Man accused of shooting 5 on Kentucky interstate vowed to 'kill a lot of people,' warrant says

LONDON, Ky. (AP) — The man suspected of opening fire on a highway in Kentucky sent a text message vowing to “kill a lot of people” less than 30 minutes before he shot and wounded five people on Interstate 75, authorities said in an arrest warrant.

“I’m going to kill a lot of people. Well try at least,” Joseph Couch, 32, wrote in the text message, according to the warrant affidavit filed in court. In a separate text message, Couch wrote, “I’ll kill myself afterwards,” the affidavit says.

The Lexington Herald-Leader identified the woman Couch sent the text messages to as his ex-wife. The affidavit does not describe the relationship between Couch and the woman who received the texts.

The affidavit, written by Capt. Richard Dalrymple of the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office, said that before authorities received the first report of the shooting about 5:30 p.m. Saturday, a dispatcher in Laurel County got a call from a woman who told them Couch had sent her the text messages at 5:03 p.m.

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AP AUDIO: Schools close as search for gunman who wounded 5 people on Kentucky interstate drags into third day

AP correspondent Haya Panjwani reports authorities vow relentless search as manhunt for interstate shooter in Kentucky continues.

In response to that call, police initiated a tracker on Couch’s cellphone but the location wasn’t received until 6:53 p.m., the affidavit states, almost 90 minutes after the highway shooting.

The affidavit obtained by The Associated Press charges Couch with five counts each of criminal attempt to commit murder and first-degree assault.

On Sunday, law enforcement officers searched an area near where Couch’s vehicle was found, with a view of I-75. There, they found a green Army-style duffel bag, ammunition and numerous spent shell casings, the affidavit says. A short distance away, they found a Colt AR-15 rifle with a site mounted to the weapon and several additional magazines. The duffel bag had “Couch” hand-written in black marker.

Searchers have been combing thousands of acres in the rugged, hilly area near London, a small city of about 8,000 people about 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Lexington.

State police Master Trooper Scottie Pennington, a spokesman for the London post, said troopers are being brought in from across the state to aid in the search focused on a remote area about 8 miles (13 kilometers) north of London. He described the extensive search area as “walking in a jungle” with machetes needed to cut through thickets.

“We have cliff beds. We have sinkholes. We have caves,” Pennington said Monday. “We have culverts that go under the interstate. We have creeks and rivers and the dense brush.”

Authorities vowed to keep up their relentless pursuit in the densely wooded area as local residents worried about where the shooter might turn up next.

“We’re not going to quit until we do lay hands on him,” Laurel County Sheriff John Root said.

Christina DiNoto, who witnessed the shooting Saturday while driving on I-75, said Monday that the search weighs heavily on her mind.

“To know that he’s still at large — that makes me nervous, honestly,” she said.

DiNoto, an IT project manager, said the shooting also unlocked a new kind of fear, “like you have to be scared to even just drive on the highways.”

Meanwhile, more than a dozen school districts shut down Monday across a wide swath of southeastern Kentucky as the grueling search for Couch stretched into a third day.

Donna Hess, who lives 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the shooting scene in rural Laurel County, agreed with the decision to close schools there. Both of her children, a first grader and preschooler, normally take the bus.

“I’d be afraid he’d try to hijack the bus and take the kids as hostages,” Hess said. “I’m worried about everybody because they don’t know where he’s at. I’m hoping they catch him soon. We don’t know what he’s capable of right now.”

Couch most recently lived in Woodbine, a small community about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of the shooting scene. An employee of a gun store in London, Center Target Firearms, informed authorities that Couch purchased an AR-15 and 1,000 rounds of ammunition hours before the shooting, the affidavit said.

Joe Arnold, the gun store’s manager, declined to comment Monday on those details in the affidavit. He said he did not want to interfere with the investigation.

“We’d love for him to be found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Arnold told the AP.

Kentucky has few regulations on purchasing guns and carrying them in public. The state’s gun laws “are among the worst in the country” according to a report by Everytown For Gun Safety, a gun safety nonprofit group.

A man who fatally shot five co-workers at a Louisville bank in 2023 wrote in his journal that he was surprised he could buy an AR-15 and 120 rounds in less than an hour. He wrote that it was “so easy” despite his history of mental illness.

Kentucky legislators repealed a law in 2019 that required a permit for carrying a concealed weapon. The state also does not require a background check at the point of purchase.

Authorities in Kentucky said Monday that Couch was in the Army Reserve and not the National Guard, as officials initially indicated. The U.S. Army said in a statement that Couch was in the Army Reserve from 2013 to 2019 as a combat engineer. He was a private when he left and had no deployments.

Pennington said Monday that military experience doesn’t make Couch a trained survivalist. Regardless of his experience, the plan is to wear Couch down.

“It doesn’t matter if you are a survivalist if you’re out there without food and water,” Pennington said. “How long can you really survive? We hope he just walks out.”

Authorities said Couch fired 20 to 30 rounds, striking 12 vehicles on the interstate Saturday.

DiNoto, 39, was driving through Kentucky with a friend on her way back to Houston after visiting relatives in Rochester, New York, when they heard a loud noise Saturday and assumed a rock had hit her back windshield. Her friend wondered whether it was gunshots, but they quickly dismissed the possibility.

The driver of a truck in the next lane slumped over and pulled to the side of the road, but DiNoto assumed the cause was something like a tire blowout. They saw first responders barreling down the highway but didn’t realize there’d been a shooting until the friend’s dad called to check on them 90 minutes later.

“We were in the middle of nowhere, Kentucky, and it was just like, what? Somebody was on an overpass shooting AR-15 at us?” DiNoto said.

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Associated Press reporters Tara Copp in Washington, Leah Willingham in Charleston, West Virginia, and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this story.