Father of Three Faked His Own Death To Runaway With Woman He Met Online

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Hey, folks, it is August the twenty eighth, and a man who had been married twenty two years, had three kids at home, went fishing, went missing, presumed dead. Well, he turned up a couple months later, and now he has been sentenced to jail time for faking his own death. And with that, welcome to this Amy and TJ presents Robes. This is a very devastating, heartbreaking story. When you hear about what he did, some of the details are as ridiculous and comical. For why he thought he was going to get away with us.

00:00:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean to go to such lengths when you're a father of three and a husband. Okay, I get it. People get divorced every day. It's tough, it's hard, it's messy, it's expensive. But my god, why would the only other way out of a relationship, which would be death? I guess why would that be the better option? You somehow think it's better that your kids think you're dead, that your community thinks you're dead, rather than you fell in love with another woman. That's pretty serious. I can't imagine that headspace to feel that trapped, that your only way out is faking your death.

00:01:27
Speaker 1: I thought about that too, And I know no one would want to be sympathetic to this guy, but how short of mental illness, short of something not right up there? Because you feel so in such despair that you thought this was a better option. And the story we're talking about a lot of you all may remember it from last year. A kayaker. His name is Ryan Borgwart. It's fourty five years old from Wisconsin, and he went missing, but they found him a few months later. And to your point, Robes, he had run off, you said, that was a kind way to put it. He had fallen in love with another woman.

00:02:00
Speaker 2: I mean love, love makes you do crazy things, and whatever it was, the feeling he felt it was intoxicating enough that this was all worth it somehow someway in that moment. Certainly now he regrets it, he said as much. But in the moment he felt so much passion that this seemed like the right thing to do. Okay, So now he was planned, This wasn't some like impulsive thing scheme. Month month he had time to think about what he was doing, how he was going to do it. He even tried to make sure his family got money, so he was like his guilt was even like working in overtime.

00:02:37
Speaker 1: He was sure about this love is what we're saying. Apparently time to think about this love. But Ryan last year, well we should tell you this week he's been sentenced to eighty nine days in prison for the whole scheme. Eighty nine days in prison. We'll explain why eighty nine is in there. That's a very specific day. But last year, August eleventh, he goes out, leaves home on a fishing trip, goes out in the kayak on Green Lake, about one hundred miles outside of Milwaukee. Texted his wife he had been out there all day. Texted his wife at about eleven o'clock that night, said he was heading in and then going to be heading home. Well, he never made it home. No one ever heard from him again. Police were called and then he's reported missing. The search they start for him is at five point thirty the next morning. Now, Green Lake is one of the deeper lakes up in that area, some whether two hundred ye two hundred feet deep, I believe they said it. So it's a deeper lake. So they know they had their work up against them. So police come out. They find his vehicle near the lake, they find his kayak it's overturned. And also a part of that is that the life jacket is with him. They find his tackle box, they find his fishing rock. They search this lake over and over and over and robes. This goes on for another couple of months that this family thinks he's dead and they are searching for his body.

00:03:53
Speaker 2: And imagine the torture of that. You know, he texts his wife, I'm turning around. I'm gonna pull the kayak in coming home. I don't know. Did she wait up all night for him? Was she nervous? Was she scared? Did his kids know? Was there this terrible anxiety and anticipation of what could have possibly happened to him? And then the not knowing anyone who has lost someone, there's tragedy and devastation just from that grief from that. But when you don't know what happened to somebody, when you don't know how they died, when you don't know where their body is, that adds a whole other layer of grief. So this was really cruel if you think about it.

00:04:29
Speaker 1: So he's missing, the families going through it, and again they're searching for months and months, but ropes then, what was that in August. About a couple months later October, things started to turn around a little bit. Things start to look a little.

00:04:41
Speaker 2: Fishy, right, So perhaps the most fishy of them all. Police find out that his name was actually run by Canadian authorities the day after he disappeared. The day hmmm, they found his overturned kayak in his life jacket and his VI near the lake, so how could that be. Then they find that he actually got a new passport. Then when they searched his laptop, they saw that he was heading to Europe.

00:05:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, they pieced it together. Like you said, this was months and months in the making, but they were able to put together these digital breadcrumbs to see where he was trying to go.

00:05:21
Speaker 2: Yes, So the other thing, the Internet browser on his laptop happened just to be completely cleared of all cookies, sites, et cetera the day before he disappeared.

00:05:34
Speaker 1: Fine, that looks bad.

