Manhunt for Kentucky shooting suspect cancels classes as authorities urge people to be on high alert
Authorities in Kentucky vowed Monday to keep searching for a man suspected of wounding five people in a shooting on an interstate over the weekend. The manhunt for Joseph A. Couch, 32, stretched into a third day, forcing some schools to cancel classes in the rural area after a dozen vehicles were hit by gunfire Saturday.
Authorities have been searching a rugged, hilly area of southeastern Kentucky since Saturday evening, when a shooter began firing at drivers on Interstate 75 near London, a small city of about 8,000 people located about 75 miles south of Lexington.
State police Master Trooper Scottie Pennington, a spokesman for the London state police post, expressed hope that the search would be resolved quickly.
"Our goal is to apply steady pressure at wearing Mr. Couch down," Pennington told reporters during a news briefing. "… You know, last night, it had got pretty chilly, and today, it's got kinda humid and hot. Hopefully, he has no water and nothing to eat."
Pennington said search teams with dogs on the ground, cars on the interstate and helicopters and drones overhead were all being used to search the area in and around the Daniel Boone National Forest.
"Hopefully he'll eventually just walk out of the woods and give himself up," Pennington said.
With Couch still at large, numerous area school districts canceled classes for Monday. Pennington urged area residents to lock doors, keep porch lights on and monitor security cameras. The search was focused on a remote area about 8 miles north of London.
"If you're uncomfortable or you think somebody's outside your home, call 911," London Mayor Randall Weddle told CBS affiliate WKYT-TV on Monday. "... With the amount of units that's here, somebody's going to get to you and they're going to get to you quickly."
Weddle told the station an anonymous donor has offered to pay $10,000 for any information leading to the suspect's arrest.
"This is a serious issue, this guy is extremely dangerous," Weddle told WKYT-TV. "... Maybe he has reached out to somebody that's a friend and they're just not saying anything, but maybe the $10,000 will get them to want to start speaking."
Separately, the Kentucky State Police announced a $5,000 reward in the case for a total of $15,000.
Authorities also revealed that the suspect allegedly sent a woman a text message Saturday saying that he was going to try to kill "a lot of people" about a half hour before the shooting. The woman contacted authorities to warn them about Couch.
Authorities sought to reassure residents that they believe the suspect will be found.
"We're not going to quit until we do lay hands on him," Laurel County Sheriff John Root said Sunday night.
Fog temporarily delayed the resumption of the search Monday morning, state police said.
Couch was named first as a person of interest and later as a suspect in the shooting after authorities said they recovered his SUV on a service road near the crime scene. They later found a semi-automatic weapon nearby that they believe was used in the shooting, said Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, a spokesperson for the local sheriff's office.
On Sunday, as another day of searching was ending without any sign of the suspect, Acciardo acknowledged the frustration that law enforcement officers and people who live near the search area were feeling.
"As this continues, it becomes more stressful for the community, it becomes more stressful for the officers that are there because we're looking ... and we're trying to find him, and we haven't found him," he said.
Pennington said troopers are being brought in from around the state to aid the manhunt. He described the extensive search area as "walking in a jungle" with machetes needed to cut through thickets of the woods.
Weddle told CBS News the terrain makes the search dangerous.
"It's a lot of jagged rocks, cliffsides, and then there's caves, and some of these caves are very deep, so it makes it very difficult in our search, even for the dogs," Weddle told CBS News correspondent Cristian Benavides.
Acciardo said it appears that the attacker planned the shooting for that location because it is very remote and the terrain is hilly, rocky and hard to navigate.
Authorities said Couch purchased the weapon and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition Saturday morning in London. Couch was in the Army Reserve from 2013 to 2019 as a combat engineer, an Army spokesperson told CBS News. He was a private when his service ended without any deployments.
Authorities initially said nine vehicles were struck by gunfire, but later increased that number to 12, saying some people did not realize their cars had been hit by bullets until they arrived home. They said the gunman fired a total of 20 to 30 rounds.
Couch most recently lived in Woodbine, a small community about 20 miles south of the shooting scene. Acciardo said authorities found his abandoned vehicle Saturday and then an AR-15 rifle on Sunday in a wooded area near a highway where "he could have shot down upon the interstate." A phone believed to be Couch's was also found by law enforcement, but the battery had been taken out.
Some residents of Laurel County were on edge as authorities searched with a drone, helicopter and on foot in a remote and sparsely populated wooded area near the busy interstate.
Cody Shepherd, sipping a bloody mary outdoors while waiting to watch a football game at the Pour Boyz Sports Lounge in London on Sunday, said locals were abuzz with speculation. A resident of London, he was at a party Saturday at a friend's house about 10 miles south of where the shooting occurred.
"We were listening to the police scanners all night," he said, adding they heard sirens and saw a helicopter overhead.
On Sunday, several local churches canceled services. But Rodney Goodlett, pastor of Faith Assembly of God in London, was helping direct traffic as parishioners gathered for a morning service. He expected the search would hold down attendance.
"This is tragic, obviously, that somebody would randomly do violent acts," he said. "You hear media things taking place all around our country, but then when it hits home, it's a little bit of a wake-up call."
Acciardo said authorities are being inundated with tips from the public and are following up on each one in case it could help them find the shooter. When the search has been suspended at night, specially trained officers have been deployed in strategic locations in the woods to prevent the gunman from slipping out of the area.
"We've got to get him," Acciardo said.