Wisconsin kayaker who faked his death and fled to Asia says plan was a ‘crazy, emotional dream’

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin kayaker who faked his own death so he could start a new life with a woman in the country of Georgia texted his wife he loved her on the night he executed the plan, telling her he had gone to the lake to watch the northern lights.

Emily Borgwardt woke up alone the next morning, her desperate texts of “Where are you????” and “Babe?” going unanswered. By that point her husband, Ryan Borgwardt, had already overturned his kayak on Green Lake and biked through the night to catch a bus to Canada, the first leg on his journey to the Georgian capital of Tibilsi to meet a Ukranian woman he was secretly courting online.

The texts were among a massive file of case documents the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office released to The Associated Press this week that offer a glimpse into the couple’s tense marriage. In one included interview, Borgwardt told detectives that he was a failure and called his plan to abscond to the country at the crossroads of Europe and Asia a “crazy, emotional dream.”

Borgwardt, 46, was convicted of obstruction last month. His wife divorced him in May.

An elaborate plot and frantic search

The cabinetmaker, who lived with his wife and their three children in Watertown, traveled about 50 miles (80 kilometers) to Green Lake to go kayaking on the night of Aug. 11, 2024. He never came home.

Sheriff’s deputies discovered his kayak on the lake in an area where the water was about 200 feet (60 meters) deep. The search for his body went on for 50 days.

Borgwardt had intentionally overturned the kayak and paddled back to shore in an inflatable raft. He retrieved an electric bike he had stashed nearby and rode 70 miles (112 kilometers) through the night to the Wisconsin capital of Madison, where he caught a bus to the Toronto airport.

He eventually made it to Tibilsi where he met a woman named Katya he’d met on a dating website in December 2023. By February of 2024 they had become close friends and he began researching how to fake his own death that April so he could be with her.

Sheriff’s investigators eventually contacted him via email using information on a laptop he had left behind. They convinced him to return to Wisconsin in December, largely by pleading with him to do right by his family.

‘A door kind of opens up for you’

Before they booked Borgwardt into jail, investigators asked him during a three-hour interview why he did it.

He said he felt like a failure, saying later in the interview that he has accumulated about $75,000 in credit card debt and $130,000 in business debt. He said he didn’t have a good relationship with his wife and his children didn’t want to do anything with him anymore.

“I think just the inability to feel like you could talk to your wife about some of this stuff, and maybe the complete hopelessness that you have in the situation that you’re in,” he said. “And you end up meeting a friend somewhere on the other side of the world who sort of has a somewhat similar story and you just end up becoming friends and the friend thing ends up turning into more, but you didn’t really plan on that.

“It wasn’t your intention. So a door kind of opens up for you in a way to possibly make things work like that,” he added.

He said he hoped that he could avoid detection long enough to be declared legally dead. At that point he planned to apply for citizenship in Georgia but hadn’t figured out how to do that if he was declared dead.

A revealing text exchange

The tension in the Borgwardts’ marriage was evident in their last texts the night he fled.

He told her at 10:36 p.m. that he “may have snuck out on a lake.”

“That would have been nice to know,” Emily Borgwardt responded. “I was beginning to wonder why you weren’t home.”

After he apologized, she responded: “Nothing new. I should be used to it by now. So many nights I have no idea where you are when it’s late.”

He responded that he’ll work on their communication, adding that he saw the northern lights and they were pink. He then texted: “I love you…. goodnight.”

Emily Borgwardt told him that she loved him, too, and to be safe.

“I’ll be heading back to shore soon,” he responded at 10:49 p.m., his final message before his wife’s frantic ones at 5:12 a.m. asking where he was.

Throughout the interview with detectives Borgwardt repeatedly asked whether Katya was in trouble, too. He said he would like to return to her because the cost of living is so much cheaper in Georgia than in the U.S.

At the end of the interview, he asked the detectives if he could use the justice center’s Wi-Fi to let Katya know he was OK. One of the deputies tells Borgwardt he’ll email her for him.

Borgwardt pleaded no contest to the obstruction charge on Aug. 26. He was sentenced to 89 days in jail.

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Associated Press writer Scott Bauer contributed to this report.