True Crime with Kendall Rae - The Man Who Faked His Death for a New Life With His Mistress

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

In August 2024, 44-year-old Ryan Borgwardt went missing after leaving for a kayaking trip. But this wasn’t a typical missing person case. Borgwardt had faked his own death in order to flee to the country for a woman in Uzbekistan, leaving behind his wife and three children. Please check out Bruce's Legacy! https://www.bruceslegacy.com/ Check out my foundation, Higher Hope: Higher Hope Foundation: https://www.higherhope.org/  Shop my Merch! https://kendallrae.shop This episode is sponsored by: Earnin - When you download the EarnIn app type in True Crime with Kendall Rae under PODCAST when you sign up. Rocket Money Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

Hello everyone and welcome back to True Crime with Kendall Rae. I hope you guys are all having a great day. Thank you for joining me today and if you're new to the show then welcome. I'm so happy to have you. So guys today we are getting into a case that I have been wanting to talk about for months. I wanted to wait until there was enough information to do a full deep dive. And this is actually a case that I had been covering just here and there, little updates on my other podcast,

The Sesh, which is very different from this show. It's a little bit unhinged, but in the best way, it's really fun. We talk about a variety of topics. We play games. It's a lot of laughing and more of the lighthearted side of things. I host it with my cousin, so if you're interested in checking it out and you know, getting to

know me on a more personal level, then I will have that linked below. But yeah, we talked about this case quite a bit and it blew me away. This guy, we're gonna be talking about Ryan Borgwart. Damn, do I have a lot to say about him and he really pisses me off. Ryan is someone who tried to fake his own death, stage his own disappearance and just abandon his wife and children and leave them to think that he just died. I know this is different than the typical case I cover on this show, but honestly, we've been covering a lot of heavy ones lately and I just needed something a little bit more on the lighter side.

And I think you guys probably do as well. I always see that feedback from you that something like this is a little, you know, refreshing in the true crime space in the weirdest way because I mean, it's still like I said, infuriating and the lengths that this guy went to, it's just unbelievable. But definitely really interesting to see how people tried to, it's just unbelievable. But definitely really interesting to see how people tried to stage their own disappearances. And we've talked about similar cases to this in the past, and you guys have always really enjoyed learning about them.

And I've also had a lot of feedback and opinions. And so I'm really looking forward to reading the comment section on this one. All right, like I said, today we're gonna be discussing Ryan Borgwart. And honestly, there isn't that much known about him before all of this unfolded. However, we do know that he was living with his wife

and three kids in Watertown, Wisconsin. And we also know that he had his own woodworking business. And of course, as you guys know, I typically like to share as much background on victims as possible, but Ryan is not a victim. In fact, he is far from it. His wife Emily and his three children, they were the true victims in this case. But since this is something that they're still going through personally and has been very

traumatic, I don't want to get into a bunch of details about them personally. And just for the sake of their privacy, I think it's just not necessary and they've expressed not really wanting to be part of the media coverage. What I will say though is his children are around middle school to high school age, meaning they are old enough to understand what's going on. Which if you ask me, that makes what Ryan did so much worse. I mean, it's horrible no matter what age a child is when they experience something like this, but you guys know what I mean. So what exactly did Ryan do? Well, it all started on August 11th, 2024, and it was a Sunday, and like they normally did, Ryan went to church with his whole family, and then later that afternoon or into the evening, really,

he was planning on going fishing. Specifically, he was going to drive an hour north to go fish at Green Lake, which is in Green Lake, Wisconsin. And because Ryan is a very outdoorsy guy, Emily likely didn't think twice about this trip. He was just going to go kayaking up north, fish for a couple hours, and then come home late that night. However, despite a text that came in from him at 1045 saying that his plan was to paddle into shore and then drive straight home, Ryan never showed up. Which of course, if your

partner doesn't come back home after something like a fishing trip, you're going to get concerned pretty quickly and she did what any other wife would do, Emily reported him missing. And as soon as she did, there was no hesitation from law enforcement to try and find him. And by 532 on the 12th, so the next day, the Green Lake County Sheriff's Office was notified of the missing kayaker and right away, they sent out deputies to go over to the lake and try and locate him.

