Ryan Borgwardt: The Wannabe Ghost of Green Lake

Once upon a time... a married man and father of three went online and there he met a mystery woman from Uzbekistan. The two began an internet friendship that blossomed into an online romance. Within months, he and she decided he should fake his death so he could leave his wife and kids behind in Wisconsin and run away to be with her. Obviously, that didn't go down as planned since he's on this show!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey Elizabeth, coming in hot man, So glad to see you.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, good to see.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Why you got that big smile on your face. I
got a question for you. Do you know what's ridiculous?
Is there?

Speaker 1 (00:13):
I do?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Really?

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I asked my six year old nephew the other day,
what's a la boo boo? Ah?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
This must have been.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Interesting because I hear it. I don't know, yeah, and he,
you know, made a disgusted face because he doesn't like
labuo boo.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Oh, he's over it.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah. It's sort of like when I was his age
and like Cabbage Patch kids for sure the thing, and
I was disgusted by them, you know, because I was
too cool for that. Yeah, Cabbage Pat I was so cool.
So I asked him what's the laboo boo? And he
was trying to explain it to me, and then we
looked up a picture and I said, all right, I

(00:49):
get it. It's like you know, manchi chi, Yeah, I thought,
I say, is mon chichi and so? But I then
rose on Instagram aka the Envious Moon, she sent us
a thing where people believe that la Boo Boo is
modeled on pazuzu Zu is an ancient Mesopotamian mythological figure.

(01:18):
That is, it's a demonic god and so he's represented
by like a dog face with huge bulging eyes, a
scaly body, a snake headed penis, the talons of a bird,
and wings and it's like an evil underworld demon. Somehow
that translates to le boo boo. And so people they're

(01:42):
people who are saying they're you know, they're they're dork sided,
they're gorgyles, they're psychic, don't don't get near them, they're
bad evil. Other people are trying to exorcize them, and
so they're hat there. Yeah, they're trying to use these
these rituals to cleanse the Pazuzu out of the Labooboo.

(02:08):
And I don't like any of it.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
I'm just grouding. This is not a mashup. You're like
sliding in at the well.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
It's a mashup of the boo boos and the devil.
So uh, that's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
That's that is mad ridiculous exercise.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
And then and the Labuobu folks are like, look, we
were not inspired by Pazuzu. Of course, you can't tell
people nothing. They're saying, No, of course, it's it's the.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Devil Greatest, the Devil ever poll.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
It's dork sided as they say. It's like corgo Wow, yeah,
excited stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
It's like you opened up a door to started saying
nonsense words at.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Means well, it's like when you see like you're driving
in San Francisco and you see all these billboards.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
And it's yeah, it's bad companies.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Gibberish of like, you know, they make these what are
supposed to be probably clever wordplay about various coding platforms
or whatever, and the business names. They don't like vowels.
They usually kick the vowels.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Out, always get rid of the vowels.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
And so if I if I saw a billboard that
said the Boo Boo is now free from Pazuzu, I'd
be like, that's got to be an app. Yes, it's
a database system. So that's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
That is ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
I know, thank you on that note.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
I got something that's ridiculous for you.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
I'd like that, please logistics, that's not ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
I know you would say that because you are Elizabeth
As I would tell people a queen of logistics. I
love that's not the ridiculous part, okay, But oftentimes logistics
can be the difference between success and failure. As you
well know. That is so true, especially when it comes
to crime. Oh yeah, we say this all the time. Yes,
and especially like you know, if you're going to do
the crime, at least do the research for how you'll

(03:50):
get away with it.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yes, yes, it's part of the planning.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
This is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about a third and
outrageous capers heist and cons It's always ninety nine percent
murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Elizabeth Boo. Now you've mentioned casually to me many times
before that you're a woman who from time to time
has suffered through bouts of anxiety.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yes, time to time, money now now.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
But as far as I would describe it, like you
once bravely picked up sticks and moved to Scotland, a
place where you knew no one, and you started a
whole new life for yourself.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
That's true. I certainly did.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Was that an anxious time for you? Or did the
excitement of all that newness and fresh potential booy you?

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Uh? Though? You know, I think my anxiety is generalized
anxiety just about everything that I where you are. But
those kind of choices, I, you know, have had a
blessing in my life to be raised in part by
my grandmother, who looked at everything as an opportunity and
you have to take a big risk every now and then.

(05:16):
And so it was. I never thought i'd leave California.
It was huge. It was a huge thing, and it
felt like stepping off a cliff. And when I did it,
then I realized it was just a curb. It wasn't
a cliff. And so I stepped off and I'm like, no,
I'm okay, and I'm actually now I'm somewhere cool, and
it was a great life lesson. Nice, you know, And
so I don't have anxiety about big life change stuff.

(05:39):
Oddly enough, I getting anxious over the little things.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Like well I find parking, Oh.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
God, yeah, if I'm invited somewhere, you know, especially if
it's in like San Francisco, look and I find like,
where's the parking garage? Because I know I'm not going
to get street parking.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, You've asked me questions about that. I'm like, I
don't know. When you get there, you'll figure it out.
You're like, no, No, I need to know at least
three locations I can find public parking, private parking, and
then maybe on street parking that's readily available. What.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, No, I have to know, Buppy, you have.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Good parking, Karmace. It kind of works out for you,
I do. I don't know why you were well today.
I would like to tell you a story of a
guy who wanted to find a new hymn and instead
he lost it all. Yeah, Elizabeth, meet Ryan Borgwart. He
was a forty five year old cabinet maker, a married
family man who lived in a small town in Wisconsin. Now,

(06:29):
I assume, like me, you're not familiar with Watertown, Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Waterton, I have never heard of it, but I hear
it's beautiful. Well.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
It's located halfway between Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin. Town is
home to roughly twenty three thousand people. Sure it was
named Watertown because it's located in a horseshoe bend of
the Rock River and for the use of the water
of the river to power industry and commerce. Like Originally,
the Rock River powered sawmills, which led to an early
lumber industry and thus furniture makers like the star of

(06:58):
our story, Ryan Borgwart. Now, as I said, Ryan was
a married family man, a father to three children. But
please note that they didn't say he was a happily
married man, because if you asked him, he was not.
That there were troubles in his marriage. That's why he
would step out from time to time, but not like
you might be thinking more to spend time on his own.
For instance, he was a fan of driving out to

