Manhunt for missing man

By TOM KANE

YULAN, NY - Over 100 firefighters and other volunteers spent the Mother’s Day weekend searching for Martin Marticek, 28, of New Jersey.

Marticek was discovered missing when his father, brothers and cousins came up to work on the family summer house on Ryan’s Road in Yulan.

The search is being conducted by the New York State Police with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Forest Rangers and numerous Sullivan County fire departments.

“We had 86 volunteers on Saturday and 64 on Sunday?Mother’s Day,” said Gary Miller, a DEC forest ranger.

In a search of this kind, the DEC forest rangers search the wooded areas and eight state police troopers search the nearby neighborhoods, interviewing residents and following leads.

By Tuesday afternoon, the missing man had not yet been found.

“We draw a big circle on a map with a radius of one mile and lay out a grid of each area that must be searched systematically,” Miller said. “We subdivide the grid into sections that are sectioned off with what we call a bump line across areas where there are only woods.

The searchers covered over one half of the area in the circle around the house. On Monday, the search was still in progress with 15 members of fire companies.

During the weekend, fire companies came from Port Jervis, Lumberland, Narrowsburg, Smallwood, Monticello, Liberty and Callicoon.

A state police helicopter searched the area on Sunday, looking into the lakes and ponds, Miller said.

“We had 80 percent of our force out over the weekend,” said Yulan Assistant Chief Keith Blaut. “This isn’t the first time we’ve had searches like this, but this is the longest.”

The formal search ended on Tuesday. Anyone with information should call the New York State Police at 845/292-6600.