The Superbike Murders – Todd Kohlhepp: The Amazon Review Killer (Part 2)

November 22, 2022
Episode 59

Marked explicit for graphic details and language.

The Superbike Murders – Todd Kohlhepp: Amazon Review Killer Part 2

 

What About These Other Cases Kohlhepp was Connected to?

❖While Kohlhepp claims that he had all these other victims, we only have confirmation for up to 7 victims

❖4 of these victims were killed in the same incident

➢This is referred to as the superbike murders and we’ll dive into those in this episode

❖He also killed a husband and wife, Meagan and Johnny Coxie a few months before killing Charlie

❖He was involved in a very violent rape as a teenager

❖He has made claims about other crimes and victims

➢There is a long break between the Superbike Murders we’re talking about today and the murders of Meagan and Johnny Coxie so it seems reasonable to believe at least some of these claims are true as a break that long doesn’t make sense

 

November 6, 2003

❖Motorcycle dealership called Superbike Motorsports in Chesnee, SC

❖Someone shot 4 people at the shop

➢Scott Ponder (owner)

➢Beverly Guy (Scott’s mother)

➢Brian Lucas (service manager)

➢Chris Sherbert (mechanic)

❖No clear motive as nothing was taken

 

Scott Ponder                              

❖Born February 7, 1973

❖He owned Superbike Motorsports

➢He had owned the dealership for less than a year

➢Got into this field because he raced regionally in high school

❖His stepfather said “”He knew how to do anything mechanical on a motorcycle, and he knew how to run a business. He was a hard worker who learned quickly, and he was ambitious”

❖Heavily involved in church and held an important position

❖His wife, Melissa, was 7 weeks pregnant

 

Beverly Guy

❖Born September 11, 1951

❖She had a stepson and three sisters

❖She was very involved in her church and held an important position

 

Brian Lucas                               

❖Born May 1, 1974

❖He was a quarterback when he was younger

❖After a scary tackle he shifted his focus to dirt bikes

❖He could fix anything and liked taking things apart to see how they worked

❖Always willing to help others

❖Nicknamed “Broken Back Lucas” . One time Lucas tweaked a bike to be so fast that despite warning the owner, the owner fell off the back while trying to accelerate. Because he could make a bike so fast it was dangerous to anyone not paying attention, he was called “Broken Back Lucas”

 

Chris Sherbert “Shubie”

❖Born January 19, 1977

❖A mechanic at Superbike

➢He told his mom that he had found his calling as a mechanic

❖He was “so devoted to fixing things and always had dirty hands that his family decided to bury him with the grease still under his nails”

 

The Case Went Cold Fast

❖There weren’t any clear suspects from the get go

❖Melissa Ponder was questioned and viewed as a person of interest at first

➢She was 7 weeks pregnant and was accused of her child not being Scott’s and killing him to cover it up

➢There was a mislabelled blood sample collected that really fueled this theory until the mistake was discovered

➢She was adamant they were wrong and after a DNA test proving her son was Scott’s they moved on

❖There weren’t any other strong leads and people have questioned why past customers weren’t looked into more . Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright, who took office in 2005, said hundreds of people were questioned about the Superbike case over the years. Kohlhepp wasn’t among them, though he was known to have been a recent customer who reported his bike stolen.

❖It seemed like there would never be answers and the case went cold for 13 years

 

What Does Todd Kohlhepp Have to Do With This?

❖One of the crimes he told Kala about was that he went into a motorcycle shop and killed four people

❖When she told investigators this, they connected it to the Superbike murders pretty quickly

❖They found out that he had been a customer not long before the murders –

it was proven that Todd’s name was on a customer list and highlighted as someone that could use further investigation by family of the victims

❖It seems pretty reasonable to attribute these murders to him at this point, but it’s never that simple

❖In an interview, he is asked point blank “Did you do Superbikes?” He replies, “As far as you’re aware, yes.”

❖This seems a like kind of a strange response, right?

❖Obviously, they want to make sure they have the right guy and that it’s not a false confession or anything like that

❖But why is all of this being discovered now? Why wasn’t he found 13 years ago? In an interview, Scott’s wife said, “They called him twice, and he didn’t return phone calls to them. That’s puzzling to me, that he didn’t ever call them back and that didn’t raise a red flag with them. They had plenty of time over the 13 years to run backgrounds, especially of those local customers – plenty of time.”