00:05:35
Speaker 2: And then turns out he ended up taking out a life insurance policy on himself for the family in January for three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars.

00:05:45
Speaker 1: That's the key as well. You're thinking he was going to try to collect the money. Nope, he took it out and his family was supposed to be the beneficiary of it.

00:05:51
Speaker 2: Them a little something, a little parting gift. Okay, then he moved money to a foreign bank. All of these things point to one thing and one thing only.

00:06:05
Speaker 1: Well, maybe we just have to look into it now. An odd thing here he we said, he's been married for between two years and he has three kids in apparently ropes he didn't want anymore.

00:06:16
Speaker 2: Well, apparently he actually did want more because among the wife, among the many many interesting things that police were able to dig up, turns out he reversed a a sectomy before he left. So apparently this new lucky Gal wanted to have kids, or at least he wanted to have kids with her.

00:06:34
Speaker 1: Have we even stated the lucky gal no who she is and where she's from? No, Yeah, she didn't live in a neighboring town, neighboring state, even not even a neighboring country to us.

00:06:46
Speaker 2: And he met her online and she hails from the country of Georgia in that's eastern Europe. Correct, So he was willing not just to fake his own death and to leave his children behind, but to then fly to a foreign land and I don't know how he was going to live there or stay there. Maybe they have a ninety day fiance thing going on there too, But yes, his plan was to stay with this Georgian woman and live happily ever after.

00:07:15
Speaker 1: Like they say, the heart wants what the heart wants, doesn't it, Robes, But this lady that we mentioned here. Now, as this story continues, police actually announced I believe it was in October, a couple months after he went missing. That no, we do not believe he is missing. We believe he staged this whole thing. Now, the woman we speak of in some way. Police didn't give all the details, but got in touch with authorities and then help them get in touch with him, and they found out, yes, he was alive and well was in contact with authorities by phone. But Robes, well, why didn't he come back? Well, there's no extradition for faking your own debt. This is actually considered it's a misdemeaning demeanor.

00:07:53
Speaker 2: It is a misdemeanor, so he absolutely could have stayed in Georgia and then that misdemeanor charge would not have qualified for him for extradition, so he would not have faced any problems, any issues. But he chose to come back, his lawyer says, to take responsibility for his actions once he was found out, probably had some explaining to do to his kids. His wife did file for divorce, not surprisingly.

00:08:19
Speaker 1: The date was funny. It was like the exact day after he had they had brought him back, or the day after he got back. She filed the very nature.

00:08:26
Speaker 2: It felt good, she was, she was ready. She was ready. She just wanted it to hit. She wanted it to hit. The timing is everything right, isn't that what they say? So she wanted it to be very special, that timing.

00:08:34
Speaker 1: What do you do? What can you ever do with those kids?

00:08:38
Speaker 2: I don't know?

00:08:39
Speaker 1: How can he sit? How can that be repaired? How can the therapist be involved? What can you ever do to make up for that? That's tough for those kids I think about But I think about them and wanting them to have a relationship with their dad.

00:08:53
Speaker 2: I think the only thing you could do would be to have a mental health someone who knows how to handle something like this and really tried to explain that their father went through a mental crisis, and that would be the only way I think you could forgive your father is to know that they were struggling so much with their own mental health that they didn't regard yours and in that moment made a terrible decision that did not consider the well being of their children, And just think you'd have to just go ahead and accept that that's possible.

00:09:23
Speaker 1: See, but what you just said is that that was incredibly well said and considerate, and from a person who has been through some stuff, who've seen some stuff and seen people behave badly who might still be good people. This is one where I think it's in our nature, and certainly in social media's nature, to immediately just attack this guy. I understand nobody's defending, but when you think about kids whose dad is still alive, who has an opportunity to have a relationship with them, I don't even know where you start with the statement that my dad didn't want me so much he was willing to fake his death, and you know the thing that made him convince that he didn't want to be my dad a woman in Georgia they had never met.

00:10:07
Speaker 2: And I know this sounds wild, but the thought of my dad doing that and then getting in besectomy reversed almost as if he was going to replace me with other children for whatever reason, that makes the story so much worse from the child's perspective that it was almost like, I'll just start over and just have another family that who.

