Monday, January 12, 2009

In the Spirit of D.B. Cooper?

For those too young or memory challenged the story of D.B. Cooper can be found here. Last night Marcus Schrenker of Indiana seemingly tried to reprise the Cooper saga but with a twist--he evidently parachuted out of his own plane over Birmingham, Alabama. Some believe he was running from an investment fraud investigation.

It certainly seems like a well thought-out plan, if that's indeed what it was, although I'd love to hear an innocent explanation since it would be far more bizarre than what we know now. The whole thing seems more appropriate for a Ridley Pearson novel, mixed with a dab of John Nance.

MORE 1/13/09

Don't take this post as any kind of weird admiration for Schrenker--if he broke the law he should face up to it like a man and do the right thing by his family, employees, friends, and customers. That doesn't appear to be happening right now, as the man seems to think he's a real-life made for TV movie character.

But a couple of observations. It's likely he figured his aircraft would make the Gulf, where crash response and body recovery would be much more complicated. Perhaps the hope was an eventual declaration of death after the body failed to show up. Since he had enough fuel to get to Destin it's likely he miscalculated fuel burn at low altitudes and with the cockpit door flung open. Missing the Gulf was his major mistake, which begs the question as to why he bailed over Birmingham? Perhaps the cops should consider that a major clue.

He also made communications via email last evening, which they've probably traced--but was it him? If not then perhaps he has an accomplice trying to throw the hounds off the scent. His declaration of innocence in the email seems to suggest he hasn't been keeping up with the news that closely, otherwise he'd have known they didn't find any blood in the cockpit, which kinda torpedoes his emergency story.

MORE 1/13/09

Tom Britt, the man Mr. Schrenker sent the emails to, is currently on Greta's show and made reference to the fact that Schrenker was an Air Force pilot and was in "special ops". That means he's been through survival training.

NOT D.B. 1/13/09

Captured in FL. So much for survival training, which was BS according to another guest on the show. The email went to the guy who apparently bought the story about spec ops, suggesting he was still carrying on a con job to the bitter end.

3 comments:

LA Sunset said...

Indianapolis is a large city. In fact, it can be said that a guy can have a girlfriend on the north, south, east, and west sides, and none will ever find about the other.

But as big as it is, I really believe I have seen this guy before.

A.C. McCloud said...

LA, do you think that Tom Britt fellow might be related to the folks who owned Britt Airways?

LA Sunset said...

I don't think he is, but don't hold me to it. Tom Britt is a publisher that lives in the Geist area, an affluent part of Indy. Schrenker and him were neighbors and apparently have done some business together in the way of marketing for Schrenker's company.