How a Retired Couple Found Kentucky Highway Shooter's Body

'For one week we turned into bounty hunters'
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Sep 20, 2024 1:30 AM CDT
How a Kentucky Couple Found Highway Shooter's Body
In this photo made from video provided by Sheila and Fred McCoy shows the couple while searching for the remains of a suspected highway shooter in London, Ky., Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024.   (Sheila and Fred McCoy via AP)

Days after a shooter attacked an interstate and disappeared, leaving a Kentucky community scared and on guard, Fred and Sheila McCoy decided to lace up their boots for the first time in a long time and spend days in rugged terrain searching until, finally, they found a body. Kentucky State Police credited Fred and Sheila McCoy, who typically spend their retired days creating YouTube videos about the Hatfield-McCoy feud, with helping investigators find what they believe are the remains of Joseph Couch, the 32-year-old suspected of firing randomly at vehicles on Interstate 75 on Sept. 7, wounding five people, the AP reports. The person believed to be Couch died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, said Kentucky's chief medical examiner.

"For one week we turned into bounty hunters," Fred McCoy told the Associated Press on Thursday. "The more we was watching the news and saw lockdowns and school closings, the more we were compelled to search for him." In a 30-minute YouTube livestream Wednesday, the McCoys are filming in dense woods after they see vultures in the air, and Sheila McCoy says she can smell a foul odor. "Oh, Lord, this is nasty. Oh, my goodness, this is gross," Sheila says while warning her husband to watch out for snakes. At the end of the video, they discover the remains. "Hey, guys, you won't believe it, we found him, oh, my goodness gracious," Sheila McCoy says in the video.

Police were also searching the area, and the couple identified themselves to officers about 12 minutes before they found the remains. They'd also warned police and friends they'd be there, and were livestreaming on YouTube in case something went wrong, Fred McCoy said. "We didn't know we was going to find him like that," he said. "We could've found him with a gun pointed at us." The McCoys live a couple of counties away from where the shooter attacked. They hadn't gone on a hike in the woods in a long time—Sheila, 59, had previously had back surgery and her husband, 66, had knee surgery—but they decided after a Friday night date to help in the search, said Fred McCoy, himself a retired police officer. The couple will receive the $25,000 reward that was being offered for the find.

(More Kentucky stories.)

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