00:10:27
Speaker 1: Knows what's going on with this guy, but those kids. I just think about those kids and who knows what relationship they had, because I think about what if it was wonderful, what if he was a great dad. I don't know at all. It is just that part of it. So he's in touch with authorities a couple months after he disappeared, so they literally have him on the phone and are in touch with him. At one point they even have him send a video up himself to prove that is him, and sure enough, that's him. We know he's alive. Didn't they put that out publicly?

00:10:56
Speaker 2: Yes, he says, I am in my apartment, I am safe, secure, no problem. Those were his exact words.

00:11:02
Speaker 1: But there was nothing they could do, so they were just in touch. The story was what it was, but he rode. I can't believe this gave us a little more detail. I guess we kind of could figure it out once we knew he was alive, But he gave kind of a blow by blow and gave the details about Hey, this is how I pulled it off.

00:11:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, he overturned the kayak and he threw his phone into the lake. He then said he paddled an inflatable boat to shore. He then rode an electric biken seven seventy miles to Madison death commitment. Then he took a bus to Detroit.

00:11:39
Speaker 1: That is commitment.

00:11:40
Speaker 2: I was waiting for that. Then took another bus to Canada and that's where he was. Yes, his name was run through the Canadian authorities there and from there he flew out of the country and to Europe.

00:11:54
Speaker 1: That was a commitment. That was a plan. He had to have something waiting here to go do this, and the ticket set up there and to do that in the fly.

00:12:00
Speaker 2: But he was using his own passport. How did he not think he was going to get caught and there was such a paper trail. That's amazing to me that he thought somehow that that would work in terms of faking his depth. And he knew he had to leave the country. He knew he had to go through authorities who were going to scan his passport, his name was going to be in the system. It's just wild to me that he thought he could get away with that.

00:12:22
Speaker 1: Like you said, Rose loves make love. It makes you do crazy things, does it not? Well, folks, we heard from him. He was sentenced this week. We'll explain exactly why the judge went with eighty nine days, which is double what the prosecution even asked for. Also, we heard from the kayaker himself. We'll let you hear his words to his family.

00:12:57
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everyone to this edition of Amy and TJ, where we are talking about forty five year old Ryan Borgwart of Wisconsin, who faked his own death, his own drowning death in a kayak. His wife, his three children, authorities all feared and presumed that he was dead, until turns out he wasn't. He was just in Europe with a gal he met online. And then when police finally did trace him to Georgia, the country of Georgia, some two months after he disappeared, he voluntarily chose to come back to the United States and face punishment, punishment he would not have faced had he stayed in Georgia. I'm guessing things didn't go so well with this mystery woman who he met online.

00:13:46
Speaker 1: I'm sure she'll wait for him until he gets out because it won't be long, isn't it.

00:13:50
Speaker 2: We single now so he doesn't have to Yeah, that's really Yeah, he's available. He's available now.

00:13:58
Speaker 1: But he won't be in jail long. And look and the reason to your point there, he could have stayed, but he came back to face punishment. But he's not facing years and years or anything like that in prison, because this is a misdemeanor. To your point, I don't think he came back to face justice, did he. He came back because he didn't have anywhere or anybody.

00:14:17
Speaker 2: I'm thinking the relationship didn't go so well and probably wanted to see if he could somehow salvage a relationship with his children.

00:14:24
Speaker 1: Do you think she knew the Russian Russian speaking? I think she was from Uzbekistan, butanel she had any idea, I don't know.

00:14:33
Speaker 2: They didn't say, but I would think that she wouldn't.

00:14:37
Speaker 1: Have known been on board with him face the old dad.

00:14:39
Speaker 2: What woman would say, Oh, that sounds like a good idea. Leave your wife and your children and fake your death and come be with me. No, nobody wants to live a life on the run or be interested in somebody who is going to not be able to travel or actually use their name. That's always looking over their shoulder, who's done something criminal? Do you want to be associated with someone who he's done something criminal? Especially if you're living in a country like that, perhaps you're thinking, ooh, a wealthy American or just at least having a life where you have a sense of comfort and peace. Not one of the authorities could catch us at any moment. So yes, I'm thinking she didn't know.

00:15:15
Speaker 1: She did know, all right, So he's come back, he's faced justice this week. He has been sentenced by the judge two eighty nine days in jail. The prosecution was only asking for about half of that, forty five right in jail for that, but the judge in I don't know if you should be cute and clever, but this was, I don't know, something poetic about it. At least I liked.

