as manhunt The search for a suspect who opened fire on a Kentucky highway, wounding five people and damaging 12 vehicles, entered its third day Monday, and authorities vowed to keep searching tenaciously as stress levels remain high in rural areas where some schools have canceled classes.
Authorities have been searching the rugged, hilly terrain of southeastern Kentucky since Saturday evening, when a gunman opened fire on drivers on Interstate 75 near London, a small city of 8,000 people about 75 miles south of Lexington.
Several area school districts canceled classes Monday as suspect Joseph A. Couch, 32, remains on the run. State Police Superintendent Scotty Pennington, a spokesman for the London Metropolitan Police, urged residents to lock their doors, turn on their porch lights and monitor their security cameras. The search was focused on a remote area about eight miles north of London.
“If you feel uncomfortable or if you think someone is outside your home, call 911,” London Mayor Randall Weddle told CBS affiliate WKYT-TV on Monday. “… Given the number of units we have here, someone is going to come to you, and they’re going to get to you quickly.”
Weddle told the station that an anonymous donor offered $10,000 for information leading to the suspect’s arrest.
“This is a serious issue. This guy is really dangerous,” Weddle told WKYT-TV. “… Maybe he reached out to someone who’s a friend, and they might not say anything, but maybe $10,000 will get them to start talking.”
Authorities tried to reassure residents that the suspect would be found.
“We’re not going to give up until we catch him,” Laurel County Sheriff John Root said Sunday night.
AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley
State police said the resumption of the search Monday morning was temporarily delayed by fog.
Couch was initially named a person of interest and later a suspect in the shooting after authorities said they recovered his SUV from 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 Achiardo, a spokesman for the local sheriff’s office.
Released via Laurel County Sheriff’s Office/Reuters
As the search continued through the day on Sunday with no sign of the suspect, Archiardo acknowledged the frustration felt by people living near the search sites and law enforcement.
“If this continues, it’s going to be more stressful for the community and the police officers that are there because we’re looking for him and we haven’t found him yet,” he said.
Pennington said troops were being deployed from across the state to help with the search, which he described as “walking through the jungle with machetes to cut through the underbrush.”
Weddle told CBS News that the terrain made the search hazardous.
“There are a lot of rugged rocks and cliffs and caves. Some of the caves are very deep, so it’s very difficult to search them with dogs,” Weddle told CBS News correspondent Christian Benavides.
Archiardo said the attackers appeared to have planned their shooting targeting that location, which is very remote and has hilly and rocky terrain that makes movement difficult.
Authorities said Couch purchased the weapons and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition in London early Saturday morning. Couch served in the Army Reserve as a combat engineer from 2013 to 2019, an Army spokesperson told CBS News. He returned to service as a private immediately after his service ended.
Authorities initially said nine vehicles were hit, but later increased that number to 12, and some people said they didn’t realize their cars had been hit until they got home. They said the gunman fired between 20 and 30 shots.
Couch most recently lived in Woodbine, a small community about 20 miles south of the shooting scene. Archiardo said authorities found his abandoned vehicle Saturday and an AR-15 rifle in a wooded area near the highway Sunday. “He could have fired a gun from there on the interstate.” A phone believed to belong to Couch was also found by law enforcement, but the battery had been removed.
Some Laurel County residents grew anxious as authorities searched remote areas near busy interstates and sparsely populated forested areas by drone, helicopter and on foot.
Cody Shepherd, who was drinking a Bloody Mary outside while waiting to watch a football game at Pour Boyz Sports Lounge in London on Sunday, said the area was abuzz with speculation. The London resident had been at a party at a friend’s house about 10 miles south of where the shooting occurred Saturday.
“We were hearing police calls all night long,” he said, adding that he heard sirens and saw helicopters overhead.
Several local churches canceled services on Sunday, but Rodney Goodlett, pastor of the Faith Assembly of God in London, was helping direct traffic as parishioners gathered for morning services. He expected attendance to be lower because of the search.
“It’s obviously tragic when someone randomly commits a violent act,” he said. “You hear about it happening in the media across our country, but when it hits our homes, it’s a little bit alarming.”
Acciardo said authorities are receiving tips from the public and are tracking them down to see if they can help find the gunman. When the search was called off for the night, specially trained police were deployed at strategic locations in the woods to prevent the gunman from leaving the area.
“We have to catch him,” Archiardo said.
