Breaking Schnack

You remember a few weeks ago when the guy from Lenexa disappeared in Shawnee Mission Park?

Then a bunch of family and friends scoured the park looking for him? But after weeks of searching they couldn't find him and gave up?

Then last week he was found wandering down a trail sunburned, bug-bitten and dehydrated but otherwise unharmed?

No? You don't remember? Doesn't ring a bell? Well, here's the gist:

Police said Larry Schnackenberg, 58, has been found along a walking trail in Shawnee, Kan. A security officer, Rick Reynolds, who has known Schnackenberg for 15 years, found him on Wednesday … walking along a trail in the 6100 block of Barker Road, police said.
…
It was July 8 when Schnackenberg disappeared. His car and wallet were found at Shawnee Mission Park, just south of the trail. Police used K-9s and helicopters to search the park and more than 600 volunteers spent two days conducting their own search. Outside of his car, there had been no trace of Schnackenberg…

And that's basically where we find ourselves today. As the SOB points out, there was a lot of what industry people call "media weight" behind this, and we've been left with a rather unsatisfying ending.

Well, I'm here to rectify that. I have what I think is a pretty solid theory about what really happened.

Now, I'm not a cop, or a police investigator, or "security officer" or any kind. I don't have years of experience tracking down missing persons and/or pets. But I do have years of experience watching cop shows and such on TV. And based upon that, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that Schnackenberg's "disappearance" was a ruse.

My theory is based upon the fact that a well-educated, middle-aged suburban man faced with the prospect of death by lung cancer will turn to the production of methamphetamine as a way to build a nest egg to provide for his family after he dies.

This is well documented in any number of situations. What tends to happen is that said individual, under pressure from "businessmen" higher up in his distribution chain, will need to take an extended period away from his family to ramp up production.

Typically, he'll drive his RV-turned-meth lab into the Chihuahuan Desert to produce his quota of methamphetamine. This could take anywhere from a week to three weeks depending on the demands of his wholesalers.

But then, because his occupation is a secret to his family and friends, he has to find a way to account for his disappearance. This he does by taking off all of his cloths and wandering into a public place to be discovered, confused and disoriented but mostly unharmed, by local authorities or passers by.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Schnackenberg invoke a "fugue state" defense caused by some generic medical condition, if any public statement is made at all.

Well, that's my theory. I can't guarantee 100 percent accuracy and some details might be different. But if I know my TV dramas (and I can assure you that I do), that I'm pretty sure some version of this is what happened.

And now you know the rest of the story.

Good day.

tagged: headlines, Johnson County, Lenexa, Kansas, Shawnee Mission Park, Schnackenberg, Breaking Bad, fugue state