Neighbors of a Kentucky man who allegedly shot and killed five drivers on a rural Kentucky highway say he threatened several of them with a gun, even telling one “I'm going to kill you.”
Joseph Couch, 32, who remains on the run after Saturday's shooting on Interstate 75, was arrested Feb. 8 at his home in Gray, Kentucky, on suspicion of making terroristic threats after a confrontation with a neighbor, the criminal complaint states. Obtained by CBS News.
A neighbor confronted Couch after he threw rocks at his dog, but Couch allegedly fought back by pointing a loaded AR-type rifle at him and his 9-year-old daughter.
“He went in and grabbed an AR-15 and pointed it at me and my daughter and said he was going to shoot me and my daughter next,” the neighbor said. “So naturally I went and charged him.”
The charges against Couch were dropped after the neighbour failed to appear in court.
“They denied the motion because they didn't give me a court date,” he told CBS, adding that he believes authorities should have confiscated Couch's weapons.
Following the incident, three of the neighbour's dogs were found dead on the property, two of which had been poisoned.
“He has threatened multiple people with a gun in this neighborhood,” he said.
Another neighbor, Donald Causey, 61, said he had a good relationship with Couch until the incident last week when the suspect allegedly pointed a rifle at him for getting too close to his property.
“He went back into the house, came out again and pointed a rifle at me and said, 'I'm going to kill you,'” Causey recalled.
Causey said he did not contact police about the incident because he had a good relationship with them in the past, but he regrets that decision in the wake of the shooting.
“We've had a long-term relationship this spring. I've loaned him my lawnmower a few times,” Causey said, adding that something had recently changed with Couch and he seemed to be struggling with his mental health. “You only have to talk to him for 15 seconds and you'll know.”
After the incident, Causey went back into the house to try to calm the situation down, but Couch returned outside with a rifle, police said.
“He put it on his shoulder as if he was marching and circled the house about 50 times,” Causey said. “… He just started marching like he hadn't told us anything.”
According to an arrest warrant, Couch texted someone that his goal on Saturday was to “kill a lot of people” and then tried to turn the gun on himself. The woman who received the text called police 30 minutes before the shooting to warn them, according to the affidavit.
Couch has been charged with five counts each of attempted murder and first-degree assault in the shooting that left five people injured.
An intense multi-agency search has been underway since Saturday, with searchers combing thousands of acres of densely forested land in search of Couch.
The reward for information leading to Couch's arrest was increased to $35,000 on Tuesday, but authorities said there was no evidence to suggest he had fled.
“Some people say, 'What if he's not even alive anymore?'” Sergeant Scottie Pennington told reporters on Tuesday. “Well, we're going to stay in the woods until we find him. That's our job. Whether he's dead or alive, that's our job to try to find him.”
With post wire
