Manhunt For Suspect In Kentucky Interstate Shooting Enters Third Day

LONDON, Ky. (AP) — More than a dozen school districts shut down Monday across a wide swath of southeastern Kentucky as a grueling search stretched into a third day for a gunman who opened fire on an interstate highway and wounded five people over the weekend.

Searches have been combing the rugged, hilly area since Saturday evening, when a gunman began shooting at drivers on Interstate 75 near London, a small city of about 8,000 people about 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Lexington.

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

Joseph A. Couch, 32, was named a suspect in the shooting after authorities recovered his SUV on a service road near the crime scene. They later found a semiautomatic weapon nearby that they believe was used in the shooting, said Deputy Gilbert Acciardo, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office.

Christina DiNoto, who witnessed the shooting Saturday while driving on I-75, said Monday that it weighed 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.”

Authorities vowed to keep up a relentless pursuit of the gunman in the densely wooded area as stress levels remained high for residents and law enforcement officers.

Administrators in Rockcastle County, just north of where the shooting took place, said in a social media message that they decided to close classes while the shooter is still at large ”out of an abundance of caution.”

To the south, schools were also closed in Knox County “as a precautionary measure to ensure student and staff safety,”