Moment 'Bounty Hunters' Searching for Highway Shooter on 'Date Night' Find Body During Livestream

News By TooFab Staff |
YouTube/Laurel County Sheriff's Office

The pair -- who claim to be descendants of the Hatfields & McCoys -- keep filming as they follow vultures and the smell of "something grotesque" to a "deteriorated" body, believed to be Kentucky highway shooter Joseph Couch.

A "date night" idea for two self-described "bounty hunters" led to the discovery of a body believed to belong to a shooter in Kentucky.

An 11-day manhunt for 32-year-old Joseph Couch appeared to come to an end on Wednesday, a week and a half after he allegedly opened fire on Interstate 75 with an AR-15, hitting 12 cars and injuring five people. The incident happened after, per authorities, he texted a woman saying he planned to "kill a lot of people" and "kill myself afterwards."

After a reward for information leading to Couch's capture was announced by the Kentucky State Police, locals Fred and Sheila McCoy sprung to action in what WKYT referred to as "a date night idea."

For days, they joined the search for Couch, live-streaming their hunt on the pair's Hatfield McCoy Museum YouTube page. According to the account, Fred is "kin to both" the infamous feuding Hatfields and McCoys, running a museum about the families.

In a 30-minute livestream shared Wednesday, the pair were back at their search. As they explored the woods, they kept a close eye on vultures circling in the skies above -- saying, "they're coming back and guys, we smell something grotesque."

"We ain't found nothing, but there's bad, bad odor over here from where the birds was raising up from," said Fred in the footage, before the two ran into troopers from the Kentucky State Police, also on the lookout. Though he told the authorities the smell "might just be an animal," it ended up being a body.

"Oh! Found him! Here he is!" Fred exclaimed upon making the grisly discovery, as his wife began to shout, "Oh Mylanta! You found him?"

"He's deteriorated," Fred then told authorities, while she added, "Oh, gross!"

Troopers can then be heard telling Fred to stop taking photos of the body, before the feed cuts off.

On Wednesday night, Kentucky State Police announced that both troopers and the McCoys located a body.

"We are very confident that tonight brings closure to the search for Joseph Couch. I want to thank all partners for their collaborative effort to bring this to a successful conclusion," said Kentucky State Police Commissioner Phillip Burnett Jr. "The people of Laurel County can rest much easier now that this manhunt has been concluded."

The body is being transported to the state medical examiner's office on Thursday for formal identification, though KSP noted "personal artifacts and a weapon found with the body are consistent with the suspect."

Burnett told CNN that the couple will receive a $15,000 reward from the local Crime Stoppers, as well as another $10,000 reward from a private donor.