Warning: This article contains discussion of rape and murder which some readers may find distressing.
A woman's horrifying ordeal surviving a serial killer is the focus of a new documentary about a man who reviewed the Amazon products he used in murdering his victims.
The woman in question is Kala Brown, who was chained up in a metal storage container by Todd Kohlhepp, a serial killer who had hired her to carry out odd cleaning jobs.
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Kohlhepp took and tied up Brown after murdering her boyfriend in front of her, later being charged of kidnapping and rape.
The ‘Amazon Review Killer’, as he is sometimes known, was also found guilty of seven killings over the course of 13 years, eventually being found due to the disappearance of Brown and her boyfriend.
Brown’s brave survival of his awful crimes are detailed in a new documentary I Escaped a Murderer airing tonight, April 22, on Channel 5.
Kohlhepp’s killings took place over the course of a decade, shooting four people at a motorcycle shop in 2003, a married couple in their home in 2015, and shooting Brown’s boyfriend, Charles David Carver.
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One of the most shocking aspects of the killer’s actions were his bizarre Amazon reviews.
Kohlhepp reportedly left 140 reviews on the platform on products such as knives, padlocks, and shovels.
One, on a padlock, said: “solid locks.. have 5 on a shipping container.. wont stop them.. but sure will slow them down til they are too old to care.”
The man, who is now 54, also left a review on a knife saying he hadn’t used it to stab anyone ‘yet’ but that when he did it would be with a ‘quality knife like this’.
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Another, on another padlock, saw him say that it works great if you need to go ‘old school’ on someone and put it in a sock to beat them with.
Brown went missing for two months before being found, with police tracking her via cell phone data.
Alarms were raised even further when her boyfriend Carver, whilst the pair were being reported as missing, posted on Facebook that him and Brown had got married before later posting links to the media coverage of their disappearance.
In an interview with Dr Phil, her first public appearance following her horrific ordeal, she stated that he had raped her twice daily and had ‘expected’ her to succumb to Stockholm Syndrome.
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When explaining how she survived, she said: "I had to stay alive in order to be found, and I realized that it was easier if he felt things were going his way, so I made him think whatever I had to to stay alive and to keep him from abusing me.”
In a terrifying admission, she said that the serial killer had told her he had killed her boyfriend because ‘it was easier to control someone if you took someone they loved’.
She went on to say: “I’ll always miss Charlie; I’ll always wonder what our life would’ve been like. But as far as what Todd did to me – I am not going to let that man rule my life.”
I Escaped a Murderer is airing on Channel 5 tonight, April 22.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article and wish to speak to someone in confidence, contact the Rape Crisis England and Wales helpline on 0808 500 222, available 24/7. If you are currently in danger or need urgent medical attention, you should call 999.
Topics: Amazon, Crime, Documentaries, TV, TV and Film, True Crime, Channel 5
Michael Slavin