A Wisconsin who faked his own drowning and left his wife and three children while he traveled to Eastern Europe is in police custody. Ryan Borgwardt, 45, was booked into the Green Lake County Jail on Tuesday afternoon, said Victim Information and Notification Everyday system, a service that provides information to crime victims. No charges were listed, the Associated Press reports. 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 that he faked his death because of “personal matters,” the sheriff said. He told them that in mid-August he traveled about 50 miles 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 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.
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