The missing kayaker who faked his own death and fled to Eastern Europe has returned to his home state and turned himself in.
On Tuesday, December 10, 45-year-old father Ryan Borgwardt returned to Wisconsin from the Eastern European nation of Georgia. There, he surrendered himself to the Green County Sheriff’s Office. The next day in court, he was charged with obstructing an officer. He was then released on a $500 bond after entering a not guilty plea.
Now, with Ryan Borgwardt back in the States and in open communication with authorities, his strange journey can begin to be untangled.
The ‘drowning’
Borgwardt had allegedly planned his “accident” for some time. On August 11, he went up to Green Lake, which he chose, he told authorities, because it was the deepest lake in the state.
Once there, he packed his vehicle, carefully pulling it all the way up to the doors of his shop to avoid security cameras. He loaded it with an e-bike and inflatable raft he had bought secretly, as well as his kayak. On the way up, he stopped and bought a hat and backpack from Walmart.
The complaint alleges that he stashed the bike and new backpack in a patch of trees and set out onto the lake in his kayak, making his way toward what he believed to be the deepest section. Borgwardt transferred to the inflatable raft and began throwing things into the lake: first his phone, then his wallet, keys, life jacket, fishing pole and tackle box. Finally he flipped the kayak so it would appear to have capsized and returned to shore in the inflatable.
The overturned, abandoned kayak of the missing man seemed to tell the whole story. It didn’t. Photo: Shutterstock
The escape
Having faked his death, he now had to flee the country. For this, Borgwardt retrieved the e-bike and rode through the night, covering the 110km of backroads to Madison, Wisconsin. Having packed a spare charged battery, he was able to go all night without stopping. In Madison, he hid the bike, raft, and some personal belongings in a local park and boarded a Greyhound bus to Chicago, Detroit, and finally the Canadian border.
Borgwardt had his passport, but all other identification sat at the bottom of Green Lake. After some back and forth, Canadian officials let him through.
Once in Canada, he made his way to the Toronto airport and used a Western Union card to get a ticket to Paris.
The long international flight gave him a chance to check for news of his own disappearance. He saw that there was, indeed, news of a missing kayaker. Feeling that his plan had worked, he got off that flight and hopped onto another bound for Georgia.
A former Soviet state, Georgia straddles Eastern Europe and Western Asia. There, Borgwardt met with a woman he’d been in communication with for months. The pair stayed together for several days in a hotel, though he eventually ended up in an apartment.
Volunteers from Bruce’s Legacy, a nonprofit search and rescue organization, searched the lake for the missing Borgwardt. Photo: Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office
Putting the pieces together
Weeks passed, and Borgwardt kept checking the news, waiting for the local officials to give him up for dead and call off the search.
But officials were instead growing more suspicious. Everything pointed to drowning — but why had sonar, drones, and cadaver dogs all failed to find any hint of a body? Their suspicions were further roused when, in early October, they found out that Canadian officials had searched the missing man’s name only days after his apparent drowning. This led local police to reach out to Federal authorities.
The story started to come together when officials stopped searching the lake and started searching his laptop. They discovered that he’d been talking to a woman from Uzbekistan and had been researching how to move money into foreign bank accounts. He had even taken out a $375,000 life insurance policy less than a year before.
On November 8, the sheriff, Mark Podoll, announced that Borgwardt had likely faked his death and fled to somewhere in Eastern Europe. He personally urged the missing man to come home and return to his family.
Borgwardt, shocked, decided to provide authorities with evidence that he was, in fact, alive and well, likely hoping to reassure them and his family without revealing his location. He sent a 25-second video of himself in an apartment.
But authorities did not stop urging him to return, holding another press conference and personal address on November 21 and remaining in contact with the increasingly troubled Borgwardt.
Sheriff Podoll breaks the news that Ryan Borgwardt staged his drowning. The sheriff’s office live-streamed the November 8 press conference on social media. Photo: Screenshot
Return to Wisconsin
Finally, Borgwardt folded under the pressure and guilt being applied by authorities. He returned on his own accord, without extradition. Now that he has done so, however, the authorities who begged him to return are seeking restitution.
The Green Lake sheriff’s office alone spent at least $35,000 on the search. Borgwardt, who could not afford a lawyer, may be compelled to repay part of this cost. The misdemeanor crime he was charged with carries a maximum penalty of nine months in jail and a $10,000 fine.
It remains to be seen how this bizarre case, which began as a wilderness search-and-rescue and is now a court drama, will ultimately end. Sheriff Podoll, however, is happy with what they’ve done.
“What better gift could he give his kids than to be there for Christmas?” Podoll said. “We brought a dad back.”
