A remote South Carolina area already best known for a serial killer who kept a woman chained by her neck to a metal shipping crate is home to yet another killer, and both were reportedly stalking their victims at the same time.
On Monday, Markius Yeargin was arrested in connection with the murder of Henrietta Crawford, 34, whose burned body was found behind a Greenville County, South Carolina, Waffle House restaurant in early November. A Fox Carolina report indicated that Crawford’s family believed she have still been alive when she was burned.
Murder Victim Buried Behind Waffle House https://t.co/exk0lw2KbK via @josephjett pic.twitter.com/j11tnD7mPy
— Summer Blandings (@SummerBlandings) February 22, 2017
According to The Daily Beast, Yeargin, 28, had kidnapped and violently assaulted two other women in October and November, but Crawford is the first known victim who was murdered. Yeargin had been arrested on November 18 for the previous crimes, but it was months before police connected him to the grisly murder.
Investigators were able to sort through various pieces of evidence and ultimately charged Yeargin with Murder, Kidnapping and Obstructing Justice,” the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office told The Daily Beast in a statement.
Just three days before Crawford was found, detectives discovered Kala Brown inside a metal storage crate on the property of Todd Kohlhepp, an area real estate agent who had lured Brown and her boyfriend Charles Carver to his home with the promise of a cleaning job. As soon as the couple arrived in late August, Kohlhepp allegedly shot and killed Carver in front of his girlfriend, and then chained Brown by her neck inside a dark metal crate, raping her on a daily basis, for over two months before she was rescued.
Investigators traced the couple’s cell phones to the property and were searching it when they heard Brown banging from inside the container.
READ also: Kala Brown held captive for months by serial killer who murdered boyfriend
After his arrest, Kohlhepp reportedly told police that he had killed seven people. According to The Daily Beast, police discovered the bodies of Meagan and Johnny Coxie on his property on November 7, and investigators believe he may have lured them there the same way he did Brown and her boyfriend, with the promise of a job.
Megan Coxie reportedly worked as a waitress at a Waffle House where Todd Kohlhepp was a regular, though not the same Waffle House where Crawford was found — the restaurants are about a 30 minute drive apart.
Despite some of the similarities between the alleged killers’ patterns, there does not appear to be any connection between Kohlhepp and Yeargin.
Photo: “Finding Kala and Charlie” Facebook page
