Kala Brown, left, and Charlie Carver, disappeared in August. Police found Brown Thursday but Carver remains missing.
Facebook / Via Facebook: Missing
Police investigators were walking through a rural corner of Woodruff, South Carolina, Thursday morning when they heard banging coming from inside a metal container.
The 30-foot container was pad locked. When police pried it open they found a horrifying surprise: a 30-year-old woman who had been "chained like a dog" for two months, Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said.
"She had a chain around her neck," Wright told reporters, adding "it’s just by God’s grace that she’s alive if you want to know the absolute truth."
Wright identified the woman as Kala Brown, who disappeared along with her boyfriend Charlie Carver at the end of August. Police didn't find Carver Thursday, but did arrest the owner of the property, a 45-year-old registered sex offender named Todd Kohlhepp.
Todd Kohlhepp
South Carolina Law Enforcement Division / Via scor.sled.sc.gov
And after finding Brown Thursday, investigators were combing the 100-acre property for bodies.
“We’re trying to make sure, you know, that we don’t have a serial killer on our hands," Wright said. "That very possibly could be what we have.”
The case began when Brown and Carver abruptly stopped communicating with anyone on Aug. 31. After several days with no contact, Carver's mother, Joanne Shiflet — who regularly spoke with her son — contacted the manager of the couple's Anderson, South Carolina, apartment, NBC News reported last month. The manager went inside and found that Brown's Pomeranian had been left unattended, without food or water, for days.
"That dog is her baby. She'd never leave him like that," Kala's mother Bobbie Newsom said.
Brown's glasses and some medications were also found in the apartment and her car was in the parking lot, NBC reported. Carver's car was missing.
The case drew increased attention in October, when new messages and photos began appearing on Carver's Facebook page (which has since been taken down). Over 50 new posts reportedly appeared on the page, including one claiming Brown and Carver had gotten married.
Some of the Facebook messages also included violent images and memes, the Washington Post reported last month. Other postings referenced the couple's disappearance. Family members wondered if someone had hacked the account.
Thursday — after investigators found Brown — Wright speculated that Kohlhepp, the man arrested at the scene, could have been behind the mysterious Facebook messages.
"It's super possible that he was doing that, you know, to try to get people off of his trail," Wright said. "But that's just a thought. I don't know that to be for sure."
Investigators can been seen in an image from WSPA footage after discovering Kala Brown Thursday.
WSPA / Via youtube.com
Wright credited a sex crime investigator with helping police zero in on the property where they eventually found Brown, though he provided few other details about the case. He said Brown appeared to have been fed while in captivity and appeared to be in good physical health, though she was receiving medical treatment Thursday. Wright would not say more about Brown's treatment, including a question about whether she might have been sexually assaulted.
"She’s alive and well," Wright said. "She's obviously traumatized."
Brown and Carver may have known Kohlhepp, Wright also said, adding that "I don't think this was a random act."
Police learned that there could be bodies hidden on the property from Brown, though Wright said "when you’re locked in a container for two months your mind can play tricks on you."
"It’s metal, it’s totally enclosed," he said of the container. "I don’t want to be in there. I don’t want to be in there for a whole day."
A sheriff's department dispatcher told BuzzFeed News that investigators were still at the scene Thursday afternoon, and officials did not immediately return requests for comment.
According to South Carolina's sex offender registry, Kohlhepp was convicted of kidnapping in 1987. Investigators were still determining Thursday what charges he would face.
"I can tell you that one of the charges is going to be kidnapping," Wright said, "and it could be murder, it could be a number of things."
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/2e6NTB4
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