Shooter on highway in Kentucky allegedly threatened neighbors with gun: “I'll just kill you”

Neighbors of the Kentucky man who allegedly shot and killed five drivers on a Kentucky country road say he threatened several people in the neighborhood with his firearm – and even told one neighbor, “I'll just kill you.”

Joseph Couch, 32, who is still on the run after opening fire on Interstate 75 on Saturday, was arrested on Feb. 8 at his Gray, Kentucky, home after an altercation with a neighbor on a charge of making terroristic threats, according to a complaint obtained by CBS News.

The neighbor tried to confront Couch, who had thrown a rock at his family's dog, but Couch responded by allegedly pointing a loaded AR-style rifle at him and his 9-year-old daughter.

“He went into his house, grabbed an AR-15, pointed it at me and my daughter and said next time he would shoot me and my daughter,” the neighbor said. “So of course I went and filed a complaint against him.”

The charges against Couch were dropped after the neighbor failed to appear in court.

“They dismissed it because they never told me there was a court date,” he told CBS, adding that he believed authorities should have taken the guns away from Couch.

After the incident, three of the neighbor's dogs were found dead on his property, two of which were poisoned.

“He has threatened more than one person in this neighborhood with a firearm,” he said.

Another neighbor, 61-year-old Donald Causey, said he had a good relationship with Couch until last week, when the suspected shooter allegedly pointed a rifle at him after getting too close to his property.

“He went back into his house, came back out, pointed his gun at him and said, 'I'm just going to kill you,'” Causey recalled.

Causey said he did not contact police about the conversation because they had gotten along well in the past, but after the shooting, he now regrets that decision.

“This spring we got along great – I lent him my lawnmower a couple of times,” Causey said, adding that something seemed to have changed in Couch recently and that he seemed to be struggling with his mental health. “If you talk to him for 15 seconds, you can tell.”

After the encounter, Causey said he went home to de-escalate the situation, but Couch came back outside with his gun.

“He put it on his shoulder like he was marching and walked around his house in circles about 50 times,” Causey said. “… He just started marching like he never talked to us or anything.”

According to an arrest warrant, Couch sent someone a text message on Saturday saying his goal was to “kill a lot of people” before turning the gun on himself. The affidavit says the woman who received the text message contacted police a half-hour before the shooting to warn them.

Couch is charged with five counts each of attempted murder and aggravated assault in connection with the shootings, in which five people were injured.

An intensive manhunt conducted by several authorities has been underway since Saturday; search teams are combing through thousands of hectares of dense forest.

The reward for information leading to Couch's arrest was increased to $35,000 on Tuesday. Officials said there was no indication he managed to escape.

“Some people are wondering, 'What if he's not alive?'” Master Trooper Scottie Pennington told reporters Tuesday. “So, we're going to stay in the woods until we find him. That's our job. Whether he's dead or alive, it's our job to try to find him.”

With post wires