December 13, 2024 • 41 mins
Ryan Borgwardt is back in the USA after months of living in the country of Georgia. After searching Green Lake for almost two months, a change in the investigation strategy gets results right away, when it is discovered that Borgwart has his passport checked by Canadian authorities one day after he is reported missing. Since local law enforcement found his Passport in his house when he disappeared, a simple investigation finds that Ryan Borgwardt claims his passport was lost and he is issued a new one three months before he vanishes.
Before returning, Borgwardt records a video saying he is safe and secure, wrapping up the video saying, "hope this works". Borgwardt does not give exact details about where he is located. The video is then sent to the sheriff's office.
Ryan Borgwardt tells authorities how he was able to fake his death and make his escape. First, he says he travels about 50 miles from his home in Watertown to Green lake. On the lake, he overturns his kayak, dumps his phone in the lake and paddles to shore using an inflatable boat for children. Borgwardt tells investigators he chose Green lake because it is the deepest lake in Wisconsin, nearly 240 feet deep.
Now Borgwardt's wife has filed for a separation.
Joining Nancy Grace today:
- Gregory Morse - Partner at the law firm of King Morse, PLLC. Current CJA counsel, Former West Palm Beach Public Defender's Office. Author: "The Untested" found on Amazon, website: kingmorselaw.com
- Dr. Judy Ho - Clinical and Forensic Neuropsychologist, Author of The New Rules of Attachment; www.drjudyho.com; IG & X: @drjudyho; FB: doctorjudyho;
- Irv Brandt - Former Senior Inspector, US Marshals Service International Investigations Branch, Chief Inspector, DOJ Office of International Affairs; Country Attache, US Embassy Kingston, Jamaica, Author: “SOLO SHOT: CURSE OF THE BLUE STONE" AVAILBLE ON AMAZON, Twitter: @JackSoloAuthor
- Ben Dobrin - Emergency Medical Services Marine Dive Team and EMS Police Search and Rescue, Dean of the D. Henry Watts School of Professional Studies and Professor of Social Work: Virginia Wesleyan University
- Joseph Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan", @JoScottForensic
- Christina Aguayo - National News Anchor, Salem News Channel, website: www.ChristinaAguayoNews.Com, Facebook: @ChristinaAguayoNews, Instagram: @Christina.AguayoNews
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, a married Wisconsin dad of three.
Did he fake his own death in order to flee
to Europe and his Usbecky hotty mistress and breaking? Now?
(00:22):
Is daddy home for Christmas? I'm Nancy Grace, this is
Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Board wards
apparently back home on US soil and busted. He's home
for Christmas? Is the wife even gonna want him? Why
would she want him? But that's not my concern right now.
(00:44):
I'm not a shrink or marriage counselor. I'm a former
prosecutor and I want to find out a why he
came home and b what is he charged with? Joining
me an all star panel to make sense of what
we know right now? Straight out to Christina or Wyo.
She is the national news anchor with Salem News Channel. Christina,
thank you for being with us. What happened?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
We learned a lot from what Ryan borg Word told
investigators about how he tried to pull this whole scheme off,
baking his own death, from struggling to get out of
the water because he was caught in waste time muck
to riding an e bike seventy miles to Milwaukee to
hit a greyhound to Chicago, Detroit up through Canada. He
actually struggled getting through with the Canadian officials, but he
(01:27):
finally went back and forth with.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Them Christina Christina Ohio joining us. Why do you keep
talking about his struggling boo hooo? He struggled to get
out of the water. Why was he in the water
because he faked his own death? Why was he faking
his own death to go? What's a nice way to
put this to go? Snug up within is Becky mistress
(01:50):
a hottie in Europe. I don't care that he struggled
to get out of the water, and I don't care
that he As you said again, you're really hitting the
struggling a lot as he struggle to get out of
the country. He shouldn't have been out of the country anyway,
But okay, trying to move forward without feeling sorry for
Ryan Borgwarts.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Please absolutely no sorrowful feelings here for mister Borgward. As
he enacted a completely selfish scheme, he cost the County
of Green Lake forty five thousand plus dollars. They did
an extensive search in this length. They had cadaver dogs,
they had diving teams, they put their lives at risk.
(02:29):
Not to mention he left behind his family. He meticulously
planned for at least seven months, right because we know
he took that life insurance policy out in January for
three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. So he meticulously
planned every single day for about seven months on how
to completely destroy emotionally every single person that loved him
and every person that he loved. He actually went to
(02:51):
church with his family the mourning of his disappearance, the
morning that he carried through with his plan to fake
his own death. So the reason he came home, it's
Sheriff's Christ.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Wait a minute, Wait a minute before I lose this
thought out to high profile lawyer joining us Gregory Morse.
He is a partner in the law firm of King
Morse joining us out of Palm Beach, Gregory Morse. No
jury is going to believe him or anything he has
to say when we find out he's sitting at the
(03:24):
eleven o'clock service, and then he's got his plan already done.
While he's sitting there, while his wife is praying for
her family, he's sinking. Ooh, it's Becky haughty got to
get to his Bekistan. Hurry, hurry, go fake my death
and get to Canada. Really, the duplicity, the hypocrisy. I
(03:48):
just you know what, I can take a lot a hypocrite.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
No, n well, he's not going to make much jewelry
appeal if his case were to go to trial. And
Ryan Borgenwork should have listened to my advice to every citizen.
If you want to confess, speak with a priest, not
the police. He spoke with the police, told him you
know that he was going. He planned this. He kind
of inculpated himself. And he's charged under a statute obstruction
(04:13):
of justice in Wisconsin section nine forty six point four
to one, which is a misdemeanor Class A. Under their statute,
he doesn't really qualify for the felony enhancements. He faces
up to nine months in jail. He clearly doesn't have
any money for a lawyer, or didn't plan yesterday or
did Greg Morris.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Please don't tell me that I the taxpayer have to
pay this deadbeat dad, this two timer, that I have
to pay his legal fees. Yeah, he says something in
court like I only have twenty dollars. Really, you should
have thought about that before you got that first class
ticket across the ocean. Guys, this is how the whole
thing started. Listen.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
In August twelfth, twenty twenty four, at five point thirty
two pm, our office received a call from the Dodge
County Sheriff's Office in reference to a subject that did
not return home that evening and the last known location
he was was Green Lake. Deputies headed that way, checked
(05:22):
the areas around the lake and found Ryan's vehicle along
with his trailer, parked in the area of Dodge Memorial Park.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
We immediately deployed our.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Boat and at six point thirty one two of our
deputies found a capsized kayak in the western part of
the lake, in the area of two hundred and twenty
foot depth.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Of water two and twenty feet below the surface, deep
deep down, where the water is so dark you can't
see your hand in front of your eyes. You know,
I want to go out too, before I tell you
what else happened to Special guests joining us. Ben Dobrin
(06:13):
joining us. He is a police diver, he is an
Emergency Medical Services Marine Dive Team member, and he is
the dean the d Henry Watt's School of professional studies. Ben,
thank you so much for being with us. What are
the dangers of diving that deeply?
Speaker 6 (06:32):
Oh, there's a lot of risk. First of all, I mean,
that lake, like you said, is deep, and it's huge.
It's two hundred and thirty six feet deep. So that's
not a normal dive. You know, most public safety diving
the standards are sixty feet or less. Some dive teams
will train up to maybe one hundred feet, but once
you get past one hundred feet you're in what's called
technical diving. And most public safety dive teams are not
(06:54):
technical dive teams, and so they're not diving that deep.
So then you're going to put a whole bunch of
equipment in the water that is very expensive, whether it's sonar
or some sort of unmanned underwater vehicle. Those are hundreds
of thousands of dollars of pieces of equipment that you're
putting in there. There's all sorts of entanglement hazards. You know,
it's dark, it's deep, it's cold, But once you put
(07:16):
a human being in the water, you know, then you're
putting life in limit at risk. Also, so once you
have divers in the water, it becomes a much more
scary endeavor for us to put one diver in the
water and that primary diver has a second person a
tender to help them. Then we have to have a
safety diver, and that person has a tender. Then we
have what's called a ninety percent diver. They're kind of
(07:38):
a backup safety to the safety. Then we have to
have a dive supervisor and a dive safety officer, So
that's six people to get one diver in the water.
