– Body Found, End of Kentucky Manhunt
Law enforcement announced Wednesday that they had found a body they believe to be that of the man who had been wanted for ten days after a shooting on the highway.
Joseph A. Couch was the subject of a wanted notice.
AFP
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After more than a dozen days of manhunt, Kentucky police announced Wednesday that they had found the body of a man suspected of shooting at cars, injuring five people in this central-eastern US state.
Dozens of American police officers, with helicopters, drones and dogs, were mobilized through the dense forests of Kentucky to find this man.
On September 7, for unknown reasons, Joseph Couch, a 32-year-old former military man, legally purchased an AR-15 assault rifle and a thousand rounds of ammunition in the town of London, Kentucky.
Late in the afternoon, he opened fire on cars traveling on I-75 through the forest near London, hitting 12 vehicles and wounding five people. He has been wanted ever since, with authorities offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to his whereabouts.
Unidentified
Before carrying out the attack, he had sent a text message to someone saying he was going to try to “kill a lot of people” and, in another message: “I’m going to kill myself next,” according to a court document cited by local media.
An “unidentified” body was found Wednesday afternoon near Exit 49, Kentucky Police Chief Phillip Burnett Jr. said at a news conference broadcast on social media, adding that police had every reason to believe it was the suspect’s body.
He thanked residents for their cooperation, including a couple whose home was not far from the body found, ending the manhunt while the investigation “remains ongoing.”
With more guns than people, the United States has the highest gun-related death rate of any developed country. Shootings are a recurring scourge that successive governments have so far failed to stem, with many Americans remaining deeply attached to their guns.
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