SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) — The man accused of chaining a woman in a storage container for weeks had a violent past and was “preoccupied with sexual content” from a young age, according to details emerging as investigators search his rural property for bodies.

Teams digging on the property found one body Friday and feared there could be more.

Prosecutor Barry Barnette said the woman saw her captor shoot and kill her boyfriend, who went with her for a cleaning job on the suspect’s property. The body discovered Friday was not immediately identified.

“This is a very, very dangerous individual,” the prosecutor said.

Todd Christopher Kohlhepp, a 45-year-old registered sex offender with a previous kidnapping conviction in Arizona, appeared Friday at a bond hearing in Spartanburg on a kidnapping charge. More charges are expected.

The judge did not set bond and instead referred the matter to circuit court. The suspect didn’t appear to have an attorney.

Barnette said that in the Arizona case, Kohlhepp kidnapped a 14-year-old girl, bound her and raped her in 1986. Online prison records show he served about 14 years for the felony. He was released in 2001.

Records from the Arizona case obtained by WHNS-TV in South Carolina show that a judge decided in 1987 to transfer the case to adult court partly because of Kohlhepp’s aggressive nature.

“At less than the age of 9 this juvenile was impulsive, explosive and preoccupied with sexual content. He has not changed. He has been unabatedly aggressive to others and destructive of property since nursery school,” the judge wrote.

In the South Carolina case, the couple disappeared about Aug. 31 when they went to do the work on the suspect’s nearly 100-acre property near Woodruff, said Daniel Herren, a friend who sat with the woman in her hospital room after she was rescued Thursday.

“They were going to do some work, help cleaning up the property. And he pulled out a gun and took them hostage,” Herren said, adding that the abduction happened quickly.

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. Her boyfriend was identified as 32-year-old Charles Carver.

Herren said he did not ask the woman if she was sexually assaulted.

But she did describe to him the details of her captivity, telling him she was in the container nearly the entire time except for when she was taken out for occasional walks.

“He never took the chain off of her, but he was taking her around, let her get, not so much exercise, but let her walk around some,” Herren said. “It didn’t sound like it was every day. It was kind of sporadic.”

She left the hospital late Thursday and is staying with family, Herren said.

The property includes grassy areas, some covered in waist-high weeds, as well as stands of trees. Most or all of it is surrounded by a chain-link fence 6 to 7 feet tall.

In the middle was the cargo container, which measured about 30 feet by 15 feet. It was next to a two-car garage that had a living space on top, Barnette said.

Guns and a large amount of ammunition were seized from Kohlhepp, the prosecutor said.

“It’s unbelievable how much he had,” he said, adding that Kohlhepp frequently took target practice in an area near the storage container.

Records show Kohlhepp received his South Carolina real-estate license in 2006 before a state law went into effect requiring background checks.

A real estate agent who worked at the firm run by Kohlhepp said she had known him for 10 years after they met at a university in the Spartanburg area and were study partners. She said she was in disbelief.

“He’s not the kind of person to do something like this,” Cherry Laurens said by phone. “Working with him he was an excellent boss. He stood up for us whenever we needed him.”

She said it was widely known that he was registered as a sex offender, but he told people that it was based on trumped-up charges after he “had gone joyriding with a girl” and upset her father.

Kohlhepp made frequent online posts about moving around rocks and trimming trees at the rural property, according to the Facebook page that Laurens confirmed was his.

About two weeks after the couple disappeared, he wrote a post about news reports on missing people: “reading the news.. this person missing, that person missing, another person missing.. oh wait.. that person just went to beach with friend, other person found with her parole violation boyfriend… in the event I become missing, please note no one would take me. I eat too much and I am crabby…”

Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed in Raleigh, North Carolina; and Alex Sanz in Spartanburg contributed to this report. </s> One person has been taken into custody Friday morning in relation to the disappearance of University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck, Salt Lake City police announced.

Further details on the arrest – which came a day after police finished searching a home whose owner they identified as a person of interest — were not immediately available.

