A judge in a rural Kentucky county was shot and killed in his courthouse chambers Thursday, and the local sheriff was charged with murder, police said.

Police continue to search for a gunman who shot at motorists on Interstate 75 in southeastern Kentucky on Saturday afternoon, injuring at least seven people and hitting as many as a dozen vehicles.

The police say a sheriff shot District Judge Kevin Mullins inside the courthouse on Thursday afternoon before turning himself in.

Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, was fatally shot in a courthouse at Whitesburg, Kentucky, on Thursday afternoon, according to Kentucky State Police.

Authorities have found a body near the Kentucky site where a gunman opened fire on an interstate highway, hitting a dozen vehicles and wounding five people

The body found Wednesday near the Kentucky highway where a gunman opened fire Sept. 7 has been identified as the suspected shooter, Joseph A. Couch, officials said on Friday.

The unidentified body was found Wednesday in Laurel County, where authorities said Joseph Couch, 32, opened fire at vehicles on Sept. 7.

When a gunman perched atop a cliff’s ledge opened fire on a dozen cars on Kentucky’s Interstate 75, wounding five people, it permeated surrounding communities with fear – and sent one couple into the woods to join the dayslong manhunt for the assailant.

A Kentucky State Police Post 13 spokesperson told the Louisville Courier-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, that a suspect was arrested.