Pilot arrested in plane crash mystery

HARPERSVILLE, Ala. — With his personal and financial worlds crumbling around him, investment adviser Marcus Schrenker opted for a bailout. However, his plan to escape personal turmoil was short-lived.

The 38-year-old businessman and amateur daredevil pilot apparently tried to fake his death in a plane crash, secretly parachuting to the ground and speeding away on a motorcycle he had stashed away in the pine barrens of central Alabama.

But the three-day saga came to an end late Tuesday when Schrenker was captured in a tent at a campground in Quincy, U.S. Marshals spokesman Michael Richards said. Richards said one of Schrenker’s wrists was cut, but he was alive and taken into custody.

Schrenker was on the run not only from the law but from divorce, a state investigation of his businesses and angry investors who accuse him of stealing potentially millions in savings they entrusted to him.

“We’ve learned over time that he’s a pathological liar — you don’t believe a single word that comes out of his mouth,” said Charles Kinney, a 49-year-old airline pilot from Atlanta who alleges Schrenker pocketed at least $135,000 of his parents’ retirement fund.

The events of the past few days appear to be a last, desperate gambit by a man who had fallen from great heights and was about to hit bottom.

Schrenker’s escape

On Sunday — two days after burying his beloved stepfather and suffering a half-million-dollar loss in federal court same day — ­Schrenker was flying his single-engine Piper Malibu to Florida from his Indiana home when he radioed from 2,000 feet that he was in trouble.

He told the tower the windshield had imploded, and that his face was plastered with blood. Then his radio went silent.

Military jets tried to intercept the plane and found the door open, the cockpit dark. The pilots followed until it crashed in a Florida Panhandle bayou surrounded by homes. There was no sign of Schrenker’s body.

More than 220 miles to the north, at a convenience store in Childers­burg, Ala., police picked up a man using Schrenker’s Indiana driver’s license and carrying a pair of what appeared to be pilot’s goggles. The man, who was wet from the knees down, told the officers he’d been in a canoe accident.

After officers gave him a lift to a nearby motel, Schrenker made his way to a storage unit he’d rented just the day before his flight. He climbed aboard a red racing motorcycle with full saddlebags, and sped off into the countryside.

His life spiraled out of control

Schrenker was at the head of an impressive slate of businesses. Through his Heritage Wealth Management Inc., Heritage Insurance Services Inc. and Icon Wealth Management, he was responsible for providing financial advice and managing portfolios worth millions.

But officials now say Schrenker’s enterprise was ready to topple.

Authorities in Indiana have been investigating Schrenker’s businesses on allegations that he sold clients annuities and charged them exorbitant fees they weren’t aware they would face.

State Insurance Commissioner Jim Atterholt said Schrenker would close the investors out of one annuity and move them to another while charging them especially high “surrender charges” — in one case costing a retired couple $135,000 of their original $900,000 investment.

According to documents in a lawsuit filed in Indianapolis, Schrenker sent a frantic e-mail to plaintiffs on Dec. 16.

“I walked out on my job about 30 minutes ago,” it read. “My career is over … over one letter in a trade error. One letter!! … I’ve had so many people yelling at me today that I couldn’t figure out what was up or down. I still can’t figure it out.”

It’s unclear to what “error” he is referring. In another e-mail to a neighbor following his disappearance, Schrenker made reference to having “just made a 2 million dollar mistake.”

On Dec. 31, officers searched ­Schrenker’s home, seizing the ­Schrenkers’ passports, $6,036 in cash, the title to a Lexus and deposit slips for bank accounts in Michelle Schrenker’s name, as well as nine large plastic tubs filled with various financial and corporate documents.

In the supporting affidavit, investigators suggested Schrenker might have access to at least $665,000 in the offshore accounts of a client.

But it wasn’t just his finances that were in turmoil.

Just a day before, Michelle ­Schrenker filed for divorce. She told the people searching the house that her husband had been having an affair and had moved into a condominium a week earlier.

Hours after Schrenker vanished, neighbor Tom Britt received what he believes is an e-mail from Schrenker.

Despite the fact that no blood was found in the plane, Schrenker suggests in the note that the crash was truly an accident and blamed oxygen deprivation.

“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.

Britt says the message reads to him like a suicide note.

“I embarrassed my family for the last time,” Britt quoted Schrenker as saying. “By the time you read this I’ll be gone.”