Lueck, 23, was last seen meeting an unknown individual around 3 a.m. on June 17 near a park in Salt Lake City after being dropped off by a Lyft driver.

Salt Lake City police are expected to reveal more about the arrest at a press conference at 1:30 p.m. ET

This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates… </s> A man's been held in Garda custody overnight in connection with the murder of a woman in County Louth.

Elzbieta Piotrowska was found dead at her home in Ardee yesterday.

The 57-year-old suffered a particularly violent death. She was decapitated with an axe and it is believed her killer was known to her.

The mother-of-two was originally from Poland and had been living in Ireland for around ten years.

The house has been sealed off and the body removed for a post-mortem examination which is to be carried out later today.

A 32-year-old man was arrested a number of hours later after the body was discovered. He was detained overnight at Drogheda Garda Station.

Investigators say they are not looking for anyone else in connection with their inquiry.

Speaking yesterday, Garda Superintendent Des McTiernan said he hoped the investigation can be brought to a quick conclusion.

“I am appealing for people to bear with us,” he said.

“We have someone in custody in relation to it; we are not looking for anybody else.

“We are quite anxious to get on with the investigation and bring it to a conclusion bearing in mind the tragic circumstances of the whole incident.”

He said he would “prefer not to comment” on the nature of the woman’s death, adding “suffice to say it is very tragic.” </s> The Angamaly First Class Judicial Magistrate Court extended police custody of actor Dileep by a day on Friday. Dileep was produced before the magistrate only to be sent back to police custody till 5 PM on Saturday.

Actor Dileep who was arrested on Monday evening has been in police custody for two days now. Officials investigating the sensational case of abduction and molestation of a popular actress took Dileep to various places in Ernakulam and Thrissur district over the past two days. Dileep was taken to various spots where he is said to have met prime accused in the case Pulsar Suni in a bid to retrace the course of conspiracy that was allegedly hatched.

In the meanwhile, officials are all set to question Dileep's wife and actor Kavya Madhavan and her mother in connection with the case. Based on the statement by Pulsar Suni, searches were conducted in a boutique that belongs to Kavya Madhavan. More people from the Malayalam film industry including director Lal and MLA P T Thomas are likely to be questioned in the case.

Breaking her silence for the first time after Dileep was arrested, the actress who was assaulted said that she, like most, was shocked over the recent developments in the case. In a statement to the media, the actress said that she had a good working relationship with Dileep that had turned sour due to personal reasons. "There are no financial dealings between me and any of the accused. I had a good working relationship and we have acted in many movies but due to personal issues, it turned sour," the statement from the actress said. "Let the truth be revealed quickly. Those responsible should not be left to go scot-free and no innocent person should be implicated," the statement added. </s> SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A woman who was "chained up like a dog" for weeks in a dark storage container was lured to her captor's South Carolina property for a cleaning job, a family friend said Friday as search teams digging up the area found one body and looked for more.

Authorities were "trying to make sure that we don't have a serial killer on our hands," the sheriff said. Investigators were told the property could hold as many as three other corpses.

Prosecutor Barry Barnette said the woman saw her captor shoot and kill her boyfriend, who went with her to the job. The body discovered Friday was not immediately identified.

The couple disappeared around Aug. 31 when they went to do the work on the suspect's nearly 100-acre property in a rural area near the community of Woodruff, said Daniel Herren, a friend who sat with her in her hospital room after she was rescued Thursday.

"They were going to do some work, help cleaning up the property. And he pulled out a gun and took them hostage," Herren said, adding that the abduction happened quickly.

Todd Christopher Kohlhepp, a 45-year-old registered sex offender with previous kidnapping conviction, appeared at a bond hearing Friday in Spartanburg on a kidnapping charge. More charges will be filed later, the prosecutor told the court.

The judge did not set bond and instead referred the matter to circuit court. The suspect did not appear to have an attorney, and the judge urged him to get one.

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. Her boyfriend was identified as 32-year-old Charles Carver.

