Austin Police officer Coleman Martin was arrested on misdemeanor charges of False Alarm or Report near Dallas on Wednesday after a lengthy, statewide search sprung from Martin’s staging of his own suicide last week near a lake in Val Verde County. The five-year veteran had been last seen by his wife on April 26, when he left the house at 10am. According to an affidavit filed by Jason Schmidt, a detective from APD’s Homicide Cold Case Unit, Martin was showing signs of emotional distress when he left his home at the time, and later that day sent a text message to his wife that contained a photo of a handwritten note that indicated he was planning to commit suicide in a lake near the Mexican border. A search went on shortly after Martin’s wife called APD, and on the morning of the 26th Martin’s car was indeed found by a lake in the border county with the same suicide note left on a seat in plain view for first responders to read from outside the vehicle. An inflatable raft Martin had purchased the day before at an Academy Sports was found soon after on a shore of the Val Verde lake. It bore Martin’s name, his date of birth, and purported date of death. (Remnants of a concrete block were also found nearby.) A female friend of Martin’s told authorities on Thu., April 27, that Martin was in fact alive. She produced an email from Martin stating that he had staged his own death, and was in Mexico.
This article appears in May 5 • 2017.