(07:18):
the lake and going fishing by himself on his kayak.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
There's nothing wrong with that. I think that I think
that all couples should be comfortable having their own time
and space occasionally.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
I think that I would also advocate for that.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Now, this was his key escape the kayak, the fishing,
going out on the lake and one day.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
August on me unless he was there with like a bodacious.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Babe, No, no, she wouldn't fit on the kayak.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
It's just it was a one yeah, one hitter exactly.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
They only seeded two cheeks.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
Okay, I'll allow that.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Now, one day, August eleven, twenty twenty four, to be exact,
he decided to go on one of his fishing trips alone,
and that night the Aurora borealis was popping off, and
he felt like going out to the lake and just
do some fishing with the northern lights washing over him
high above.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, and he said he had kids.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Three of them teenage kids.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
Oh, you totally should have taken the kids.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
It depends if they like fishing or not, you know, fishing.
So he's out there, you know, getting ready to go
out to the lake. And apparently he didn't tell his wife,
Emily his plants, or perhaps she was busy with their
teenage kids when he left, or perhaps she wasn't yet
home from work. I don't know the specifics, but what
I do know, Elizabeth is he texted her at ten
thirty six pm that he decided to drive fifty miles

(08:32):
out to Green Lake to do some fishing on his
kayak and to check the northern lights. He wrote that quote,
I may have snuck out on a lake right, And
his wife, Emily texted back, that would have been nice
to know. I was beginning to wonder why you weren't home.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
Okay, I'm with her now.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
He texted her back and apologized for his absence, and
her response was somewhat terse Emily wrote back, nothing new,
I should be used to it by now, so many nights,
I have no idea where you are when it's late
now to that text, he responded that he was aware
of his lack of straightforward communication and that he would
work on it in the future. Seemingly to calm down

(09:07):
their terse text exchange, he wrote to his wife that
the northern lights were dancing above him and looked incredible,
the sky all awash with a lively shade of pink,
and then he texted, I love you good night now.
That text seemed to thaw the cold between them somewhat,
because Emily texted back that she loved him too, and
she asked him to be safe on the lake and

(09:27):
she said she'd see him when he got home. Okay,
Ryan texted his wife back, reassuring her, I'll be heading
back to shore soon now. That last text was sent
at ten forty nine pm. The next morning, his wife
woke up early and noticed her husband had not yet
come home. She texted him at five twelve am, and
Emily asked her husband, where are you, and then when

(09:47):
he didn't respond, she sent the follow up text. It
was just one word, babe. Now. The text was also
unanswered you see, Elizabeth, her husband had officially gone missing.
Oh no, his wife went to the police, like what
she's going to do? So the local sheriff's deputies they
launched this search for the missing cabinet maker. At first
they found nothing, but then out of the lake deputies

(10:10):
discovered Ryan Borgwartz van and trailer. They were parked near
a boat launch. The next clue that the deputies found was, well,
they didn't discover instead of a local fisherman who found it.
He spotted a fishing rod who was found at the
bottom of the lake.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
How did he see a fishing round?

Speaker 2 (10:25):
It was pretty clear waters? Oh, so it was then.
Also it was with his tackle box. Inside his tackle
box was his wallet. His driver's license was inside, which
is how the authorities knew it was his.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Well, also inside the tackle box were the keys to
his van. So it was like, boy, he obviously didn't leave. Yeah,
So the deputies intensified their search of the lake and
they discovered his overturned kayak. Still attached to the kayak
was a life jacket. At that part of the lake
where the kayak was, the water was at least two
hundred feet deep. Elizabeth or sixty meters deep for our
overseas in Canadian listeners.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Now, at one point deputies had a working theory of
what had happened. Something had gone down that caused Ryan
Borgwart to flip his kayak while he wasn't wearing his
life jacket. Perhaps he might have slipped out of his
life jacket. They weren't exactly sure, but likely he went
into the water. But there was no body located anywhere
near the overturned kayak, nor was there a body near
the fishing rod and tackle box down like at the bottom.

(11:21):
It wasn't like he got trapped under a rock.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
Nothing.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
That meant it's time to bring in the divers.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Well, it's you know, I'm gonna guess. The most obvious
thing is that he ran into a night swimming bigfoot.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
They should have worked on them classic night swimming. Yes,
as it flopped around in the water. Yes, And then
he grabbed and then they took Ryan, and they live
in a cave together.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
And they sing little mermaid songs. And so out come
the divers to check on your bigfoot theory. Yeah, and
the team of divers they plumbed the depths of the
lake they turned up zilch, not a damn thing. Days
past of these divers who were aided by the way
by a volunteer organization, and they searched the span of

(12:06):
the seven thousand, six hundred acre lake. It's a big lake, zuge.
The deputies flew drones to check the surrounding areas of
the woods you know that run down to the lake.
And they have these volunteers who continue to search the
depths of the lake, volunteer divers.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
The volunteer organization of divers was called Bruce's Legacy. It
was named for a local firefighter, Bruce Kormikan, who had
drowned in the area back in nineteen ninety five. And
his brother Keith ran the organization in his brother's honor.
And that volunteer organization it would often assist local law
enforcement with dives to find missing persons, drowning victims. So forth.
They donate their time for those fifty days, and they used,

(12:41):
like I'm talking, the latest sonar technology to assist their search.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Well, and that diving that's dangerous too. They're putting themselves.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Into completely Yeah, and even with all the sonar data
and the drones, still they find nobody on land. They
bring out the cadaver dogs and they're brought in to
search the surrounding woods. The idea being that he made
it out of the water, and just as the sonar
and the drones had failed, so did the cadaver docs.
Once again, nobody. After fifty days of searching, there's no

(13:09):
sign of this Ryan Borgwart. He'd gone missing in August.
By October, it was time to try something else. The
local sheriff told his team, we're gonna mix it up, guys,
and it was time they pursued different avenues of inquiry, right,
So they started to check into Ryan Borgwart's personal background,
his friends, his associates, on his online presence, you know
how it goes. That's when they found their first clue.

(13:30):
You see, the Canadians had a clue that helped the
Americans with their search. What was this clue? Great question, Elizabeth,
it's so good.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Good job.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
The Canadian authorities, the customs officials from Border patrol had
run his name just days after he disappeared.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Oh really, Yes.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
That led the local sheriff to reach out to US
Customs and Border Protections, go, do you guys have anything
on this guy? But not just them, He also contacted
the FBI, Homeland Security, and the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Yeah,
the sheriff learned from the FEDS that the missing man
had recently reported that his passport was lost and he
filed for a new one. That was in May, three
months before he went missing. That was curious, seemed a

(14:10):
little suspicious it happened. And then when the sheriff contacted
the missing man's family, his wife, Emily, was easily able
to locate the so called lost passport. Oh, that seemed
a little more suss.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
So now they had a digital forensic analyst from the
Wisconsin Department of Justice search Ryan borgwartz laptop. Turns out
the hard drive had been recently replaced. But not only that,
his browser search history had been wiped clean the same
day he went missing. But not only that, Elizabeth, the
digital forensic analyst, also discovered something else. You see, the

(14:42):
missing man had been communicating online with a mystery woman
who lived in Uzbekistan.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Oh but wait, there's more.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
The missing cabinet maker had communicated online making inquiries about
how one might move money to a foreign bank. And
that's not all. The father of three had also taken
out a life insurance policy to the tune of three
hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in the eventuality of
his untimely demise, and his family luckily were the beneficiary. Yeah,