Herren, who visited her in the hospital and had dinner with her Thursday, said he did not ask the woman if she was sexually assaulted.

But she did describe to him the details of her captivity, telling him she was in the container nearly the entire time except for when she was taken out for occasional walks.

"He never took the chain off of her, but he was taking her around, let her get, not so much exercise, but let her walk around some," Herren said. "It didn't sound like it was every day. It was kind of sporadic."

She was fed once a day around 6 p.m. She "didn't tell us exactly what she was eating. But from what I gathered, it could have been fast food. ... It wasn't like he was keeping her alive on bread and water. He was in a weird, sick kind of way being, I guess, kind of humane, as far as feeding her," Herren said.

She left the hospital late Thursday and is staying with family, Herren said.

The property includes grassy areas, some covered in waist-high weeds, as well as stands of trees. Most or all of it is surrounded by a chain-link fence 6 to 7 feet tall.

In the middle was the cargo container, which measured about 30 feet by 15 feet. It was next to a two-car garage that had a living space on top, Barnette said.

During Friday's search efforts, officers using all-terrain vehicles and a backhoe came and went while a law enforcement helicopter circled overhead.

Investigators began excavating after cadaver dogs signaled the possible presence of remains.

Acting on a tip, deputies found the woman after hearing her banging inside the container, Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said.

Anderson Police Chief Jim Stewart said computer and cellphone records led authorities to the property near Woodruff, 80 miles northwest of the state capital of Columbia, because it was the last place that a cellphone pinged.

Records indicate Kohlhepp is a licensed real estate agent and licensed pilot. As a teenager, he was convicted and sentenced to prison in Arizona for kidnapping and dangerous crimes against children.

Guns and a large amount of ammunition were seized from Kohlhepp, the prosecutor said.

"It's unbelievable how much he had," he said.

South Carolina's sex offender registry lists a 1986 kidnapping as the reason Kohlhepp is in the database of sex offenders. Matching online prison records from Arizona show that Kohlhepp served about 14 years for the felony and was released in 2001.

In court Friday, Barnette said the Arizona case occurred when Kohlhepp kidnapped a 14-year-old girl, took her to his house and raped her after binding her with duct tape.

A real estate agent who worked at a firm run by Kohlhepp said she had known him for 10 years after they met at a university in the Spartanburg area and were study partners in a statistics class. She said she was in disbelief.

"He's not the kind of person to do something like this," Cherry Laurens said by phone. "Working with him he was an excellent boss. He stood up for us whenever we needed him."

She said it was widely known that he was registered as a sex offender, but he told people that it was based on trumped-up charges after he "had gone joyriding with a girl" and upset her father, who was a prominent local official.

Kohlhepp also had a house in Moore, on the outskirts of Spartanburg, about 15 minutes from the rural property where the woman was chained.

His neighbor there, 76-year-old Ron Owen, said Kohlhepp was private but pleasant.

"Todd was in my opinion a likable guy," Owen said.

Breed reported from Raleigh. Associated Press writers Jack Jones in Columbia, South Carolina; Alex Sanz in Spartanburg; Jonathan Drew in Raleigh, North Carolina; and Paul Davenport in Phoenix contributed to this report. </s> Teams digging on the property found one body Friday and feared there could be more.

Prosecutor Barry Barnette said the woman saw her captor shoot and kill her boyfriend, who went with her for a cleaning job on the suspect's property. The body discovered Friday was not immediately identified, and Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger said he isn't sure when that might happen.

Police vehicles continued to crisscross the property of Todd Christopher Kohlhepp, a 45-year-old registered sex offender.

"This is a very, very dangerous individual," the prosecutor said.

Kohlhepp, who has a previous kidnapping conviction in Arizona, appeared Friday at a bond hearing in Spartanburg on a kidnapping charge. More charges are expected.

The judge did not set bond and instead referred the matter to circuit court. The suspect didn't appear to have an attorney.

