MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich.—On the evening of Oct. 17, two duck hunters found the decomposing body of David Widlak in a swamp about four miles from the local bank he ran. He had his wallet, cash and keys. His Nike cap was about 100 yards away.
The Macomb County Medical Examiner found no obvious wounds, no blunt-force trauma. The official said the death may have been a drowning; frequently, family members were told, people commit suicide without leaving a note.
So stands the mysterious death of Mr. Widlak, the 62-year-old chief executive of Community Central Bank, which he founded with friends in 1996 and which had suffered its share of troubles through months of crippling recession and a lukewarm recovery.
Like many other small banks, Community Central, with assets of about $500 million, was significantly undercapitalized. As of Sept. 30, its reserves were less than half what regulators required. More than 7% of outstanding loans were delinquent.
When he disappeared, Mr. Widlak had raised about $8 million of the $10 million he had sought to shore up the bank's finances. Detectives pursued the theory that he had absconded with the money.
"Week after week, they were checking all these resorts in the Caribbean," said Mr. Widlak's brother, Paul.
The discovery of David Widlak's body a month after his disappearance turned the missing-person case into a homicide investigation, cinching the attention of the Detroit suburb where he lived and worked.
"It's become this whole urban legend," says John Forlini, owner of Che Cosa, a coffee house around the corner from Community Central Bank. "At first, people figured he was sipping tequila on a beach or something. Now, everyone is just scratching their heads and waiting for the next shoe to drop."
Friends and family discount suicide. In the weeks prior to his death, Mr. Widlak had gotten a flu shot and made a payment for a family trip to Puerto Rico over Thanksgiving.
Mr. Widlak—married, with eight grandchildren—emailed a brother on the day he disappeared, asking sizes for T-shirts he was ordering for a family reunion.
He went missing on Sept. 19, a Sunday. Mr. Widlak drove his 2010 Lincoln MKS to the bank in historic downtown on the Clinton River. Mr. Widlak had been flirting with a woman at work who was also in the building that day, according to people with knowledge of the investigation, but she isn't a suspect.
Mr. Widlak that day telephoned a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who did occasional background checks for the bank. Mr. Widlak had told his wife and the bank's investigator that he had concerns about three potential investors. He scheduled a breakfast meeting with the investigator for the following Wednesday.
"I don't know if he knew something about their character, or it was just a gut feeling," said Todd Flood, a former prosecutor who is investigating the case on behalf of Mr. Widlak's estate.
Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel said investigators have spoken to every person of interest in the case. He wouldn't comment specifically on the existence of the three investors.
At 8 p.m., surveillance cameras recorded Mr. Widlak leaving the building in a gray sweatshirt. He was alone.
Mr. Widlak, a fitness buff who exercised before work, had arranged to give his wife, Anne—who was 200 miles away on business—a wake-up call Monday. He never phoned.
At 7 a.m. Monday, a maintenance man saw Mr. Widlak's car in the bank lot and stopped by his office to greet him. Once inside, the man called 911. "There's furniture turned upside down and everything," he said.
Later that day, as police and volunteers searched along the Clinton River, Mr. Widlak's wife, Anne, addressed TV news cameras choking back tears: "Dave, if you're hearing this, please come home." The family posted a $10,000 reward.
Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel determined that a .38 caliber revolver belonging to Mr. Widlak was missing from his office. A second gun, .38 semi-automatic, was found in an office closet, still in its packaging. Mr. Widlak had purchased the gun during the summer, Paul Widlak said, which was unusual: "He wasn't a gun person."
Mr. Widlak had been born in Detroit and put himself through the University of Michigan Law School. Mr. Widlak hatched the idea for a bank in 1979, when residents of Macomb County complained about difficulty getting business loans. In 1996, he and several friends created Community Central Bank. He became a director in 1999 and CEO in 2000, a post that paid more than $300,000 a year.
"It wasn't just his work, it was his passion," said his brother-in-law John Donnelly.
Shortly after Mr. Widlak disappeared, rumors spread that he had embezzled millions of dollars. Depositors withdrew $33 million. The bank's stock, which trades on Nasdaq, fell from $1.10 a share to 58 cents in three days. The bank appointed an interim CEO and started an audit.
Last month, the bank entered into a consent decree with state and federal regulators to improve banking practices and shore up its capital. The bank audit found nothing amiss.
When the family was told by the coroner that Mr. Widlak's body bore no obvious wounds, Anne Widlak hired Ljubisa Dragovic, the medical examiner in nearby Oakland County, to perform a second autopsy.
Mr. Dragovic found that Mr. Widlak died from a bullet wound to the back of his neck. A .38 slug was lodged near his spine. Powder burns indicated the gun was pressed against his skin when it was fired. Mr. Dragovic described the shooting as "execution-style."
While it's possible that Mr. Widlak shot himself, Mr. Dragovic said, "he would have had to have been a contortionist."
The next day, the Macomb County Sheriff's Department searched the murky water again and discovered a .38 pistol about six feet from where Mr. Widlak's body was found. It belonged to Mr. Widlak. Ballistic tests will determine whether it fired the bullet that killed him.
Sheriff Hackel said the death is still being treated as a homicide, but, so far, investigators haven't turned up "one shred of information to indicate that somebody else did this."
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