GREEN LAKE, Wis. (AP) – A Wisconsin man who drowned this summer to leave his wife and three children has been communicating daily with officials from Eastern Europe, even telling them how he did it, but he hasn’t committed himself. back home, the sheriff said Thursday.
Ryan Borgwardt has been talking to authorities since Nov. 11, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said at a news conference. The sheriff showed the video Borgwardt sent the sheriff’s office that day. His investigators don’t know exactly where he is, Podoll said, but it was somewhere in Eastern Europe.
Borgwardt, wearing an orange T-shirt and not smiling, looks directly into the camera in the video, which appears to have been taken on his phone. Borgwardt said he was in his house and panned the camera briefly to show the interior, but mostly showed the door and bare walls.
“I’m safe and secure, no problem,” Borgwardt said. “I hope this works.”
Borgwardt gave authorities information about how he died and fled, Podoll said. He walked about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from his home in Watertown to Green Lake, where he capsized his kayak, threw his cell phone into the lake and rowed the inflatable boat to shore. He told authorities he picked the lake because it was the lowest in Wisconsin at 237 feet (more than 72 meters).
After leaving the lake, he rode an electric bicycle about 70 miles (110 kilometers) overnight to Madison, the sheriff said. From there he took a bus to Detroit, then took a bus to Canada and boarded a plane there, the sheriff said.
Police were still investigating Borgwardt’s account of what happened, Podoll said.
“The good news is that we know he is alive and well,” Podoll said. “The bad news is that we don’t know where Ryan really is, and he hasn’t decided to go back home yet.”
Podoll said that Borgwardt could be charged with obstructing his investigation, but so far no charges have been filed. The sheriff said authorities “keep pulling on his heartstrings” to return home.
“Christmas is coming,” said Podoll. “And what better gift can your children get than to be there for Christmas?”
But when Podoll comes back, the sheriff said, “it’s his choice.”
Borgwardt’s disappearance was initially investigated as a possible drowning after he went kayaking on Green Lake, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Milwaukee. But what happened next – including that he got a new passport three months before he disappeared – led investigators to suspect he faked his death to meet a woman he was dating in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia.
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 contacted Borgwardt last week, he had not been heard from in three months. On the night of August 11, Borgwardt texted his wife in Watertown shortly before 11 p.m., saying he was headed to the beach after going kayaking.
Deputies found his car and trailer near the lake. They also found his overturned kayak with a life jacket attached to it in an area where seawater runs more than 200 feet (60 meters) deep. Another fisherman finally found Borgwardt’s fish.
Investigators began to suspect that Borgwardt’s kayak was soft and he did not have a life jacket. The search for his body continued for more than 50 days, with searchers repeatedly searching the lake.
In early October, the sheriff’s department learned that Canadian law enforcement officials ran Borgwardt’s name through their database the day after he was reported missing. An investigation showed that he had said that his passport was lost or stolen and he had obtained a new one in May.
The sheriff’s office said an examination of the laptop revealed a digital trail that showed Borgwardt planned to travel to Europe and tried to mislead investigators.
The laptop’s hard drive was replaced and browsers were cleaned the day Borgwardt disappeared, the sheriff’s office said. Investigators obtained passport photos, inquiries about transferring money to foreign banks, and communications with an Uzbek woman.
They also discovered that 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 blitz fashion,” Podoll said. Finally they reached a Russian-speaking woman who put them in touch with Borgwardt. It is not known if she is a woman in Uzbekistan.
Podoll said he wasn’t sure how he made a living but guessed he had a job: “He’s a smart guy.”