“By the time you get this, I’ll be gone,” Marcus Schrenker, a financier from Indiana accused of bilking a number of pilots out of their retirement funds, wrote in a fare-thee-well to a friend the other day as he embarked on a escape plan he fancied to be extremely daring and exciting. “I embarrassed my family for the last time.”
Oh, but not quite! Schrenker actually wasn’t done embarrassing his family by a long shot. In fact, he was gearing up to commit several more acts that would prove to be extremely humiliating, before he was caught this morning by police. The Post today says that “Houdini would have been proud” of Schrenker’s gutsy escape plan, but, er, would he? After the jump, we take a look at his plan and the ways in which it went totally, awesomely wrong.
The Plan: Schrenker, an accomplished pilot, would arrange to fly himself back from Florida to Indianapolis. Near Birmingham, Alabama, he would radio a distress call, parachute out of the plane, and when it crashed later, everyone would assume he died! Or something!
Where It Went Wrong: When Schrenker made his distress call, he overelaborated, saying “his windshield had shattered and he was bleeding profusely.” When the plane was later found in a Florida swamp — where it had landed and thankfully not injured anyone — the windshield remained unbroken, and there was no blood in the plane.
The Plan: When he emerged from the woods 200 miles away, he would tell police he had been in a “canoe accident.”
Where It Went Wrong: He was still wearing aviation goggles.
The Plan: Check into a motel, then casually disappear. Go pick up red motorcycle stashed in a storage unit and drive into the sunset.
Where It Went Wrong: (1) According to motel owner Yogi Patel, Schrenker was “last seen running into the woods wearing a black hat.” (2) He rented the storage unit in his own name. (3) A red motorcycle? Really? (4) Around this time, a self-congratulatory video Schrenker made of himself doing DARING STUNTS on an airplane made him a giant YouTube star.
The Plan: Go to campground, commit suicide.
Where It Went Wrong: Marcus slashed only one wrist, and somehow punctured his elbow.
Now he’s been arrested, of course. Really, all he has to do now is die of accidental autoerotic asphyxiation, and this would be the ultimate embarrassing crime.
SKY ‘HOUDINI’ IS GROUNDED [NYP]
Pilot Is Missing, and So Is His Motorcycle [NYT]
Marc Schrenker may have tried to fake his death [YouTube]
