A Wisconsin man who pretended to drown himself this summer so he could leave his wife and three children is in daily communication with authorities in Eastern Europe, a sheriff said Thursday. He is also telling how he did it, but has not committed to returning home, a sheriff said Thursday.
Greenlake County Sheriff Mark Podol said at a news conference that Ryan Borgwart has been talking to authorities since Nov. 11 after being missing for three months. The sheriff showed a video Borgwardt had sent to the sheriff’s office that day.
“The great news is that we know he’s alive and well,” Podol said. “The bad news is that we don’t know exactly where Ryan is, and he hasn’t decided to come back home yet.”
Borgwardt, wearing an orange T-shirt and not smiling, looked directly at the camera in the video, which appears to have been taken on his phone. Borgwart said he was in his apartment and the camera panned briefly but mostly showed only a door and bare walls.
“I’m safe and secure, no problem,” Borgwardt said. “I hope it works.”
Borgwardt told authorities he fled because of “personal matters,” the sheriff said. Podol did not elaborate.
“He was just going to try to make things better in his mind, and that’s the way it was going to be,” Podol said.
Borgwardt told authorities he traveled about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from his home in Watertown to Green Lake, where he overturned his kayak, threw his phone into the lake and then paddled a boat. Delivered to the coast. He told authorities he chose the lake because it is the deepest in Wisconsin at 237 feet (more than 72 meters).
After leaving the lake, he rode an electric bike about 70 miles (110 kilometers) through the night to Madison, the sheriff said. From there, he took a bus to Detroit, then boarded a bus to Canada and boarded a plane there, the sheriff said.
Police are still verifying Borgwardt’s explanation of what happened, Podol said.
The sheriff suggested Borgwardt could be charged with obstructing the investigation into her disappearance, but no count has yet been filed. Podol said whether Borgwart’s return would depend on his “free will.”
Podol said Borgwart’s biggest concern about returning is how the community will react.
“He thought his plan was going to work out, but it didn’t go the way he planned,” the sheriff said. “And so now we’re trying to give him a different plan to come back.”
The sheriff said authorities “keep pulling on his heartbeat” to return home.
“Christmas is coming,” said Podol. “And what better gift could your children receive than to be present at Christmas?”
Borgward’s disappearance was first investigated as a possible drowning when he went kayaking on Green Lake, about 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Milwaukee. But subsequent clues – including that he had obtained a new passport three months before his disappearance – led investigators to speculate that he faked his death to meet a woman he had been dating. He was negotiating in the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan in Central Asia.
The sheriff declined to comment when asked what he knew about the woman, but said police contacted Borgwart “through a woman who spoke Russian.”
Before Borgward spoke with the sheriff’s office last week, he had not been heard from since the night of Aug. 11 when he texted his wife in Watertown shortly before 11 p.m., saying That they are going to the beach after kayaking.
Deputies located his vehicle and trailer near the lake. They also found his overturned kayak with a life jacket attached in an area where the lake water is more than 200 feet (60 meters) deep. The search for her body continued for more than 50 days, with divers searching the lake on several occasions.
In early October, the sheriff’s department learned that Canadian law enforcement officials had run Borgwardt’s name through their database a day after he was reported missing. Further investigation revealed that he had reported his passport lost or stolen and obtained a new one in May.
Analysis of a laptop revealed a digital trail showing Borgwart planned to travel to Europe and try to mislead investigators, the sheriff’s office said.
The laptop’s hard drive was replaced and the browser was wiped the day Borgward disappeared, the sheriff’s office said. Investigators found passport photos, inquiries about transferring money to foreign banks and conversations with a woman from Uzbekistan.
They also discovered he had taken out a $375,000 life insurance policy in January, even though the policy was for his family and not him, the sheriff said.
Authorities tried every phone number and email address on the laptop in “a blitz fashion,” Podol said. They eventually reached a Russian-speaking woman who put them in touch with Borgward. It is not clear if she is a woman from Uzbekistan.
Podol said he wasn’t sure how he was supporting himself but assumed he had a job: “He’s a smart guy.”
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Associated Press writer Scott Bauer in Medicine contributed to this report.
