Welcome to (the middle of) October, readers! Where my True Crime fans at?! You may not find these stories on Spotify, but they are definitely worth mentioning as we head into the season of creepy content.
Poisoning the Pastor
Meet Julia Mae and Dean Smith. They were married in 1927 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. They separated a total of ten times in the first six years they were married before Dean turned over a new leaf and “found God.” He was ordained as a minister and within a year was pastoring two small churches in the Upstate. This caused a lot of tension in the marriage. Dean felt that she wasn’t supportive, “…not the kind of wife a minister should have.” After another failed attempt to save the marriage, Dean took Julia Mae back to her mother’s in 1938. Weird, right? We’re not advocating returning your spouse to his/her parents if you’re not happy! One morning, while there, Dean woke up and drank his morning glass of milk. Not long after, he began experiencing unbearable stomach pain. Doctors diagnosed him with food poisoning. Dean had been treated for this several times before (sounds a little fishy). He was convinced his wife poisoned him.
Four years later, Dean joined another pastor, Reverend J. Harold Smith, in a service of about 1,500 people. Julia Mae was in that audience. During the service, Smith pointed to Reverend Dean, behind him on stage, and said, “I don’t blame him for not living with his wife; she poisoned him.” Julia Mae, livid, told Reverend Smith to “take that back!” He refused and said he fully believed it to be true. Smith claimed Dr. Cash, the family physician, believed that as well. She sued him for slander AND WON! Julia Mae was awarded actual and punitive damages totaling $850 (about $16,000 today). Reverend Smith filed an appeal, but it was denied.
Fun Fact: Strom Thurmond served on the State Appellate Court for Smith’s appeal.
Todd Kohlhepp, aka the “Amazon Review Killer,” wasn’t your typical little boy. In a mental hospital by the time he was nine, he was described as angry and combative. He was the product of a very dysfunctional, abusive family. Todd’s parents were divorced and his mother remarried a number of times. Kohlhepp eventually moved to Arizona to live with his father. In Nov. 1986, while his father was away (his father was away a LOT), Todd forced his young neighbor to his house and raped her at gunpoint. He walked her home and threatened to kill her and her family if she told anyone. The girl’s brother called 911. Todd was arrested and diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. He was released in 2001, after serving fifteen years in prison. Kohlhepp moved back to Spartanburg, where he eventually obtained his real estate license. In 2003, he attempted to return a motorcycle to a local bike shop. He claimed the associates laughed at him for having to return the bike. Todd came back the next day with a gun and killed the four associates behind the counter. His crime went unsolved for over a decade. During this time, he was living as a successful real estate agent and even had his own firm. Are you kidding me? This is so bizarre!
Fast forward to 2016, when a local missing couple’s phones pinged at Kohlhepp’s 95 acre property in Woodruff, SC (pictured above). They found the missing woman chained in a shipping container. Upon further investigation, they also located the remains of another local couple who disappeared the previous year. Sadly, only the girl in the container survived. Kolhepp was arrested and confessed to the four bike shop murders. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. I watched the Amazon Review Killer documentary on Fox Nation. The fact that this creep basically lived in our backyard makes it even more disturbing. He graduated from U of SC Upstate a few years behind one of my best friends. The property where he buried the bodies is down the road from her house. Kolhepp was known as the Amazon Review Killer because he was constantly purchasing padded locks, shovels, chain saws, etc. on Amazon and writing reviews. Not normal reviews, but suggesting outlandish ways to use them. If only investigators had looked!
Did You Know?
Visitors won’t find the following fact on the cover of the town guide. In 1975, Greenville was known as the Murder Capital of South Carolina! That year, the city experienced a significant spike in homicides. When asked, “what is the most serious crime problem facing Greenville County,” Sheriff (at the time) Cash Williams answered, “larceny is the highest number of incidents and breaking and entering is number two.”
Funny how he didn’t mention murder. Maybe because people might learn that HE, and his team of officers, were implicated in the murders of Frank Looper, head narcotics investigator, and his father in their garage on Pendleton Street. The letter that implicated Williams was written by a woman he was allegedly having an affair with. That’s another story for another day! You’ll have to do your own research and decide what you believe to be true. Enter “Sheriff Cash Williams” in your Google search engine at your own risk!
Stay tuned for more October stories…