A South Carolina man killed at least seven people in a hidden crime spree that lasted more than a decade and only was uncovered when police rescued a woman chained at the neck in a storage container, authorities said.
Todd Kohlhepp accepted responsibility for an unsolved 13-year-old massacre one day before the 13th anniversary of the deaths that stumped authorities, said Sheriff Chuck Wright, first elected a year after the murders.
Kohlhepp, 45, confessed to the deaths of the owner, service manager, mechanic and bookkeeper of Superbike Motorsports, a motorcycle shop in Chesnee, in Spartanburg County.
"God answered our prayers. If it wasn't for Him answering our prayers and Todd talking to us, I don't know that we'd ever solve that case," Wright said.
Wright says Kohlhepp also showed law enforcement officers Saturday where he says he buried two of his other victims on his 95-acre property near Woodruff. Kohlhepp, in handcuffs and wearing an orange jumpsuit, was at the site for less than an hour.
Those are in addition to the body found Friday at the site. Wright and Coroner Rusty Clevenger identified that victim as 32-year-old Charles Carver, the boyfriend of the woman found Thursday in a locked metal container.
Carver and the woman went missing around August 31. Their last known cellphone signals led authorities to the property.
The Associated Press is not naming the woman because the suspect is a sex offender, though authorities have not said whether she was sexually assaulted.
Carver died of multiple gunshot wounds. An anthropologist is helping determine how long Carver was buried, Clevenger said. He declined to say how many times Carver had been shot.
The sheriff says it's possible more bodies will be uncovered.
The wife of one of the 2003 victims said detectives told her Kohlhepp was an angry customer who had been in the shop several times.
Melissa Ponder told The Associated Press she was resigned that her husband Scott's death would never be solved before getting a phone call Saturday evening from one of the case's original detectives.
Detectives told family members of all four victims of the confession at the same time.
"He knew too much about the crime scene," Ponder said of Kohlhepp's account to detectives. "He knew everything."
The Superbike killings stunned the Chesnee community, with rumors like they were committed by a Mexican drug gang or were part of a love triangle crushing the families of the victims.
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