Barnette said that in the Arizona case, Kohlhepp kidnapped a 14-year-old girl, bound her and raped her in 1986. Online prison records show he served about 14 years for the felony. He was released in 2001.

Records from the Arizona case obtained by WHNS-TV in South Carolina show that a judge decided in 1987 to transfer the case to adult court partly because of Kohlhepp's aggressive nature.

"At less than the age of 9 this juvenile was impulsive, explosive and preoccupied with sexual content. He has not changed. He has been unabatedly aggressive to others and destructive of property since nursery school," the judge wrote.

In the South Carolina case, the couple disappeared about Aug. 31 when they went to do the work on the suspect's nearly 100-acre property near Woodruff, said Daniel Herren, a friend who sat with the woman in her hospital room after she was rescued Thursday.

"They were going to do some work, help cleaning up the property. And he pulled out a gun and took them hostage," Herren said, adding that the abduction happened quickly.

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. Her boyfriend was identified as 32-year-old Charles Carver.

Herren said he did not ask the woman if she was sexually assaulted.

But she did describe to him the details of her captivity, telling him she was in the container nearly the entire time except for when she was taken out for occasional walks.

"He never took the chain off of her, but he was taking her around, let her get, not so much exercise, but let her walk around some," Herren said. "It didn't sound like it was every day. It was kind of sporadic."

She left the hospital late Thursday and is staying with family, Herren said.

The property includes grassy areas, some covered in waist-high weeds, as well as stands of trees. Most or all of it is surrounded by a chain-link fence 6 to 7 feet tall.

In the middle was the cargo container, which measured about 30 feet by 15 feet. It was next to a two-car garage that had a living space on top, Barnette said.

Guns and a large amount of ammunition were seized from Kohlhepp, the prosecutor said.

"It's unbelievable how much he had," he said, adding that Kohlhepp frequently took target practice in an area near the storage container.

Records show Kohlhepp received his South Carolina real-estate license in 2006 before a state law went into effect requiring background checks.

A real estate agent who worked at the firm run by Kohlhepp said she had known him for 10 years after they met at a university in the Spartanburg area and were study partners. She said she was in disbelief.

"He's not the kind of person to do something like this," Cherry Laurens said by phone. "Working with him, he was an excellent boss. He stood up for us whenever we needed him."

She said it was widely known that he was registered as a sex offender, but he told people that it was based on trumped-up charges after he "had gone joyriding with a girl" and upset her father.

Kohlhepp made frequent online posts about moving around rocks and trimming trees at the rural property, according to the Facebook page that Laurens confirmed was his.

He wrote a post about news reports on missing people: "reading the news.. this person missing, that person missing, another person missing.. oh wait.. that person just went to beach with friend, other person found with her parole violation boyfriend... in the event I become missing, please note no one would take me. I eat too much and I am crabby..."

The post was written about two weeks after the couple disappeared in August.

Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed in Raleigh, North Carolina; and Alex Sanz in Spartanburg contributed to this report. </s> SPARTANBURG, S.C. — The Latest on the investigation after a missing woman was found chained inside a storage container (all times local):

A coroner is working to identify the body found on property in rural South Carolina where a woman was found chained in a storage container.

Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger says the body was exhumed Friday night and taken to the morgue. It remained unclear Saturday when the body would be identified.

Police vehicles could be seen going back and forth across the property. An Anderson police officer put two bouquets of flowers in the fence Saturday.

Todd Christopher Kohlhepp is charged with kidnapping after authorities found a woman Thursday chained at her neck and ankle in a storage container. Prosecutor Barry Barnette says the woman saw her captor shoot and kill her boyfriend, who went with her for a cleaning job on the suspect's property.

The man accused of chaining a woman in a storage container for weeks had a violent past and was "preoccupied with sexual content" from a young age.

That's according to details emerging as investigators search his rural property for bodies.

Teams digging on the property found one body Friday and feared there could be more.