And while they didn't find Ryan, they did find his car and his trailer, leading them to believe that something happened to him out on the lake and less than an hour later, they made a shocking discovery out on the water. They ended up finding a capsized kayak in the western part of the lake, which obviously doesn't look good. Now, for some context, Green Lake is actually the second biggest lake in Wisconsin by volume,

and the deepest natural lake inland in the state. At its deepest point it reaches a depth of 237 feet. It covers a total of 7,340 acres and it has over 27 miles of shoreline. So clearly they knew right away what a big undertaking this was gonna be. I mean it can't be stressed enough how difficult it would be to find a body in that lake but that's exactly what they tried to do. I mean, it can't be stressed enough how difficult it would be to find a body in that lake, but that's exactly what they tried to do. Life doesn't happen bi-weekly, so why should payday, the money that you earn, could be in your hands today with Earnin'.

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As soon as they found that overturned kayak, there was an all hands on deck effort when it came to looking for Ryan, which included bringing in outside resources like Bruce's legacy. And I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned Bruce's legacy on this show before or one of my other shows, but if you haven't heard of them, Bruce's legacy is a nonprofit that aids in search and recovery operations for drowning victims. They often work closely with law enforcement, and I really can't praise them enough for the incredible work that they do.

It was started by Keith Cormacan after losing his own brother, Bruce, to a drowning incident back in 1995. So he has now dedicated his life to helping other people recover their loved ones. And on the morning of Tuesday, August 13th, he and his team were called in to help look for Ryan. And one of the things that they're able to do is bring in this specialized sonar equipment that scans the bottom of the lake

in order to see if there's a body down there. And obviously, like I just explained, this is a huge lake, so they knew that this was gonna take a lot of time. But based on where they found the kayak, they figured that his body couldn't have gotten much further than the western part of the lake, which again is still a huge area to search. So of course they got that sonar up and running. And meanwhile, drones were flown above the water and deputies were looking along the shoreline. And they ended up making a pretty big discovery just that morning. Around 930 AM, two fishermen were casting nets along the bottom of the lake and they

ended up pulling up a fishing rod. And it ended up being a fishing rod that belonged to Ryan, according to his wife. She was able to confirm it was his. And then later that afternoon, around 330, someone called in reporting that they had found a tackle box, and when they opened it, they found several items, which included a wallet, a driver's license, and keys as well, all of which belonged to Ryan. And all of these findings, the tackle box, the fishing rod, the kayak, and the car, ultimately helped confirm the belief that he must have fallen into the water.

So for the next 54 days, the efforts to locate the missing 45-year-old father of three continued. And I really can't emphasize enough just how intensive this search actually was. On August 24th, they ended up bringing in cadaver dogs and dive teams, and the conditions on the water were far from safe. I mean, Green Lake is known for being super mucky, so these divers had essentially zero

visibility in the water. Which of course is just dangerous on its own, not to mention how deep they had to dive in order to search for him. But all these people that were spending their time and putting themselves at risk were happy to do it, because it was important to everyone that Ryan's family had that closure. And Keith, with Bruce's legacy, was especially invested in finding his body. And he said he spent somewhere around $10,000 in expenses between repairs and replacing equipment.

And he even said that this whole thing was keeping him up at night because he could not figure out why he was not finding Ryan's body. And Keith is truly a professional at what he does, and he's passionate about what he does. So not finding a body was making him start to question himself and his abilities. He spent 23 days of his life out on that water with sonar equipment and just as many days reviewing

that data, yet nothing pointed to Ryan being in the water. And the divers were pretty much saying the same thing. Even with their expertise, they came up empty-handed time after time. And they were, I mean, everyone was becoming very frustrated. And once they got to that eight week mark, they were all sort of looking at each other like, is he actually in the water? Maybe he's not even out there. But of course, it was confusing to them because all of the early evidence was suggesting that he was in that water. But by this point, they just felt like they would have found him if he was.

And so on October 7th, after deciding to take their investigation in sort of a different direction, they made a huge discovery. So we continued our search throughout. the the the the the the the

the the the the the the the the

the the the the the the the the

the the the the the the amount of support that our community gave. My department. It was unbelievable. From food, to gift cards for Bruce's legacy, to a thank you, and they were proud of us. They were proud that we were not giving up, and we were not. We continued.

And on October 4th, which was a Friday, I met with Keith from Bruce's Legacy and he said to me, he said, Sheriff, he says, I've done a lot of and I can't find him. He said we searched and we searched and if you see that picture that's on the screen behind me all the yellow is where Keith searched. That was every spot of that western water of our lake. With that being said, he also told me that, Sheriff, don't worry. I'm not giving up. He called the company and was asking for another piece of equipment, a top notch sonar and it was a new one but it was going to be a couple weeks out. So October 7th I got my crew together, my three detectives and my chief deputy and myself.

