A Kentucky couple claims to have searched the woods for days and discovered a body that was eventually identified as the culprit in the interstate shooting

Kentucky: The district judge inside the courthouse was fatally shot, and Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines was taken into custody on Thursday, according to the Kentucky State Police (KSP). Shots were fired from within the Letcher County Courthouse, prompting authorities to respond around 2:55 p.m. ET, according to a statement from KSP. According to KSP, District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, was found dead at the site after being shot multiple times. According to KSP, a preliminary investigation revealed that Stines shot Mullins during a dispute inside the courtroom.

The shooting on Kentucky’s Interstate 75 by a gunman perched on a cliff’s ledge left five people wounded when he opened fire on twelve cars from the edge of the cliff. The incident rocked the surrounding communities and forced one couple to join the days-long manhunt for the criminal.

Killing lot of people

In the eleven-day manhunt for 32-year-old suspect Joseph Couch, who officials claim texted a lady prior to the killing, saying he intended to “kill a lot of people” and then “kill myself afterwards,” officers combed the vast, rocky wilderness of the Daniel Boone National Forest.

After five days of a fruitless manhunt, Fred and Sheila McCoy ventured into the deep forest to find Couch. Their goals were to restore safety to the town that was shaken by the shooting and to share in the reward that was being offered for information leading to Couch. The Kentucky State Police said that information leading to Couch’s capture might be submitted for a prize of $35,000.

According to state police on Wednesday, the body was discovered close to I-75’s Exit 49 in Laurel County, some 10 miles northwest of London and not far from the scene of the shooting. Authorities had earlier reported that they had discovered an empty gun case inside a car belonging to Couch on a forest service road off Exit 49.

Death by gunshot

Burnett claimed that because of objects connected to Couch that were discovered with the body, investigators initially thought the body belonged to him. Where the body was discovered, Burnett added, was a weapon. According to a news release from state police, DNA taken from the bone allowed for a definitive identification of the body. According to Ralston, the autopsy revealed that Couch self-inflicted a gunshot wound and died.

Although they said the investigation is ongoing, the investigators have not yet revealed a motive for the shooting.
Police said a couple will receive a reward. Voices in the vicinity directed troopers searching for Couch to the civilian pair, who were searching for Couch on their own, according to Burnett.

Couch paid nearly $3,000 for an AR-15 with a sight and 1,000 rounds of ammo that day, according to the arrest warrant. Couch made the purchases lawfully, according to the sheriff’s office.

Couch, who was located in Laurel County, approximately 9 miles north of London, used an AR-15 to shoot 12 cars at 5:30 p.m. on September 7, according to investigators. Couch was positioned atop a cliff’s ledge on the side of the freeway.

Though it took the responding police officers more than a day to identify the gunman because of the vast, densely forested area beside the road, they eventually did. At least two shooting incidents on interstate highways in a week occurred with the incident on I-75.

Following a string of shootings along I-5 in the Seattle and Tacoma areas, five persons in Washington state were injured by gunfire, and one more was struck by flying glass. According to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines mass shootings as incidents in which four or more people are shot, there have been at least 397 mass shootings so far this year, or more than 1.5 mass shootings every day on average.