Prosecutor Barry Barnette says the woman saw her captor shoot and kill her boyfriend, who went with her for a cleaning job on the suspect's property. The body discovered Friday was not immediately identified.

Todd Christopher Kohlhepp is charged with kidnapping. The 45-year-old registered sex offender has a previous kidnapping conviction in Arizona. More charges are expected.

Barnette said that in the Arizona case, Kohlhepp kidnapped a 14-year-old girl, bound her and raped her in 1986. Online prison records show he served about 14 years for the felony. He was released in 2001. </s> (CNN) A 45-year-old South Carolina man accused of kidnapping a woman and holding her hostage for two months appeared briefly in court Friday.

Suspect Todd Kohlhepp went before a judge but the matter of his bond was referred to another court. For now, he's still in jail.

Kohlhepp, 45, told a judge he did not have an attorney and asked what would happen if he didn't have one in time for an initial appearance, which is scheduled for January 19. He has not entered a plea.

An arrest warrant alleges that he kidnapped 30-year-old Kala Brown about August 31 in Spartanburg County. Authorities say they found Brown on Thursday chained inside a shipping container on Kohlhepp's farm property near Woodruff.

Searchers found a body Friday on the property, but it is too soon to say whether it was that of Brown's missing boyfriend or someone else.

Here's what we know so far about Kohlhepp:

1. He's been and convicted of kidnapping

Kohlhepp was a teenager living in Tempe, Arizona, when he was accused of holding a 14-year-old girl at gunpoint and sexually assaulting her.

Originally, he was charged with kidnapping, sexual assault and committing a dangerous crime against children. The other charges were dropped after he pleaded guilty to kidnapping and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, according to court records obtained by CNN affiliates KPHO and KTVK.

In 1987, Maricopa (Arizona) County Judge C. Kimball Rose ordered that Kohlhepp's case should be transferred out of the juvenile system because his offenses had been committed "in an aggressive, violent, obviously premeditated and willful manner," according to the court documents.

"At less than the age of 9, this juvenile was impulsive, explosive, and preoccupied with sexual content. He has not changed. He has been unabatedly aggressive to others and destructive of property since nursery school," the judge's ruling said. "He destroys his own clothing, personal possessions and pets apparently on whim and caprice. Approximately six years of intervention in fifteen years of life have resulted in abysmal failure. Twenty-five months of the most intensive and expensive professional intervention, short of God's, will provide no protection for the public and no rehabilitation of this juvenile by any services or facilities presently available to the Juvenile Court."

Kohlhepp -- who is 5-foot-11 and weighs about 300 pounds -- had numerous guns on the property where Brown was found and a body was discovered, officials said.

7th Judicial Circuit Solicitor Barry Barnette told a judge at Kohlhepp's arraignment that the suspect appeared to have been target shooting on the land he owns near Woodruff.

Discarded targets were found near a two-car garage. "He appears to be a very good shot from looking at the shooting that he did," Barnette said.

According to tax records, Kohlhepp bought the 95.57-acre property for $305,000 in May 2014.

When he applied to take a real estate license exam in South Carolina in 2006, Kohlhepp offered an explanation of his criminal history, telling officials that the Arizona case was his only conviction and that he'd made significant strides to follow the law and give back to the community since then.

In that letter, Kohlhepp said he'd been charged with kidnapping because he was a minor in possession of a firearm during an argument with his girlfriend.

"I was charged with the felony of kidnapping due to the fact that I did have a firearm on me regardless that she didn't know it, and I had told her not to move while we talked this out," he said. "At this time, Arizona was coming down very hard on minors and anything to do with firearms due to the heavy gang activity out there, and I received a sentence of 15 years, for which I served every day, no parole required."

5. He describes himself as a former professional graphic designer and a licensed pilot.

On the website for his real estate company, Kohlhepp also says he studied computer science and business administration.

6. Parents divorced when he was very young

According to court documents, Kohlhepp's parents divorced when he was either 1 or 2 years old. His mother remarried when he was 3 and later divorced and remarried his stepfather several times.