We met and we talked and we said we got to go a different direction and they did. The direction we went was offline and we found out that his name was run on August 13th. Wow, yeah that was something we didn't expect. And when he says Ryan's name was run on August 13th, he means that one day after he was reported missing Ryan's passport was used. Yep, you heard that right. A literal day after he was reported missing, his passport was used at the Canadian border. And of course, this turned everything they thought they knew up until this point upside

down because now they weren't looking for a body. They were looking for a living, breathing human being who likely, and I think pretty obviously at this point, faked his disappearance. So to try and figure out what the hell is going on here, investigators turned to his digital footprint and they ended up finding some crazy shit, all of which pointed to the fact that Ryan had meticulously planned his disappearance for months. Here's what a forensic analyst was able to find on Ryan's laptop. They saw that Ryan obtained a second passport, replaced the hard drive on his laptop, cleared his browser history on the day he disappeared,

synced his laptop to iCloud on the day that he disappeared, took photos of his original passport, inquired about moving funds to a foreign bank, changed his email address associated with his bank on the day he disappeared, communicated with a woman in Uzbekistan, and I bet you guys can guess this one, he acquired a $375,000 life insurance policy and purchased an airline gift card and that second passport was purchased after he Reported the original one as lost or stolen mind you investigators ended up finding that other original passport very easily With the help of his wife Emily. So yeah, the picture is starting to get a lot clearer Ryan never drowned in that lake. He's completely staged his disappearance. From what they were finding, it looked like he had faked his disappearance, or really

his death, in order to be with this woman that he had been communicating with online. The problem, though, is they didn't know where he was. They figured that he was probably somewhere in Europe, but they didn't know exactly where. The FBI and Homeland Security even got involved, so that just tells you how seriously they were taking this. And I'm glad they did, because what Ryan did is just so fucked up

on so many levels. Homie was over here doing the absolute most, quite literally, for a woman that he had just met over the internet. And we don't know what was said between them, actually, but whatever it was had to have been enough for him to think it was worth giving up quite literally everything.

And not only just giving up his wife and kids, but he was willing to let his wife and children think that he died. I mean to me that is just, there's no other word for it other than evil. He and his wife had literally just celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary in July and you know he has gone through the births of all three of his children and raising them and I don't know the details as far as how involved he was in their life but it's just how could you do that to your family, to your wife and to your children to let them think and suffer with the images of you drowning and the the mourning and grieving that they would have to do for years and you're

just completely fine with them experiencing all of that. I mean just think about it, just picture this. That morning as I mentioned Ryan was at church with his children and his wife. He's sitting there you know doing whatever you do in church. And meanwhile, he's thinking about what he is planning to do to his own family later that evening. I mean, how do you function like that? Oh my God, liars just blow my mind,

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Just go to rocketmoney.com slash Kendall Ray today. That's rocketmoney.com slash Kendall Ray. Once again, rocketmoney.com slash Kendall Ray. Now there has been very little said publicly from their family, and I completely understand why and respect that fully, but we know that they did mourn his loss when they thought that he drowned in the lake. And just imagine what it must have been like for them when they found out that he was alive and had been planning this as far back as January when he took out that life insurance

policy. That alone is seven months of planning that we know of. And I obviously can't speak to how they felt about all of this, especially because they haven't spoken themselves publicly, but I think we can reasonably assume that they were, you know, at the very least hurt, angry and confused. And again, just as a reminder, all of his children

are middle school, high school age, so they fully know what's going on. And just imagine having to process that type of abandonment at that age. And not that leaving your wife and kids for another woman is ever the right thing to do, but it definitely would have been a lot easier for them if you had just told them what you were going to do and didn't try to convince them that you died. I guess I just don't understand the point. Like if this is all about just going

and being with someone else, then whatever, go be with someone else, but there's no reason to fake your death and put your family through this type of trauma. And I've covered other cases like this in the past where the motive was very clearly insurance fraud, but that's not really what was going on in this case. I mean, you could definitely make the argument that he attempted to commit insurance fraud,

but he didn't actually benefit from the policy. The money from that policy would have been going to Emily, so it's almost like he got the policy to, I don't know, maybe it made him feel better about leaving them. Maybe in his mind it was sort of like, oh I'll be dead and they'll be suffering and in so much pain from that but at least they'll have $375,000. That's all they were worth to you? You couldn't have made it a higher policy? Like your family wasn't worth at least a million dollars to you? I mean no matter how you slice it, this whole thing is 50 shades of fucked up and investigators felt the same. And they wanted to get answers from the man himself, not just for their own sake, but for the sake of this poor family.