 

“There were a lot more people on that Superbike list that we never talked to,” Wright said Thursday in an interview with The Greenville News. “We ran the backgrounds and nobody fit the profile or suggested they could kill four people, with any of the backgrounds. I talked to Todd Kohlhepp, and he indicated that had we talked to him at first, anyway, he’d have never been found around here again. There were other people on that customer list that we sent a generic letter to, saying, ‘Hey, we’d love for you to come in here and talk to us,’ and he along with a lot more people never responded.”

 

Does the Confession Match the Evidence?

❖Kohlhepp is able to provide a very detailed account of the murders

❖In the documentary, you can actually hear him tell the story

❖He says that he had bought a bike from them and it had been stolen.

“I was inexperienced and I thought it was a bad decision and maybe wanted to trade for maybe a 600 (motorcycle),” Kohlhepp said according to a statement dictated to Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Tom Clark around 8 p.m. on Nov. 5. “They were rude to me about how to ride a bike. They droped (sic) it off at the apartment, so they knew where it was stored. Two to three days later it was stolen. I made a police report. Insurance came out. I lost a $1,000 deductible.”

He reported the blue-and-white motorcycle with a black stripe stolen 13 days later and told neighbors that he suspected the bike shop was involved.

❖After a few months he decided he wanted a motorcycle again

➢When he went back to the shop he claims an employee implied they were involved in the theft of the first bike – He said he “let it slide for the time being” but he kept going out and sitting on the bikes and listening to the owner and manager “talk trash.” He said he got mad about it and returned to the shop with the intention to kill them. He waited until other customers were gone and for one of the team members to be there. He didn’t realize Beverly was there and said she wasn’t a “primary target.” He talked a lot about how he didn’t like to kill women.

❖The types of bullets Kohlhepp explains using match (both nickel and brass)

➢He was specific about what kind of bullets he used and where, but this part was wrong

❖The placement of bodies was off

❖Said he shot everyone in the forehead, but while people were shot in the head no one was shot in the forehead

 

So Did He Do It?

❖While there are things that don’t exactly match with his account of the murders, the case is now closed and he plead guilty for it

❖Police say that while some details are different it had been 13 years and he could be misremembering or trying to make himself come off bigger and badder by telling the story the way he did

❖He also may not have been as organized of a killer as he was by 2016

❖John Douglas analyzed the case and agrees that Kohlhepp is guilty

❖He says that this case is different than many other serial killer cases because it was clearly a revenge killing rather than a fantasy killing

***END OF PART 2***

 

Sources: All Accessed November 2022.

The Superbike Murders: A Senseless Crime Solved 13 Years Later https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/the-superbike-murders

Superbike Motorsports Murders https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Superbike_Motorsports_Murders

Beverly Elaine Rogers Guy https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/113588505/beverly-elaine-guy

Scott Dean Ponder https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/113588261/scott-dean-ponder

Brian Thomas Lucas https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/64970691/brian-thomas-lucas/photo

Christopher Michael “Shubie” Sherbert https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/46209713/christopher-michael-sherbert/photo

For Lucas, It was All About Speed https://www.independentmail.com/story/news/2016/11/06/lucas-all-speed/93405516/

Ponder Died with a Chile On the Way https://www.independentmail.com/story/news/2016/11/06/ponder-died-child-way/93406628/

Wife of One of the Victims of Suspected Serial Killer Says She Can Finally Heal https://people.com/crime/todd-kohlhepps-victim-scott-ponder-wife-melissa-brackman/

In new TV special, serial killer Todd Kohlhepp says public knows only 10% of his crimes https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/2019/07/22/sc-serial-killer-todd-kohlhepp-tv-show-id-channel/1795788001/

Todd Kohlhepp and Superbike: Doubts, no doubt, how and why https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/crime/2017/06/16/todd-kohlhepp-superbike-victims/401692001/

Superbike murders details released; photos, interviews https://www.wspa.com/news/superbike-murders-details-released-photos-interviews/

Serial Killers and the Essential Role of Fantasy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wicked-deeds/201410/serial-killers-and-the-essential-role-fantasy

 

 

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