The livestreaming couple who found the body of the man who shot five people this month on Interstate 75 in Southern Kentucky on Wednesday also filmed a video purporting to show the area from which the shooter fired at cars.

The video showed a view of the interstate, rugged terrain, including a cliff that they admitted they should not have tried to cross, and two state troopers questioning them about what they were doing.

The couple, Fred and Sheila McCoy, say they are descendants of the famous feuding Appalachian families the Hatfields and McCoys. They previously operated a museum in Casey County dedicated to the feud.

And on Wednesday, they did what 14 law enforcement agencies could not: While streaming live video on YouTube, they found the body of 32-year-old Joseph Couch, who opened fire Sept. 7 on the busy stretch of highway near Exit 49, and prompting an 11-day manhunt through the woods of north Laurel County. The body was found near the interstate.

The McCoys were on day six of their own search for Couch when they found the body. They told WKYT they had decided to start searching for Couch as a date night idea.

Their previous livestreams predictably garnered less attention than Wednesday’s, which had nearly a half-million views as of Thursday afternoon. But the day before finding the body, in another video, they showed the area of rugged terrain near the interstate where they think Couch fired at cars, hitting 12 and injuring five people.

The early parts of the video, which is more than an hour long, showed Fred and Shelia walking a wooded path along the interstate with the sound of traffic roaring in the background. About 18 minutes in to the video, they make it to where it appeared Couch fired on the vehicles.

“This is it, this is his perch,” said Fred, who served more than 40 years in law enforcement as a Pike County sheriff’s deputy and fire and police chief in Hustonville, a rural city in Lincoln County.

Trees are cut down in the area, and Fred wonders if Couch cut the trees down to improve his view of the interstate, or if police cut them down during the manhunt.

Then, about five miles from their car, they kept going, looking for Couch. They eventually got caught on a cliff.

“We went farther than we should have,” Fred said in the video. “Sheila was in front, and she would hold onto a tree. I would hold on to her, and I’d go to the next tree. It was rough.”

Someone spotted the McCoys on the cliff’s edge and called police. When the couple finally got back to their car, two Kentucky state trooper vehicles were waiting for them.

The troopers asked the McCoys what they are doing, and Fred responded, “Trying to find $35,000,” referring to the reward money offered for the capture of Couch. Fred also noted the need to get Couch off the streets.

The McCoy’s apologized to the Troopers for causing concern and said they would be back in the morning because buzzards were flying around.

Fred and Shelia noted the buzzard’s movements had shifted from one area of the forest to another.

The next day, they found Couch’s body.

This story was originally published September 19, 2024, 12:35 PM.