So in a press conference on November 8th, the one I played a clip from earlier, the sheriff thanked their family and then made a very emotional plea directly to Ryan. I'd like to thank the dedication of my sheriff's office. But most of all, I want to thank the family. I want to thank his wife. That is one strong lady. Whenever we called on her, she always responded and she gave everything that she could for us.

I cannot imagine what she's going through and they're going through. It's really hard because one, they felt that their dad was drowned. A day ago they found out that he wasn't. And this is the Ryan. Ryan, if you are viewing this, I plead that you contact us or contact your family. We understand that things can happen, but there's a family that wants their daddy back. And I just have to say that this sheriff, Mark Poodle, But there's a family that wants their daddy back.

And I just have to say that this sheriff, Mark Pothel, is such a genuinely good human being. He led a few press conferences, and you can just tell how dedicated he is to serving his community. And that's what makes me so angry is there were so many good people involved in trying to locate Ryan and trying to get this family answers,

and they were just screwed over by a liar. There were countless resources that were just wasted on Ryan between all the time, energy, not to mention money that was put into trying to look for him. And Green Lake County is actually going to be seeking somewhere between $35,000 and $40,000 in restitution because that's what they estimate they used up in their efforts. And that doesn't include the $10,000 that he cost Keith. And this is no surprise considering what a great guy Keith is, but he had a very level-headed

and reasonable reaction to all of this. He said that when he first found out that Ryan was alive, he actually just felt relieved. Which if I were in his shoes, I'd be just angry. But a lot of it wasn't because Ryan was alive, but it was because he had been second guessing his capabilities for weeks. He could not figure out why he couldn't find his body. So to find out that he was never in the water. I mean, I get that I probably would have been relieved, too.

And then his second reaction was just pure sympathy for Ryan's wife and his children. And I think we all feel that way, especially people who were directly affected by this case or in the community and had been following it closely, worried about Ryan. The whole thing is just maddening, it's baffling, and it has just been quite a roller coaster for everybody. And then at one point, people were very confused

because this video resurfaced, a TikTok TikTok actually from this girl in San Diego who was doing an ask me for free advice video. She was standing out on the boardwalk with a sign and basically people could go up to her and ask her for advice. I mean I'm sure you've seen something like this. Can you advise on anything? I go to Uzbekistan or stay here. Say that one more time? Do I go to Uzbekistan or stay here? Do you have family time? Do I go to Uzbekistan or stay here? Do you have family there? No. Why do you want to go? To meet a woman.

And it was Uzbekistan? Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan. You don't like American women? No, they're familiar. Hmm. So you've given up Oh, they're familiar. So you've given up on meeting someone here? No, I'm married.

Oh. Yeah. But you, you want to find someone else? Empty nest. I'm not sure. That's why I'm asking you. Wait, empty nest? What do you mean?

Empty nest. My kids are out of the house now. Wait, so you want to find, like adopt a child? No, no. I want to find a companion that I'm content with. I think that requires you to divorce someone first. Well, maybe. That's good. Or is she okay with that? That's a good question. It means to be seen. Have you guys had a conversation about that? Mm-hmm.

So would it be like a throttle or something? No. Okay. Oh, you would, you guys would get a divorce possibly. Possibly, yeah. Um, do you just feel like there's no love left between you guys? Diminished. Diminished? Well, I think you guys should definitely have that discussion and see where things are going between you two before you leave the country. So, as I'm sure you can tell, when this resurfaced, people thought that this guy was Ryan. I mean, I thought it was Ryan when I first saw it, but police did end up confirming that it wasn't him.

But yeah, between how he looks and the whole woman in Uzbekistan thing, I can definitely see why people thought it was Ryan. But at this time, there was a bigger question looming over everyone's mind, and that was whether or not he broke any laws because technically it's actually not illegal to fake your own death. However, when people have tried to fake their own deaths, I mean at least the ones who have been caught, most of them end up breaking the law in the process and in this case a lot of people believe that Ryan did in fact break the law. And there were two charges initially that people thought he might end up facing, and one of

them was obstructing an officer, and the other was attempted insurance fraud, obviously. In the state of Wisconsin, it's illegal to, quote, knowingly give false information to an officer or knowingly place physical evidence with the intent to mislead officers in the performance of their duties. Which clearly is word for word what Ryboy did. And then there's the attempted insurance fraud, which a lot of people think that he did. After all, he did get that life insurance policy knowing that it would be needed under false pretenses. He also got a second passport after he said his first one was lost or stolen when it wasn't, but I'm not sure if that's a crime. Either way though, he clearly did not execute this legally.

