A Kentucky couple said what started as an “idea for an evening together” turned into a multi-day bounty hunt that led them to the body of a suspected shooter.
The body is believed to be that of Joseph Couch, who was wanted for a rampage on a highway earlier this month. An official identification has not yet been made.
Police spent 11 days combing dense bushland in search of Couch and offered a $35,000 (£26,000) reward for information leading to his capture.
Fred and Sheila McCoy had been live streaming for six days when they made their discovery.
“We saw a bunch of vultures,” McCoy told local television station WKYT on Wednesday. “When someone’s dead, there are vultures. Follow the vultures.”
Five or six birds circled the area as they approached, and the pair were quickly overwhelmed by the foul stench of a decomposing body.
“You won’t believe this,” Ms McCoy can be heard saying on the YouTube livestream. “Oh my goodness.”
At about the same time that the McCoys stumbled upon the body, two Kentucky State Police officers were attracted to the scene by the smell and sight of circling scavengers.
In a statement Wednesday, the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office said it had found a body believed to be Couch.
The State Medical Examiner’s Office in Frankfort is conducting an autopsy to confirm his identity.
Authorities said Couch, 32, texted a woman before the shooting, promising: “I’m going to kill a lot of people. Well, at least try.”
According to an arrest warrant, he recently purchased an AR-15 assault rifle and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
On the evening of September 7, Couch is said to have fired shots at a dozen vehicles on a cliff above Interstate 75 (I-75) in Laurel County, about nine miles from the city of London in southeastern Kentucky, and then fled into the woods.
At least five drivers were injured, one was shot in the face and another was shot across the chest.
Police closed the highway and found the suspect’s vehicle abandoned near a side road off of Exit 49 of the highway.
Police found Couch’s phone and gun in the car and named him as the suspected shooter later that day, but were unable to immediately locate him in the vast, dense wilderness surrounding I-75.
Over the next 11 days, dozens of officers with drones, dogs and helicopters spread across the Daniel Boone National Forest — an area larger than Los Angeles and New York City combined.
In some cases, they had to use machetes to cut through dense undergrowth in remote terrain that includes caves and sinkholes.
The manhunt caused great fear among the population. Classes were cancelled in several school districts and shops and businesses closed their doors.
The McCoys said they joined the search to earn a share of the reward, but also to bring a sense of normalcy back to the community.
“You have to understand, this guy has stressed the community,” McCoy told CNN. “Now everyone can rest.”
Investigators said Wednesday they wish they could have found Couch alive, but community members can “rest much more at ease now that this manhunt is over.”
“We are very confident that the search for Joseph Couch is now complete,” said Police Commissioner Phillip Burnett Jr.
He confirmed that the McCoys would receive a full reward.
According to his website, Mr. McCoy has a background in law enforcement. After high school, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps and later served as police chief in central Kentucky.
His wife worked as a kindergarten teacher for almost three decades.
Mr. McCoy says he comes from a family that was in a bitter blood feud with the rival Hatfield family in Appalachia after the Civil War.
The story inspired books, live shows and a miniseries on the History Channel starring Kevin Costner.
Until recently, the McCoys operated a small museum in the town of Liberty, which they said contained the largest privately owned collection of Hatfield and McCoy artifacts, collectibles and memorabilia.
