FRANKFORT, Ky. — A body found in rural southeastern Kentucky is believed to be the man suspected of shooting and wounding five people on an interstate highway, authorities said Wednesday night, Sept. 18.
Kentucky State Police Commissioner Phillip Burnett Jr. said at a news briefing that the body discovered earlier in the day is believed to be Joseph Couch, of Woodbine. Authorities hoped the discovery would end an intense, nearly two-week search that had area residents on edge.
“People have been in fear,” Laurel County Sheriff John Root said. “That’s not the normal here in Laurel County. So now that this has been discovered, I hope that our county can get back to what’s normal.”
Burnett said accessories found with the body led authorities to conclude it is him. He had no details on the cause of death, saying that will be confirmed in an autopsy, but he said a weapon was found at the site.
“I don’t think nobody on this stage wished that we would have found him in the condition that we found,” Rood said at the news conference. “I’d rather he’d been alive, and he could have paid for what he’s done.”
Authorities said the body was found following a lengthy search of the rugged and hilly terrain in the area where the Sept. 7 attack happened.
Investigators were working to identify it, state police Master Trooper Scottie Pennington said earlier in a social media post. It was located in the vicinity of the Interstate 75 exit near London, a city of about 8,000 people about 75 miles south of Lexington.
The highway shootings led some schools to shut down and shift to virtual learning for several days as authorities warned area residents to be vigilant. Schools reopened Tuesday with extra police security in the county where the shooting happened.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has called the shootings an “act of violence and evil.”
A dozen vehicles were struck as the shooter fired 20 to 30 rounds near an interstate exit, creating a chaotic scene. Authorities rushed to the scene after being alerted at about 5:30 p.m. The five victims survived the attack but some suffered serious injuries.
After sending the text message vowing to “kill a lot of people” before the attack, Couch sent another saying, “I’ll kill myself afterwards,” investigators said in an affidavit. The document did not describe the relationship between Couch and the woman who received the texts. However, Couch and the woman have a child together but were never married, according to an attorney who handled the custody arrangement for the couple and their son born in 2016.
Searchers found Couch’s abandoned vehicle near the crime scene and a semi-automatic weapon that investigators believe was used in the shooting. An Army-style duffel bag that was found had “Couch” hand-written in marker, and a phone believed to be Couch’s also was found but the battery had been taken out.
Authorities said he purchased the AR-15 weapon and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition at a London gun store hours before the shooting.
Couch had a military background in the Army Reserve. The U.S. Army said he served from 2013 to 2019 as a combat engineer. He was a private when he left and had no deployments.
The search focused on a densely wooded area about 8 miles north of London that a state police official described as “walking in a jungle.” Aided by helicopters and drones, search teams on the ground contended with cliffs, sinkholes, caves, waterways and thick brush.
Authorities were inundated with tips from the public and followed up on each one. When the ground search was suspended at night, specially trained officers were deployed in strategic locations in the woods to prevent the gunman from slipping out of the area.
On Tuesday, authorities said they were pulling searchers from the woods to bolster patrols in nearby communities in hopes of calming fears among residents.
Police received more than 400 tips since the shooting, with most pointing to areas outside the sprawling forest that was the focus of the search.
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