The mother of a South Carolina man suspected of killing seven people says her son is “very misunderstood” but not a monster.
(FOX)- Regina Tague told CBS for a “48 Hours” special airing Saturday she hates that her son, Todd Kohlhepp, is called a serial killer.
“I know that’s what they say. He was very misunderstood,” she told CBS late Thursday. “Todd is not a monster. He’s not even close to it. He wasn’t doing it for enjoyment. He was doing it because he was mad and he was hurt.”
Kohlhepp was charged with kidnapping last week after investigators found a 30-year-old woman who had been missing for two months chained inside a metal storage container on his property in rural Woodruff. Authorities later found the bodies of her boyfriend, 32-year-old Charles Carver, and another missing couple.
Sheriff Chuck Wright said Kohlhepp confessed Saturday to gunning down four people at a motorcycle shop elsewhere in Spartanburg County in 2003. Kohlhepp, 45, is charged with four counts of murder in that case. Investigations are still underway in the other three killings.
Before the confession, Wright says he granted Kohlhepp’s request to talk with his mother.
Tague says Kohlhepp apologized to her. She has not returned messages from The Associated Press.
Asked why her son tied up the woman, she told CBS, “She saw him kill her boyfriend, and he didn’t know what to do with her. Couldn’t turn her loose. She’d go get the police.”