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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast, the podcast dedicated to serial killers. Episode 118. I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Weyborg Thun. As the coronavirus spreads its tentacles across the Western world, I sit here in my home office typing up tales of humanity's underbelly.
As I've said in previous episodes, it is important to have things to keep one's mind off how awful our world is at the moment. And the Serial Killer podcast is my humble contribution to that. And so it is that I hope you, dear listener, stay safe while hopefully enjoying listening to me tell you another dark tale of serial murder. Our subject tonight is
is a contemporary one he spread terror sorrow and death over many years until his final capture just over three years ago in august of twenty sixteen
As you might know, modern serial killers tend to not be given nicknames by the press anymore. Perhaps the journalists have come to the realization that giving killers nicknames feeds their ego and spurs them on to even darker acts of depravity. Gone are the days of Son of Sam, the Zodiac Killer, and Jack the Ripper.
Our murderer has only been known as his given name, Todd Christopher Colep, and he raped, tortured, and murdered at least seven human beings. This is his saga. Enjoy. If you can afford a cup of coffee from your local cafe, consider donating the same amount on patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast to support the show.
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Imagine if you will, dear listener, the great state of Florida on the 7th of March, 1971.
The town is Fort Lauderdale, and in the early 70s it was quite different than the vibrant and multicultural place it is today. Refugees from Castro's communist dictatorship had only recently started to arrive en masse. Its beaches had only ten years prior been desegregated, and thus it was still very much part of the Deep South.
The dark specter of Ted Bundy had not yet cast its shadow over the state of Florida either. This would not occur until seven years later. On this particular night, however, something did arrive there that indeed would spell the doom of at least seven human beings.
The birth of Todd Christopher Colap to parents Regina and William Samsell. His parents had a troubled marriage and divorced when Todd was still a baby.
For many years following that, Todd had no contact with his biological father. His mother married another man when Todd was just three years of age, and his stepfather made his adoption legal in 1976. By then, the family had moved away from Florida to Georgia, and eventually South Carolina. Todd was a troubled boy after his parents divorced,
But Regina tried to maintain a sense of normalcy for Todd. She and others saw him as an intelligent child who read the encyclopedia and would often sit on her lap as she read the newspaper comic strips to him. But Todd would not get along with his stepfather. The reason he didn't get along with his stepfather was that his stepfather beat him brutally quite regularly.
His mother didn't like her son being abused like that, so she tried to divorce her husband, but still ended up with him anyway. Over the years, Todd, unsurprisingly, expressed his increasing desire to live with his biological father. This desire would not be realized for many years, however, and he started acting out in deviant ways early on.
For example, he would physically attack other children in nursery school and tear up their belongings. By the age of nine, he was already in therapy. He had both a hair-trigger temper and an abnormal preoccupation with sex.
His anger towards his mother, whom he saw as weak and the source of his misery, increased, and he would often do things to her that affected her in a negative way. Any time she did something he didn't like, which was frequent, he would find a way to gain revenge. On one occasion, he would stuff bath towels down the toilet and flood the entire house.
His mother soon grew tired of this behavior, and she knew there was something very wrong with her son, something darker than just the tantrums of a child from a broken home. Todd had an inability to process anger in the same way a normal person learns to do. His mother was at a loss, as both therapy and her well-meaning attitude had no effect on the young boy.
His anger and deviant behavior only grew, and she feared what would become of him. Like most serial killers, Todd's aggression didn't stop with his fellow schoolchildren. He would take his anger out on animals, as he would go out and shoot birds, cats, and dogs with his BB gun. On one occasion, he was given a gift of a goldfish in a fishbowl. He pretended as if he liked the fish,
then promptly poured Clorax bleach into the bowl, taking a sadistic pleasure in watching the goldfish die before him. When asked why in the world he had done such a thing, he answered that he didn't want a goldfish. He wanted a gerbil. Todd was growing into a person incapable of expressing anything other than anger. The therapy sessions were not working.
and Todd was sent to Georgia Mental Institution for three months because he simply could not get along with his other classmates. He hit other children and destroyed his bedroom with a hammer after his mother had bought him a new bedroom set that he did not like. He often threatened to kill himself.
Probably he did so just because he saw how horribly this affected his mother, not due to any real intent to end his life. When Todd was 12 years old, his mother and stepfather finally did get divorced. Todd was sent to Arizona to live with his biological father that he had not seen since he was two years old. This was Todd's greatest dream come true.
For the first time in a long time, he expressed genuine happiness. He would change his last name to his father's and would eventually begin working odd jobs around the town. But his father didn't seem to be a calming influence. Instead, he may have served to exacerbate some of Todd's violent tendencies.
His father would collect guns and knives, teaching Todd how to, quote-unquote, blow things up and make bombs. But neither the gun hobby nor a decade-long desire to connect with his real father was enough to make their reunion a happy father-and-son experience. Todd wanted to spend time with his father. Todd wanted to spend time with his father.
