(CN) - The discovery of a woman chained inside a storage container on a South Carolina farm has led to a reopening of investigations into a number of decades-old homicides.
Todd Kohlhepp is now a suspect in at least seven death in the wake of the discovery of a woman chained at the neck and ankle inside a metal storage container on his 95-acre property in Woodruff, a rural community near Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Spartanburg County sheriff's deputies had been searching for Kala Brown and her boyfriend, Charles "David" Carver, since Aug. 31, when the investigation led them to Kohlhepp's property.
During a search of the land on Thursday, the deputies heard Brown screaming for help.
Brown, 30, told the deputies Kohlhepp had kept her chained inside the 30-foot by 15-foot storage container for two months.
She also told them she saw Kohlhepp murder Carver. A short time later, investigators found a body in a shallow grave, which was identified on Saturday as Carver's. The coroner said he had died of gunshot wounds.
Later on Saturday, Kohlhepp reportedly confessed to killing four people at a motorcycle shop in Chesnee, S.C. in 2003.
A Spartanburg County Sheriff's investigative report says Kohlhepp "confessed to investigators that he shot and killed" the motorcycle shop's owner, service manager, mechanic and bookkeeper, giving details only the killer would know.
Kohlhepp also showed authorities where he buried at least two other, as yet unidentified people on his property. Human remains were uncovered Sunday at one of those sites.
Authorities said they have no idea who those victims are.
Kohlhepp's arrest shocked many in the upstate who knew him as a successful Realtor in the Upstate of South Carolina.
Published reports, however, say he hide a criminal past, including his conviction for the 1986 rape of a teenage girl in Arizona.
The investigation has been expanded to other properties that Kohlhepp, either currently or used to own.
Officials said those properties are not located exclusively in South Carolina, but declined to be more specific.
Both the FBI and the Department Homeland Security are also involved in the investigation.
Kohlhepp has been charged with four counts of murder in connection with the 2003 murders at the Superbike Motorsports shop in Chesnee. He has also been charged in Brown's kidnapping. The authorities said more charges will be forthcoming.
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