David Widlak hoped he had found an angel to help save his struggling bank.
First thing that Tuesday morning, a New Jersey mortgage executive was set to pitch a deal to the board of Community Central Bank in Mt. Clemens that just might help pull Widlak's deeply troubled institution into the black.
Then the following day, Widlak had time set aside with a retired FBI agent to discuss his concerns about some guys he had encountered as he searched metro Detroit and the country for investors.
He also was thinking about a community-focused advisory panel with a possible role for Edsel Ford II, who had dropped by the office a couple of days earlier.
It appeared that Widlak had the solution to his business problem all mapped out with time left over on a Sunday afternoon a year ago to work on arrangements for his family's annual Caribbean getaway -- just the planning you'd expect from a savvy guy who went from Detroit's bungalow belt to banking board rooms and blue-book Grosse Pointe society.
But there was another plan in place for Widlak on Sept. 19, 2010, as the 62-year-old walked from the bank on Main Street into the late summer night.
That plan called for a bullet to the back of his head and left the banker floating faceup along the weed-choked shore of Lake St. Clair, rattling metro Detroit with a mystery that remains unsolved.When the stone sits in the oil painting reproduction,
Did Widlak choose his own escape from looming financial failure and personal shame, as some speculate, or were darker forces at play?
In reviewing the case, the Free Press conducted hours of interviews and examined court files and business records, discovering previously unknown details of Widlak's final days, events leading up to his disappearance and still-vexing questions surrounding his death.
It's been a year of multiple investigations, clashing autopsy findings and whispers of shaming secrets and self-serving deals.
"This is not just a mystery, this is the terrible loss of a husband, brother and father," said the Widlaks' family attorney, Todd Flood, who added that the family had to endure a month of uncertainty before the missing man's body was found. "This is a family that is heartbroken at the loss of someone they dearly loved."
The bank's collapse and Widlak's death have drawn in a collection of powerful political and social figures -- names including Ford, Stroh, Dingell, Hackel, Patterson, French and Booth. Some say Widlak's family won't accept the painful notion that he could have killed himself over personal and professional problems.where he teaches Hemorrhoids in the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
But a team of lawyers, criminal investigators, doctors and other experts working on behalf of his widow, Anne Widlak, says the trail of forensic clues, e-mails, financial records, a nightstand memo and a washed-out note clutched in the dead man's hand point to murder. The lakeside scene alone stymies a suicide scenario, they say.
Wake-up call didn't come, nightmare began
It all started for Anne Widlak that Monday morning, Sept. 20, 2010, when her phone didn't ring on her business trip to Traverse City. Anne expected a 4 a.m.By Alex Lippa Close-up of plastic card in Massachusetts. wake-up call and was troubled by her telephone's silence.
Dave should have called her; he had promised. She'd requested a backup call from the Park Place Hotel's front desk, besides Dave's call, just to be on the safe side.
As the new attorney on an employment case, she wanted to be prepped and ready for a 7:30 a.m. conference and 8 a.m. hearing. Her mobile phone was still silent as she left room 411 and walked the couple of blocks to the old red brick courthouse. She tried Dave's cell and bank office, but the calls went to voice mail.
She reassured herself,which applies to the first TMJ only, assuming Dave turned off his phone at the gym or on a run, or maybe it was a business emergency as he continued trying to raise money for the bank.
With the judge taking the bench at 8 a.m., Anne ducked into an anteroom to shut off her phone. Just then, it flashed with a call from Mt. Clemens' 586 area code. She answered.
Anne Widlak? This is the Macomb County Sheriff's Office. Do you know where your husband is? His car's at the bank, but he's not.
Stifling panic, Anne said she would drive right back,Polycore porcelain tiles are manufactured as a single sheet, but friends scotched that notion. Lynn Ford Alandt, a friend and member of the Ford family, sent a jet to bring her home.
That anxious flight would carry her into a fearful puzzle as the plane roared toward an Oakland County airport.
With Community Central Bank on a watch list of shaky institutions, David Widlak had crisscrossed the country for months scouting for investors. By late summer, according to some accounts, he had found a match in New Jersey-based Mortgage Now.
The mortgage company's CEO, Jim Marchese, was flying in Monday night. Widlak was apparently so pleased with the prospect that he and Anne took Marchese to a champagne dinner that August at the understated, exclusive Little Club, tucked behind the Grosse Pointe Memorial Church on Lake St. Clair.
