Kentucky officials said Wednesday night they believe a decomposing body found near Interstate 75 — where a shooting earlier this month wounded five people — is that of the suspect, Joseph Couch.

Kentucky State Police Commissioner Phil Burnett Jr. said the London post was notified at about 3:30 p.m. of the discovery “in the deep brush behind exit 49.”

Items found with the body led investigators to believe the body was that of the suspect, Burnett said.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, the gunman opened fire late in the afternoon on September 7, hitting five people. An affidavit accompanying attempted murder and assault charges filed against Couch, a former Army Reservist, said he sent a text message to the mother of his child just after 5 p.m. on the day of the shooting saying he planned to “kill a lot of people” and then kill himself afterward. The woman called police after receiving the text but wasn’t interviewed until 1:30 Sunday morning.

At Wednesday’s press conference, Burnett acknowledged the discovery by Fred and Sheila McCoy, who were livestreaming their search on the McCoy Hatfield Museum Adventures YouTube channel. He said troopers were also searching in the area and had just communicated with the McCoys moments before the discovery of the body.

While Burnett said two troopers and the McCoys made the discovery, the video clearly shows the McCoys on their own coming upon the body.

“Oh! Got him!” Fred McCoy, the retired police chief of Hustonville, Kentucky, shouts in the last minute of the video. “Here he is!”

Burnett said he had not seen the video, but he said the McCoys would be eligible for $25,000 in reward money offered in the search.

“I want to recognize the McCoys because they’ve been very cooperative with our troopers and provided troopers with relevant information,” he said. “We’re very confident that this brings to a closure the search for Joseph Couch.”

Burnett said troopers on the search Wednesday had been focused on vultures hovering over the area, likely the same vultures the McCoys were tracking. Both troopers and the McCoys noted a strong smell of decomposition as well before the discovery.

Fred McCoy told WLEX there were about 50 vultures in the skies over the area.

“The community needed some relief,” McCoy said. “It’s just not us, there’s several people out here that’s been looking…but we just kept coming back.”

GRAPHIC IMAGE WARNING: The body is seen on the ground in the last seconds of this video:

Near the end of the 30 minute video, the McCoys are communicating with other searchers nearby — presumably the troopers Burnett mentioned.

“Oh mylanta,” Sheila McCoy says after her husband’s shouted warning that he’d found the body. “He’s deteriorating,” Fred replies.

Burnett said investigators are on the scene and that the body would be taken to the state crime lab in Frankfort for positive identification.

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[Featured image: Fred McCoy minutes before finding body/Hatfield McCoy Museum Adventures screenshot. Joseph Couch/Kentucky State Police]