Indiana businessman Marcus Schrenker, the head of a company that lost a lawsuit over insurance irregularities last week is the center of bizarre claims that he attempted to fake his own death in a plane crash.
On Friday, two days before the crash, a federal judge in Maryland issued a $533,500 judgment against Schrenker’s company Heritage Wealth Management Inc.in favor of OM Financial Life Insurance Co. The lawsuit contended that Heritage Wealth Management should have returned more than $230,000 in commissions because there were problems with insurance or annuity plans Heritage had sold.
Authorities claim that Schrenker parachuted from his single egine plane, leaving the aircraft on autopilot. But it’s how they know that makes the story more interesting.
The claim is that Schrenker gave a fake distress signal while flying over Birmingham, Ala. His plane continued flying on autopilot and eventually crashed late Sunday more than 200 miles away in a swampy area of the Florida Panhandle. But in between him leaving the aircraft, and it crashing, military jets tried to intercept the plane, and reported that the door was open and the cockpit dark. The plane also didn’t end its days in a fireball either, and wreckage confirmed the visual siting: door open, and no signs of blood that would be expected with the crash. Better still, in the fake mayday message Schrenker claimed that his windshield had imploded and he was losing blood…so no blood, AND a fully intact windshield at the crash scene.
But wait: there’s more: a man with Schrenker’s license and matching his description told police in Childersburg — about 225 miles from where the plane crashed — that he’d been in a canoe accident with friends. The officers took him to a hotel not knowing about the crash, but he was gone by the time they returned, last seen running into the woods.
A classic case of trying to be too tricky in faking your own death. Fake death, you’re doing it wrong.
