The man for whom Nashville Police and others have been looking for for a week has been found safe in Kentucky.

Nashville Town Marshal Stephanie Hess reported this morning that Thomas Merritt called his wife at about 7:30 a.m. today from a hospital in Louisville. He is OK, Hess said, just feeling weak. He had been without his medication since he left his Ridgeway Drive home at about 8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 15, with no vehicle or identification.

Hess said a ground search of the area around Merritt's home and a property on Clay Lick Road had been exhausted, with the aid of search and rescue dogs. Police also checked all the hotels in town and contacted friends and family, and sent missing-person fliers to police departments in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida.

Officer Dalton Herrin said Monday that police received a report over the weekend that Merritt had spoken with a person at the Bob Evans restaurant in Columbus Saturday about his plans to hitchhike to Louisville, Ky., to meet up with friends and find work. With a report of Merritt being alive and well, police considered the local investigation at a standstill. "For one, he hasn’t broken any laws. He has every right to go to Kentucky," Herrin said.

Hess said officers' plans for today had been to contact police departments in the Florida communities in which Merritt's family members live, to try to find him there.

Hess said Merritt may be able to come back to Nashville in the next couple of days.

-- Sara Clifford, Brown County Democrat