And then most teams will also have an ambulance and
a medic on scene just for the divers. So you're
talking about a very, very labor intensive endeavor to get
one safety dive, one public safety diver into the water.
(08:00):
And then when you talk about the training and the gear,
it's very expensive to do this, and the risks are there.
I mean, entanglements happen, running out of air shouldn't happen,
Medical events happen. If a medical event happens above water,
we've got medics unseen ambulance of hospitals. But if you
have a medical event underwater, that's a whole different and
scary endeavor. So I mean, once you start putting people
(08:23):
in the water, the risks go up significantly.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
You know, another problem when you're searching, especially that deep,
when you're diving that deeply, is that items on the bottom,
the bottom surface get tangled up and you've got a
diver down there that may have spotted a limb surrounded
by water debris, you know, raptil together that may look
like a body on sonar. So you have to go
(08:48):
all the way down and it's pitch black, you can't
even see your hand in front of you. Find the object,
feel it and determine is it a body that is
very dangerous?
Speaker 6 (08:59):
Bendobrin absolutely, and then you know, let's say it is.
Then you've got to recover. Recovering something from hundreds of
feet has its own host of difficulties and problems because
you know you're gonna have to do the diver's going
to have to do safety stops on the way up.
Do you just lift the body, tie you know, an
airbag to it and lift it up, Well, then there
could be problems and it can drop and you'll have
to do your search all over again. Or if you're
(09:20):
going to have lift you know, lift capabilities, that's another
entanglement hazard for the diver. You know, once you're on
the bottom, You're right, there's all sorts of garbage on
the bottom that can make the diver entangled. And you
know once you put it, once you put a human
being in the water, the risks are really really high,
and once you start adding the depth, it just makes
it even more incredibly risky.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Straight out to Joe Scott Morgan and joining US Professor
forensics Jackson, Wi's State University, author of Blood Beneath My
Fate on Amazon, and star of a hit series Body
Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan, Joscott, I really can't stress
how dangerous that was for the divers, for the dogs
out there, for everybody manipulating the boat to kind of
(10:02):
help and facilitate the divers. So far down below they
can't communicate with them. You heard that two hundred and
twenty five feet below the surface of the water. How
dangerous is that for everyone involved? And think about the
planning that went in to Borgwartz's escape plan.
Speaker 7 (10:24):
Yeah, you want to know something about these lakes, Nancy.
I've been up there before, been in this region of
the country, and it's beautiful. Do you know these are
glacial lakes, These lakes originated as a result of the ice,
the ice sheet that came over North America. This is
not too far away from Lake Winnebago. These lakes are
(10:44):
really really deep. And you know he's not overstating this
when you talk about you can't see your hand in
front of your face in this location. It's amazing to
me that he would choose this methodology in order to
try to facilitate an escape like this, because these people
(11:07):
are prepared up there with their maritime services. Now the
sheriff just a second ago said we launched our boat. Well,
everybody up there, every little jurisdiction has dive teams because
these lakes are all over the place, so you can
get several of these people. And this reminds me. I
got to tell you, this reminds me of the Runaway Bride.
Do you remember that all those years ago? Yeah, where
(11:31):
they had to call in all of these resources to
track her down. And I'm thinking about this case and
all of these guys and gals that are out there
on the surface of this lake. You've got people this
is in August. You've got people that are recreating out
there at summertime, and they're going out there into this lake,
this deep water, and they're risking life and limb to
(11:52):
try to find this bozo, and of course they don't
turn up with anything.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Nancy, let me go out to IRV brand joining us
ERV longtime friend and colleague, former senior inspector with the
US Marshall Service International Investigations Branch. He has been around
the world looking for felons. I want to talk about
this when you're hearing the dangers and the money over
(12:18):
fifty thousand dollars this little jurisdiction sunk into this much
less a lot more money from other sources, but the danger,
the danger involved, It's amazing. This guy is slung up
in an Isbecky apartment with a hottie. I'm gonna have
to go to a shrink about what the wife and
the children are going through thinking he's dead. But of
(12:40):
all of your travels and the dangers you have faced
trying to track down people around the world, can you
believe this.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
Guy, Mancy?
Speaker 8 (12:49):
This case strikes me as out of all the cases
that we've covered together, this one strikes me as the
most absurd when it comes to amount of time and
the resources and the hard work put in by law
enforcement agents for someone to do this that it was
completely unnecessary. If he wanted to leave, he could have
(13:13):
just left the note and left the country. He did
not have to stage such an elaborate scam to try
to convince people that he was dead.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
He could have I've got I gotta admit for you
or brant Way to hear this. Let me make sure
I got it right with Christina Ohio. Christina, isn't it
true that he went to the link of buying a
life preserver at Walmart so he could leave it out
there to be found.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Exactly he wanted them to think he needed to sell it.
He needed people to think that he had drowned.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So he left.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
He bought it earlier in that day. He left it
there so that way investigators could find it, so they
would be completely thrown off the track and that he
actually drowned.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
What we're hearing is the wife the Wisconsin man who
faked his own death in a kayak accident. The wife
has filed for separation. Do you blame her?
Speaker 4 (14:14):
We assembled around eight thirty that Monday morning to get
our plan in place as to what we were going
to do.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
As you can see in the.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Screen, behind me shows the location of data guide that
guided our search. There was a number of pings that
we got from the phone that Ryan I had contact
with his wife. The last one where it shows you
on there it says last pin. That was one where
(14:47):
you told her that he was going to be turning
around and head even.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
Towards shore soon. We then got another ping around the eleven.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Fifty ish and that was just the last thing.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
That we got on the front.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I don't know yet what he's going to face legally,
because he has just been busted and shown up in
a court of law. But how do you explain that
to your children as they grow up and start to
understand what you did to their mother and to them.
But the level of planning goes beyond capsizing a kayak
and leaving a brand new life preserver out in the
(15:32):
water to be found. I mean, gregor remorse, You're in
church on Sunday and then the next day you are
leaving your fishing rod out in the water to be
found and then brought to your wife to identify. I mean,
I'm just projecting here, but I remember when my fiancee
(15:53):
was murdered and I was a witness in court, And
I remember the first moment that I saw keith bloody shirt.
I walked in off the witness stand and was walking
by state's council table and I saw his din of
shirt covered in blood. I remember that moment. I don't
remember a lot more about it, but I remember that moment.
(16:15):
And his wife had to identify his fishing rod really well.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Again, those are powerful things. He's not going to be
well liked by a jury if this were to go
to a jury, which it's probably not going to. It's
a misdemeanor. Also, his biggest consequence here is the family situation.
How he's going to be perceived. He has to deal
with that now. And he's you're right, he's a person
who's weak, who had better options like talking to a
(16:43):
therapist about these feelings instead of planning this ridiculous.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Escape. And he really.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Started planning it well before, you know, when he got
the insurance policy. As he said, he thought that would
take care of his family. That's why he did it
when he faked his death. So this is a guy,
like a lot of people, Nancy, who put on a
face and go around and hug and go to church
and look like altruistic, great people, but behind the scenes
they're just lost in you know, a real moron and
(17:14):
a heartless person to his family.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Corse morse two words, don't care. I don't care. He's
not running from his sweet potato. Nobody's going to judge him.
He's not part of the swimsuit competition. I don't care
who likes him or doesn't like him. But these pitiful,
empathetic charges are not enough. What about insurance fraud? For
Pete's sake, didn't he hold on Christina Riyo. Didn't he
(17:38):
get a three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars life
insurance policy and then fake his own death of that?
He did?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
He got it back in January, seven months before, and
it was for the purpose of taking care of his family. Again,
he's trying to look like the good guy here, but
he needed that money to take care of his family.
So that, in effect is insurance fraud because he didn't die,
he faked it. So I do believe that should be
added on to it, should be an underlying factor, and
he should get more than just a misdemeanor obstruction charge
(18:06):
that faces ten thousand dollars fine and a mere nine
months in prison.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Guys, not only that there is more and very intricate planning.
