Marcus Schrenker

Plane crash and manhunt On January 10, 2009, Schrenker traveled to Harpersville, Alabama, in a pickup truck carrying a red Yamaha motorcycle with saddlebags containing money and supplies. He returned to Indiana after placing the motorcycle in a storage facility, telling the owner he would return and retrieve the motorcycle the following Monday. Near Birmingham, Alabama, he made a distress call, telling air traffic control that his windshield had imploded and he was "bleeding profusely." He then set the plane to autopilot and parachuted out. Military jets that had been dispatched to intercept Schrenker's plane discovered it in flight, with its door open and cockpit empty. The plane had flown on autopilot and crashed 50 to 75 yards from a residential area.

After parachuting to the ground, Schrenker made his way to a private residence in Childersburg, Alabama, arriving around 2:30am on January 12. and then rode the vehicle to a KOA Campground in Quincy, Florida. He also said that he would likely "be gone" by the time Britt read the email. Britt turned the email over to the police.

Capture On January 13, officials captured Schrenker in a pup tent at the Quincy campground, having roughly located him using information from the email he had sent. Schrenker was located after he sent an email to a friend in Indiana. The friend contacted the U.S. Marshal Service, and the USMS used the IP Address to identify that Schrenker was at the campground in western Florida. The ground's owners, Troy and Caroline Hastings, grew suspicious when the man had failed to check out by 5 pm.

In June 2009 Schrenker pleaded guilty to federal charges of destroying an aircraft and causing the U.S. Coast Guard to respond when no help was needed.

By August 2010, his possessions had been sold off and there were civil claims against him totaling about $20 million. A hearing on his ongoing divorce was scheduled for later that October. On with a