Investigators are combing a farm in rural South Carolina where they found a 30-year-old woman “chained up like a dog” inside a shipping container.
Kala Brown, who went missing with her boyfriend more than two months ago, warned authorities that there could be other victims.
So far, there are more questions than answers about this troubling case. Here’s the latest on what we know:
What led investigators there?
Authorities have been tight-lipped about what exactly brought them to the 100-acre farm in Woodruff, South Carolina, near Spartanburg.
Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said sex crimes investigators led them to the property, where they’d showed up to serve a search warrant Thursday. But he hasn’t revealed the evidence that pointed them in that direction.
“We did some good, old-fashioned police work,” he told Ashleigh Banfield of HLN’s “Primetime Justice.”
Where is Brown’s boyfriend?
Brown went missing in August, along with her boyfriend, Charles David Carver.
Investigators say they found Carver’s car on the Woodruff property on Thursday. It was in a ravine, covered in brush.
After the couple disappeared, worried family members told reporters they’d started to see cryptic Facebook posts on Carver’s page and feared it may have been hacked, CNN affiliate WSPA-TV reported. Last month, the page was deleted.
Who owns the property, and how is he connected?
Todd Kohlhepp, a registered sex offender who’s been working as a real estate agent in the area, owns the property. He was arrested Thursday and is not cooperating with investigators, the sheriff said.
An arrest warrant alleges that Kohlhepp, 45, kidnapped Brown on or around August 31 in Spartanburg.
Now he’s being held without bond on suspicion of kidnapping, according to jail records. He’s scheduled to appear in court Friday. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he had retained legal representation.
It’s not the first time Kohlepp has been accused of kidnapping. He was added to the South Carolina Sex Offender Registry as a result of a 1987 kidnapping conviction in Arizona when he was a teenager.
Investigators think Kohlhepp, Carver and Brown knew each other.
“I do know that there was a prior relationship, but at this point, I don’t know the extent of it,” Wright said.
Are there other victims?
Brown told investigators she thinks four people might be buried on the property.
A cadaver dog picked up on something during a search, Wright said, but it’s not clear what.
What have investigators found so far?
In addition to Carver’s car, investigators have found “lots of weapons and ammo” on the property, the sheriff told HLN.
It’s not clear whether bodies are buried on the property. But investigators are planning to keep looking.
“We’re not going to leave the property until we’re 100% sure that we’ve done everything possible,” Wright said.