(15:11):
so he's like looking out for them in case I'm
going here, you go. Now. With those clues they pulled
from his online presence, the sheriff his deputies, they were
able to start to piece together this puzzle. This married
man didn't look like he had drowned or been eaten
by wolverines or married a bigfoot or whatever. He'd been
spending months building for himself a new life overseas with
this mystery woman from Uzbekistan, and he tried hard to

(15:34):
obscure his trail. It sure looked like he had gone
out on the lake in August and faked his death.
Elizabeth left his family some life insurance, and then he
planned to disappear in order to chase after a new
life with a mystery woman from Uzbekistan. On November eighth,
the local sheriff held a press conference and announced to
the world the findings from his investigation. He told the

(15:55):
gathered press that he was fairly certain that Ryan Borgwart
was not dead, but instead it was very much alive
and enjoying his new life somewhere out there in the
wide wide world with the mystery woman from his Pakistan
and then Elizabeth. The sheriff looked into the news cameras
and spoke directly to the missing man, said, Ryan, you

(16:15):
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.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Do you know that he's like in a dingy apartment
watching this. He's totally not watching.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Well, now that the missing man was no longer considered missing,
now he was a wanted man. And so there you go,
little flipperoo. And after these messages, I'll tell you where
Ryan Borgwart actually was and how dingy that apartment was.

Speaker 4 (16:49):
But first some delicious ass oh yum and rebeca.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
We are.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
So I got to ask you. Have you ever considered
faking your own death, cutting ties, running away to start
off or somewhere else.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
I'm guessing no, I think everyone has you have.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
I am literally surprised, shocked. One might say, are you
I wouldn't think of you as being like me yes,
we all know. I probably thought about it but yesterday,
But you don't seem like to doe.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
I mean, I've totally thought. It's not so much that
I would fake my own death, but I've sort of imagined,
like daydreamed, what would it be like if I had
no one in this world that I was responsible for
or two so no family or anything. And uh, how
like the the ability to just walk away and start
new and like totally reinvent yourself totally, it is interesting

(17:55):
to me.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Interesting. Well, you did go off to Scotland, so you
did kind of taste what reinvent.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, yeah, I mean although not really, but I mean
you think about just going somewhere new and just completely
starting over so you don't have any ties to anything
or anyone knowing anything about you. Yeah, and that's got
to be interesting, I think for this kind of thing
that is just it is just reeks of cowardice.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yes, yes, Ryan Borgwart is not our hero. He's an
anti hero at best.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
And I don't know, I mean I don't think he
had friends, or at least ones that he was confiding
and that he felt he could who then would talk.
Everyone needs friends who will talk sense into.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
That, yes, and somens. You can bring this idea too,
but you can't really tell anyone. Hey, I'm planning a
fake of my death. What do you think?

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yeah? But if you're just like, look, I'm unhappy. Obviously
he's unhappy. Sure, although I will say that I think
most people will look back and think I would not
have listened to my friends if they told me back then.
And you sometimes you got to learn lessons yourself.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
And learn the very hard way sometimes.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Oh yeah, So okay.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
So now that we know, or at least suspect Ryan
Borgwart his death and apparently ran off to be with
his mystery woman and far off possibly he was Beekistan. Yeah,
is that actually what happened?

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Well, have I got answers for you? Elizabeth?

Speaker 5 (19:08):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Please, and big hint when I say this. According to
the criminal complaint filed by the Department of Justice or
the State of Wisconsin, here's what we know. Yes, in
early August twenty twenty four, Ryan Bordwark checked the weather
and decided the time had come he would put his
plan into action on either Sunday or Monday. And the
reason that he checked the weather is because he planned
to use an e bike for his getaway, and he
wanted to ensure there was no rain in the forecast.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
There's some logistics right there. Yes, the time has come,
the wulrus said.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
There, and so on August eleventh, he woke up and
knew that was the day. Then he got dressed and
he went to church with his family. I guess while
he was there, either he prayed for success, or maybe
he prayed for forgiveness for what he was about to do.
Or maybe he just said the words and kept it moving.
I don't know. After he returned home from church, he
put his plan into motion. He left his family home

(19:58):
and he headed over to his cabinet make shop. I
gotta go check in the shop for a little bit,
you know, some stains or set and I don't know
what he told her. He checked to make sure everything
was in orders. What he really did, which I assume
means he checked to see if the batteries for his
e bike were all charged and ready to go.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Then he dipped back to his family home. Guess he
wanted to take one more look at what all he
was about to walk away from. I don't know what
was in his mind, but or maybe he just forgot
some things he needed for his fake to death. Who
knows either way. Next, he went back to his cabinet
making shop. There he loaded up the e bike he'd
bought and kept there on the low, and he popped
that into the trailer. When he knew he had security

(20:32):
cameras set up in the shop, so he had to
be careful. He wasn't recorded with his e bike, so
he pulled the van and trailer around back and pulled
it up close enough to the back of the shop
he could just scoot the e bike out sight unseen.
Then he climbed into his van and drove away from
his life for good.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Now, one thing I wondered while reading the criminal complaint
when I got to this moment is did he have
a soundtrack for his faked out death?

Speaker 1 (20:55):
Like?

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Did he have a playlist ready to go for this drive?

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Is he like a pregnant woman with a go back
in a playlist for the birth of birthing plan? This
rebirthing plan?

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Oh wow? That this philosophical that's beautiful, beautiful Now personally
for me, since you didn't ask, I'll just tell you
I was thinking, like, what was he listening to so
I kind of imagined this guy. Did he have Limp
biscuit all cued up, maybe some slip not ready to go.
Based on his age, he seemed like a new metal
guy to me and the.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
Pictures I saw the picture.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Maybe I'm wrong, I thought this guy seems like he's
a new metal guy. You know, he's listening to the
music when he was seventeen.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
Anyway, I think he was listening to Justin Timberlake.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Oh my God, bringing sexy back, and he's ready to
go into his beakistan what tour the world to world? Anyway,
he drives over toosh Wisconsin aka home of the Overalls.
Other than Overalls, why did he go over to oshkost
great question, Elizabeth, Wait to bring your gay game to
this one.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
I can't stop. You're on you know what can't stop?

