NOBLESVILLE, Ind. (AP) - The missing pilot, Marcus Schrenker, has been found in Quincy, Florida, at a campsite. Investigators say he had slit his wrists.
Earlier Tuesday, a judge ordered the arrest of Indiana pilot, Marcus Schrenker, on financial fraud charges. Schrenker had been on the run after, police say, he staged a plane crash.
Investigators are now trying to figure out how to remove the plane and what to charge the pilot with. Deputies say Marcus Schrenker was heading from Indiana to Destin. When he was in northern Alabama, he jumped out of the plane, leaving it on autopilot.
It crashed in Milton, barely missing nearby homes. Investigators are still on scene trying to figure out what to do next.
Schrenker's disappearance has perplexed authorities in three states as they scrambled to put together the pieces of what looked like an elaborate plan sketched out to escape financial doom. In the days before the crash, Schrenker's home and business had been searched by authorities probing his financial management businesses, his wife filed for divorce, his stepfather died, and a court in Maryland entered a half-million-dollar judgment against him.
UPDATE:
QUINCY, Fla. (AP) - An investment manager who staged a plane crash to evade the law was barely conscious and muttered the word "die" when federal agents found him bleeding from a slashed wrist, an investigator said Wednesday.
U.S. Marshals apprehended Marcus Schrenker, 38, late Tuesday at a northern Florida campground two days after the amateur daredevil pilot apparently tried to fake his own death in a plane crash. Authorities believe he parachuted to the ground and later sped off on a motorcycle he had stashed in central Alabama.
Frank Chiumento, an assistant chief with the U.S. Marshals in Florida, said officers had to tend to Schrenker's self-inflicted gash to the wrist before he was airlifted to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Schrenker was listed in fair condition early Wednesday.
The gash was "very serious at the time," Chiumento said. "He was bleeding profusely from the wounds to the left arm." Besides the slashed wrist, there was a puncture wound near his elbow.
Schrenker was semiconscious and muttering single words but appeared to resist first aid from the marshals.
Statement from Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita: “I’m pleased to learn of the successful capture of Marcus Schrenker and want to acknowledge the quick actions and dogged efforts of fellow law enforcement agencies including the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office, the United States Marshals, local authorities in Alabama and Florida and others.
The work by my Securities Division will continue in pursuit of a successful prosecution and in an effort to account for and recover investor assets.”
