LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. — Police are still looking for Joseph Couch, the man accused of committing a mass shooting on Interstate 75 Saturday evening, inuring five people and striking 12 cars. Monday was day three, the second full day of the manhunt, but it’s a search like no other.

What You Need To Know

  • Hikers describe the search area of Daniel Boone National Forest as rugged terrain 

  • Law enforcement searching the area by foot must navigate cliffs, overgrown brush and wildlife 

  • Joseph Couch is wanted for his alleged role in a mass shooting Saturday Sept. 7 off I-75 in Laurel County 

  • Police can only search the forest by foot from sunrise to sunset due to dangerous terrain

Local, state and national law enforcement are still searching rural Laurel County for Couch. But in the middle of Appalachia, police are navigating cliffs, densely grown brush and even sinkholes. Thousands of acres in the Daniel Boone National Forest are the center of the manhunt, but it’s no easy task.

“We search for four days for someone that isn’t trying to evade us and he was located basically within half a mile of a roadway so you can imagine trying to find someone that is actively avoiding you,” said John May, chief of Wolfe County Search and Rescue Team.

The Wolfe County Search and Rescue Team searches for lost hikers in Red River Gorge. While the search for Couch is outside of their realm, they’re all too familiar with the daunting task of locating a person among thousands of trees. May said he has hiked the search area in Daniel Boone National Forest before. It is home to Kentucky’s longest continuous hiking trail, Sheltowee Trace. He said the terrain is rugged.

“Obviously cliffs can be a hazard to searchers and law enforcement as well as snakes, bears those kinds of things live in those particular areas,” May said.

Police are limited in daylight in their search for Couch. May said the terrain poses as an ideal hiding place for somewhere avoiding police.

“They could be behind a tree or in a rock shelter or up on a cliff line where they have a good vantage point on searchers below them. It’s very, very risky,” May said.

Police are using machetes to whack away brush. Rob Newman, an avid hiker and photographer, said after a while that will wear someone out.

“When you’re climbing up and down and underbrush and over trees and you’re trying to find a path of least resistance through all the overgrowth that you encounter this time of year, your body feels it,” Newman said.

At a news conference Monday, officers said they hope Couch gets desperate and eventually gives himself up after being in the elements and without food or water for over 48 hours.

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