Current:Home > ScamsAcademy Sports is paying $2.5 million to families of a serial killer’s victims for illegal gun sales -Wealth Nexus Pro
Academy Sports is paying $2.5 million to families of a serial killer’s victims for illegal gun sales
View
Date:2025-04-13 05:55:27
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A sporting goods chain is paying the families of three people shot to death by a South Carolina serial killer $2.5 million after one of its stores sold guns to a straw buyer who gave them to the killer, a felon who couldn’t legally buy the weapons.
At times, Todd Kohlhepp stood near the buyer, picking out guns at Academy Sports Outdoors to be purchased for him, the families said in a lawsuit that led to the settlement.
Academy Sports asked that the amount of the settlement be kept confidential because it could encourage other lawsuits, but a judge ruled it didn’t make much of a difference because the case had attracted so much publicity already, and that the public had a right to know how it turned out. The estates of the victims will split the settlement.
Kohlhepp pleaded guilty in 2017 to killing seven people — three on his property in Spartanburg County and four others about 12 years earlier at a motorcycle shop. In between the killings, he ran a real estate business. He is serving life without parole.
Before the shootings, Kohlhepp had been barred from having guns because he was a convicted felon. He moved to South Carolina in 2001 shortly after spending 14 years in prison on a kidnapping conviction in Arizona. Authorities there said the then-15-year-old boy forced a 14-year-old neighbor back to his home at gunpoint, tied her up and raped her.
To obtain his guns, Kohlhepp used Dustan Lawson to make a straw purchase.
Lawson signed paperwork saying the 12 guns and five silencers he bought between 2012 and 2016 were were for himself and then gave them to Kohlhepp, according to a federal indictment against Lawson. The lawsuit said at least seven of the weapons were bought at Academy Sports.
“Those suppressors were bought legally for about three minutes,” Kohlhepp said, laughing in a videotaped interview with investigators shortly after his November 2016 arrest.
Lawson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison.
He told federal investigators that Kohlhepp mentioned killing four people at a motorcycle shop and kidnapping a woman and her boyfriend so he could keep her as a sex slave, but said he didn’t believe it because Kohlkhepp was always telling wild stories.
In his interviews with deputies, Kohlhepp called Lawson a “32-year-old lazy kid who never had a daddy.” A deputy asked if Lawson bought Kohlhepp’s guns.
“Yes, sir. And then I modified the hell out of them,” Kohlhepp replied.
Kohlhepp was arrested after a woman’s cellphone pinged its last signal from his property. Deputies found her chained inside a storage container. She told them her boyfriend had been killed and that led to finding the bodies of another man and woman. Kohlhepp said he sexually abused that woman for six days before killing her on Christmas 2015.
Kohlhepp then confessed to killing the owner of the Superbike motorcycle shop and three employees in November 2003 because he thought they made fun of him, authorities said.
veryGood! (349)
Related
- Newly elected West Virginia lawmaker arrested and accused of making terroristic threats
- There's a new COVID-19 variant and cases are ticking up. What do you need to know?
- Endangered jaguar previously unknown to U.S. is caught on camera in Arizona
- A ‘highly impactful’ winter storm is bearing down on the middle of the US
- 'No Good Deed': Who's the killer in the Netflix comedy? And will there be a Season 2?
- Apple to begin taking pre-orders for Vision Pro virtual reality headsets
- Gaza cease-fire protests block New York City bridges, and over 300 are arrested
- Missouri secretary of state is safe after shooting falsely reported at his home
- What to know about Tuesday’s US House primaries to replace Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz
- Alaska Airlines and United cancel hundreds of flights following mid-air door blowout
Ranking
- NFL Week 15 picks straight up and against spread: Bills, Lions put No. 1 seed hopes on line
- Purdue still No. 1, Houston up to No. 2 in USA TODAY Sports men's basketball poll
- Worker-owed wages: See the top companies, professions paying out the most unclaimed back wages
- How an animated character named Marlon could help Trump win Iowa’s caucuses
- 2 killed, 3 injured in shooting at makeshift club in Houston
- How you treat dry skin can also prevent it. Here’s how to do both.
- Taiwan’s defense ministry issues an air raid alert saying China has launched a satellite
- Airlines say they found loose parts in door panels during inspections of Boeing Max 9 jets
Recommendation
Why Sean "Diddy" Combs Is Being Given a Laptop in Jail Amid Witness Intimidation Fears
Cable car brought down by fallen tree in Austrian skiing area, injuring 4 people on board
Nicholas Alahverdian extradited to US four years after faking his death. What to know.
Four premature babies die in hospital fire in Iraq
North Carolina trustees approve Bill Belichick’s deal ahead of introductory news conference
Guatemala’s president-elect announces his Cabinet ahead of swearing-in
IRS announces January 29 as start of 2024 tax season
Rays shortstop Wander Franco released from Dominican jail amid ongoing investigation