But his old man had numerous girlfriends and little time to deal with a troublesome kid. His lifelong delusion of a father who wanted him was thus utterly destroyed. More disillusioned than ever, he went back to live with his mother again. But she didn't want him either. She would make numerous excuses to back out of taking her son back.
His father suggested that he be put up for adoption. Let us pause for a second, dear listener. Just try to imagine how that must feel. You have experienced a household full of anger, hate, violence and conflict since the day you were born. Your father abandoned you when you were a toddler and your stepfather abuses you violently.
You act out, but this results in more beatings and more abuse. And when you reconnect with your father, he doesn't want you. At all. So you return to your mother, but now she doesn't want you either. No one wants you. You have little to no friends. All you feel are loss and anger and marginalization. You are twelve years old. Now, I'm no psychologist.
But even I can see that Todd's childhood was very much a recipe for disaster. Todd would emerge from his childhood a mess of trauma, anger, and probably a severe personality disorder. And it would not take long for this potent mix to result in violence.
At the age of 15, Todd would kidnap a 14-year-old girl in Tempe, Arizona, on the 25th of November, 1986. He had a teenage crush on the girl, but she rejected his advances, wanting only to be friends. Today, many would say that he got so-called friend-zoned.
Instead of leaving it at that, the girl went on to say that she had a crush on one of his classmates. This, combined with her rejection of him, set him into a jealous rage. He was acquainted with her family. So, one night he went to her house and inquired with the girl's parents to see if they were going to be home.
They stated they were about to leave, and seeing an opportunity to be alone with his object of desire, he waited until the girl's parents left. Todd went to the girl's home and lured her outside. Taking his unsuspecting classmate around to an alley, he put his father's .22 caliber revolver to her head and walked her back to his home, where his father had left him alone earlier.
He pulled the trigger on the gun to scare the girl into submission, but it misfired. Terrified, the girl complied with Todd as he forced her back to his house. Todd would tie her up on his bed, duct tape her mouth shut and place a knife next to her with the warning that if she screamed, he would kill her.
Having her secure and immobilized, he took off all his clothes, went into bed with her and started to anally rape her without lube. This caused the young girl extreme pain and there was blood. After doing this for a while, he finished by raping her vaginally. After he completed the rape by ejaculating, he took on his clothes again and ripped off her duct tape.
First telling her to take on her clothes again and stop crying, he proceeded to walk her home with an ominous warning. If she told anyone what had happened, he would murder the girl's six-year-old and three-year-old siblings. But the girl's six-year-old brother had called the police anyway, telling them that his sister was missing.
A policewoman arrived, waiting at the home until the girl came through the back door, disheveled and distraught. The girl talked, knowing Todd only as Todd Samsell, his father's last name. Todd was immediately arrested at his home. He remained emotionless as he was taken into custody, asking the officer what's going to happen to me and how much am I going to get.
He would be charged with kidnapping, sexual assault and committing a dangerous crime against children. Todd stated that he raped the girl because he was angry at his father. He would plead guilty to the kidnapping charge, but the sexual assault charge was dropped, probably to save the state money by avoiding a costly trial. The case was moved from juvenile court to adult court.
Todd was sentenced to 15 years in prison and forced to register as a sex offender. The judge in the case, C. Kimball Rose, saw Todd as a lost cause. The judge said, and I quote, At less than the age of nine, this juvenile was impulsive, explosive, and preoccupied with sexual content.
He has not changed. He has been unabatedly aggressive to others and destructive of property since nursing school. He destroys his own clothing, personal possessions, and pets apparently on whim and caprice. Approximately six years of intervention in fifteen years of life have resulted in abysmal failure.
Twenty-five months of the most intensive and expensive professional intervention, short of God's will, provide no protection for the public and no rehabilitation of this juvenile by any services or facilities presently available to the court. End quote. In prison, he had a few minor scrapes with other inmates, but for the most part he served his time uneventfully.
He actually made serious productive use of the time inside, completing a bachelor's degree in computer science from Central Arizona College, which would prove to be very useful upon his later release on the 1st of August 2001.
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For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night. For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it.
But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Everyone needs someone to talk to, even psychopaths, even your humble host.
Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. As many felons do, upon their release, Todd moved back to the town where his mother lived. One thing you could say about Todd Colep is that he was not stupid.
He had, in his youth, been given an IQ test by the government, and it showed he had an IQ of 118, which is above average. But, as you know, the Alicenna, IQ is not everything. Todd had a keenly developed sense for business and enterprise. While most felons end up dependent on welfare and odd jobs after release,
He managed to secure a job as a graphic designer with Seven Sons and Company in Spartanburg. He stayed with them for just under two years until he decided he needed more formal qualifications. He had managed to save up some money and thus enrolled in Greenville Technical College in 2003, where he acquired a real estate license and started working as a real estate agent.