Listen through that.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Forensic analyst. We recovered that he replaced his hard drive
on the laptop. He cleared the browser on the day
of his disappearance. He sent the laptop into the cloud.
I don't know, I guess the level. He took photos
(18:42):
of his passports. We found out that he moved funds
to a foreign bank, changing this email.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
And communication with a woman and used back Gistan.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
He took out a three hundred and seventy five thousand
dollars life insurance policy in January, and he purchased earlining cards.
Due to these discoveries of the new evidence, we were
sure that Ryan was not in our.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Link to Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic expert and professor of forensics.
Now explain to me, Joe Scott Morgan, how valuable this
information is that it's going to be a mass by
an insurance investigator, a fraud investigator. What length did Bordwark
go through to clean to wipe his computer?
Speaker 7 (19:45):
Yeah, he did, and the idea that he sink this
with this cloud. As the sheriff had pointed out just
a second ago. He didn't want to lose everything that
he had all of that data, and he changed out
the hard drive as well, So this this is something
that requires some planning. He'd even created a new email
address so that he could communicate with whomever. I think
(20:09):
what's going to be interesting is when they begin to
dig into what is contained on that cloud. And I
think this goes to this earlier supposition talking about how
they could come forward with potential insurance fraud charges here,
which is going to be huge in this particular case.
They're going to put this narrative together that he was
purposed to defraud. At this point in time, it's not
(20:32):
just about him banishing off the face of the planet,
but it's also that he's trying to create a new
life and leaving this other one behind, and he's really
got itself into I don't know, as British would say,
a bit of a sticky wicket here, because he can't
escape this, this this.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Digital top there. Just Scott, I don't appreciate the way
you said he's got himself into or he landed into
a sticky wicket. Okay, these just things didn't just happen.
He didn't just fall into computer and insurance fraud. He
did it himself. You know, you know you mommy of you,
(21:10):
remimy of my fell in defendants who would say, miss Grace,
I caught a drug charge. You caught it like somebody
threw it at you, Like you were just standing there
and suddenly you have a key low in your apartment.
Speaker 7 (21:25):
It happened.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Can find himself in.
Speaker 7 (21:27):
A sticky wicket that specifically, counselor was that he got
himself into it. Okay, that's a move on his like.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
It's kind of an accident. Oh, I'm in a little
bit of a mess.
Speaker 7 (21:39):
No, No, he's in a hell of a lot of mess.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Here and we're learning to top it all off. Borgwart's wife, Emily,
has filed for a legal separation. She did that the
day after a Borgwart landed back on us soil. In
her separation petition, I'm surprised it's not a divorce petition,
(22:02):
she states the marriage is irretrievably broken, and she's right.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
On August twelfth, twenty twenty four, our office received a
call from the Dutch County Sheriff's office in reference to
a subject that did not return home.
Speaker 9 (22:30):
Ryan borg Ward fails to return from kayaking on Green Lake,
and volunteers joined law enforcement in searching for the forty
four year old father of three.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
That search ended far far away when they found him
slung up with is Zeuzbeki Hattie. I wonder what made
him finally come home. Did he run out of money?
Or was she not what he thought she would be?
Was that it was she not all he dreamed? Whatever,
he's busted. Now I've just got to see him again.
(23:02):
Let's roll Borgwarts.
Speaker 5 (23:04):
Good evening, it's raining borgwork today.
Speaker 6 (23:07):
Hello man.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
Today is November eleventh. It's approximately ten am by you guys.
I'm in my apartment. I am see secure.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I hope this works safe secure, no problem, Well, I
don't know about that, you know. Before I go back
to Christina Awaio joining us from Sealing News Channel, let
me go to a shrink, and boy do I need
a shrink right now? To doctor Judy Hoe joining us.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Doctor Judy clinical forensic neuropsychologist, author of the New Rules
of Attachment, and you can find her at doctor Judy
Hooho dot com. Doctor Judy, thank you for being with us.
You know, after my fiancees murder, I had a recurrent
dream and the dream was that he wasn't really dead,
(24:05):
that he was alive and he just went on a
walk about, and that he came back. And in the dream,
which happened over and over and over, I guess I
was wrestling with his death, his murder. I don't know
what I was wrestling with. I'm just a lawyer, I'm
(24:27):
not a shrink doctor, Judy. But how could his wife
possibly reconcile this? For so many days and nights she
believed he was dead. Finds the kayak capsized, finds the
life preserver floating in the water, Finds his fishing rod,
(24:48):
which she has to identify, and has to think every
night that his body is decomposing at the bottom two
hundred and twenty five the below level of the light.
Speaker 10 (25:02):
Well, Nancy, because Borgwort spends so much time staging his
own death, his wife, his poor wife, had to go
through all of the stages of grief, from denial to anger,
to depression to bargaining, well, maybe he's not dead. But
as you mentioned, when we lose the ones that we love,
(25:26):
oftentimes we're reflecting on the good times, what we could
have said to them last, What was the last memory
we had of them, and she's dealing with this as
well as trying to help her three children process losing
their dad. Of course, as a search is going on,
there's that tiny sliver of hope. But as the days
(25:48):
go on, the longer the days go on, the more
people get involved, the more she's thinking this is hopeless.
He's probably dead. We just have to accept it. And
then to discover at the end of this journey that
he did all of this so selfishly without regard, just
because he wanted to have an affair. This is completely
(26:10):
ridiculous and I feel so sad for the trauma that
his wife and his three children have to go through
now having to reconsider all of this and who is
this person? Who is his dad or husband that we
lived our entire lives with. It's not the person that
they thought he was.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
And it's not just leaving for another woman, Doctor Judy Hoe.
He left for a woman he had never met. He
left for the idea of a woman. It just he
hadn't even had an affair yet, he left because of
somebody he was texting and emailing and and snapping with.
(26:47):
To leave his wife and his children for what an idea.
Speaker 10 (26:54):
That's exactly what happened It Basically, he was sick of
his living his life, it seems, and he's, well, this
is gonna be my better life. But as you mentioned,
he doesn't have any experience with this woman. And I
know that you've been questioning, well, why did he come back?
Maybe he came back because, like you said, it wasn't
the life that he thought it was gonna be. I mean,
what was his next recourse if he didn't come back?
(27:16):
Was he gonna design a third life? Was he gonna
try to run off with another person that he hasn't
had a relationship with, but has the idea that maybe
this is gonna be the savior. I really don't know
what he was thinking, but something dire must have been
happening in his head and he thought this was gonna
be the only solution. It is a ridiculous solution because
you can't run away from whatever problems you're dealing with.
They're gonna follow you wherever.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Man. The wife is between a rock and hard spot
because she's got her three children that would probably want
their bio dad with them. But I gotta tell you something, Judy,
how I would send him back to his Becks day
and cod cash on delivery. She can pay for the postage.
Here's another thing, doctor Judy. The money, the money. You
know what you get a man, all right, maybe they're attractive,
(28:02):
maybe they can dance, maybe they can speak flowery language
to you and make you feel happy. But then they
mess with the money. The money, the money that you
work for, the money that you're gonna put in your
children's education fund, your nest egg, your emergency money. This
(28:25):
poc took the money. He didn't just leave to go
have sex with a woman he's never met. Okay, that's
bad enough, but worse, he took the money on nearly
six thousand dollars plus everything he's spent to get over there.
He took the money out of the children's fund for
Pete's sake.
Speaker 10 (28:44):
Right, this is clearly not a person who was thinking
at all about his family. Otherwise he wouldn't be essentially
making a plan to ditch them forever. When you fake
your own death, there's no coming back from that, right,
I mean, in this case, obviously they discovered him, but
if this plan actually went according to his own thoughts,
then there is no coming back from that. You'll never
see your children and wife again. Because they think you're dead.
(29:06):
And even in that moment, how selfish is he to say,
you know what, who cares about their future? I'm going
to secure my own future taking that money. It's like,
what kind of relationship did he even have with these
children before? I'm so curious as to what the family
dynamics were before he left. Did these children actually think
he was a loving, doting father who had their best
(29:27):
interests at heart. Well, now the children have to contend
with that idea. I have a dad who doesn't love me.
