Faking His Death to Avoid His Crimes or a Giant Misunderstanding?

How Marcus Schrenker's swindling led to a downed plane, a manhunt, and an arrest at a campground.

As seen in the photo above, Marcus Schrenker had it all. Beautiful wife, his own plane, a nice car, and truly seemed happy. Too bad those possessions and that happiness were all built upon lies, deceit, and theft.

Marcus Schrenker grew up in Merrillville, Indiana which is in Northern Indiana up near Chicago. There isn’t much is known about his childhood, but he attended Purdue University which is where he met his future wife, Michelle. The two married in October of 1995. Marcus by trade was a financial advisor (yes, it’s going to be one of THOSE stories).

Marcus was listed as the owner of three different financial companies. Heritage Wealth Management Inc. (HWM), Icon Wealth Management, and lastly was Heritage Insurance Service. The whole point of hiring a financial advisor is because a person trusts them to invest their money on their behalf and earn them a return. Marcus seemed to do fairly well at this.

Marcus and Michelle were seemed to be living the highlife based off of Marcus’ perceived success. They lived on a waterfront property in Geist, an affluent suburb of Indianapolis with their three children. Not to mention the luxury cars and the private plane he owned as well. It’s not uncommon for a financial advisor to do well, especially if their clients are do well. Marcus’ problem was, well, he wasn’t actually investing the money he was being given; he was using it to fund his lifestyle. A tale that’s almost as old as time.

However, the luxurious life Marcus was living began unraveling in December of 2008. That month Schrenker himself, along with Heritage Wealth Management, were sued by an outside company that was trying to recoup $1.4 million for commissions it had paid to Schrenker for selling insurance policies. After this, it was almost like an avalanche of the past was unleashed on Schrenker, all of his own doing.

On December 30th, his wife Michelle filed for divorce from him. Not because he was obviously involved in some illegal dealings, but because he had been having an affair with a woman who worked at the place his private plane was kept. That next day, his state financial advisor license expired, and the three companies under his ownership were searched with a warrant related to ongoing investigations. Such a BAD WAY to start the New Year.

At the beginning of January, the Indiana Department of Insurance revoked the remaining licenses of Schrenker’s firms while also fining them. According to the IDOI, there were numerous complaints that came from clients that he was forging signatures, and withdrawing investments without clients knowledge which then lead to a huge financial penalty on his clients.

Just as an example as to the amount of money that Schrenker had been screwing people out of, on January 9th he had been ordered by a Maryland court to pay an insurance company $533,564 for issues regarding unpaid commissions. Now, this is where the story takes a TV drama-like turn.

Om Saturday, January 10, 2009, Schrenker had traveled to a town in Alabama called Harpersville. Driving a pickup truck, Schrenker was carrying a motorcycle in the bed of the truck. In the saddlebags on the motorcycle? Money. While in Harpersville he had placed the motorcycle in a storage unit and informed the owner he would return for it that following Monday. But that next day, January 11, 2009, Schrenker took off in his single-engine plane from an airfield in Anderson, Indiana. He was scheduled to fly to Destin, Florida but Marcus Schrenker didn’t make it there.

While flying over Birmingham, Alabama, Marcus made a mayday call to air traffic control saying his windshield had suddenly imploded and that he was bleeding with blood pouring all over the cockpit. The plane was then set to autopilot where Marcus parachuted out. Two military jets were scrambled to try and intercept Marcus’ plane and once they found it the cockpit was empty and the door was opened. The jets followed the plane which flew on autopilot for about 200 miles and crashed near a residential neighborhood. Once investigators looked inside, they noticed the window showed zero damage done to it, and there was no blood whatsoever in the cockpit. But what they did fine was a U.S. atlas and a national campground directory with pages for Florida and Alabama torn out.

After he parachuted to the ground, Schrenker made his way to a local residence at about 2:30 a.m. He was wet from the knees down and spun a story about how he was kayaking and had been in an accident. He was given a ride into town to the police station where they hadn’t made the connection to him and the plane crash. They gave him a ride to a local motel where he checked in under a false name and paid entirely in cash, and when they came back the next day, he was gone. He had raced to the nearby woods, barefoot.

Resilient, Schrenker made his way to the storage unit where he had put that motorcycle mention earlier. He rode it to a nearby KOA campground checking in without offering the owners his name and naturally, paying all in cash. He BS’d some story about how he was on a cross country trip with some friends and was given access to the camp’s wifi. Once he had access to the wifi, Marcus made a move that would prove to be his downfall: he emailed a friend.

The friend and neighbor, Tom Britt, received an email from Marcus stating that the crash was just one big misunderstanding and that he was staying in a motel because he was frankly embarrassed that it happened and was also scared to return home. But he indicated to Britt that by the time he read this email, Schrenker would be “gone” and not giving any further information on what was going on. Britt handled the email over to the police which lead to a Hamilton County judge to freeze the assets of both Schrenker and his soon to be ex-wife.

Authorities used the information from the email Schrenker sent that lead them to the campground. The owners, Troy and Caroline Hastings, had grown suspicious when their no-named guest had failed to check out by 5. Troy Hastings had approached the tent and noticed a noticeable red stain on the outside flap of the tent. Not long after this, the couple was contacted by the local sheriff to ask if there was anything suspicious going on. They told them about their no-named guest, and this led to the authorities honing in on the campground and surrounding Schrenker’s tent.

At 10 p.m. on January 13th, Marcus Schrenker was captured, but with a slash on his left wrist indicating self-harm, as well as another self-harmed scar on his elbow and was incoherent. Schrenker had lost a large amount of blood and he was taken to the hospital where he kept incoherently mentioning the word “die” a few times.

That same day, he was charged in Hamilton County, Indiana with 11 counts of unlawful acts committed by an advisor who was seeking compensation and unlawful transactions by an investment advisor. His bail was set to $4 million. In May of that same year, a judge in Alabama ruled against Schrenker in a $12 million case that was related to a sale of an airplane from a man that was from Alabama. In June 2009, Schrenker pleaded guilty to charges of causing the U.S. Coast Guard to respond to an accident where no help was needed which is a federal offense. That August, he was sentenced to a little over four years in prison and forced to pay $34,000 in restitution to the Coast Guard.

By late 2010, the material possessions that Schrenker had schemed to afford had been sold off and the civil claims against him had totaled over $20 million. That August, he reached a plea deal with prosecutors in Indiana where he plead guilty to give counts of securities fraud, pay his victims $630,000, and must serve 10 years in prison. This 10 years was to run consecutively with the federal charge for taking the plane crash.

Opinion

Marcus Schrenker had more in his lifetime than most people get in a fraction of one. So why did he feel the need to scheme and steal? Why do any of these financial people do it? The Bernie Madoff scumbags of the world…why do they do it? One word: greed. Schrenker’s greed got the best of him. But the most bizarre thing about this whole story is the denial. Marcus claims he never intended to fake his death and that it’s “silly” to think otherwise. Yet, he was the one who went into hiding in a campground after he had to “evacuate” his plane because of the make believe windshield issue. Sure, Marcus served his time and was released from prison, but to take zero responsibility for any of his actions? Disgusting.

Again, to scheme and cheat people who trusted you with their money is one of the most despicable, disgusting things that you can do. It makes you become a subhuman pile of garbage. But yet, it happens still. Time and time again, white collar crimes are perpetrated by the rich who want to stay rich and in most cases they see little to no time in prison for these crimes because their status and wealth keeps them out. In this case, was justice served? It seems like it. But will it be for the next victims of the NEXT Marcus Schrenker right around the corner? We can all hope so.