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Won't stop. Now it turns out that's where the Walmart was,
so God bless me. At the big Walmart he purchased.
I don't know the details of that, but the Walmart
didn't have any life jackets for sale. That's what he
wanted to get, and so he was out of luck
on that score. So instead he just bought himself a
hat a University of Wisconsin Oshkosh hat. He also grabbed
himself a new backpack.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
They didn't have.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
They didn't have, didn't surprise me. So I don't think
he's a superstitiar.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
I don't think he knew where to look.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
And so after that, and after not going.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Back to the back where the tire.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Center, yeah, maybe as around with the pool supplies. So
he drives over to his friend's house, hoping like hell
that the friend wasn't home. He had every reason to
believe the friend wasn't home, and why he wanted to
go to his friend's house so he could steal some
pellets for a wood stove from his friend's garage. He
was fairly certain his friend was gone, apparently, so while

(22:51):
he was there, he's yoinking the wood pellets, and his
friend returned home.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
He gets caught in the act, So now.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Ryan has to rush out and close up the trailers.
His friend doesn't see his e bike. He managed to
do that in time. Then he greeted his buddy and
the two talk for a little while, like, Hey, how's work.
I was fishing, you know, I don't know what they
were talking about. I'm guessing they talked about fishing.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
My friend just is like, hey, what's up, and then
grabbed his hand and said how's your heart.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Placed it on his chain.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, and he's like, oh, I'm good bro.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
So after they did there like how's your heart talk,
he climbs back into his van and he heads over
to Green Lake, which is about fifty miles away. At
this point, it's nighttime, but since it's August, by the
time he reaches the lake, it's about almost ten pm,
which means it's only been dark for a couple hours,
so it's not like super dark yet, but it's again.
When he pulls off the country road to take the
little road to the boat launch, he sees a Sheriff's

(23:39):
deputy patrol car doing the loop. The deputy would have
had to have seen his van, which is automatically suspicious,
you know, to us at least, but not to the
deputy in that area. It's like, oh, maybe he's setting
stuff up for fishing early in the morning. He's got
sleep in his van. That's true now, but I also
imagine that he had to give him Ryan a moment
of pause, like maybe he even reconsidered his plan for

(23:59):
a moment, like this is a bad omen, but he
did not turn back Elizabeth. Instead, he knew that the
deputy was on patrol and that meant he wouldn't be
back for around for a long time while he did
his patrol of the lake. Big Lake takes him a
long time to go around. So Ryan drives over to
a park that's right there on the banks of the lake.
That's where he parked his van and trailer. Next, he
texts his wife, telling her everything I told you about

(24:21):
you know, where are you? I'm at the lake and
she's like, I wish I would have known. Then she
texts back so far they had their exchange. He tells
her he loves her. Then when the text exchange is done,
he pulls out his kayak and his fishing gear. Then
he wheels out his e bike and he walks out
a little ways away and he stashes it in the
woods along with a bike helmet and a backpack.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Then he hikes back Peter.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
Of course he got out of Peter Sitera. Then he
hikes back to his kayak and to his fishing gear.
He loads up the kayak with his fishing pole, a net,
his tackle box, also his his keys go and then
he loads up a duffel bag with an inflatable raft
stuffed inside the duffel bag. Then he climbed onto his
kayak paddled out into the darkened waters of this lonely
ass lake. He knows he needs to make his fake

(25:02):
death believable to law enforcement that will eventually investigate, so
he paddles all the way to the deepest section of
the lake. Once he gets there, he tosses his phone overboard.
Then he pulled out the inflatable raft and starts inflating it.
And then once that's all pumped up with air, he
slid that into the water, and then he climbed into
the inflatable raft. This is all working perfectly. Next he

(25:24):
flipped over the kayak with the life vest still attached
to sell the deal. And then he watched his fishing pole,
his net, and his tackle box and with his wallet
and driver's license inside go sinking down to the bottom
of the lake.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
He must have put those in a shallower spot so
that they could be seen, because if he dumps it
all in the two hundred foot no one's going to
find that.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah, I don't know if it's like Crystal Clare, like
Lake tahoe where you can actually look down.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
That see down two hundred feet.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
I'm pretty close. I don't know close. Yeah, anyway, So
he carefully paddles the inflatable raft batistics zero. I'm telling
you you're already about it now. At this point, he
carefully paddles the inflatable raft back to shore. And I
say carefully because he has no life fest Now, well,
that's right, missus. Walmart didn't have any for sale, And

(26:10):
because he didn't want to actually die on the lake,
he's right, very carefully paddling his mistake prone person back
to the shore, because wouldn't that be ironic try to
fake your death and you actually driven.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
And so he had the raft. I'm sorry, did you
say it was like self inflated.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
With a pump, Yeah, but inflatable rout.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
So he sat in the canoe and my guess.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
Like with a like bike pump. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
It takes a long time, not that long.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
I've inflated things that, you know, sleeping pads. Rafts doesn't
take forever, right, he makes it safely back to shore.
Once there, he climbs out of the kayak and he
drops himself into the water at the shoreline and he
gets into like hip deep water and stuff that's all
covered slime, mud and muck.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Also a crystal clear lakey.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
The shore so obscured. Also, it's this area is obscured
by cattails, so when he pulls himself out of the water,
exactly right. So those fuzzy plants to grow along the
stores of lakes. For those who don't know cattails, there's.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Just a bunch of cats just poking.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
Just drinking lap lap lap. So obviously this plan was
to obscure any footprints he made drag out. But unfortunately,
once he climbed through the cattails and out of the
water and he hiked back to where he stashedes e bike,
he looked back and he noticed he was leaving muddy footprints. Yeah,
and the muddy footprints crossed the country road and he's like, oh,
that's the problem. So the trail from the lake right
back to his van and then over to where he

(27:26):
hit in the e bike is now pretty much marked
with her. So that's no good. So he takes his
shoes off and his pants off, and he washes them
off in some water and then he you know, it's
like imagine like a gully or like a ditch that
runs along the road and has water, and so he's
doing that. Then he uses some of that water to
rinse off his muddy footprints. But this is taking too
much long time. There's way too much mud, so he
just rinses the ones that are on the country road. Okay,

(27:49):
So now then he decides to hell with it, I'm
out of here. He climbs on top of the seat
of his e bike and You'll never believe this, Elizabeth,
this master of planning and logistics. He forgot to buy
a spare line life jacket. This guy he had never
turned on his e bike, not once before. So he
pedals off into the dark and he's trying to figure
out how to turn it on.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
You're kidding, Yes, he didn't test run.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
Not a single one. He eventually figures out how to
turn on his e bikes somewhere down the country road.
Now he's on his way.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
It's flat and he's in like one of those crazy years.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Going, well, those bikes are heavy. I've done this, like
where like you suddenly accidentally turn off the power. You
have an e bike and they're really heavy. So like
all of a sudden you're like, oh my goodness, this thing.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
He's just struggling exactly now.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Eventually he turns it on, as he said, and now
he's riding along the side of a country road. But
this is like he gets to a main road, like
imagine like a country highway that runs through the woods.
So now he's praying, like hell that that sheriff's depe
He doesn't come back around on patrol too soon and
spots him riding away on the e bike. Ryan borg
Work gets lucky. He's able to make it to the
back roads, the ones that are like not this main highway,

(28:56):
and now at this point he's able to like smooth sailing.
He rides bike until he needs to change batteries. Okay,
he brought a spare.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Fun how much would be a battery's worth.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Of it depends on like conditions, but like easily fifty
probably fifty miles, you know, depending what gear, like, how
much power If he's doing like they have like you know,
different power ratings, say one, two, three, four, five, he's
doing it in three, he's gonna get far more than
if he's riding at five. So I'm guessing like maybe
forty fifty miles. So he changes and then because Master
Logistics did bring the spare all right, he thought of that,