You know what that does to children's attachment and what
they think about human beings and relationships in general. He
could be creating a cascade of negative mental health outcomes
for his children.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
And we learned that court records confirm Emily Borgwart's wife,
who lives in Watertown, Wisconsin, has filed for separation almost
immediately after he touched down on US soil. And the
documents that the wife Emily filed in Dodge County Circuit Court,
she said she wants full custody of their three children.
(30:14):
Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 11 (30:20):
Little forensic analysts of a laptop that we were given
that we have found that he was in some place
in Europe.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And this is the right.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
If you're viewing this. But there's a family that.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Wants okay, So how did the sheriff get him home? Listen,
Christmas is going.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
And what better gift he could give us kids? Has
to be there for Christmas.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
That from our friends at w l u k T.
That's Fox eleven. Well Borgwartz has landed in a whole
heap of trouble in court.
Speaker 12 (31:06):
Look state of Wisconsin versus why word work stand uppiers
by district to trains your recent space. The found appears
in person and cost to be even without the attorney. Sorry,
if you received a copy.
Speaker 5 (31:18):
Of the criminal complaint, yes, n.
Speaker 12 (31:21):
You at me to read that to you or not?
Internet's probable love received way of reading. Obstructing an officer
faces an excellent penalty a ten thousand dollars fine, nine
months in jail or all parton has youd be the
terriminal complaint. That's why probable costs.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
For the chart and there's more. Listen to this guy,
poor mouthing.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
Sir, what do you about the purpose on that?
Speaker 12 (31:44):
Those are the conditions who'd be released here today?
Speaker 5 (31:46):
I had twenty dollars in my wallet and the other
in himself.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
That's right from our friends at w l UK TV.
That's Fox eleven. What he's got twenty dollars in his wallet.
I hope they don't ask the wife to pay his
court fees. Straight back out to the national news anchor
Salem News Channel, Ryan Borgwart and court, those charges are
(32:16):
not enough. I don't know who came up with those charges,
But tell me what's happening now. Is it true he
walked out on a five hundred dollars bond. That is true.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
And I thought the very same thing when I first
saw the charges. This is not enough for what he did,
what he put everybody through, how much money he costs
the county. But yes, they gave him. The judge gave
him a five hundred dollars bond that he doesn't even
have to pay unless he misses any court hearings. So
what was interesting about that court hearing too, we talk
about the emotional family impact of all of this, is
(32:48):
his parents were in that courtroom. However, they didn't speak
to him. He was let out through one set of
doors by the bailiffs and the parents were let out
the back door to avoid the reporters. Of course they
probably didn't want to speak with them, but that emotional
impact it's had on the family. Apparently it looks like
he might be speaking to his parents. But he definitely
deserves more than a five hundred dollars bond, and he
(33:09):
should have had to pay it at least that if
you can, he should be behind bars. He shouldn't be
able to sit back there and think about what he's done.
He just got back from a vacation from Europe, essentially
hanging out with a woman that he left his family for,
he faked his own death for. He should have to
sit behind bars for a little while and think about
what he has done. So that bond should have been
(33:29):
higher and he should have been made to pay it.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
You know, I'm very curious, Christina didn't the judge say
he was not a flight.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Risk, which was also interesting. How is this guy that
faked his own death he planned it for seven months
at least. How has this man that faked his own
death and took off to Europe this intricate route of
greyhound buses and hopping flights to Paris? How is he
not a flight risk? Is it because he has twenty
dollars in his pocket. How do we know he's not
(33:57):
going to get money from this mystery woman overseas. How
do we know he doesn't have a stash of money
of those foreign accounts. We don't know any of this.
So it doesn't make any sense to me that he
is not a flight risk, considering that the very reason
he's sitting in court is because he hopped out of
the country.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
To Greg Moore's high profile lawyer, joining us at a
palm beach. This is another issue. Of course, he can
be prosecuted for insurance fraud. That would be a felony
given the amount of three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars.
But this is unequal treatment under the law. That's due
process is a fourteenth Amendment ringing a bell in your head, Morse,
(34:37):
let me point out a couple of people that ended
up going to jail for piccadillos like this, and I'll
start with the one that just got Morgan brought up earlier,
Jennifer will Banks.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
This is a hysteria with regard to Ryan Bordrot. Everybody
thinks people should go to prison for every indiscretion. This
is absurd. The judge was absolutely right. He is not
a flight risk. He came back on his own, dave
his passport up to the court. These people called the police.
He's also maybe you could charge him with attempted insurance
fraud him up.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
What do you mean passport? He's already made a copy
and used it to get into Canada and then leave
the country. And the only reason about the money is
because he's spent it all.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
But you're well one, these are middle income people. It
seems he had five thousand dollars, which the story is
reported were his life savings. So all you're going to
do by keeping this guy in jail on this nonsense
charge in this this ridiculous situation that is not serious criminally,
is to destroy his family even further because he can't work.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
But you're not getting to me, Brandt. Could you straighten
out Greg Remorse? IRV Brandt. I know Greg Remorse is
just doing the party line about his innocent blah blah blah.
But what about all the money and expense and the
danger that was incurred trying to find him? You know
(36:00):
what we just talked about Jennifer Wilbanks, it's so called
runaway bride. What about Carly Russell or listen.
Speaker 9 (36:09):
Alabama nursing student carl Russell calls nine to one one
to report a stranded toddler on the side of a
busy highway, describing the toddler as three to four years
old and only wearing a diaper, walking alone on I
four fifty nine in the Birmingham Metro. Russell ben calls
her brother's girlfriend, tells her she's watching the toddler until
police arrive, but the call ends abruptly. Police arrived at
the spot Russell called from and find her wigs, cell phone,
(36:29):
and purse on the roadway near the vehicle, But Carly
Russell is gone and.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
We're learning to top it all off, Emily Borgart's wife
has filed for separation.
Speaker 9 (36:39):
Caitlin Armstrong murders pro cyclist Moe Wilson after Wilson goes
out with Armstrong's boyfriend. Armstrong flees town right after the murder,
using multiple identities, changing her hair color and style, and
even gets a nose job. Flying from Texas to New
York to Costa Rica. US marshals take a flyer and
run an ad in Costa Rica. She's arrested and flown
(37:01):
back to Texas, where she's tried, convicted, and sentenced to
life in prison.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Brandt remember our target, Taitlin Armstrong, now convicted of murder.
Do you remember what she put the US marshals through?
Speaker 8 (37:15):
I do remember, Nancy. It was an extensive search and
it was very, very manpower intensive. That case, when it
goes international, takes a lot of time and effort by
multiple agencies to conduct the search in the same way
that the search that we're talking about today. And I
(37:37):
disagree with defense counsel that he is in a flight risk.
This man did an elaborate plan to fake his own death.
This wasn't a spur of the moment thing. This was
a very detailed, well planned out scheme to make people
believe that he was dead. Then he left the country.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
I mean, I'm just thinking it through, or Brent, let
me throw this to Judy Hoe, clinical forensic neuropsychologist to
go through all of this, the wife thinking he's dead
at the bottom of a lake, trying to explain it
to the little boys, all just to have sex. It's
just it's mind boggling that you would do that to
(38:23):
your family and incur all the danger and expanse to
law enforcement trying to find him.
Speaker 10 (38:31):
And Nancy, we're trying to understand this from the perspectives.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Of reasonable people.
Speaker 10 (38:36):
This is obviously not reasonable. This is an incredulous attempt
to get away at a situation that you're not happy about.
That's fine, you're not happy with your marriage. Maybe you're
not happy right now being a father, You're going through
a midlife crisis, whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
This is an obvious crisis man in their midlife crises.
I'm uh, you know what Joe Scott Morgan jumping off
what doctor Gudy just said. With the degree of planning,
the technical expertise, and you know you've been on plenty
of homicide or missing people investigations, you know what it's like.
(39:17):
But then the stunner of finding out he's alive and
well and someone's bed at his Bekistan for Pete's like
and cash this Joe Scott talked about evidence. He was
apparently speaking to law enforcement on FaceTime every day.
Speaker 7 (39:35):
Yeah, to what degree do you want to try to
disappear if you're not actually going to disappear? And he
went to great links. Nancy. Remember you know, listen, I'll
speak as a man here. You know, carry a wallet,
right and He even sacrificed that he leaves this behind
in the tackle box in order to give the impression
that credit cards, driver's license, his car keys, they're all gone.
