Jan 14, 2009 06:16 AM
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Marcus Schrenker, the accused Indiana insurance swindler who staged a plane crash, nearly ended his life as dramatically as he fake-ended it this past weekend.
Schrenker is the financial advisor who falsely reported the windshield on his Piper Meridian blew out, then parachuted to the ground, trudged through a swamp and surfaced the next morning in another town, where he for some reason presented himself to police before fleeing.
This morning it emerges that Schrenker over the weekend stashed "red Yamaha motorcycle in a storage unit just outside of Childersburg," the Alabama town where he surfaced and talked with local police. He recently grabbed the bike and left behind his wet clothes, probably right around the town the local cops figured out who he was and returned to the hotel where they had dropped him off.
More details emerged of the email he sent to a neighbor while on the lam. Though crash investigators said his windshield survived the crash intact, Schrenker was stuck with his original story. From the Times:
Mr. Schrenker claimed in the message that a window in the plane imploded, hitting him with glass and causing him to lose oxygen.
“Hypoxia can cause people to make terrible decisions and I simply put on my parachute and survival gear and bailed out,” he said in the message.
U.S. Marshals closed in on Schrenker Tuesday night in Gadsden County, Florida, "in a tent at the KOA campground after acting on a tip." He had slit his wrists and was "semi-coherent" but was saved.
It is not yet clear how long it will take before he appears on Oprah to discuss how he found salvation while repaying his debts to society and is a completely different man from the fellow who tried to fake his own death.
Send an email to Ryan Tate, the author of this post, at ryan@gawker.com.
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