(29:28):
Ye swaps out the batteries. He stops a second time
to change out his wet shoes and pants because he
was freezing in the cold night air at this point.
Oh yeah, And I got to say, brother, I've been there.
I mean, like I thought, I think I told you
this last time. I rode over to San Francisco from
Oakland on my e bike. It was super hot in Oakland,
so I just took off and I didn't make sure
I had a jacket in my backpack to get over
the Bay Area. And you know how the micro climates are, yeah,

(29:51):
almost sen it's super foggy, and then it gets really cold.
It was so cold. I rode to hate Ashbury and
I went to the good Will there and I tried
to like buy clothing, but they didn't to have me like, wait,
men's jackets because I think all the homeless guys have
bought up all the jackets because it's so cold there.
So I had to go to the women's section and
I bought this really stupid puppy coat. I had like
skulls on it. And then I bought this pullover fleece

(30:12):
pull over, and that's the only things I could find
that were warm. I spent like thirty dollars to be warm,
to ride the West of the Way across San Francisco,
and I honestly, I did not care how I looked
as long as I was warm.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
About one of those tourists Alcatraz sweatshirts, I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
I couldn't think of where to go. I was like,
where am I gonna go? And I needed more than
a sweatshirts. I was like, oh, the Goodwill on eighte.
So I went there, and then when I went through
Golden Gate Park, all these teams were like pointing and laughing.
I was like, I must have looked like just a menace.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Wait it was a lady's jacket. Oh yeah, skulls.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, like these crazy and like silver riding and like
sword through like as a tea. It was. I don't
even know what it was wearing it right now, it
should be right anyway, Back to Ryan, I mean, I
got to see the jacket someday, this is me. I'll
show it to you someday. So back to Ryan and
his bike ride through the Wisconsin Woods. At night. He
continues riding through the dark in the cold for seventy

(31:01):
miles until he reaches Madison, Wisconsin. It was five am
when he pulls into Madison. That meant it would be
light out soon, but also it meant that his wife
would be getting up around this time, and she discovered
he was and he'd never came home that night. He
also knew he'd pass the point of no return. There
was no turning back now, Elizabeth. He was dead, or
at least fake dead.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
So when he arrived in Madison, he rode to a
park and that's where he ditches his e bike. I assumed.
He assumed that some homeless guy or some teenagers would
find it and then steal it, and that would take
care of that clue. So at that same spot he
found a dumpster and he ditched the duffel bag with
the inflatable raft and all of his wet clothes. Now
he's on foot, and he walked over to a Greyhound
bus station and he bought a ticket to Detroit by

(31:42):
way of Milwaukee and Chicago. At this point, it's around
nine to fifteen in the morning. The bus ride was uneventful,
carried him all the way to Detroit. No problems there.
He gets a second bus. They would take him over
the Canadian border to Toronto. The bus was headed to
the Toronto Airport. That was all fine and good. He
made it safely over the Canadian border on the board
the bus. However, when he got out at the Toronto Airport,

(32:04):
he got off the bus and he then had to
go through customs. That's where they had customs arranged for
the bus. That's where he's up against his first real challenge.
Rather than me tell you about that, Elizabeth, I'd like
you to close your eyes and I'd like you to
picture it. It's another day at the office for you.

(32:26):
In this case, the office is the customs line at
the Canadian border, and you are a Canadian customs official
working at the Toronto Airport. Eh, the lines have been
slow and steady most of the morning. Now you're eyeing
the relief that comes with the end of the workday
against the din of people waiting for their turn in line.
And just after you led a newly married couple through
headed off for their honeymoon that they told you all about,

(32:48):
the next traveler line steps up to your kiosk. He's
a middle aged man, an American. He gives you an
overly friendly smile, which you seems a bit suspicious. Who
smiles like that at a customs official only someone is
trying to use arm to cover something that deserves inspection
or at least a second look, is what you're thinking.
The man reaches into his jacket pocket and his hand
comes back out with his passport booklet. He hands it over.

(33:09):
You leaf through the passport booklet. It's crisp. You take
your time. You note there are absolutely no stamps. He's
never used this passport before, since he's an American. You
ask the man for his driver's license. The smile disappears.
The man says, uh, he doesn't have his driver's license.
You ask why that is. Does he not drive? He
says he left his license in his tackle box, but

(33:30):
he does have his passport. You're holding it. Isn't that
good enough? He asks? You don't respond. Instead, your hand
goes up and two men from the Canadian Border Patrol
walk over. They ask the man to follow them. Step
to the side. His eyes now grow concerned. You've seen
that look before, but rarely on the face of someone
who's innocent. Just past your kiosk. The two Canadian border
patrol agents ask the man a few questions. You stand

(33:51):
there watching, waiting for it all to be sorted out.
The Canadian border patrol agents ask the now nervous American
to hand over his cell phone. You hear him say
he doesn't have a working phone on him. You see,
his phone died somewhere around Madison, that's where he's coming from.
In Wisconsin. He sent a message to the woman waiting
for him at the end of his travels, and then
his phone died. You see. The Canadian border patrol agents

(34:12):
they're just as suspicious as you are. They ask him
to turn on the phone and hand it over. He
nervously stammers at the phone. It'll probably turn on, but
it won't function, not properly. The agents tell him to
turn on the phone and hand it over. The American
reaches into his pocket, fishes out the phone. He turns
it on. It chimes to life, and he hands it over.
As one agent checks the phone, the other agent asks
why he's coming over the border. What business does he

(34:35):
have in Canada. You eye him, waiting for his answer.
Curious Again, he stammers and says he's merely just traveling
through he has a flight to catch. The agent asked
to see his flight itinerary. He says he doesn't have
his flight itinerary on him because you see, kedn't purchased
his tickets yet. One of the agents laughs, like it's
a joke, but it's not a joke. The other agent

(34:56):
exhales his frustrations with this American traveler. Or would you
absent mindedly tap your pencil against the tabletop of your
kiosk because you wait to see what the agents will
do next. The American says he's not planning on staying
in Canada long. He's flying to Europe, to Paris. Yeah,
that's it, Paris. Now it's your turn to laugh. The
man waits for the agent's response, and you wait too. Finally,

(35:18):
one of the Canadian Border patrol agents speaks up and
he says, well, sir, enjoy Paris, eh, And with that
they let him go. He nods thanks the two agents.
He turns and nods to you. You nod back. The
man turns back again, takes his phone from the agent,
and then walks off to join the other travelers headed
for their gates and flights to somewhere else and just
like that. He's gone. Wow, that Elizabeth is how Ryan

(35:40):
Borgort slipped through customs of the Canadian boy, the now
fake dead married father III was on his merry way
to wherever he planned to go live out the rest
of his life. So where does he go? Great question, Elizabeth?