First thing that Tuesday morning, a New Jersey mortgage executive was set to pitch a deal to the board of Community Central Bank in Mt. Clemens that just might help pull Widlak's deeply troubled institution into the black.
Then the following day, Widlak had time set aside with a retired FBI agent to discuss his concerns about some guys he had encountered as he searched metro Detroit and the country for investors.
He also was thinking about a community-focused advisory panel with a possible role for Edsel Ford II, who had dropped by the office a couple of days earlier.
It appeared that Widlak had the solution to his business problem all mapped out with time left over on a Sunday afternoon a year ago to work on arrangements for his family's annual Caribbean getaway -- just the planning you'd expect from a savvy guy who went from Detroit's bungalow belt to banking board rooms and blue-book Grosse Pointe society.
But there was another plan in place for Widlak on Sept. 19, 2010, as the 62-year-old walked from the bank on Main Street into the late summer night.
That plan called for a bullet to the back of his head and left the banker floating faceup along the weed-choked shore of Lake St. Clair, rattling metro Detroit with a mystery that remains unsolved.When the stone sits in the oil painting reproduction,
Did Widlak choose his own escape from looming financial failure and personal shame, as some speculate, or were darker forces at play?
In reviewing the case, the Free Press conducted hours of interviews and examined court files and business records, discovering previously unknown details of Widlak's final days, events leading up to his disappearance and still-vexing questions surrounding his death.
It's been a year of multiple investigations, clashing autopsy findings and whispers of shaming secrets and self-serving deals.
"This is not just a mystery, this is the terrible loss of a husband, brother and father," said the Widlaks' family attorney, Todd Flood, who added that the family had to endure a month of uncertainty before the missing man's body was found. "This is a family that is heartbroken at the loss of someone they dearly loved."
The bank's collapse and Widlak's death have drawn in a collection of powerful political and social figures -- names including Ford, Stroh, Dingell, Hackel, Patterson, French and Booth. Some say Widlak's family won't accept the painful notion that he could have killed himself over personal and professional problems.where he teaches Hemorrhoids in the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
But a team of lawyers, criminal investigators, doctors and other experts working on behalf of his widow, Anne Widlak, says the trail of forensic clues, e-mails, financial records, a nightstand memo and a washed-out note clutched in the dead man's hand point to murder. The lakeside scene alone stymies a suicide scenario, they say.
Wake-up call didn't come, nightmare began
It all started for Anne Widlak that Monday morning, Sept. 20, 2010, when her phone didn't ring on her business trip to Traverse City. Anne expected a 4 a.m.By Alex Lippa Close-up of plastic card in Massachusetts. wake-up call and was troubled by her telephone's silence.
Dave should have called her; he had promised. She'd requested a backup call from the Park Place Hotel's front desk, besides Dave's call, just to be on the safe side.
As the new attorney on an employment case, she wanted to be prepped and ready for a 7:30 a.m. conference and 8 a.m. hearing. Her mobile phone was still silent as she left room 411 and walked the couple of blocks to the old red brick courthouse. She tried Dave's cell and bank office, but the calls went to voice mail.
She reassured herself,which applies to the first TMJ only, assuming Dave turned off his phone at the gym or on a run, or maybe it was a business emergency as he continued trying to raise money for the bank.
With the judge taking the bench at 8 a.m., Anne ducked into an anteroom to shut off her phone. Just then, it flashed with a call from Mt. Clemens' 586 area code. She answered.
Anne Widlak? This is the Macomb County Sheriff's Office. Do you know where your husband is? His car's at the bank, but he's not.
Stifling panic, Anne said she would drive right back,Polycore porcelain tiles are manufactured as a single sheet, but friends scotched that notion. Lynn Ford Alandt, a friend and member of the Ford family, sent a jet to bring her home.
That anxious flight would carry her into a fearful puzzle as the plane roared toward an Oakland County airport.
With Community Central Bank on a watch list of shaky institutions, David Widlak had crisscrossed the country for months scouting for investors. By late summer, according to some accounts, he had found a match in New Jersey-based Mortgage Now.
The mortgage company's CEO, Jim Marchese, was flying in Monday night. Widlak was apparently so pleased with the prospect that he and Anne took Marchese to a champagne dinner that August at the understated, exclusive Little Club, tucked behind the Grosse Pointe Memorial Church on Lake St. Clair.
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