So the next big question on everyone's minds is will Ryan be brought back to the United States so that he could potentially face these charges? And basically, even though nobody knew where he was, it was speculated that he was in Uzbekistan, of course, with this other woman. But it turns out that the US doesn't have an extradition treaty with Uzbekistan, so people were curious if he was just going to get away with it. And it seems like investigators were wondering that too.

Since they didn't know where he was, it was kind of up to Ryan if he wanted to return. And you also have to keep in mind how expensive and time consuming it would be to execute an international manhunt. So I'm sure they had to sort of weigh out if his crimes were worth that effort and those resources. But of course, they definitely wanted to see him get his ass back to the United States.

But instead of taking a more forceful tactic, they decided to try to appeal to his emotions. In a press conference on November 21st, we found out that law enforcement had been in contact with Ryan and that they were quote pulling at his heartstrings to try to get him to come back home and finding out through this press conference that they were in fact in contact with him was huge. In this press conference, Sheriff Poodle explained that on November 11th, they were able to get in contact with Ryan through this quote, Russian speaking woman. They ended up asking him a number of personal questions

to confirm his identity. And they also asked him to provide a video of himself to prove that he was safe. And surprisingly, he did it. And the audio is a little muffled, so it's kind of hard to listen to, but take a look. Evening, it's Ryan Woodward, state program. listen to, but take a look. You need dates, Ryan. One word to date, Polo Man's name is November 11th. It's approximately 10 AM right now.

So you can do it. I'm going to save it for next year. And I think we can all agree that Ryye isn't looking too happy in this video. He actually looks pretty miserable, which is ironic considering he abandoned his whole life to allegedly start some fairy tale with a chick that he met on the internet, but I'm sure the miserable part of it came from knowing that he was caught. And a lot of people questioned if she was real, like maybe he got catfished or something, but investigators did confirm that they were able to find him through her.

So, I mean, I personally believe that she is real. And it's pretty crazy, but when they were reviewing the contents of his laptop, they actually found a picture of her and that's how they were able to find him. And apparently they had been in communication with him every day since November 11th, which sort of, and I don't know if this is just me

But it kind of makes me think that maybe he wanted to come home because he could have just easily Ignored them like if he was happy with his choice and he was with his new lady out in his bekistan Would he have really kept up that contact with investigators? I don't know or maybe it just came out of fear Maybe he knew the jig was up and they were gonna to find him anyway. And he just kind of gave up. I don't know. There's a lot we still don't know. But there is actually a lot we do know. And this is insane. But he ended up telling investigators exactly how he tried to pull this off. in one of his communications that he was going to tell us how he did that. He stashed an e-bike near the boat launch. He paddled his kayak in a child-size floating boat

out into the lake. He overturned the kayak and dumped his phone in the lake. He paddled the inflatable boat to shore and got on his E-bike and rode through the night to Madison. In Madison, he boarded a bus and went to Detroit and then the Canadian border. He continued on the bus to an airport and got on a plane. We are continuing to verify this information, trying to put the dots together, but we feel that this was Ryan's way that he could tell the entire country how he did it one of the things that he did say was

He didn't expect us to go more than two weeks in searching for him Well, I hate to tell you he picked the wrong share from the wrong department And the wrong share from the wrong department. And one of the reasons why he picked Green Lake was because it was the deepest lake in Wisconsin. He did the research, he did, and he thought his plan was going to pan out, but it didn't go the way he had planned. And so now we're trying to give him a different plan is to come home, to come back home. Now I'm going to touch more on all of that here in a bit, but isn't that just wild? Clearly this dude thought of everything down to the lake that he was going to do it in.

