By Canadian Press

Wisconsin kayaker who faked his death and fled to Eastern Europe has willingly returned to the US

Dec 11, 2024 | 10:24 AM

GREEN LAKE, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man who faked his own drowning and left his wife and three children and was believed to have been in Eastern Europe willingly returned to the U.S. after roughly four months and is in custody, a sheriff said Wednesday.

Ryan Borgwardt “came back on his own” because of his family, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

GREEN LAKE, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man who faked his own drowning and left his wife and three children to go to Eastern Europe is in police custody, online records show.

Ryan Borgwardt, 45, was booked into the Green Lake County Jail on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Victim Information and Notification Everyday system, which provides information to crime victims such as a person’s jail custody status. No charges were listed.

Raiders AGM

Raiders impact on Prince Albert local economy continues to go up: AGM report

4h ago

Court proceedings

'The impact of this trauma will echo for generations': court case surrounding La Ronge woman's death reaches conclusion

Dec 11, 2024

Going Global

P.A.'s Zablocki named to Team Canada for U18 Women's World Championships

Dec 11, 2024

The Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday in a social media post that a news conference would be held Wednesday morning to update the Borgwardt case. The post said no further information would be provided until then.

A person answering the phone at the sheriff’s office Tuesday night declined to confirm whether Borgwardt was in custody. County jail officials didn’t immediately return a phone message.

Last month, Sheriff Mark Podoll said Borgwardt began communicating with authorities on Nov. 11 after disappearing for three months but hadn’t committed to returning to Wisconsin. Podoll said police were “pulling at his heartstrings” to come home. He suggested Borgwardt could be charged with obstructing the investigation into his disappearance.

Borgwardt told authorities last month that he faked his death because of “personal matters,” the sheriff said. He told them that in mid-August he traveled about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from his home in Watertown to Green Lake, where he overturned his kayak, dumped his phone and then paddled an inflatable boat to shore. He said he picked that lake because it’s the deepest in Wisconsin.

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 said he took a bus to Detroit, then boarded a bus to Canada and got on a plane.

The sheriff said at the time that investigators were working to verify Borgwardt’s description of what happened.

The sheriff’s office has said the search for Borgwardt’s body, which lasted more than a month, cost at least $35,000. The sheriff said that Borgwardt told authorities that he didn’t expect the search to last more than two weeks.

The Associated Press