Woman recounts captivity horror

HELD FOR 2 MONTHS

COLUMBIA, S.C. • A South Carolina woman who spent two months chained inside a large metal container says her captor raped her daily and bragged that he was good at killing, claiming that his victims tallied nearly 100.

Kala Brown says she did what she had to do to survive.

“He told me as long as I served my purpose, I was safe,” Brown told Phillip McGraw, the host of the television show Dr. Phil.

It was the first time she has talked publicly since her Nov. 3 rescue, which authorities say helped them solve seven killings in the area dating back 13 years. Police said Todd Kohlhepp, a real estate agent with his own firm until his arrest, killed a couple who had been missing nearly a year, four people at a motorcycle shop in 2003 and Brown’s boyfriend.

Brown said Kohlhepp shot Charles Carver three times in the chest. He gagged Brown and handcuffed her ankles and wrists. Kohlhepp took her to a “pitch black,” 30-foot-long storage container nearby, chained her by the neck in a back corner and raped her, she said.

He “let me know that if I tried to run, he’d kill me. If I tried to hurt him, he’d kill me. If I fought back, he would kill me. And then he raped me,” Brown said. “He would rape me twice a day, every day.”

The days evolved into a pattern, she said.

He took her to the garage twice a day, where she ate, used the bathroom and was allowed to bathe every other day using a washcloth and a small plastic bowl of water. But she was never unchained, she said.

“He would put more chains on before he took other chains off,” she said.

Kohlhepp, 45, faces murder, kidnapping and weapons charges. He is not charged with sexual assault. Spokesmen for the sheriff and prosecutor declined to address the rape allegations or whether more charges are forthcoming. His attorney did not return messages.

Brown said Kohlhepp told her he killed Carver because