And Ryan also told them that he did this because he had quote, personal matters and thought this was quote, best. But a lot of people, including myself, believe that this other woman motivated the whole thing. I mean, in my opinion, it's pretty obvious that that's why he did it. But what was wild to me is he even said, and I don't know how genuine this is,

that he felt bad about the amount of time and hours and Resources that people spent looking for him, which I'm kind of like dude. What did you expect? Do you really thought you were just gonna drown and people were like, oh too bad Like no, of course your family is going to want to recover your body and the community as a whole What did what did you think this was going to be like? And it's so weird to think about with how much planning he actually did that he clearly didn't think a lot of the aftermath through. He just thought of how he was going to do it, but didn't think a lot about the consequences for others, which shows you he's a real selfish piece of shit in my opinion.

But I do have to give him the smallest little bit of credit for at least coming back, which he did. He came back completely on his own accord on December 10th and was immediately booked into the Green Lake County jail on a misdemeanor charge of obstructing an officer. He then appeared in court the following day where he told the judge that he would be representing himself.

He said that he only had $20 in his wallet and couldn't afford an attorney, and when a judge was like, you know, you can get one for free, Ryan still said that he was just fine doing it himself. The judge did ask during this hearing that the media not portray this family just out of respect for their privacy, which is definitely the right call, and you would think that they wouldn't give him bail, considering he's a pretty big flight risk in my opinion, but no, he was actually given a $500 signature bond, which is a type of bail bond that allows a defendant to be released from jail without paying it.

It's basically an agreement that the defendant will show up in court and if they don't, they end up owing the money. And this was also weird to me, but the judge didn't even confiscate his passport. But at the same time, I don't think Ryan would be going anywhere considering he was the one who turned himself in, but you never know considering his past. And in a press conference earlier that day, Sheriff Pottle gave a little more insight into Ryan's return, including the fact that he came home voluntarily and he even gave them a heads up before he arrived.

So he has been cooperative to some degree and I wonder if that was the guilt talking, you know? I mean who really knows what was going through his mind but if I had to guess the guilt really got to him. I feel like you don't plan this elaborate scheme for that long and then just end up turning yourself in unless you feel incredibly guilty. What is interesting though is he is pleading not guilty to that misdemeanor charge. So I guess at the end of the day we don't really know why he came back and told investigators everything and he really did tell them everything.

The criminal complaint was released to the public in mid-December and it shed a ton of insight into Ryan's plan. And it's insane, you guys, so I want to walk you through it, starting with the morning of August 11th. So once again, we know that Ryan started his day by going to church with his family. I just thought, wow, wow. I mean, I'm pretty sure in the Bible, I'm not a religious person, but I know it actually says that lying is a sin, right? But anyway, Ryan explained that after church, he went home and he briefly packed up the things that he would need for this fishing trip.

But when he left, though, he didn't go right to the lake. He first went to his woodworking shop where he had actually been storing an electric bike that he purchased a few weeks prior. And I'm guessing he purchased an electric bike because it would have allowed him to haul ass out of there as quick as possible. He told investigators that he was worried

that the cameras would see him loading the bike into his trailer. So he backed it all the way up to the building so that no one could see him loading it in. And then from there, he made a quick stop at Wally World where he said he intended to get a life jacket. However, that Walmart didn't have any. Now to clarify, he did already have one life jacket, but he told investigators that he had left it out by the kayak to make his drowning seem more believable.

So the reason he stopped at Walmart was so that he could get a second one that he could use when he paddled back after ditching the kayak out on the lake. But anyway, after going to Walmart, Ryan stated that he then went to a friend's house. He said that he knew this friend wasn't going to be home and he went over there to load up on stove pellets. And before you ask, I have no idea why this man needed the stove pellets. No clue on that one. But then he left his friend's house,

and that's when he finally made his way to Green Lake, arriving sometime around 10 p.m. Ryan told them that he was kind of freaked out when he got there, because there was a squad car in the area, but they eventually moved and he continued on with his stupid little plan. And as you heard the sheriff explain earlier, he then paddled out to what he thought was the deepest part of the lake and tossed his phone in the water, which made sense considering that his phone last pinged around midnight and it looked like it was in the lake.