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Thank you?

Speaker 2 (35:53):
After these messages, I will tell you where he went.
And uh, I'm betting it'll surprise you. I hope does,

(36:19):
Elizabeth Saron, you ready for some answers.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
That's all I ever want.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
I know, That's why I'm here to give you what
exactly what you want. And they are surprising.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Oh. Yes.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
So, once Ryan Borgwart was able to set foot inside
the Toronto Airport, you know, technically legally, he sauntered over
to the Air Canada ticket counter and he attempted to
buy a ticket overseas for his funds. He offered a
bunch of Air Canada gift cards and then when he
attempted to use them to buy a ticket, he was told, sir,
you cannot do that. Yeah, we can't take Air Canada

(36:51):
gift cards for a ticket. I guess he hadn't researched
that part of to use them for, like buying stuff
on I think on the plane.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
Yeah, Air Canada merch.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
In the storm. No, he doesn't give up, so you
know he can't because he's fake dead. Now he's trying
to just keep moving. So he's past the point of
no return. So what does he do. He managed to
get a Western Union card and he was able to
use that to buy a ticket, but instead of on
Air Canada, he went up to Air France. Their ticket
counters they're like, oh, we he's like one ticket to

(37:19):
Paris please, And that's how he bought a ticket on
Air France. Now he buys his one way ticket to Paris,
no looking back. Now. Meanwhile, as he's.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Waited for no luggage by the backpack, he's got the backpack. Yeah,
Basically it's.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Like, oh, I'm just going for the weekend. Oh yeah,
one way ticket. I'm not a terrorist. So meanwhile he
waits for his flight, He buys some food and contemplates,
well what will come next for old Ryan? And you
know how you get bored at the airport waiting for
a flight, especially if you show up hell earlier the
way you might. He decided to crack open this laptop
that he had with him in his backpack and He
checked the news, mainly to see if there was any

(37:53):
news about his disappearance, and wouldn't you know it, Elizabeth,
there was a news story about a missing kayaker who
dissapp appeared on Green Lake. That was his confirmation his
plan had worked so far. The authorities believe the kayaker
had flipped over and quite possibly had drowned. He was
free of his old life and believed to be likely dead,
So he waited for his flight to Paris, dreaming of

(38:15):
his new life.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Oh God, yes, Now at.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
This point he's checked the news, he's seeing that he's
officially missing, and all that's left for him to do
is to escape North America. When his flight number gets called,
Ryan casually hands over his ticket, walks onto the jetway
to his flight. Soon the plane taxi down the runway
takes off into the skies. He's made it, Elizabeth. But
what must he have been thinking at this point. It's
not often you get to be dead and still be
alive at the same time. Well, his plane eventually landed

(38:40):
in Paris without incident. When he walks off the plane,
there are no authorities waiting for him, nor rest worn
in hand. Instead, he just calmly buys a ticket to
a nation in deep eastern Europe where the continent meets Asia,
specifically the nation of Georgia. Oh yes, the plane touchdown
into Blisi, the capital of Georgia, and in this holy new,
unfamiliar land, Ryan Borgwart steps off the plane. He made

(39:03):
it through customs, said without incident, like super easy, like
welcome to Georgia. And then he walked through the airport,
where he found a quiet place to sit. Then he
sent to the little email. He waited an hour, and
then he stepped out of the airport to meet the
mystery woman he'd emailed, the one he'd come to meet.
The mystery woman drove to the airport. I don't know
about you, but I like to imagine she pulled up
to the curb and some like Soviet era sedan.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Oh totally. This is just like if it bumps up
against everything, everything falls apart.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
I just like a little short, squat thing.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
But it was actually not a woman. It's like a
big dude named Bertram.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yes, oh, it's just me. No, but I doubt it
was as cool as all that. I'm sure it was
actually some random like Turkish car, maybe a Japanese car.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
I don't know what else, like a Ford but they
have weird names. Yeah, count so it was like a
Ford burst.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Anyway, He tosses what little luggage he had, probably just
his backpack since he didn't buy any luggage, into the
back sheet and they pull away from the airport. Where
do they go to start his new life? Great? You
know you're still gonna love this answer. They went to
a hotel and by then it was Wednesday evening, so
I imagine they went to bed and there they stayed
for a few days. Not in bed, I mean in

(40:10):
the hotel room.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
So who is this mystery.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Woman, Angela Lansbury?

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Good guess not Angela Lansberry. She would have solved this
crime by now. Well. As they said earlier, she was
from Uzbekistan. Ryan had met her online some unnamed dating website.
I don't know what it was, but I do know.
This was back in December of twenty twenty three that
they first met. Within a few months, by February of
twenty twenty four, they were regularly in contact, and by April,
Ryan was researching how to fake his death. Oh yeah,

(40:38):
he read about how others had done it. He investigated
how you know they did it. The problem with that
is it's rarely is it? Because they got away with.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
It, That's what I'm saying when you find out. Yeah,
otherwise it's just they're dead.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
It's just stories exactly their disappeared it. So mostly it
must have been stories that all the folks that got caught.
So he's learning like, Okay, don't do this, don't do that,
don't He's not learning what to do, he's learning what
not to do. So at this point later, as he
would put it, everything hinged on me dying in the lake.
The whole idea was to sell the death. Now he'd
done it, though he was fake dead, and he's with

(41:10):
his mystery. It was beck woman whose name was Katya.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Katya? So what katcha the drag queen?

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Oh? I wouldn't that be fun?

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Love her? I know you do.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
So now Ryan and Katya they are together. What comes
next with this crazy couple. Well, for one, he didn't
have much money with him. He had about fifty five
hundred dollars in cash. That was about it. That's all
the money he brought to start their new life together.
And I think she was kind of bald when she
found out that he only only fifty five hundred three.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
That's not going to get you.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
No, that'll take off maybe around every few days. He
kept checking the news online about his disappearance. He checked
in on the hunt for his missing body. He mostly
just read the headlines. You didn't have time to read
the whole story.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Oh, he's got busy life.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
She's got to get back the cuts.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
You gotta be sitting in the hotel room.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
They gotta take Wendy walks and thought about what they're
gonna do. That wasn't the problem for him about him
being missing. It was unless they figured out where he
was really he was looking to see. Have they figured
out that I'm in Georgia. It would be a problem
because turns out in Georgia they do have an extradition
treaty with America. Yeah, maybe gets caught, they will happily
send him back.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Sure, he didn't do a lot of investigation on that front.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Now, bad news for him was that he had no
idea that Bruce's legacy existed, that there was this team
of volunteer divers who'd spend not just days looking for
him like the authorities was. But we keep looking for
him for weeks and weeks up till fifty days because
it was a cause for them, and he expected the
cops so they'd get bored, they move on. You know,
other crimes happened. He forgot about these do good volunteers.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
This legacy. Well because also it's like this guy, you know,
he's this he's a local workers, family man. He's a
family who's got three kids. How traumatic for these more
children and then his wife, and it's like so they're like.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
You know, we got closure.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Taylor Brack find their deaddy.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Eventually he saw that as those do good divers kept
looking for him, the deputies, they kept the case hot. Right,
they find his laptop. They discovered that he's most likely
not dead and that he'd faked his disappearance. And one
day he saw a news story that included a picture
of Katya the mystery. That's when he knew he'd made
a huge mistake. Yeah, somehow on his laptop he'd left

