An Indiana financial adviser whose company was being investigated for securities fraud, remains missing today after police say he faked a distress call from the plane he was flying, and then parachuted out over Alabama before the plane crashed into a Florida swamp Sunday evening.
A neighbor says Marcus Shrenker sent him an e-mail Monday claiming the crash was an accident and he wanted the businesses he was involved in to survive. "I've embarrassed my family for the last time,' Shrenker purportedly wrote to Tom Britt, according to The Associated Press.
Britt told the AP he thought the e-mail alluded to a possible suicide and was real, but investigators have reportedly not verified the authenticity of the message. Britt quoted Schrenker as saying, "By the time you read this I'll be gone."
Schrenker, 38, a father of three, whose company was also facing a $1.4 million lawsuit, was at the controls of a single-engine Piper Malibu when he sent out what authorities describe as a phony distress call while flying over northern Alabama, Sunday evening.
He told air traffic controllers that he was experiencing turbulence and that his windshield had blown into the plane and he was bleeding profusely.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the controllers lost contact with Schrenker shortly after, but continued to track his plane for more than two hours before it crashed in Milton, Fla., about 230 miles away.
Military jet pilots, who had been deployed to monitor the Piper Malibu, reported that the door to the plane was open midair and that the cockpit was dark. The jets followed the plane until it crashed.
While Florida police were investigating the crash, Schrenker turned up in Childersburg, Ala., seeking help from a police officer there, reportedly saying he had been in a canoeing accident.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the controllers lost contact with Schrenker shortly after, but continued to track his plane for more than two hours before it crashed in Milton, Fla., about 230 miles away.
Military jet pilots, who had been deployed to monitor the Piper Malibu, reported that the door to the plane was open midair and that the cockpit was dark. The jets followed the plane until it crashed.
While Florida police were investigating the crash, Schrenker turned up in Childersburg, Ala., seeking help from a police officer there, reportedly saying he had been in a canoeing accident.
ccording to a news release issued by the Santa Rose Sheriff's Office in Florida Monday, Schrenker was wet from the knees down but had no visible injuries -- contradicting his reported claim to the air traffic controllers that he was bleeding profusely.
Unaware of the investigation in Milton, authorities in Childersburg took Schrenker, who was carrying goggles police described as those that might be used for flying, to a nearby motel. He was seen on surveillance video entering the room.
Once they realized that Schrenker had been linked to the Milton accident, Childersburg police went back to the hotel and found that Schrenker, who had checked in under a fake name, had put on a black cap and run off into the woods, having paid for his room with cash.
Schrenker and his investment advisory firm, Heritage Wealth Management Inc., were sued last month by Kansas-based Creative Marketing International Corp., which is trying to recoup $1.4 million in reported losses Creative Marketing claims it incurred after Schrenker failed to repay commissions from insurance and annuity policies.
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