He then began inflating a child-size raft, which he got into, flipped his kayak, dumped the fishing rod and tackle box, and then paddled that little raft back to shore. And after he got to shore, Ryan explained that he ended up getting about hip deep in the muck, which made it difficult to get out of the water. What he didn't think about though, is now he's going to have a muddy trail of footprints

right behind him coming out of the lake. He actually told investigators that he was worried that they would be able to follow his footprints, so he did his best to wash them off the road, and this is where it gets even crazier. Ryan then proceeded to ride his e-bike 70 miles through the night to Madison, Wisconsin. He even brought an extra battery with him in case the bike died, which it did actually, and at one point he said that he got cold and changed his clothes. And this is so messed up, but I guess around 5 a.m. Ryan had this moment of, I don't know if it was guilt or sadness or if he was worried because 5 a.m. is

the time that his wife typically wakes up in the morning. So I don't know if he was in that moment thinking about what she was about to experience and what she would be up in the morning. So I don't know if he was in that moment thinking about what she was about to experience and what she would be experiencing in the weeks and months to come and just felt bad or guilty or what, but he told investigators that this was the first moment where he really realized that there was no going back. So he ditched the bike, his clothing, and the raft

at a park about 45 minutes away from a Greyhound bus station. And then he took that bus from Milwaukee to Detroit and then Detroit to the Canadian border in an effort to get to the Toronto Airport. And apparently getting through customs was harder than he thought it was going to be. Ryan told investigators that he thought having his passport would be enough, but I guess they also wanted to see his driver's license, which he didn't have. So they pulled him aside to question him privately. And he explained to investigators that he was super nervous while this was taking place.

I'm sure he was just shit and bricks, man, because his whole plan hinged on this. But lucky for him, they ended up letting him through. So he managed to get to the airport, where he purchased a one-way ticket to Paris. And then from Paris, he got another plane to the country of Georgia, which is at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. And after landing there, he sent an email to this woman and she picked him up about an hour later and the two of them went to a hotel. Ryan also shared that he took $5,500 in cash with him and by the time he arrived, he fully

believed his plan had worked, baby. He was home free. And this was a plan that he said took a lot of research and meticulous planning. Listen to this. According to the criminal complaint, Ryan made comments that he had spent a great deal of time researching how to disappear. I asked Ryan what all he researched. Ryan stated that he researched other individuals that had successfully disappeared recently.

Ryan stated there was an individual that disappeared for approximately six years. He researched lake deaths and researched how deep a body has to be without resurfacing. Ryan researched a lot of other things in regard to his disappearance as well, such as travel, how to take money over to another country, and different ways he could leave the country with leaving as minimum number of clues as possible. Ryan stated quote, everything hinged on me dying in the lake. Ryan also stated the quote, whole idea was to sell the death. The dude even looked up weather patterns to try and figure out what night was going to be best for his 70 mile bike ride. And he also used a VPN when

clicking on any articles about his own drowning because he wanted to make it look like he was viewing them from Russia. And that was only in cases where he actually clicked on articles because he explained that he rarely actually clicked on them. It was mostly just reading the headlines. I think he was too nervous to actually look at them or maybe He felt too guilty to read all the details of what? Everyone back at home was trying to do to locate him and again, this is just all my best guess But maybe he even thought that he would have to read quotes and interviews With his family members and that it would just tear him apart inside if he had to face that but one thing he definitely didn't account for is that investigators were not going to just give up

and believe that he drowned in the lake, or if they figured out he didn't drown, they weren't going to be like, well, guess he's gone, whatever. And I mentioned this earlier, but Ryan truly didn't think that people were going to look for him as long as they did. He said that he didn't even know

that something like Bruce's legacy existed, which threw a pretty big wrench in his plan. And another thing he really messed up on was leaving his laptop behind, which he basically explained that he had to do it to really sell his death. But he thought he had wiped it clean. They always do, right? But when he was backing things up to iCloud, I guess he was using too much data and somehow an image of the other woman was found. Whoopsie.

And like I explained before, they were able to track this woman down and then use her to track him down. November 8th is when they first reached out to him and Ryan later told them that as soon as that email came in, his heart hit the floor. To be honest though, he said that he figured they would eventually learn the truth, but his goal was to delay that as long as possible. So what is next for Mr. Ryan Borgwart? Is justice going to be served?

Well, with his obstructing charge, Ryan is facing a maximum penalty of a $10,000 fine, nine months in jail, or both. Which to me just seems like nothing compared to what he did and what he put so many people through. Even if he gets both of those, to me that is not nearly enough.

