Missing Woman Found Chained Up on Sex Offender's Property

Kala Brown and her boyfriend were reported missing in August
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 3, 2016 4:09 PM CDT
Missing Woman Found Chained Up on Sex Offender's Property
Todd Kohlhepp   (Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office)

A 30-year-old woman reported missing in August was found Thursday "chained ... like a dog" inside a storage container in South Carolina, WYFF reports. Kala Brown and her 32-year-old boyfriend Charlie Carver disappeared Aug. 31. Sheriff's deputies were investigating a 100-acre property after getting a tip about a sex crime Thursday when they heard banging. They followed the sound to Brown, who says she was kept in the container for two months with a chain around her neck. Sheriff Chuck Wright says Brown was taken to an area hospital "obviously traumatized" but "alive and well," according to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. Carver has still not been found.

The property on which Brown was found belongs to a 45-year-old sex offender named Todd Kohlhepp, who was convicted of kidnapping in 1987. Brown and Kohlhepp knew each other, but authorities didn't specify how. Kohlhepp was arrested and will be charged with kidnapping and possibly more, NBC News reports. Brown says there could be four bodies somewhere on the property, and Wright says police may "have a serial killer on our hands." Authorities say they found a large amount of weapons and ammunition on the property. Days after Brown and Carver disappeared, suspicious messages started appearing on Carver's Facebook page. The posts said Carver and Brown had decided to leave town and were fine but referenced things that never happened. Carver's family believes someone hacked his account. (More missing woman stories.)

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