Kohlhepp lived with his mother in Georgia and South Carolina for most of his childhood, but went to stay with his biological father in Arizona when he was 12. He was going to high school in Tempe when he was arrested and convicted of kidnapping. </s> (CNN) A 45-year-old South Carolina man accused of kidnapping a woman and holding her captive for two months appeared briefly in court Friday.

Suspect Todd Kohlhepp went before a judge but the matter of his bond was referred to another court. For now, he's still in jail.

Kohlhepp, 45, told a judge he did not have an attorney and asked what would happen if he didn't have one in time for an initial appearance, which is scheduled for January 19. He has not entered a plea.

An arrest warrant alleges that he kidnapped 30-year-old Kala Brown about August 31 in Spartanburg County. Authorities say they found Brown on Thursday chained inside a shipping container on Kohlhepp's farm property near Woodruff.

Searchers found a body Friday on the property, but it is too soon to say whether it was that of Brown's missing boyfriend or someone else.

Here's what we know so far about Kohlhepp:

1. He's been and convicted of kidnapping

Kohlhepp was a teenager living in Tempe, Arizona, when he was accused of holding a 14-year-old girl at gunpoint and sexually assaulting her.

Originally, he was charged with kidnapping, sexual assault and committing a dangerous crime against children. The other charges were dropped after he pleaded guilty to kidnapping and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, according to court records obtained by CNN affiliates KPHO and KTVK.

In 1987, Maricopa (Arizona) County Judge C. Kimball Rose ordered that Kohlhepp's case should be transferred out of the juvenile system because his offenses had been committed "in an aggressive, violent, obviously premeditated and willful manner," according to the court documents.

"At less than the age of 9, this juvenile was impulsive, explosive, and preoccupied with sexual content. He has not changed. He has been unabatedly aggressive to others and destructive of property since nursery school," the judge's ruling said. "He destroys his own clothing, personal possessions and pets apparently on whim and caprice. Approximately six years of intervention in fifteen years of life have resulted in abysmal failure. Twenty-five months of the most intensive and expensive professional intervention, short of God's, will provide no protection for the public and no rehabilitation of this juvenile by any services or facilities presently available to the Juvenile Court."

Kohlhepp -- who is 5-foot-11 and weighs about 300 pounds -- had numerous guns on the property where Brown was found and a body was discovered, officials said.

7th Judicial Circuit Solicitor Barry Barnette told a judge at Kohlhepp's arraignment that the suspect appeared to have been target shooting on the land he owns near Woodruff.

Discarded targets were found near a two-car garage. "He appears to be a very good shot from looking at the shooting that he did," Barnette said.

According to tax records, Kohlhepp bought the 95.57-acre property for $305,000 in May 2014.

When he applied to take a real estate license exam in South Carolina in 2006, Kohlhepp offered an explanation of his criminal history, telling officials that the Arizona case was his only conviction and that he'd made significant strides to follow the law and give back to the community since then.

In that letter, Kohlhepp said he'd been charged with kidnapping because he was a minor in possession of a firearm during an argument with his girlfriend.

"I was charged with the felony of kidnapping due to the fact that I did have a firearm on me regardless that she didn't know it, and I had told her not to move while we talked this out," he said. "At this time, Arizona was coming down very hard on minors and anything to do with firearms due to the heavy gang activity out there, and I received a sentence of 15 years, for which I served every day, no parole required."

5. He describes himself as a former professional graphic designer and a licensed pilot.

On the website for his real estate company, Kohlhepp also says he studied computer science and business administration.

6. Parents divorced when he was very young

According to court documents, Kohlhepp's parents divorced when he was either 1 or 2 years old. His mother remarried when he was 3 and later divorced and remarried his stepfather several times.

Kohlhepp lived with his mother in Georgia and South Carolina for most of his childhood, but went to stay with his biological father in Arizona when he was 12. He was going to high school in Tempe when he was arrested and convicted of kidnapping.
Another "person of interest" in the case is taken into custody.