And there's a chance he may even get just one or maybe nothing. Although I will say I don't think that's gonna be how things shake out. I think the public will freak out if he doesn't get the maximum punishment here. He also might have to pay restitution to the county of Green Lake, but right now that hasn't been ruled on. And as for Keith, with Bruce's legacy, he said that he's

not going to be seeking restitution because he doesn't want to burden Ryan's family more than they already have been. And I really respect him for that. I think that's very gracious considering what they're going through, but also with what he has been through to just kind of let it go for their sake is very honorable. I'm really impressed with Keith at Bruce's Legacy, and I think the work that he is doing is spectacular. So my foundation, Higher Hope,

is gonna be reaching out to him. We're in the process of already reaching out to him to get him an Empower Grant, which is our grant for nonprofits like his. And if you're interested in contributing to his nonprofit, I will leave a link so you can check it out, learn about it more, and maybe make a donation yourself. So shortly after Ryan returned to the States, Emily filed for separation saying that their marriage was irretrievably broken. And she's also seeking full custody of the kids and I'm so glad that she's

moving forward with that and we don't have much else on that front but uh I don't see why she wouldn't be awarded that I'm sure that'll be a pretty slam dunk situation for her. I think we can all agree that Ryan is a selfish loser piece of shit What else can I come up with? I mean, this is my opinion. Maybe everyone won't agree with me, but I think maybe this is harsh. I don't know. But I think doing this to your family is evil. I think this is evil territory, evil behavior.

I don't know if he's an evil person, but what he did is evil in my opinion. He put his family through the most unimaginable trauma. I mean, that is not something that any normal loving parent would ever imagine doing to their family. And I don't see any reason why he should ever have access to his kids again, unless they make the choice to reconnect with him on their own later down the road or whatever. But right now, they, I fully do not think he should have any type of custody or communication contact with the kids.

Although, you know, at the end of the day, it is their family's decision. But I think we can all agree, he certainly shouldn't have any parental rights. And I was curious to know if he tried to make contact with any of them before he came back to the States, but right now that information isn't being released, so I have no idea where he's at when it comes to his relationship with the kids and there was supposed to be a

status hearing on January 13th but I couldn't find any information on it so I don't know what happened there. I'm not sure if it was postponed or if it just hadn't been reported on but there's been sort of a lull in the case since mid-December. I did see that there is a hearing scheduled at this point for sometime in April, so hopefully we'll get some more answers then. And one thing that I really want to know is why he chose to come back, and as I explained earlier, I really do think it was just guilt. But I wonder if this new life he thought he was getting wasn't what he actually pictured. We don't know much about this other woman, but I would love to know what they were talking about.

Maybe she was promising him something that she couldn't deliver on. Maybe he was promising her something he couldn't deliver on. Maybe there was no chemistry. Maybe there was catfishing going on lies. Who knows? I mean, I've seen a lot of 90 day fiance and all of that. So I'm just curious what ended up shaking out. Maybe he got there and she was like, ew, no, I've seen a lot of 90-day fiance and all of that. So I'm just curious what ended up shaking out. Maybe he got there and she was like, ew, no, I don't know.

I'd be very interested to see how that ended up playing out when he got there. And that's information we may never know. And there was even a moment where law enforcement expressed that they were worried for her well-being, as in the woman in Uzbekistan. But I feel like we would have heard about it if he had done something to her. And I hope that's not the case, but I doubt it. I mean, what do I know about this man? And he's certainly someone that you really can't take on face value, but he doesn't really

seem like a dangerous person in that way, you know what I mean? So I guess if there's one silver lining to this case in any way, it's that as far as we know, no one got hurt, physically speaking that is. But for the most part, that's really all we know at this point when it comes to Ryan's case, and I am, like I said in the beginning of this episode, I am so curious to hear your thoughts on it, especially when it comes to what you all think would be an appropriate punishment for Ryan because I know my audience and I know you guys are going to think what is on the table is not nearly enough.

Or maybe you do, maybe you think it wasn't that bad and that, you know, it should be a little slap on the wrist. So let me know your thoughts below. I'm definitely curious to hear your thoughts on this entire case. I do find it so interesting and strange that he coughed up his whole plan and then just pleaded not guilty. Like what was the thought process behind that? I don't know.

It almost makes me wonder if he's gonna go with an insanity defense or something along those lines, but who knows, I guess time will tell. But in closing, as goofy and stupid and just ridiculous this entire case is, there was a lot of pain felt and experienced by his family, his wife and his three children and probably extended family as well, I mean, I'm sure.

And the community as a whole, not to mention Keith and the Bruce's legacy team. So many people suffered throughout this entire experience, but no one more than his wife and his children. I just cannot imagine what this would have been like. And I don't know if they'll ever watch this coverage, but my heart truly goes out to them. It's so messed up.

That is gonna be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you wanna watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Rae. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there.