(39:59):
They're sinking to the bottom, along allegedly with his body,
which of course never pops up out of the water,
which is something that we would be very interested in
seeing if we were searching for a body that might
be in a lake and it's not turning up. So
you could smell a rat early on in this. But
he did go to great links, Nancy in order to
try to facilitate this, but he wound up not being
(40:22):
able to finish the deal relative to bring this to
a conclusion. He didn't just fall off of the map here,
and we've had a lot of cases over the years
where people did actually fall off the map. Hell, there's
people all out there right now that folks are still
looking for. This guy did a miserable job at attempting
to do this, and all along the way he winds
up destroying his children's lives, not to mention his wives.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
We wait as justice unfolds for Ryan Borgwart, but I
gotta tell you, justice for Borgwart may end up hurting
the family and the children even more, but that is
not a consideration for a lady Justice. Nancy Grace signing off,
(41:06):
I'll see you tomorrow night at sixty nine o'clock sharp Eastern,
and until then, good nights.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, a married Wisconsin dad of three.
Did he fake his own death in order to flee
to Europe and his Usbecky hotty mistress and breaking? Now?
(00:22):
Is daddy home for Christmas? I'm Nancy Grace, this is
Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Board wards
apparently back home on US soil and busted. He's home
for Christmas? Is the wife even gonna want him? Why
would she want him? But that's not my concern right now.
(00:44):
I'm not a shrink or marriage counselor. I'm a former
prosecutor and I want to find out a why he
came home and b what is he charged with? Joining
me an all star panel to make sense of what
we know right now? Straight out to Christina or Wyo.
She is the national news anchor with Salem News Channel. Christina,
thank you for being with us. What happened?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
We learned a lot from what Ryan borg Word told
investigators about how he tried to pull this whole scheme off,
baking his own death, from struggling to get out of
the water because he was caught in waste time muck
to riding an e bike seventy miles to Milwaukee to
hit a greyhound to Chicago, Detroit up through Canada. He
actually struggled getting through with the Canadian officials, but he
(01:27):
finally went back and forth with.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Them Christina Christina Ohio joining us. Why do you keep
talking about his struggling boo hooo? He struggled to get
out of the water. Why was he in the water
because he faked his own death? Why was he faking
his own death to go? What's a nice way to
put this to go? Snug up within is Becky mistress
(01:50):
a hottie in Europe. I don't care that he struggled
to get out of the water, and I don't care
that he As you said again, you're really hitting the
struggling a lot as he struggle to get out of
the country. He shouldn't have been out of the country anyway,
But okay, trying to move forward without feeling sorry for
Ryan Borgwarts.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Please absolutely no sorrowful feelings here for mister Borgward. As
he enacted a completely selfish scheme, he cost the County
of Green Lake forty five thousand plus dollars. They did
an extensive search in this length. They had cadaver dogs,
they had diving teams, they put their lives at risk.
(02:29):
Not to mention he left behind his family. He meticulously
planned for at least seven months, right because we know
he took that life insurance policy out in January for
three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. So he meticulously
planned every single day for about seven months on how
to completely destroy emotionally every single person that loved him
and every person that he loved. He actually went to
(02:51):
church with his family the mourning of his disappearance, the
morning that he carried through with his plan to fake
his own death. So the reason he came home, it's
Sheriff's Christ.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Wait a minute, Wait a minute before I lose this
thought out to high profile lawyer joining us Gregory Morse.
He is a partner in the law firm of King
Morse joining us out of Palm Beach, Gregory Morse. No
jury is going to believe him or anything he has
to say when we find out he's sitting at the
(03:24):
eleven o'clock service, and then he's got his plan already done.
While he's sitting there, while his wife is praying for
her family, he's sinking. Ooh, it's Becky haughty got to
get to his Bekistan. Hurry, hurry, go fake my death
and get to Canada. Really, the duplicity, the hypocrisy. I
(03:48):
just you know what, I can take a lot a hypocrite.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
No, n well, he's not going to make much jewelry
appeal if his case were to go to trial. And
Ryan Borgenwork should have listened to my advice to every citizen.
If you want to confess, speak with a priest, not
the police. He spoke with the police, told him you
know that he was going. He planned this. He kind
of inculpated himself. And he's charged under a statute obstruction
(04:13):
of justice in Wisconsin section nine forty six point four
to one, which is a misdemeanor Class A. Under their statute,
he doesn't really qualify for the felony enhancements. He faces
up to nine months in jail. He clearly doesn't have
any money for a lawyer, or didn't plan yesterday or
did Greg Morris.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Please don't tell me that I the taxpayer have to
pay this deadbeat dad, this two timer, that I have
to pay his legal fees. Yeah, he says something in
court like I only have twenty dollars. Really, you should
have thought about that before you got that first class
ticket across the ocean. Guys, this is how the whole
thing started. Listen.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
In August twelfth, twenty twenty four, at five point thirty
two pm, our office received a call from the Dodge
County Sheriff's Office in reference to a subject that did
not return home that evening and the last known location
he was was Green Lake. Deputies headed that way, checked
(05:22):
the areas around the lake and found Ryan's vehicle along
with his trailer, parked in the area of Dodge Memorial Park.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
We immediately deployed our.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Boat and at six point thirty one two of our
deputies found a capsized kayak in the western part of
the lake, in the area of two hundred and twenty
foot depth.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Of water two and twenty feet below the surface, deep
deep down, where the water is so dark you can't
see your hand in front of your eyes. You know,
I want to go out too, before I tell you
what else happened to Special guests joining us. Ben Dobrin
(06:13):
joining us. He is a police diver, he is an
Emergency Medical Services Marine Dive Team member, and he is
the dean the d Henry Watt's School of professional studies. Ben,
thank you so much for being with us. What are
the dangers of diving that deeply?
Speaker 6 (06:32):
Oh, there's a lot of risk. First of all, I mean,
that lake, like you said, is deep, and it's huge.
It's two hundred and thirty six feet deep. So that's
not a normal dive. You know, most public safety diving
the standards are sixty feet or less. Some dive teams
will train up to maybe one hundred feet, but once
you get past one hundred feet you're in what's called
technical diving. And most public safety dive teams are not
(06:54):
technical dive teams, and so they're not diving that deep.
So then you're going to put a whole bunch of
equipment in the water that is very expensive, whether it's sonar
or some sort of unmanned underwater vehicle. Those are hundreds
of thousands of dollars of pieces of equipment that you're
putting in there. There's all sorts of entanglement hazards. You know,
it's dark, it's deep, it's cold, But once you put
(07:16):
a human being in the water, you know, then you're
putting life in limit at risk. Also, so once you
have divers in the water, it becomes a much more
scary endeavor for us to put one diver in the
water and that primary diver has a second person a
tender to help them. Then we have to have a
safety diver, and that person has a tender. Then we
have what's called a ninety percent diver. They're kind of
(07:38):
a backup safety to the safety. Then we have to
have a dive supervisor and a dive safety officer, So
that's six people to get one diver in the water.
And then most teams will also have an ambulance and
a medic on scene just for the divers. So you're
talking about a very, very labor intensive endeavor to get
one safety dive, one public safety diver into the water.
(08:00):
And then when you talk about the training and the gear,
it's very expensive to do this, and the risks are there.
I mean, entanglements happen, running out of air shouldn't happen,
Medical events happen. If a medical event happens above water,
we've got medics unseen ambulance of hospitals. But if you
have a medical event underwater, that's a whole different and
scary endeavor. So I mean, once you start putting people
(08:23):
in the water, the risks go up significantly.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
You know, another problem when you're searching, especially that deep,
when you're diving that deeply, is that items on the bottom,
the bottom surface get tangled up and you've got a
diver down there that may have spotted a limb surrounded
by water debris, you know, raptil together that may look
like a body on sonar. So you have to go
(08:48):
all the way down and it's pitch black, you can't
even see your hand in front of you. Find the object,
feel it and determine is it a body that is
very dangerous?
Speaker 6 (08:59):
Bendobrin absolutely, and then you know, let's say it is.
