A couple found the remains of the shooter on the highway in Kentucky by spending a week as bounty hunters, they say

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Days after a gunman attacked and disappeared on a highway, terrifying a Kentucky community, Fred and Sheila McCoy decided to lace up their boots for the first time in a long time and search for days over rugged terrain until they finally found a body.

Kentucky State Police thanked Fred and Sheila McCoy, who normally spend their retirement days creating YouTube videos about the Hatfield-McCoy feud, for helping investigators find what they believe to be the remains of Joseph Couch, 32, who is suspected of randomly shooting at vehicles on Interstate 75 on Sept. 7, wounding five people.

The person believed to be Couch died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Kentucky Chief Medical Examiner Dr. William Ralston said. A DNA test on soft tissue could not definitively determine the body's identity, and an examination of the bones could take up to two days, Ralston said. A toxicology test is also pending.

Local, state and federal police teams had searched tens of thousands of acres of forest since the shooting. Authorities warned residents to be extra vigilant and some schools temporarily switched to online classes.

“For a week we became bounty hunters,” Fred McCoy told the Associated Press on Thursday. “The more we watched the news and heard about curfews and school closings, the stronger our urge to search for him became.”

The discovery of the remains calmed fears in the eastern Kentucky community of London, just miles from where the gunman lurked across the highway and opened fire with an AR-15. State police said Wednesday evening that the McCoys would receive a $25,000 reward for the find.

Once identification is fully confirmed, “a pretty scary time for this community and the surrounding communities will come to an end,” Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said Thursday.

“We have every reason to believe this is Joseph Couch,” Beshear told reporters at the Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort. “However, a definitive and positive identification has not yet been possible.”

In a 30-minute YouTube livestream on Wednesday, the McCoys film in a dense forest after seeing vultures in the air, and Sheila McCoy says she can smell a foul odor.

“Oh God, that's gross. Oh my goodness, that's gross,” says Sheila, warning her husband to watch out for snakes.

At the end of the video, they discover the remains. “Hey guys, you're not going to believe this, we found him, oh my goodness,” Sheila McCoy says in the video.

Police were also searching the area, and the couple had reported themselves to officers about 12 minutes before the remains were found. They had also warned police and friends that they would be there and had posted a livestream on YouTube in case anything went wrong, Fred McCoy said.

“We didn't know we would find him like that,” he said. “We could have found him with a gun pointed at us.”

The McCoys live a few counties from where the gunman attacked. They hadn't been hiking in the woods in a long time — Sheila, 59, had previous back surgery and her husband, 66, had knee surgery — but after a date Friday night they decided to help with the search, said Fred McCoy, himself a retired police officer.

“We were just a crippled old man and a crippled old woman walking through the woods,” he said Thursday. Fred McCoy said he is a descendant of a marriage between Hatfield and McCoy and they operate a small museum on the history of the feud.

He estimated the remains were about a mile from where the gunman opened fire. Police found Couch's vehicle and an AR-15 nearby last week.

The discovery of the body calmed residents after more than a week of tensions over the presence of an armed gunman on the loose near their homes.

“I feel a tremendous sense of relief,” said Heather Blankenship, a mother of three who lives near London. She saw the body in the McCoys' video, which was viewed nearly half a million times in less than 24 hours, and although her fear has disappeared and her sense of normalcy has returned, it is still sad, she said.

“I'm relieved that this monster is dead to me,” but in the meantime the suspect's family is grieving, Blankenship said.

Authorities said the gunman fired 20 to 30 shots and caused chaos. The five victims survived, but some suffered serious injuries.

According to authorities, Couch had purchased the AR-15-type weapon and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition at a London gun store a few hours before the shooting.

David Westerfield, judge and chief administrative officer of Laurel County, sensed a collective sigh of relief from the residents.

“They feel like they can return to their normal lifestyle,” he said.