Search underway for missing 14-year-old boy in Lincoln, Montana

Authorities are searching for Lieland David Murphy, 14, after he was last contacted in Lincoln on May 25 and entered in the Montana Missing Persons Database as a missing child. The listing describes Murphy as white, male, 5 feet 3 inches tall, 120 pounds, with blond or strawberry hair and brown eyes, and identifies the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office as the investigating agency.

Anyone with information is being asked to contact the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office at (406) 293-4112 or the Montana Missing Persons Clearinghouse at (406) 444-2800. The state’s missing-persons system traces back to Montana’s Missing Children Act of 1985, and Attorney General Austin Knudsen launched an enhanced online database in October 2021 to help law enforcement, educators and the public find missing people faster.

The search has special urgency in Lincoln, a small rural census-designated place in Lewis and Clark County with a population of about 970. The Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office says it provides search-and-rescue operations across a service area of more than two million acres, and Lewis and Clark County Search and Rescue is an all-volunteer team based in Helena that can be called into missing-person missions across the region.

For local residents, the most useful information to report is Murphy’s name, age, physical description, and any sighting or last-known location tied to May 25 in Lincoln. In a place as small as Lincoln, a single accurate tip can move a search forward quickly, especially when investigators are working across a wide rural footprint and relying on public help to narrow the timeline.