‘I kept going’: Wisconsin husband details how he faked his own death

The man at the centre of a hunt thought to be for a missing kayaker reveals how he faked his own drowning and ran to Europe to meet a woman he met online.

For the first time, we’re hearing from Ryan Borgwardt in his own words. The man, once known as Green Lake’s missing kayaker, told investigators during a three-hour recorded conversation how he faked his drowning and ran away to eastern Europe to meet a woman he’d met online.

And 12 News Investigates obtained it through an open records request.

From his final text exchange with his wife to the first dispatch call, it’s all revealed in the newly released video and documents.

“He was on a kayak,” the dispatch call stated. “And she woke up, and he is not home. And she can’t get a hold of him.”

“Oh dear,” the other person on the call responded.

Body camera footage, time-stamped August 2024, then showed the moment deputies found his van and overturned kayak in Green Lake.

Investigators initially believed Borgwardt’s disappearance was a drowning, but a deep dive into his laptop revealed he was actually alive.

“Ryan, I beg you, give me a call,” Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said in a video to Borgwardt.

After 54 days of searching the lake, the sheriff’s office turned to an all-out blitz to reach the missing kayaker through video messages, news conferences, and emails to the European girlfriend with the subject “Call us. Very Important.”

It worked.

“I’m in my apartment. I am safe, secure, no problem,” Borgwardt said in a video message sent to detectives and eventually released publicly.

WISN 12 News even obtained Borgwardt’s video proof of his flight back to the United States. All of this evidence led up to his first sit-down with investigators in December 2024.

During the interview, Borgwardt described his late-night kayak ride and elaborate plan. “Countless times, I said, ‘Why am I doing this?’ But I kept going,” he said. “The amount of hours that I spent trying to disappear would blow your mind.”

He explained how he used an inflatable boat to reach shore, rode an e-bike to Madison, and took a Greyhound to the Canadian border. It’s at the border he met with agents suspicious because he showed up with a dead phone and no license.

“I think he started to wonder if I was trying to run away from something because he started to ask questions like ‘Are you married? Is everything OK?’” Borgwardt said.

Borgwardt eventually made his way to Georgia in Eastern Europe, staying there until he received the email from detectives that made his “heart fall through the floor.”

The email exchange with detectives lasted a month before he returned home to face the consequences.

“Everybody’s a bit perplexed as to why you took this path,” a detective said during the interview.

Borgwardt responded, “I guess, in the end, it came down to the feeling of failure in about every aspect of your life.”

After returning to the U.S., he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor obstruction charge. Last month, a judge sentenced him to three months in custody, and he has already paid $30,000 to Green Lake County to reimburse them for the costs incurred.