighbour to stand still while you chase him with it is hard enough without an easy-to-use chainsaw.”

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Now, a new documentary – The Amazon Review Killer: Chilling Confession – pulls back the curtain on a monster who terrorized South Carolina for years.

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Todd Kohlhepp had done very well for himself. He was a popular local real estate agent deeply involved in his local community. His employees said he was a “good boss.”

But Kohlepp had quirks that sometimes troubled those around him. He was inappropriate with women and often watched porn at work.

Kohlepp made macabre jokes and was too glib about his past.

Todd Kohlhepp had done very well for himself. SSO

When he was just 15, he kidnapped and raped a teenage girl in 1986. According to his sentencing report, Kohlepp lured the girl out of her house by telling her an ex-boyfriend wanted to speak with her.

The terrified teen soon discovered it was all a ruse.

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Once outside, Kohlepp pointed a “small blue steel handgun at her head.” He then “told her to walk down the alley towards his house.”

In his bedroom, the teen terror duct-taped the girl’s mouth, ripped off her clothes, then took his clothes off and “forced his victim to have sexual intercourse with him.”

Kohlepp pleaded guilty to kidnapping, was added to the Arizona sex offender registry, and then caged from 1987 to 2001.

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Murder was on the menu within two years of Kohlhepp being sprung from prison. What demons drove him remain unclear.

What is known is that he paid $9,000 for a 2003 Suzuki GSX-R750 at Superbike Motorsports in Chesnee, South Carolina on April 16, 2003. Thirteen days later, Kohlepp reported the motorcycle stolen, telling neighbours the bike shop was involved.

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And on Nov. 6, 2003, death came calling at the Superbike Motorsports shop. Scott Ponder, his mother Beverly Guy, service manager Brian Lucas, and mechanic Chris Sherbert were found inside shot to death.

The murders quickly went cold.

A killer chimes in. AMAZON

***

For Kohlhepp, life carried on and he became wealthy in the real estate business but the ostensibly successful man was carrying a sinister secret. He had an insatiable bloodlust.

While the Superbike murders went into a deep freeze, there were more disappearances. Detectives weren’t sure what they were dealing with.

On Aug. 31, 2016, Kala Brown, 30, and her boyfriend Charles David Carver, 32, vanished after they went to remove brush from one of Kohlhepp’s properties.

Bizarre posts began appearing on Carver’s Facebook account.

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THE VICTIMS. SSO

To friends, something did not seem right.

Finally, on Nov. 3, using the couple’s last known cellphone signals, cops found Brown chained to the inside wall of a metal storage container on Kophlepp’s property. Detectives also found Carver’s vehicle.

He wasn’t so lucky and investigators found him shot to death on the property. Brown had seen it all but the killer’s mom had an explanation. In her view, Carver had a “really smart mouth.”

VICTIMS: Johnny Joe Coxie, 29, and Meagan Leigh McCraw-Coxie, 26.

Neither the old lady nor her son liked that one bit. As for Brown, she was raped repeatedly and shown the graves of others to keep her from running.

They were Johnny Joe Coxie, 29, and Meagan Leigh McCraw-Coxie, 26. They were reported missing on Dec. 22, 2015, after being hired to work on the real estate mogul’s property.

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Both had been shot to death and were identified by their tattoos.

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The Amazon reviews were discovered during the police investigation. Kohlhepp – signing his reviews “Me” – extolled the virtues of the chainsaw, padlocks and knives.

For an entrenching tool, he wrote: “Keep in your car for when you have to hide the bodies and you left the full-size shovel at home.”

Victim Kala Brown chained up. Her boyfriend was murdered. SSO

His missive for a knife read: “Haven’t stabbed anyone yet…..yet…but I am keeping the dream alive and when I do it will be a quality tool like this.”

And the padlocks that kept his female captives locked in the container? “Solid locks…..have five on a shipping container…won’t stop them…but sure will slow them down til they are too old to care.”

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***

Kohlhepp pleaded guilty to seven counts of murder to save himself from the death penalty. He was hammered with seven life sentences.

Like other serial killers, the murderer was not content to rot away until the end of his days. In a letter to the editor in 2018, he teased that there were more victims.

SURVIVOR KALA BROWN. DR PHIL

“Yes there is more than seven. I tried to tell investigators and I did tell the FBI, but it was blown off,” he wrote. “It’s not an addition problem, it’s a multiplication problem. Leaves the state and leaves the country. Thank you private pilot’s license.”

Series director Billy Arthur said: “Todd Kohlhepp lived out his twisted impulses in plain sight, and the Amazon reviews he left are a horrifying example of how someone can hide behind the mask of normalcy – until the mask cracks.”

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@HunterTOSun

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