HARPERSVILLE, Ala. — The search for an Indiana businessman who may have tried to fake his own death in a plane crash to escape financial problems took another cinematic turn today when investigators said he fled on a red motorcycle.
After searching the Alabama woods where Marcus Schrenker, 38, apparently bailed out of his small plane before letting it coast on autopilot to crash in Florida, investigators discovered that he’d stashed a red motorcycle inside a storage unit a day before the crash. The bike is gone, and his clothes were left behind.
“He could be anywhere at all. Within 10 hours he could be in New Orleans, halfway to Houston, in Atlanta, anywhere,” said Huntsville Police Chief David Latimer.
“I believe he’s out of the U.S.,” Latimer said. “… He jumped out an airplane and left it to crash who knows where. He’s shown a total disregard for human life. I think he’d do anything to get away.”
Schrenker’s disappearance perplexed authorities in three states as they scrambled to put together the pieces of what looked like an elaborate plan sketched out to escape financial doom. In the days before the crash, Schrenker’s home and business had been searched by authorities probing his financial management businesses, his wife filed for divorce, his stepfather died and a court in Maryland entered a half-million-dollar judgment against him.
Those troubles worsened today, when a judge in Indiana ordered Schrenker arrested on financial fraud charges after prosecutors said he had given financial advice to clients and made business deals even though his state license had expired on Dec. 31.
The investigation began Sunday night, when Schrenker’s plane went down en route to Destin, Fla., from Anderson, Ind. Schrenker had reported that the windshield imploded and that he was bleeding profusely, officials said.
After he stopped responding to air traffic controllers, military jets tried to intercept the plane. They noticed the door was open and the cockpit was dark, following it until it crashed in a bayou surrounded by homes. Authorities said he apparently put the single-engine Piper Malibu on autopilot for more than 200 miles, bailed out over Alabama and left the plane to crash in Florida.
Investigators think Schrenker’s plan was to let the plane fly to the Gulf and crash in the water, slowing the investigation, Latimer said. But the plane ran out of fuel first.
Police in Childersburg, Ala., southeast of Birmingham, later said they picked up a man using Schenker’s Indiana driver’s license and took him to a motel. The man was wet from the knees down and told the officers he’d been in a canoe accident.
Yogi Patel, owner of the Harpersville Motel, said the man was given the key to room 114, and he didn’t act strangely at all. “He didn’t leave a mess. He didn’t leave anything. He didn’t even take a shower,” he said.
By the time police learned of the crash investigation and came back to the hotel, the man was gone. They learned he paid for his room in cash before putting on a black cap and running into the woods next to the hotel.
Later, another clue surfaced: Schrenker had parked a red Yamaha motorcycle with packed saddlebags in a storage unit about 7 miles away from Childersburg. By Monday, the motorcycle was gone and Schrenker’s still-damp jeans, wet gray socks, hiking boots and a T-shirt were in a trash bin nearby.
Schrenker rented the unit on Saturday under the name Jay, paying cash, and told the manager that he would be back for his belongings, said Wanda Brooks, whose family owns the storage business.
“He said, ‘I’ll definitely be back on Monday. I’m going to Florida. He said he was from Indiana,” Brooks said.
Meanwhile, in Indiana, Schrenker’s neighbor Tom Britt said he received an e-mail Monday night from Schrenker claiming the crash was an accident and saying he wanted the companies under investigation to succeed. Britt believes the e-mail is real, but its authenticity hasn’t been verified.
Britt quoted Schrenker as saying, “I embarrassed my family for the last time” and “By the time you get this, I’ll be gone.” Britt turned the e-mail over to authorities, fearing it was a suicide note.
In the e-mail, Britt is asked to set the record straight and Schrenker says he’s stunned after reading coverage of the case on the Internet. According to the e-mail, the accident was caused when the window on the pilot side imploded, spraying him with glass and reducing cabin pressure.
“Hypoxia can cause people to make terrible decisions and I simply put on my parachute and survival gear and bailed out,” the e-mail reads.
Schrenker lived a high-flying life as an investment manager and an experienced recreational pilot with the nerves to pull off aerial stunts. In a video posted on YouTube, he is shown boldly completing a daredevil maneuver in the Bahamas, flying underneath a bridge.
He bought luxury automobiles, two airplanes and built a 10,000-square-foot house in an upscale neighborhood full of million-dollar homes known as “Cocktail Cove,” where affluent boaters often socialize with cocktails in hand.
But that affluence was threatened as his personal and financial life darkened in the weeks before the crash.
Authorities in Indiana were probing Schrenker’s financial management businesses — Heritage Wealth Management Inc., Heritage Insurance Services Inc. and Icon Wealth Management — for possible securities violations, said Jim Gavin, spokesman for Indiana’s secretary of state. Officers who searched his home Dec. 31 were looking for computers, notes, photos and other documents related to those companies, he said.
On Friday, two days before the crash, a federal judge in Maryland issued a $533,500 judgment against Heritage Wealth Management Inc., and in favor of OM Financial Life Insurance Co. The OM lawsuit contended Heritage Wealth Management should return more than $230,000 in commissions because of problems with insurance or annuity plans it sold.
That’s not the only legal problem he’ll have to face if he’s found: Florida officials believe he’ll face a host of charges related to the crash.
“You just can’t let an unmanned aircraft just maliciously fly into a residential area without facing any consequences,” Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Scott Haines said on the CBS “Early Show.”
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