Then you've got to recover. Recovering something from hundreds of
feet has its own host of difficulties and problems because
you know you're gonna have to do the diver's going
to have to do safety stops on the way up.
Do you just lift the body, tie you know, an
airbag to it and lift it up, Well, then there
could be problems and it can drop and you'll have
to do your search all over again. Or if you're
(09:20):
going to have lift you know, lift capabilities, that's another
entanglement hazard for the diver. You know, once you're on
the bottom, You're right, there's all sorts of garbage on
the bottom that can make the diver entangled. And you
know once you put it, once you put a human
being in the water, the risks are really really high,
and once you start adding the depth, it just makes
it even more incredibly risky.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Straight out to Joe Scott Morgan and joining US Professor
forensics Jackson, Wi's State University, author of Blood Beneath My
Fate on Amazon, and star of a hit series Body
Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan, Joscott, I really can't stress
how dangerous that was for the divers, for the dogs
out there, for everybody manipulating the boat to kind of
(10:02):
help and facilitate the divers. So far down below they
can't communicate with them. You heard that two hundred and
twenty five feet below the surface of the water. How
dangerous is that for everyone involved? And think about the
planning that went in to Borgwartz's escape plan.
Speaker 7 (10:24):
Yeah, you want to know something about these lakes, Nancy.
I've been up there before, been in this region of
the country, and it's beautiful. Do you know these are
glacial lakes, These lakes originated as a result of the ice,
the ice sheet that came over North America. This is
not too far away from Lake Winnebago. These lakes are
(10:44):
really really deep. And you know he's not overstating this
when you talk about you can't see your hand in
front of your face in this location. It's amazing to
me that he would choose this methodology in order to
try to facilitate an escape like this, because these people
(11:07):
are prepared up there with their maritime services. Now the
sheriff just a second ago said we launched our boat. Well,
everybody up there, every little jurisdiction has dive teams because
these lakes are all over the place, so you can
get several of these people. And this reminds me. I
got to tell you, this reminds me of the Runaway Bride.
Do you remember that all those years ago? Yeah, where
(11:31):
they had to call in all of these resources to
track her down. And I'm thinking about this case and
all of these guys and gals that are out there
on the surface of this lake. You've got people this
is in August. You've got people that are recreating out
there at summertime, and they're going out there into this lake,
this deep water, and they're risking life and limb to
(11:52):
try to find this bozo, and of course they don't
turn up with anything.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Nancy, let me go out to IRV brand joining us
ERV longtime friend and colleague, former senior inspector with the
US Marshall Service International Investigations Branch. He has been around
the world looking for felons. I want to talk about
this when you're hearing the dangers and the money over
(12:18):
fifty thousand dollars this little jurisdiction sunk into this much
less a lot more money from other sources, but the danger,
the danger involved, It's amazing. This guy is slung up
in an Isbecky apartment with a hottie. I'm gonna have
to go to a shrink about what the wife and
the children are going through thinking he's dead. But of
(12:40):
all of your travels and the dangers you have faced
trying to track down people around the world, can you
believe this.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
Guy, Mancy?
Speaker 8 (12:49):
This case strikes me as out of all the cases
that we've covered together, this one strikes me as the
most absurd when it comes to amount of time and
the resources and the hard work put in by law
enforcement agents for someone to do this that it was
completely unnecessary. If he wanted to leave, he could have
(13:13):
just left the note and left the country. He did
not have to stage such an elaborate scam to try
to convince people that he was dead.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
He could have I've got I gotta admit for you
or brant Way to hear this. Let me make sure
I got it right with Christina Ohio. Christina, isn't it
true that he went to the link of buying a
life preserver at Walmart so he could leave it out
there to be found.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Exactly he wanted them to think he needed to sell it.
He needed people to think that he had drowned.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So he left.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
He bought it earlier in that day. He left it
there so that way investigators could find it, so they
would be completely thrown off the track and that he
actually drowned.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
What we're hearing is the wife the Wisconsin man who
faked his own death in a kayak accident. The wife
has filed for separation. Do you blame her?
Speaker 4 (14:14):
We assembled around eight thirty that Monday morning to get
our plan in place as to what we were going
to do.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
As you can see in the.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Screen, behind me shows the location of data guide that
guided our search. There was a number of pings that
we got from the phone that Ryan I had contact
with his wife. The last one where it shows you
on there it says last pin. That was one where
(14:47):
you told her that he was going to be turning
around and head even.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
Towards shore soon. We then got another ping around the eleven.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Fifty ish and that was just the last thing.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
That we got on the front.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I don't know yet what he's going to face legally,
because he has just been busted and shown up in
a court of law. But how do you explain that
to your children as they grow up and start to
understand what you did to their mother and to them.
But the level of planning goes beyond capsizing a kayak
and leaving a brand new life preserver out in the
(15:32):
water to be found. I mean, gregor remorse, You're in
church on Sunday and then the next day you are
leaving your fishing rod out in the water to be
found and then brought to your wife to identify. I mean,
I'm just projecting here, but I remember when my fiancee
(15:53):
was murdered and I was a witness in court, And
I remember the first moment that I saw keith bloody shirt.
I walked in off the witness stand and was walking
by state's council table and I saw his din of
shirt covered in blood. I remember that moment. I don't
remember a lot more about it, but I remember that moment.
(16:15):
And his wife had to identify his fishing rod really well.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Again, those are powerful things. He's not going to be
well liked by a jury if this were to go
to a jury, which it's probably not going to. It's
a misdemeanor. Also, his biggest consequence here is the family situation.
How he's going to be perceived. He has to deal
with that now. And he's you're right, he's a person
who's weak, who had better options like talking to a
(16:43):
therapist about these feelings instead of planning this ridiculous.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Escape. And he really.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Started planning it well before, you know, when he got
the insurance policy. As he said, he thought that would
take care of his family. That's why he did it
when he faked his death. So this is a guy,
like a lot of people, Nancy, who put on a
face and go around and hug and go to church
and look like altruistic, great people, but behind the scenes
they're just lost in you know, a real moron and
(17:14):
a heartless person to his family.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Corse morse two words, don't care. I don't care. He's
not running from his sweet potato. Nobody's going to judge him.
He's not part of the swimsuit competition. I don't care
who likes him or doesn't like him. But these pitiful,
empathetic charges are not enough. What about insurance fraud? For
Pete's sake, didn't he hold on Christina Riyo. Didn't he
(17:38):
get a three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars life
insurance policy and then fake his own death of that?
He did?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
He got it back in January, seven months before, and
it was for the purpose of taking care of his family. Again,
he's trying to look like the good guy here, but
he needed that money to take care of his family.
So that, in effect is insurance fraud because he didn't die,
he faked it. So I do believe that should be
added on to it, should be an underlying factor, and
he should get more than just a misdemeanor obstruction charge
(18:06):
that faces ten thousand dollars fine and a mere nine
months in prison.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Guys, not only that there is more and very intricate planning.
Listen through that.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Forensic analyst. We recovered that he replaced his hard drive
on the laptop. He cleared the browser on the day
of his disappearance. He sent the laptop into the cloud.
I don't know, I guess the level. He took photos
(18:42):
of his passports. We found out that he moved funds
to a foreign bank, changing this email.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
And communication with a woman and used back Gistan.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
He took out a three hundred and seventy five thousand
dollars life insurance policy in January, and he purchased earlining cards.
Due to these discoveries of the new evidence, we were
sure that Ryan was not in our.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Link to Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic expert and professor of forensics.
Now explain to me, Joe Scott Morgan, how valuable this
information is that it's going to be a mass by
an insurance investigator, a fraud investigator. What length did Bordwark
go through to clean to wipe his computer?
Speaker 7 (19:45):
Yeah, he did, and the idea that he sink this
with this cloud. As the sheriff had pointed out just
a second ago. He didn't want to lose everything that
he had all of that data, and he changed out
the hard drive as well, So this this is something
that requires some planning. He'd even created a new email
address so that he could communicate with whomever. I think
(20:09):
what's going to be interesting is when they begin to
dig into what is contained on that cloud. And I
think this goes to this earlier supposition talking about how
they could come forward with potential insurance fraud charges here,
which is going to be huge in this particular case.
