Marcus Schrenker - If I had only filled up the tank - opted for a bailout instead!

I have been following this story in the news as it has all of the ingredients of a good crime drama or even a modern day ‘western’. It has a bad guy, greed, the trophy wife, a horse (the airplane & motorcycle), the good guys (Marshals), and a moral to the story. There are so many funny little things that come to mind and how this could easily be on television.

Let’s see, bailout, golden parachute, ‘Financial Crisis: The Movie’, trophy wife for an affair, flashy “red” motorcycle, and most of all . . . poor planning.

The financial crisis has led to same very interesting stories that seem ready made for television movies. There is the Madoff mess that continues to bring things to light as each day passes and now for example the case of Marcus Schrenker, an Indianapolis financial manager, who appears to have tried to fake his own death by crashing his Piper PA-46 into a Florida swamp.

I’m sure the idea was for the plane to go down into the Gulf of Mexico possibly sinking without a body recovered and the debris strewn to hide the true facts. It almost made it to the ocean falling short by only a few miles as Milton Florida is next to Fort Walton Beach. Filling the tanks with a couple more gallons of fuel or changing his settings it may have made the Gulf before running out of fuel. Maybe he couldn’t afford that high price of aviation fuel these days and had his money stashed away on his motorcycle.

Schrenker gave all the appearances of a successful businessman before his disappearance. But in recent days and weeks, that life began to unravel: his wife filed for divorce, his stepfather died, Indiana authorities were investigating his financial dealings and a federal court ordered a $533,000 judgment against him. His wife also had filed for divorce, and told people searching the house that her husband had been having an affair.

Marcus was laying the groundwork for his disappearance as early as Saturday, when he visited Harpersville, driving a medium-sized pickup truck that carried a red Yamaha motorcycle, its saddlebags loaded with supplies.

In Harpersville, he secured a storage unit at the 280 East Mini Warehouse using the name Jason Galoozis -- his stepbrother -- and stowed the bike. At the time, he told employees he was going to Florida and would return on Monday to pick up the Yamaha.

He then apparently returned to his home in Fishers, Ind., an Indianapolis suburb, and filed a flight plan Sunday to fly his Piper Malibu from the airport in Anderson, Ind., to Destin, Fla.

The crash happened after investigators began looking closely at the three companies he owns, Heritage Wealth Management, Heritage Insurance Services and Icon Wealth Management for possible securities violations and claims that he may have defrauded investors. His wife, Michelle Schrenker filed for divorce at the end of last year.

At about 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Schrenker radioed the Federal Aviation Administration in Atlanta, saying he had encountered severe turbulence over Huntsville, that his windshield had imploded and that he was bleeding profusely.

Then his radio went silent.

Then, authorities say, Schrenker put the six-seat plane on autopilot near Birmingham, donned a parachute and jumped out in the Harpersville-Childersburg area. I guess he decided to trade his ‘Golden Parachute” for a real one. Military jets tried to intercept the plane and found the door open, the cockpit dark. The aircraft crashed more than 200 miles farther south in a Florida Panhandle bayou surrounded by homes about 9:15 p.m. Sunday.

The crashed plane showed no indication of a bloody accident, and officials could not locate the pilot. Authorities now surmise Schrenker's plan called for the plane to crash into the Gulf of Mexico, but it failed to stay airborne long enough to reach the Gulf.

In true movie of the week fashion it only gets better . . . Late Sunday, a man with Schrenker's Indiana identification encountered police in Childersburg and told them he had been in a canoeing accident with friends. The officers took Schrenker to the Harpersville Motel, where he checked in under his stepbrother's name and paid cash for the room.

At the time, Childersburg police were unaware of the plane crash or the search for Schrenker. When they heard about it early Monday, they went to Schrenker's room at the motel. He had left.

Late Monday, police learned of Schrenker's storage unit. By that time, the bike was gone and the clothes Schrenker was wearing Sunday night . . . jeans, an orange T-shirt and hiking boots . . . were in a nearby trash can.

Schrenker’s run ended at a campground late Tuesday, when officers discovered him bleeding from a self-inflicted gash to the wrist. It wasn’t clear how he was tracked to the campsite, and investigators were tight-lipped about the clues that tipped them off.

The gash was serious, said Frank Chiumento, an assistant chief with the U.S. Marshals Service in Florida, and he was rushed to the hospital by a medical helicopter. He was bleeding from his left arm, had a slashed wrist and there was a puncture wound near his elbow, Chiumento said.

“Just as we were administering first aid to him we were giving him assurances that he would be OK and he seemed to mutter some words that he was resistant to that. He muttered ‘die’ at one time as if he didn’t want the first aid that we were rendering to him,” Chiumento said on ABC’s Good Morning America.

Schrenker arrived at the campground Monday night riding his motorcycle, and paid $25.75 in cash for a night on the grounds, said Caroline Hastings, 32, who owns and operates the campground with her husband. She gave him a code to use wireless Internet, and he paid for four bottles of water and six bundles of firewood, she said. He also bought a six-pack of Bud Light Lime, and said he was leaving in the morning. But by Tuesday, he still wasn’t gone, and hadn’t paid for another night.

“He said he was going across the country with some buddies. He wanted to stop. He didn’t know if they would,” Hastings said.

Schrenker is expected to be kept in a local hospital until Thursday and then to be held in the Gadsden County jail pending extradition to Indiana, a sheriff’s office spokesman said. After the crash, a judge there ordered his arrest on financial fraud charges that allege he acted as a financial adviser after his state license expired.

The problem I see with this other than arrogant poor planning is when he bailed out of the plane and it crashed on land it becomes a Federal offence and he will probably be charged as a ‘domestic terrorist’ since the plane was more or less a missile after he jumped. That shows he had no regard for people or property . . . meaning he should have cut those wrists deeper since he will not be out of jail anytime before he is an ancient old man.

The moral of the story . . . Don’t put your antics on YouTube then decide to fly off into the sunset . . . especially if you can’t pop for a few more dollars of fuel to carry it off.

All of the big houses, cars, airplanes, and motorcycles do not help or have meaning when you end up in a tent with a six pack of Bud Light Lime and a dull knife.

Ice