‘Needle in the haystack’: Search continues one week after man goes missing in Lincoln

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Authorities are still searching for 28-year-old Joshua Martin, who disappeared in Lincoln one week ago.

Lincoln Police Capt. Don Scheinost said Martin was reported missing on April 5 from Integrated Behavioral Health Services at 15th and South streets.

Martin has schizophrenia and has severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, according to police.

“We just need help from the citizens,” Scheinost said.

He said police don’t have much to go off of.

“We don’t have an area we can check with knowledge that he either has been there or is going there,” Scheinost said.

Martin’s family said he functions at the level of a 5-year-old and doesn’t have a phone or any money on him.

Authorities want the public to check parks and other places he might gravitate toward.

The Nebraska State Patrol, the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Police Department are helping in the search.

Kary Tronson, Martin’s aunt, asked people to check their cameras from last weekend.

“You never know,” she said. “It might be that needle in the haystack we need found.”

She said Martin is a “gentle soul” and is likely hiding because he’s scared or doesn’t want to go back to the group home.

Tronson also said that without his medication, he is a “different person.”

“But we don’t know the different person he is right now,” she said.

Police said there have been at least 250 calls at the address for Integrated Behavioral Health Services since Jan. 1, 2021.

The plurality, 64, were for missing people, according to police.

Tronson said the facility should’ve done more to monitor Martin if he was a “flight risk.”

The family is assembling a search party Sunday at 11 a.m. near 84th Street and Nebraska Parkway.