A body was found Wednesday that was believed to be that of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month, authorities said. The discovery ended a search that had stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge.
The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that about 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found a body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred. Authorities found items with the body that were believed to belong to the suspect, Burnett said.
“The people of Laurel County can rest easy — much easier — knowing that this manhunt has now come to a conclusion,” he said.
How long the body had been there before it was discovered was unclear, and authorities were investigating the cause of death, Burnett said.
Police have identified the suspect in the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about 8 miles north of London and began shooting at passing vehicles. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were struck by gunfire.
According to a police affidavit in support of arrest warrants, Couch purchased an AR-15-style rifle and 1,000 rounds of ammunition a few hours before the shooting. He then sent a series of alarming text messages, including one that read: “I’m going to kill a lot of people. Well try at least.”
Law enforcement officers responding to reports of the shooting found an SUV registered to Couch at the top of a hill near the highway. Deputy Gilbert Acciardo of the sheriff’s office in Laurel County, which includes London, said an AR-15-style rifle was found the next day at “some distance” from the vehicle.
Officials said they believed that the shooting was planned but that it was not targeted at specific individuals, and that the motive was unclear.
The search began shortly after the shooting, centered in a wooded area near London, a city of about 8,000 people south of Lexington.
Dozens of officers took part in the search, along with search dogs, a helicopter and a drone equipped with an infrared scanner. The search was complicated by the difficult terrain, authorities said, which included caves, rocky slopes and dense vegetation.
Burnett said that on Wednesday, the 12th day of the search, troopers who had been searching in the area all day noticed vultures and a strong odor. While trying to locate the source, the troopers ran into a civilian couple, Shelia and Fred McCoy, who were also in the area looking for Couch, Burnett said. The couple had been documenting their search on YouTube for several days.
The couple will receive a $25,000 reward for their role in locating the body, Burnett said.
For almost two weeks, the fact that the suspect remained unaccounted for had left the community in London anxious. Police warned residents to lock their doors and keep their porch lights on at night. Several schools canceled classes. Football games were called off at some high schools, and police stepped up their presence at others.
Couch served in the Army Reserve as a combat engineer from 2013 to 2019 but was never deployed. According to court records, he had several charges on his criminal record, and was arrested most recently in February. At that time, he was involved in a confrontation with a man who said Couch had thrown a rock at his dog, and had retrieved a rifle from his home, returned outside and threatened to kill the man and his dog. Couch was charged with terroristic threatening.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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