00:15:40
Speaker 2: It a I liked that the judge doubled it just because he could, but also because he chose the exact amount of days that he was missing. So those were the days that his family suffered that authorities were searching that lake, where resources were being used to try and find him, And so those eighty nine days where everyone was in the dark. Those are the same eighty nine days he will spend behind bars. I think that is poetic, and that is that does feel like justice, you know.

00:16:10
Speaker 1: I do like sometimes when judges do things like this right, and sometimes it's I don't know, it's not even a matter of the punishment, right, forty five days or ninety days, is that it's not a severe jail time. But just to make a point, I kind of like when judges do.

00:16:27
Speaker 2: That, I do too. He also has to pay back thirty thousand dollars in restitution. That's the money that the local authorities spent looking for him, searching for him, trying to find him, And that also seems very fair.

00:16:41
Speaker 1: How can you pay back? I get that, But there are folks out there who, yes, they're doing their job, that are were genuinely concerned and trying to bring like their hearts were in it for this guy.

00:16:50
Speaker 2: How like if you are you know anyone who is in emergency services of any kind, I just think are so incredible and we rely on them. Obviously they're constantly in life for death situations. But imagine if you're a trained rescue diver and you're going in in cold frigid waters or at least you know, uncomfortable conditions to try and get answers for a family, and you're trained to do so, and you spend your time and you spend your effort, and you're looking and you're thinking, and your enter to know that it was all a hoax. That's got to be really tough, you know.

00:17:20
Speaker 1: And you say it that way when you do account for I mean, you're going underwater. Who knows what can happen with equipment you're scuba up. Yeah, look, you're putting yourself in danger, exactly at risk as well. So I that part is necessary. We should always happen in these cases. So again I'm okay with this sentence, with it. I don't know who this judge is, but I'm okay with it.

00:17:42
Speaker 2: Yes, and Ryan did get his dan court work. He did get to speak, and he had an apology for the court. He had an apology for the people who once loved him. Not sure how many are still in that camp or not, but this is what he had to say. He said, I deeply regret the actions I did that night and all the pain I caused my family and friends. I wonder just even at this point, what his circle is like now? Who is still in his camp? And can he should he? Does he deserve a second chance by friends and family members, certainly not his wife. I get that, but I wonder where people feel or how people feel about second chances. I know you're not a big second chances guy.

00:18:27
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I am personally my Oh there you go personally on a whole other level. When I look at something and look at somebody like this and I my first thought obviously is to the kids and that harm and that story. What you think about when you think about him? You're like, what in God's name? Yes, we want to go with some stupid dude chasing some hot piece of tail cross the line.

00:18:54
Speaker 2: We want to think that, We want to demonize him, and he should be.

00:18:59
Speaker 1: I'm not knocking anybody for doing so. I am so curious when we talk about this all the time. You can stop an emotional response if you ask first, be curious. And I am curious. What was going on in this man's life that got him to that point of desperation?

00:19:13
Speaker 2: Right?

00:19:14
Speaker 1: What happened? Because it wasn't an instant thing. He had months to plan and put He had months to go this is stupid.

00:19:23
Speaker 2: You know, you know it's this you're speaking of stupid. You might laugh at me, but one of my favorite movies, I love Sleeping with the Enemy Julia Roberts. When I'm reading what he did about how he had this inflatable boat, he got on shore, he washed away the footprints so that no one could see that, he came back on shore and retrieved a stash electric bike that he had placed so that he could then travel to Canada. Ultimately, that all sounds like what Julia Roberts did to get away from a physically and mentally abusive husband. Like that is the thing people do when they're desperate, when they're in fear for their lives, when there's no other way to escape, because they're afraid whoever they're with is going to come find them, hunt them down and kill them. That these are the actions of someone who is desperate. And so that's what was mind blowing to me. And so we don't know what was going on in his head, and maybe there is some sort of story where we could understand his desperation. We don't know, but it just suddenly reminded me of that movie. It's a good one.

00:20:21
Speaker 1: She did a better job. It took him longer to track her down than it took.

00:20:24
Speaker 2: The when the towels were placed perfectly in the in the in the we're all perfectly because he had O CD and like and by the way, from one O c D to the next, yeah, I get that.

00:20:40
Speaker 1: Just compared me to a even killer guy.

00:20:46
Speaker 2: I would be desperate just to come find you, not to get away home. My god.

00:20:49
Speaker 1: Okay, this is enough of this. I'm gonna go, Kayak and y'all. We'll talk to y'all soon, and always appreciate y'all listening here on Amy and t J Presents

00:21:00
Speaker 2: Two two