(43:26):
a trail of crumbs that led to Katya.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
Well, he probably thought he deleted stuff, but no, not but.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
For some forensic digital analysts. So in October, the local
sheriff's department learned from their Canadian counterparts that Ryan Borgwart's
name had been run through their database a few days
after he disappeared. That told the local deputies that he
definitely wasn't dead and likely had faked it all. So
they keep after him. Then they find the other passport,
then they check his laptop that his wife had handed over.
That's what it leads to Katia. So now her photo

(43:55):
is in the news, and he's like, hopefully she doesn't
check the local news. But not only that, the authorities
also stayed on the trail of the missing man, so
they tried every phone number and email address in his
contacts until they eventually got in contact with a Russian
speaking woman. No, yes, it was most likely or we
don't know if he's certain that it was Katya. But

(44:16):
the deputy suspect that was Katya. Either way, this mystery woman.
They reached out to the Russian speaking woman. She told
Ryan that the sheriff's deputies back in Wisconsin had contacted her.
They knew that he wasn't really dead and they wanted
to speak with him, and he's like, oh man, liberty
Gibbet Now. November eighth, twenty twenty four, Ryan received an
email from Chief Deputy Van Kolk and Elizabeth. That's when,

(44:39):
as he put it, his heart hit the floor. Three
days later, Ryan Borgwart sent a video he'd recorded on
his phone to the Green Lake County Sheriff, Mark Podol,
dressed in an orange shirt, looking directly at the camera,
no smile present on the man's face. He spoke directly
to the law enforcement officers that had been hunting him down.
He said, flatly, I'm safe and secure. Help this work works.

(45:00):
Then he went on and explained how he had fled
the United States because personal matters. But he didn't say
where he was, but the apartment did lookd gesus case
you want to know. He also didn't mention anything about
coming home. It was literally literally just a proof of
life video, like, yep, I'm alive, and it's like he
kidnapped himself. I've got the body. One other thing he

(45:21):
did muse about ifs, and that's a big if he
returned home to Watertown and to his community, what would
everyone think, Wow, my man, that ship is sailed and
that ship has sunk. People are gonna think whatever you fear,
they will think. That's so, the sheriff explains to the
press at that November eleventh press conference where he talks
directly to the camera and I quote the sheriff, he

(45:44):
thought his plan was gonna pan out, but he didn't
go the way he had planned, and so now we're
trying to give him a different plan to come back.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Oh he was he crafted that stag.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Oh my god, this guy, you know, he was having fun.
After months.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
He had these note cards. He's like, how about this?
I think you need more repetition of plan and.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Point Deputy Ox, what you're talking about. So to get
him to consider self extraditing himself back home, the sheriff said,
he tried to keep pulling at his heart strings. So
what does that mean exactly to a fake dead man
who doesn't have much of a.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Heart apparently, way, what does he care about?

Speaker 2 (46:22):
I do love the curiosity about his emotional state, like
how do I get to his art strengths. So the
sheriff considered the calendar and being a good miss Westerner,
he told the fake dead former married family man that
Christmas is coming. Man, and Sheriffdall said, what better gift
could your kids get than to be there for Christmas?

Speaker 1 (46:40):
Oh my god, he obviously doesn't care no exactly, Come on, Sheriff,
should have workshop that one exactly those a bit.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
I don't know about you, but I can think of
a few better gifts to give those kids for Christmas
and their deadbeat fake dead dead like I don't know,
PlayStation five would probably do better anyway. What about this
guy's biggest fears? What would the community think? Well, Keith
kormickin from Bruce's Legacy to the team of volunteer divers
who'd spent fifty days looking for him, he said it

(47:08):
was all disheartening. He added that you meet all kinds
in the world, and I guess this guy went to
the extremes faking his disappearance, so it's a first. He
definitely costs us a lot of grief, a lot of money,
repairs and equipment. I just hope he comes forward sooner
rather than later so the family can move on.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
Like this guy is selfless, totally so much heart think
about it too, is like they're diving down into the
deep and they're looking for a body. Yes, so it's
not like, oh, I'm just gonna go and I'm gonna
find your missing pristwatch bloated Corps. So yeah, they're they're
like tense, they're ready They're like they're stealing themselves every day.

(47:49):
They think, you know, they've let the family down. They
haven't yet.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Yeah, and those are bringing memories of his brother, you know, like, oh, yeah,
that's the grief he's going through.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
I imagine, I mean the whole in my mind, the
montage going on right now, Yeah, with the heart of
the heart totally tugging music.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
The actual heart strings being pulled.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
That it is pulling my heart strings right now, imagining
that montage in my head.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
But I like that about you, Thank you, Elizabeth. Eventually
this all became too much for Ryan over in Georgia,
or perhaps in my opinion, things didn't work out with
his mystery. It was beck woman, oh fifty five hundred, yeah, exactly.
He did not bring enough. So eventually he got on
a plane and flew home to Wisconsin, where he was
promptly arrested and booked in jail. That's where he gave
a three hour interview and he told the deputies why

(48:35):
he'd faked his death and tried and failed to start
a new life. He told the deputies he'd done it
because he felt like a failure. He had one hundred
and thirty grand in debt at his cabinet making shop.
He also had seventy five thousand dollars in credit card
debt at home. Plus he and his wife had grown
apart as the kids got older, they didn't have a
good relationship anymore. And also he said his children didn't

(48:56):
like him, or is he put it, they didn't want
anything to do with me anymore. When you're feeling sorry
for himself, right father, He told the investigators, quote, I
think just the inability to feel like you could talk
to your wife about some of this stuff, and maybe
the complete hopelessness that you have in the situation that
you're in. And you end up meeting a friend somewhere
on the other side of the world who sort of
has a somewhat similar story. You just end up becoming

(49:18):
friends and the friend thing ends up turning into more.
But you didn't really plan on that. It wasn't your intention.
So a door kind of opens up for you in
a way that possibly make things work like that what
a self deluding church.