They're going to put this narrative together that he was
purposed to defraud. At this point in time, it's not
(20:32):
just about him banishing off the face of the planet,
but it's also that he's trying to create a new
life and leaving this other one behind, and he's really
got itself into I don't know, as British would say,
a bit of a sticky wicket here, because he can't
escape this, this this.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Digital top there. Just Scott, I don't appreciate the way
you said he's got himself into or he landed into
a sticky wicket. Okay, these just things didn't just happen.
He didn't just fall into computer and insurance fraud. He
did it himself. You know, you know you mommy of you,
(21:10):
remimy of my fell in defendants who would say, miss Grace,
I caught a drug charge. You caught it like somebody
threw it at you, Like you were just standing there
and suddenly you have a key low in your apartment.
Speaker 7 (21:25):
It happened.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Can find himself in.
Speaker 7 (21:27):
A sticky wicket that specifically, counselor was that he got
himself into it. Okay, that's a move on his like.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
It's kind of an accident. Oh, I'm in a little
bit of a mess.
Speaker 7 (21:39):
No, No, he's in a hell of a lot of mess.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Here and we're learning to top it all off. Borgwart's wife, Emily,
has filed for a legal separation. She did that the
day after a Borgwart landed back on us soil. In
her separation petition, I'm surprised it's not a divorce petition,
(22:02):
she states the marriage is irretrievably broken, and she's right.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
On August twelfth, twenty twenty four, our office received a
call from the Dutch County Sheriff's office in reference to
a subject that did not return home.
Speaker 9 (22:30):
Ryan borg Ward fails to return from kayaking on Green Lake,
and volunteers joined law enforcement in searching for the forty
four year old father of three.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
That search ended far far away when they found him
slung up with is Zeuzbeki Hattie. I wonder what made
him finally come home. Did he run out of money?
Or was she not what he thought she would be?
Was that it was she not all he dreamed? Whatever,
he's busted. Now I've just got to see him again.
(23:02):
Let's roll Borgwarts.
Speaker 5 (23:04):
Good evening, it's raining borgwork today.
Speaker 6 (23:07):
Hello man.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
Today is November eleventh. It's approximately ten am by you guys.
I'm in my apartment. I am see secure.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I hope this works safe secure, no problem, Well, I
don't know about that, you know. Before I go back
to Christina Awaio joining us from Sealing News Channel, let
me go to a shrink, and boy do I need
a shrink right now? To doctor Judy Hoe joining us.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Doctor Judy clinical forensic neuropsychologist, author of the New Rules
of Attachment, and you can find her at doctor Judy
Hooho dot com. Doctor Judy, thank you for being with us.
You know, after my fiancees murder, I had a recurrent
dream and the dream was that he wasn't really dead,
(24:05):
that he was alive and he just went on a
walk about, and that he came back. And in the dream,
which happened over and over and over, I guess I
was wrestling with his death, his murder. I don't know
what I was wrestling with. I'm just a lawyer, I'm
(24:27):
not a shrink doctor, Judy. But how could his wife
possibly reconcile this? For so many days and nights she
believed he was dead. Finds the kayak capsized, finds the
life preserver floating in the water, Finds his fishing rod,
(24:48):
which she has to identify, and has to think every
night that his body is decomposing at the bottom two
hundred and twenty five the below level of the light.
Speaker 10 (25:02):
Well, Nancy, because Borgwort spends so much time staging his
own death, his wife, his poor wife, had to go
through all of the stages of grief, from denial to anger,
to depression to bargaining, well, maybe he's not dead. But
as you mentioned, when we lose the ones that we love,
(25:26):
oftentimes we're reflecting on the good times, what we could
have said to them last, What was the last memory
we had of them, and she's dealing with this as
well as trying to help her three children process losing
their dad. Of course, as a search is going on,
there's that tiny sliver of hope. But as the days
(25:48):
go on, the longer the days go on, the more
people get involved, the more she's thinking this is hopeless.
He's probably dead. We just have to accept it. And
then to discover at the end of this journey that
he did all of this so selfishly without regard, just
because he wanted to have an affair. This is completely
(26:10):
ridiculous and I feel so sad for the trauma that
his wife and his three children have to go through
now having to reconsider all of this and who is
this person? Who is his dad or husband that we
lived our entire lives with. It's not the person that
they thought he was.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
And it's not just leaving for another woman, Doctor Judy Hoe.
He left for a woman he had never met. He
left for the idea of a woman. It just he
hadn't even had an affair yet, he left because of
somebody he was texting and emailing and and snapping with.
(26:47):
To leave his wife and his children for what an idea.
Speaker 10 (26:54):
That's exactly what happened It Basically, he was sick of
his living his life, it seems, and he's, well, this
is gonna be my better life. But as you mentioned,
he doesn't have any experience with this woman. And I
know that you've been questioning, well, why did he come back?
Maybe he came back because, like you said, it wasn't
the life that he thought it was gonna be. I mean,
what was his next recourse if he didn't come back?
(27:16):
Was he gonna design a third life? Was he gonna
try to run off with another person that he hasn't
had a relationship with, but has the idea that maybe
this is gonna be the savior. I really don't know
what he was thinking, but something dire must have been
happening in his head and he thought this was gonna
be the only solution. It is a ridiculous solution because
you can't run away from whatever problems you're dealing with.
They're gonna follow you wherever.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Man. The wife is between a rock and hard spot
because she's got her three children that would probably want
their bio dad with them. But I gotta tell you something, Judy,
how I would send him back to his Becks day
and cod cash on delivery. She can pay for the postage.
Here's another thing, doctor Judy. The money, the money. You
know what you get a man, all right, maybe they're attractive,
(28:02):
maybe they can dance, maybe they can speak flowery language
to you and make you feel happy. But then they
mess with the money. The money, the money that you
work for, the money that you're gonna put in your
children's education fund, your nest egg, your emergency money. This
(28:25):
poc took the money. He didn't just leave to go
have sex with a woman he's never met. Okay, that's
bad enough, but worse, he took the money on nearly
six thousand dollars plus everything he's spent to get over there.
He took the money out of the children's fund for
Pete's sake.
Speaker 10 (28:44):
Right, this is clearly not a person who was thinking
at all about his family. Otherwise he wouldn't be essentially
making a plan to ditch them forever. When you fake
your own death, there's no coming back from that, right,
I mean, in this case, obviously they discovered him, but
if this plan actually went according to his own thoughts,
then there is no coming back from that. You'll never
see your children and wife again. Because they think you're dead.
(29:06):
And even in that moment, how selfish is he to say,
you know what, who cares about their future? I'm going
to secure my own future taking that money. It's like,
what kind of relationship did he even have with these
children before? I'm so curious as to what the family
dynamics were before he left. Did these children actually think
he was a loving, doting father who had their best
(29:27):
interests at heart. Well, now the children have to contend
with that idea. I have a dad who doesn't love me.
You know what that does to children's attachment and what
they think about human beings and relationships in general. He
could be creating a cascade of negative mental health outcomes
for his children.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
And we learned that court records confirm Emily Borgwart's wife,
who lives in Watertown, Wisconsin, has filed for separation almost
immediately after he touched down on US soil. And the
documents that the wife Emily filed in Dodge County Circuit Court,
she said she wants full custody of their three children.
(30:14):
Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 11 (30:20):
Little forensic analysts of a laptop that we were given
that we have found that he was in some place
in Europe.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And this is the right.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
If you're viewing this. But there's a family that.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Wants okay, So how did the sheriff get him home? Listen,
Christmas is going.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
And what better gift he could give us kids? Has
to be there for Christmas.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
That from our friends at w l u k T.
That's Fox eleven. Well Borgwartz has landed in a whole
heap of trouble in court.
Speaker 12 (31:06):
Look state of Wisconsin versus why word work stand uppiers
by district to trains your recent space. The found appears
in person and cost to be even without the attorney. Sorry,
if you received a copy.
Speaker 5 (31:18):
Of the criminal complaint, yes, n.
Speaker 12 (31:21):
You at me to read that to you or not?
