HARPERSVILLE (ALABAMA) - WITH his world crumbling around him, investment adviser Marcus Schrenker opted for a bailout. However, his plan to escape personal turmoil was short-lived.
In a feat reminiscent of a James Bond movie, the 38-year-old businessman and amateur daredevil pilot apparently tried to fake his death in a plane crash, secretly parachuting to the ground and speeding away on a motorcycle he had hidden in the pine barrens of central Alabama.
But the captivating three-day saga came to an end when the authorities caught up with him at a North Florida campsite where he had apparently made a genuine attempt to take his own life.
Schrenker was taken into custody around 10pm Tuesday (11am yesterday, Singapore time) after US marshals found him inside a tent at a camping ground in Quincy, Florida, Alabama-based US Marshals spokesman Michael Richards said.
'He had cut one of his wrists, but he is still alive,' he added.
Schrenker was on the run not only from the law but from divorce, a state investigation of his businesses and angry investors who accuse him of stealing potentially millions of dollars of their savings.
'We've learned over time that he's a pathological liar - you don't believe a single word that comes out of his mouth,' said 49-year-old airline pilot Charles Kinney from Atlanta, who alleges that Schrenker pocketed at least US$135,000 (S$201,000) of his parents' retirement fund.
The events of the past few days appeared to be a last, desperate gambit by a man who had fallen from great heights and was about to hit bottom.
On Sunday - two days after burying his beloved stepfather and suffering a US$500,000 loss in federal court - Schrenker was flying his single-engine Piper Malibu to Florida from his Indiana home when he made a mayday call saying his windshield had imploded and that his face was plastered with blood.
Then his radio went silent.
Military jets tried to intercept the plane and found the door open, the cockpit dark. The pilots followed until the aircraft crashed in a Florida Panhandle bayou surrounded by homes. There was no sign of Schrenker's body.
More than 350km north, at a convenience store in Childersburg, Alabama, police picked up a man using Schrenker's Indiana driver's licence and carrying what looked like pilot's goggles. The man, who was wet from the knees down, said he had been in a canoe accident.
After officers gave him a lift to a nearby motel, Schrenker apparently made his way to a storage unit he had rented just the day before his flight.
He climbed aboard a red racing motorcycle with full saddlebags, and sped off into the countryside.
At 38, Schrenker was at the head of an impressive slate of businesses responsible for managing portfolios worth millions.
And he appeared to be doing well: He collected luxury cars, owned two planes and lived in an upmarket neighbourhood known as Cocktail Cove.
But officials now say Schrenker's enterprise was ready to topple.
The authorities in Indiana had been investigating his businesses over allegations that he charged clients exorbitant hidden fees - in one case costing a retired couple US$135,000 of their US$900,000 investment.
And in recent weeks, his life began to spin out of control.
According to documents in a lawsuit filed in Indianapolis, he sent a frantic e-mail to plaintiffs on Dec 16.
'I walked out on my job about 30 minutes ago,' it read. 'My career is over...over one letter in a trade error. One letter!!...I've had so many people yelling at me today that I couldn't figure out what was up or down.'
By New Year's Eve, officers were searching Schrenker's home, seizing the family's passports, $6,036 in cash, the title to a Lexus and deposit slips for bank accounts in his wife's name, as well as six computers and nine large plastic tubs filled with documents.
In the supporting affidavit, investigators suggested that Schrenker might have access to at least $665,000 in the offshore accounts of a client.
But it was not just his finances that were in turmoil.
Just a day before, his wife had filed for divorce, claiming he had been having an affair.
