this summer to abandon his wife and three children, he communicated daily with the authorities from Eastern Europeeven telling them how he did it, but has not committed to returning home, a sheriff said Thursday.
According to the Associated Press, Ryan Borgwardt has been talking to authorities since Nov. 11 after being missing for three months, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said at a news conference. The sheriff later showed a video that Borgwardt had sent to the sheriff’s office that day.
“The great news is that we know that he is alive and wellPodoll said. “The bad news is that we don’t know exactly where Ryan is and he hasn’t made up his mind yet to return to his home.”
Borgwardt, wearing an orange T-shirt and not smiling, looked straight into the camera of the video, which appears to have been taken with his phone. Borgwardt said he was in his apartment and briefly panned the camera, but it mostly just showed a door and bare walls.
“I’m safe and protected, no problem,” Borgwardt said. “I hope this works.”
Borgwardt told authorities he left because of “personal matters,” the sheriff said. Podoll did not elaborate.
“He was just trying to make things better in his mind and that’s how it was going to be,” Podoll said.
His plan
Borgwardt told authorities he traveled about 80 kilometers from his home in Watertown to Green Lake, where he capsized his kayak, threw his phone into the lake and then paddled an inflatable boat to shore. He told authorities he chose this lake because it is the deepest in Wisconsin at more than 72 meters deep.
After leaving the lake, he rode an electric bicycle about 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 account of what happened, Podoll said.
The sheriff suggested Borgwardt could be charged with obstructing an investigation into his disappearance, but so far no charges have been filed. The sheriff’s office said the investigation into Borgwardt’s body, which lasted more than a month, cost at least $35,000. Podoll said Borgwardt told authorities he did not expect the investigation to take more than two weeks.
Whether Borgwardt returns will depend on his “free will,” Podoll said. Borgwardt’s biggest concern about his return is how the community will react, the sheriff said.
“He thought his plan was going to work, 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 “continue to emotionally bully him” to return home.
“Christmas is coming,” said Podoll. “And what better gift could your children get than you being there at Christmas?”
The timeline of extinction
Borgwardt’s disappearance was initially investigated as a possible drowning after he went kayaking in Green Lake, about 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee, in August. But the facts that followed – including the fact that he obtained a new passport three months before he disappeared – led investigators to speculate that he staged his death to meet a woman he was communicating with in Uzbekistan.
The sheriff declined to comment when asked what he knew about the woman, but said police contacted Borgwardt “through a woman who spoke Russian.”
Before the sheriff’s office spoke with Borgwardt last week, she had not heard from him since the evening of August 11thwhen he texted his wife in Watertown just before 11 p.m., saying he was headed to the coast.
Officers located his vehicle and camper near the lake. They also found his overturned kayak with a life jacket attached to it in an area where the lake waters are more than 60 meters deep. The search for his body continued for more than 50 days, with divers exploring the lake several times.
In early October, the sheriff’s department learned that Canadian law enforcement had checked Borgwardt’s name in their databases the day after he was reported missing of. Further investigation revealed that he had reported his passport lost or stolen and obtained a new one in May.
The sheriff’s office said analysis of a laptop revealed a digital trail that showed Borgwardt planned to head to Europe and tried to mislead investigators.
The laptop’s hard drive had been replaced and the browsers had been cleaned the day Borgwardt disappeared, the sheriff’s office said. Investigators found passport photos, applications for money transfers to foreign banks and communication with a woman from Uzbekistan.
They also discovered he had taken out a $375,000 life insurance policy in January, although the policy was for his family and not him, the sheriff said.
