Smooth talker

If you're going to put your plane on autopilot, then jump out with a parachute in order to fake your own death:

1. Don't approach a police officer afterward.

2. Don't tell the officer you were in a canoeing accident with some friends.

This would seem like common sense. But Marcus Schrenker is a Hoosier con man apparently unable to believe his careful schemes were unraveling:

Two former commercial pilots named in an Indiana Department of Insurance complaint said Schrenker was a smooth talker who promised steady returns. They trusted him because he came highly recommended by other pilots.

"It was all word of mouth, and when you're a pilot, you trust. That's what you do and what you're used to doing," said Joe Mazzone, 57, of Auburn, Alabama. "His modus operandi is, he flies into your city dressed up in a $1,000 suit and sits down with you, buys you lunch, and the next thing you know, he has you on his side, and you move your money to his Heritage Wealth Management."

Ah, gotta watch out for them smooth talkers. Schrenker is now on the lamb -- he "rode out of a small Alabama town on a red motorcycle under the cover of darkness." Sounds like a hick version of the Bernard Madoff con or the Hoosier version of "Fargo." This has to become a made-for-TV move, it just has to.