A Kentucky couple spent six days searching for a body believed to be the suspect in a highway shooting that authorities have been searching for more than a week. They finally found the body by following circling vultures, they said Thursday.
Fred and Sheila McCoy discovered remains Wednesday in Laurel County that police believe are those of Joseph A. Couch, and are offering a $25,000 reward.
Authorities had been searching for Couch, 32, since the Sept. 7 shooting along Interstate 75 that seriously injured five people near London, Kentucky.
Although authorities described Couch as armed and dangerous, Fred McCoy said he is a retired police officer and has found that fugitives quickly lose steam when they are on the run. So capturing Couch was not as far-fetched as it seems, the couple said.
“None of us come out of this world alive,” Fred McCoy told NBC News. “We’re Christians, and when we go, you know, if you’re a Christian, your last breath here on earth is your first in a better place.”
Fred McCoy, who claims descent from the famous Hatfield and McCoy clans of eastern Kentucky and West Virginia, credited his wife, a former elementary school aide, with first noticing a foul odor that turned out to be a decomposing body.
“The smell was horrible, it was horrible,” said Sheila McCoy, 59. “And when I got here and saw that, I was shocked. I was shocked because I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t expect him to deteriorate that much or be in that state.”
The couple live-streamed their search on YouTube and saw at least 40 vultures circling, a clear sign to them that there were human remains.
“When you have that many vultures, you either have cattle, a horse, a cow or a human,” said Fred McCoy, 67. “That many birds don’t feed on a raccoon.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