He lied about the felony charge of sexual assault on his application. Otherwise, he would not be able to obtain the license. Knowing his activities after prison, one would think that Todd was really working on getting his life on the straight and narrow. However, as with many other serial killers, Todd was a master of manipulation and subterfuge.
carefully developed a mask of respectability after his release. He got a steady job, his own place, and worked on building his personal wealth and career. But on the inside, his rage was building. It was worse than ever. Prison life had hardened him even more. And while he had been able to bully peers in junior high school and on the streets,
This was far from the case in prison. There he found people who ate non-athletic white boys like him for breakfast, and he had been forced to lay very low for almost fifteen years. Despite his veneer of decency after prison, he was in fact a walking time bomb.
And that bomb would go off at Superbike Motorsports in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, on the 6th of November, 2003. Superbike Motorsports was a motorcycle shop owned by Scott Ponder. Brian Lucas was the service manager, while the mechanic was a man named Chris Sherbert.
The shop's bookkeeper and the mother of Scott Ponder was Beverly Guy. Todd Colette had frequented the shop many times, always complaining about something. I was told he was a disgruntled customer. Melissa Brackman, the widow of Scott Ponder, recalled, and I quote, He bought a motorcycle from Scott previously. His motorcycle was stolen. He went to get another one.
My husband and the service manager were poking fun at him, saying, Hey, is the second motorcycle going to get stolen too? Didn't you have enough already? They were kidding, and he said that made him angry. That is the kind of thing that a normal everyday person wouldn't go crazy over. End quote. Todd wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle, and they laughed at him when he fell over on the bike.
The employees sent him on a trial ride over a field, but Todd couldn't keep his balance and repeatedly fell over. This cracked the employees up, and they laughed and taunted him to his face, at least according to Todd himself. Todd, now having lost all interest in having a motorcycle, wanted to give the motorcycle back and get a refund.
Lucas refused to give him his money back and ridiculed him for not knowing how to ride a motorcycle. And if there was one thing Todd couldn't stand at all, especially after 15 years behind bars being pushed around by fellow inmates, it was ridicule. The owner said they could take the bike back, but no refund would be forthcoming. Enraged, Todd left the store.
but returned with his gun. He entered the shop from the back door, killing mechanic Sherbert first. He then shot Beverly Guy outside the bathroom and Lucas at the main doorway. He would save Scott Ponder for last, shooting him dead in the store parking lot.
The slaughter of four innocent people at the Superbike Motorsports was indeed a turning point in Todd Colep's life. He had finally crossed the line from murderous fantasy into actual murder, and he liked it. There were no witnesses left alive, and thus he would remain free for many years to come. He went on with his life,
doing business as usual, as if nothing had happened. He developed an interest in flying and would receive his private pilot license from the Federal Aviation Administration on the 25th of March, 2006. Knowing he had to get more business qualifications to properly run a company,
He enrolled in the University of South Carolina, where he would earn another bachelor degree, this time in business administration with a specialization in marketing. He did this while working full-time. His extroverted nature would allow him to become one of the top performing salesmen for his region. He would charm customers with his jolly good-old-boy persona.
but his clients would sometimes complain about how he would go off on tangents about guns and slip in sexual innuendo into their conversation. After getting his second bachelor's degree, he started his own company called TKA Real Estate in 2008. The slogan on the company's website was, and I quote,
One company, one focus, results, end quote. Todd would work out of his home and would employ more than a dozen agents during his eight years in business. But his workplace wasn't exactly home sweet home. Todd would treat his fellow agents with disdain and condescension while retreating to his back office to watch pornography.
He was not a nice guy, said Yvonne Goodwin, who ran display ads for properties Colab listed for sale. He pretty much yelled and cussed my teammates out over the phone when he would speak to her. He was just very condescending. End quote. His clients knew nothing of his past sexual offender status. They gave him complete access to their home, showing it off to prospective buyers.
One client recalled Colab becoming very frustrated after talking on the phone with some prospective buyers and that he was always whining and complaining about having to go collect rent from what he called deadbeats. Roberta Shaughnessy, a client of Colab, is quoted as saying he would say, ''I'm just gonna shoot my guns and blow off steam.''
She stated further that he would say all these things in such a sarcastic way that you never knew if he was joking or not. Still, the money came rolling in, and in May of 2014, he purchased his first home for $305,000.
This would be a farm that occupied nearly 100 acres, replete with a huge two-story barn and shed. Todd placed a fence around the property, which tallied over $80,000 in construction costs. Finally,
Todd had created his own little fiefdom, a place he could call his own, where no one would humiliate him, and everyone, unlucky enough to find themselves, would be forced to do his bidding. And if they didn't, he knew exactly what to do about that as well.
Whoa, easy there. Yeah.
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The next episode, number 119, will continue the tale of Colab's life and crimes. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. This podcast would not be possible if it had not been for my dear patrons, who pledge their hard-earned money every month. There are especially a few of those patrons I would like to thank in person.
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If you like this podcast, you can support it by donating on patreon.com slash theserialkillarpodcast, by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, facebook.com slash theskpodcast, or by posting on the subreddit theskpodcast. Thank you, good night, and good luck.