Kentucky’s chief medical examiner says the man believed to be a suspect who opened fire on Interstate 75 motorists earlier this month died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
According to WXIX, the medical examiner, William Ralston, said he expects to confirm the identity of the body found near the highway this week with the next 24 to 48 hours.
A retired Kentucky police chief and his wife found the badly decomposed body on Wednesday near Exit 49, where Joseph Couch shot five motorists on September 7 from a cliff ledge above the highway, as CrimeOnline reported. Authorities initially named Couch a person of interest but later called him a suspect.
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 hours after the shooting.
Fred and Sheila McCoy livestreamed their search for the body on a YouTube channel called Hatfield McCoy Museum Adventures. Kentucky State Police, after initially saying troopers discovered the body, later said the McCoys and troopers found it, although the video clearly shows no troopers in the immediate vicinity when Fred McCoy, the retired police chief of Hustonville, Kentucky, shouted out that he had found him. Troopers were in the general area at the time and had communicated with the McCoys shortly before the discovery, as seen on the McCoys’ video.
State police said that items found with the body led them to believe it was Couch.
Ralston told WXIX that DNA tests would be conducted on Friday and that a toxicology test would “verify if any drugs were present.”
“At this time, we are able to confirm that the autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a wound consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head,” Ralston said on Thursday.
The toxicology results will take several weeks, he said.
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[Featured image: Fred McCoy minutes before finding body/Hatfield McCoy Museum Adventures screenshot. Joseph Couch/Kentucky State Police]