Speaker 6 (49:31):
Yes, Gotia's like, no, come over with more money than this,
the matter can please and not to be I don't
mean stereotypical about it, but imagining if she's trying to
ply this guy away from his wife and kids.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
She may not have the highest morals, and she's looking
at him as a score. And this is also rife
with scammers. Yes, Elizabeth, when he had stepped through that
door and ruined his whole damn life, he'd wanted to
apply for citizenship in Georgia, but he couldn't figure out
how to do it since he'd been declared dead or
was about to be declared dead. I guess he hadn't
researched that part of faking his death how to stay

(50:03):
alive legally. At the end of his three hour interview
with the deputies, Ryan asked if he could hop on
the Wi Fi and contact Katya.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Yeah, you know, just.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
To let her know he'd made it home safely.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
And I'm shocked that Katya was actually a woman. I honestly,
it was like, it's like a six creepy guy. Yeah,
who's just gonna take advantage and take some door.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
The warehouse knocks him out from there. Now he's homeless
in Georgia. Yes, So one of the deputies told Ryan
that he'd email Kachia on his behalf. We can't let
you be in contact.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
I mean because you know that Katya was like like
saying that she was like a bikini model.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Oh sure, yeah, wearing like a white fur coat.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
But if you reverse searched, it's like from you know,
yeah she's also website.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yeah she's also Sasha and she's also the next he
gets sent to court to be arraigned, and since he'd
already made plenty of terrible decisions, he told the judge
in his case that he planned to represent himself as
his own lawyer.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Great idea, but.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
There, Elizabeth, there's the reason for that was quite simple.
All he had left to his name was twenty dollars.
This is why I thought Katya sent him home. So
the judge entered and not guilty plea on his behalf,
and he was released on bail. But Ryan switched his
please eventually to no contest, and the in court, the
judge Mark T. Slay told Ryan from the defendant, anyone
else was thinking about fake on their death. If you

(51:17):
persist in your deception, the longer you obstruct, the longer
you are duplicitous instead of coming forward and admitting your mistake,
the longer the penalty should be. So Ryan Borgward addressed
the court and he said, I deeply regret the actions
that I did that night and all the pain that
I caused my family and friends. The prosecutor asked for
guess how long in jail?

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Ooh, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Forty five days.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Forty five days, days, day.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Days, Elizabeth. But the judge was like, no, you were
gone for how long? Eighty nine days? You get eighty
nine days in jail.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
Oh, really, that's it.

Speaker 5 (51:50):
Now.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
As for his wife and the family he had left behind,
in December, his wife, Emily, filed for divorce. In her petition,
she said that her marriage was quote irretrievably broken. Yeah,
so at least she got free her deadbeat husband. And
there you go the strange and pathetic tale of Ryan Borgward,
the wanna be ghost of Green Laked. So what's our
ridiculous takeaway here?

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Oh man, my ridiculous takeaways? Do not run from problems
like I was saying. I was taught everything's an opportunity,
and particularly when you feel like everything's falling apart, you
have this opportunity, this window for change and like positive movement.
So he could have been really vulnerable and transparent with

(52:32):
his wife about what the issues were and they could
have worked together to figure out how are we going
to settle up these debts, restructure, move forward, or if
she still wasn't willing to discuss that with him, but
he would have to really suppress the ego and like
be open and vulnerable about it. If she's not well,
then now, okay, you realize this isn't your partner, so

(52:55):
we'll move forward from that. But this notion, and I
get the impression that made be like he got locked
into his life earlier than he anticipated, and so he
didn't have like a younger time.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
No, think about it, his teenage kids, right, so he's
forty five. It means that he had the kids and
he's like at most his late twenties, so he had a.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
Wild Okay, well then no, there's no excuse that way.
But I just I can't take that cowardice. I can't
take that that that fear, the selfishness, and it's oh,
the selfishness is insane. The number of people he impacted
eighty nine days.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
Yes, that's all I got. I couldn't live. But I
guess there weren't a lot of crimes ultimately that he.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
Wouldn't it be like passport fraud. That's gonna be like
a federal thing, wouldn't it.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
I don't know, because he didn't really do any fraudulent stuff.
He just asked when your passport? Then he used it. Yeah,
there's nothing illegal about that.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
Well he said he lost it.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Yeah, it's mostly about, like, you know, the faking the
death part. That's really the crimes he did.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Yeah, Well I'll just tell you my takeaway.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
Elizabeth. Please, if you.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Don't know how to turn on your e bike, you
have not fogged through anything, and therefore you're not ready
to tank your whole life now.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
You have not reached criminal mastermind now or.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
Even just really thought about what you're doing. You haven't
even gotten to that level of like planning. And then
it also optude, there's the emotional work that would be
necessary that I think he probably should have done first
before he got to the bike.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
I'm just glad he knew how to ride a bike.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
Yeah right, So are you ready for a talkback to
watch us all down? Can you hit us up in one?

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Oh? Oh my god, because she.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
Super I led.

Speaker 5 (54:37):
Hi, Saron and Elizabeth. My name is Deanna. I recently
started listening to your show and I love it. I
just finished the episode about plant crimes, and it reminded
me of a plant crime that I had heard from
some coworkers. So there was a kid in their neighborhood
that would go around to each people's vegetable gardens and
steal all their vegetables. And not only that, though, he
would go afterwards and try and sell the vegetables back

(54:58):
to the people in their doors. He didn't wear shoes
when he was doing all this, so he was colloquially
known as the barefoot Bandit.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
Yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
It's inventive.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
It's very inventive. It just so happens my garden got robbed.
I'm so glad you showed.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Up very similar to what you might like. I can
tell you look like somebody who would like these lemon cucumbers. Well,
thank you for that. That's a beautiful talk pack. And
uh please, if you guys would like to hear your
voice and provide us a talk back like that, we'd
love to hear it. So go to the iHeart app downloaded,
leave a talkback and you might hear your voice. Yeah,
or you can email us if you like. We'd love
to hear your stories. Write to ridiculous Crime at gmail

(55:34):
dot com. We can also we'd love to hear your
crime suggestions, so please reach out. You can also find
us online at Ridiculous Crime on Instagram and blue Sky,
and we have our account on Ridiculous Crime Pod on YouTube.
That's where you can watch the videos and you can
go and like and subscribe and do all that stuff.
And we have our website ridiculous Crime dot com. That's
where you can get some merch and also just check

(55:56):
out the beautiful design work that's there. By the way,
Good Elizabeth, did you hear the website was recently nominated
for the Compassion in World Farming's Good Pig Award Stop
for our leadership in pig welfare.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
So you know fingers crossed, Haron, I know, right, big news.
Well that's all we got for you, so thanks for
listening and we will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime
is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and
edited by the Pride of Milwaukee Dave Kustin, and starring

(56:33):
Annaalice Rutger as Judith. Research is by Marissa the Bella Madison, Wisconsin.
Brown Our theme song is by our house band the
second Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota aka Thomas Lee
and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe provided by Botany. Five hundred
guests Tara makap By, Sparkleshott and mister Andre. Executive producers

(56:53):
are Ben. I'd like a one way ticket to Paris, please,
Bowlin and Noel? Does this bus go to Manato Hoba Brown?

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Ridicous Crime Say it one more time? Piquious Crime.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts.
My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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