Internet's probable love received way of reading. Obstructing an officer
faces an excellent penalty a ten thousand dollars fine, nine
months in jail or all parton has youd be the
terriminal complaint. That's why probable costs.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
For the chart and there's more. Listen to this guy,
poor mouthing.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
Sir, what do you about the purpose on that?
Speaker 12 (31:44):
Those are the conditions who'd be released here today?
Speaker 5 (31:46):
I had twenty dollars in my wallet and the other
in himself.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
That's right from our friends at w l UK TV.
That's Fox eleven. What he's got twenty dollars in his wallet.
I hope they don't ask the wife to pay his
court fees. Straight back out to the national news anchor
Salem News Channel, Ryan Borgwart and court, those charges are
(32:16):
not enough. I don't know who came up with those charges,
But tell me what's happening now. Is it true he
walked out on a five hundred dollars bond. That is true.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
And I thought the very same thing when I first
saw the charges. This is not enough for what he did,
what he put everybody through, how much money he costs
the county. But yes, they gave him. The judge gave
him a five hundred dollars bond that he doesn't even
have to pay unless he misses any court hearings. So
what was interesting about that court hearing too, we talk
about the emotional family impact of all of this, is
(32:48):
his parents were in that courtroom. However, they didn't speak
to him. He was let out through one set of
doors by the bailiffs and the parents were let out
the back door to avoid the reporters. Of course they
probably didn't want to speak with them, but that emotional
impact it's had on the family. Apparently it looks like
he might be speaking to his parents. But he definitely
deserves more than a five hundred dollars bond, and he
(33:09):
should have had to pay it at least that if
you can, he should be behind bars. He shouldn't be
able to sit back there and think about what he's done.
He just got back from a vacation from Europe, essentially
hanging out with a woman that he left his family for,
he faked his own death for. He should have to
sit behind bars for a little while and think about
what he has done. So that bond should have been
(33:29):
higher and he should have been made to pay it.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
You know, I'm very curious, Christina didn't the judge say
he was not a flight.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Risk, which was also interesting. How is this guy that
faked his own death he planned it for seven months
at least. How has this man that faked his own
death and took off to Europe this intricate route of
greyhound buses and hopping flights to Paris? How is he
not a flight risk? Is it because he has twenty
dollars in his pocket. How do we know he's not
(33:57):
going to get money from this mystery woman overseas. How
do we know he doesn't have a stash of money
of those foreign accounts. We don't know any of this.
So it doesn't make any sense to me that he
is not a flight risk, considering that the very reason
he's sitting in court is because he hopped out of
the country.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
To Greg Moore's high profile lawyer, joining us at a
palm beach. This is another issue. Of course, he can
be prosecuted for insurance fraud. That would be a felony
given the amount of three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars.
But this is unequal treatment under the law. That's due
process is a fourteenth Amendment ringing a bell in your head, Morse,
(34:37):
let me point out a couple of people that ended
up going to jail for piccadillos like this, and I'll
start with the one that just got Morgan brought up earlier,
Jennifer will Banks.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
This is a hysteria with regard to Ryan Bordrot. Everybody
thinks people should go to prison for every indiscretion. This
is absurd. The judge was absolutely right. He is not
a flight risk. He came back on his own, dave
his passport up to the court. These people called the police.
He's also maybe you could charge him with attempted insurance
fraud him up.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
What do you mean passport? He's already made a copy
and used it to get into Canada and then leave
the country. And the only reason about the money is
because he's spent it all.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
But you're well one, these are middle income people. It
seems he had five thousand dollars, which the story is
reported were his life savings. So all you're going to
do by keeping this guy in jail on this nonsense
charge in this this ridiculous situation that is not serious criminally,
is to destroy his family even further because he can't work.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
But you're not getting to me, Brandt. Could you straighten
out Greg Remorse? IRV Brandt. I know Greg Remorse is
just doing the party line about his innocent blah blah blah.
But what about all the money and expense and the
danger that was incurred trying to find him? You know
(36:00):
what we just talked about Jennifer Wilbanks, it's so called
runaway bride. What about Carly Russell or listen.
Speaker 9 (36:09):
Alabama nursing student carl Russell calls nine to one one
to report a stranded toddler on the side of a
busy highway, describing the toddler as three to four years
old and only wearing a diaper, walking alone on I
four fifty nine in the Birmingham Metro. Russell ben calls
her brother's girlfriend, tells her she's watching the toddler until
police arrive, but the call ends abruptly. Police arrived at
the spot Russell called from and find her wigs, cell phone,
(36:29):
and purse on the roadway near the vehicle, But Carly
Russell is gone and.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
We're learning to top it all off, Emily Borgart's wife
has filed for separation.
Speaker 9 (36:39):
Caitlin Armstrong murders pro cyclist Moe Wilson after Wilson goes
out with Armstrong's boyfriend. Armstrong flees town right after the murder,
using multiple identities, changing her hair color and style, and
even gets a nose job. Flying from Texas to New
York to Costa Rica. US marshals take a flyer and
run an ad in Costa Rica. She's arrested and flown
(37:01):
back to Texas, where she's tried, convicted, and sentenced to
life in prison.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Brandt remember our target, Taitlin Armstrong, now convicted of murder.
Do you remember what she put the US marshals through?
Speaker 8 (37:15):
I do remember, Nancy. It was an extensive search and
it was very, very manpower intensive. That case, when it
goes international, takes a lot of time and effort by
multiple agencies to conduct the search in the same way
that the search that we're talking about today. And I
(37:37):
disagree with defense counsel that he is in a flight risk.
This man did an elaborate plan to fake his own death.
This wasn't a spur of the moment thing. This was
a very detailed, well planned out scheme to make people
believe that he was dead. Then he left the country.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
I mean, I'm just thinking it through, or Brent, let
me throw this to Judy Hoe, clinical forensic neuropsychologist to
go through all of this, the wife thinking he's dead
at the bottom of a lake, trying to explain it
to the little boys, all just to have sex. It's
just it's mind boggling that you would do that to
(38:23):
your family and incur all the danger and expanse to
law enforcement trying to find him.
Speaker 10 (38:31):
And Nancy, we're trying to understand this from the perspectives.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Of reasonable people.
Speaker 10 (38:36):
This is obviously not reasonable. This is an incredulous attempt
to get away at a situation that you're not happy about.
That's fine, you're not happy with your marriage. Maybe you're
not happy right now being a father, You're going through
a midlife crisis, whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
This is an obvious crisis man in their midlife crises.
I'm uh, you know what Joe Scott Morgan jumping off
what doctor Gudy just said. With the degree of planning,
the technical expertise, and you know you've been on plenty
of homicide or missing people investigations, you know what it's like.
(39:17):
But then the stunner of finding out he's alive and
well and someone's bed at his Bekistan for Pete's like
and cash this Joe Scott talked about evidence. He was
apparently speaking to law enforcement on FaceTime every day.
Speaker 7 (39:35):
Yeah, to what degree do you want to try to
disappear if you're not actually going to disappear? And he
went to great links. Nancy. Remember you know, listen, I'll
speak as a man here. You know, carry a wallet,
right and He even sacrificed that he leaves this behind
in the tackle box in order to give the impression
that credit cards, driver's license, his car keys, they're all gone.
(39:59):
They're sinking to the bottom, along allegedly with his body,
which of course never pops up out of the water,
which is something that we would be very interested in
seeing if we were searching for a body that might
be in a lake and it's not turning up. So
you could smell a rat early on in this. But
he did go to great links, Nancy in order to
try to facilitate this, but he wound up not being
(40:22):
able to finish the deal relative to bring this to
a conclusion. He didn't just fall off of the map here,
and we've had a lot of cases over the years
where people did actually fall off the map. Hell, there's
people all out there right now that folks are still
looking for. This guy did a miserable job at attempting
to do this, and all along the way he winds
up destroying his children's lives, not to mention his wives.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
We wait as justice unfolds for Ryan Borgwart, but I
gotta tell you, justice for Borgwart may end up hurting
the family and the children even more, but that is
not a consideration for a lady Justice. Nancy Grace signing off,
(41:06):
I'll see you tomorrow night at sixty nine o'clock sharp Eastern,
and until then, good nights.
Host
Nancy Grace
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com