THE research for last weekend’s suspect Shooting on Kentucky highway led authorities into a massive, dense forest that has been compared to a jungle in the southeastern part of the state. The manhunt for Joseph Couch32, has been going on since Saturday, when authorities said he shot and wounded five people driving on Interstate 75.
The shooting occurred near London, Kentucky, a town of about 8,000 people located near the Daniel Boone National Forest, which features “some of the most rugged terrain west of the Appalachians,” according to the U.S. Forest Service. The terrain includes “steep forested slopes, sandstone cliffs and narrow ravines,” the agency said.
“It’s like a jungle,” Kentucky State Police Chief Scottie Pennington told reporters Monday, “and we’ve got cliffs, sinkholes, caves, culverts that go under the highway. We’ve got creeks, rivers and dense brush. I mean, it’s not something I can just take my dog for a natural walk in.”
Kentucky State Police
According to the Forest Service, the forest covers more than 2.1 million acres, including public and private lands. The agency manages more than 707,000 acres of the area, and Pennington said she is participating in the search.
In addition to the Forest Service, several law enforcement agencies are also participating in the search effort, including the FBI, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, local police forces, sheriff’s departments and the U.S. Marshals Service, Pennington said. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has also provided boats to navigate the forest’s rivers.
Pennington posted a video on social media Tuesday showing the dense brush that search teams are combing through with the help of dogs.
He noted that while investigators are searching for the suspect, they are also gathering anything he may have left behind.
“Our ground crews, you know, they’re like snails, they move really slowly to make sure they don’t miss anything,” he said. “It could be a tree that’s been knocked over, it doesn’t look good in its original condition, it could be a piece of trash on the ground, it could be a candy bar wrapper, all that kind of stuff. I mean, we have to get them because they could be evidence.”
Meanwhile, helicopters and drones are conducting searches from the air, with helicopters able to detect heat sources on the ground.
Although the area has been difficult to search, Pennington said he hopes the lack of resources in the forest will help draw the suspect out of hiding.
“I hope he doesn’t have any water, I hope he doesn’t have any food, and I hope he’s just exhausted, and one day he’ll come out of these woods,” he said.
Authorities are also looking for signs the suspect may have died in the forest, such as buzzards circling overhead.
“We’re going to stay in the woods until we find him, and you know, that’s our job,” Pennington said. “Whether he’s dead or alive, it’s our job to try to find him, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
