'It's just unthinkable:' Missing Wisconsin kayaker believed to have faked own death, fled country

 

GREEN LAKE, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Wisconsin authorities believe a man who went missing three months ago, and was presumed deceased, may have actually staged his death and left his family behind.

Ryan Borgwardt of Watertown was first reported missing on Aug. 12 when he didn't return home after a kayaking trip to Green Lake.

Authorities recovered some of his personal items, including his kayak, life jacket, and car, nearby.

But during a press conference on Friday, Nov. 8, officials with the Green Lake County Sheriff's Office said a forensic analysis of Borgwardt's computer revealed a different story.

According to investigators, Borgwardt had a second passport and had replaced his laptop's hard drive and cleared browsers the day he disappeared. 

They also found the married father of three had taken out a $375,000 life insurance policy, made inquiries about moving funds to foreign banks, changed his email address associated with financial accounts, and was communicating with a woman believed to be from Uzbekistan. 

“We got many pieces, but we got a lot more pieces to find," said Sheriff Mark Podoll. “We understand that things can happen but there’s a family that wants their daddy back.”

The sheriff added that his team had worked to find Borgwardt for 54 days -- and one main person to thank for the efforts was Keith Cormican, the founder of Bruce's Legacy, a nonprofit that aims to recover drowning victims.

"Sheriff Podoll had called me right away that morning and asked if I could come down and help locate Ryan," Cormican recalled. "So, I originally thought this would be maybe a one-to-two-day search."

But as the weeks went on, Cormican's suspicions began to mount.

"Eight-to-10 hours, 12 hours, sometimes. So, you know, multiply that out. It's a lot of time," Cormican told CBS 58's Ellie Nakamoto-White. "As the days kept going, the questions started growing as well, you know, is he really here?"

After Cormican and his other couple of volunteers scoured nearly every part of the lake, he told investigators they should try looking somewhere else, ultimately leading to the confirmation that Borgwardt was not underwater.

"To have the outcome of him being in a different country for those reasons, it's just unthinkable," Cormican said. "It was just mind boggling."

Now, his message to Borgwardt and to others, is to be aware of the time, physical and mental resources, and cost it can take for the recovery missions his organization does.

"All the physical effort of loading the boat every day and unloading the boat each and every single day, all the equipment that it takes," Cormican said. "Just in the first two weeks I was - I spent about $10,000 to fix and repair and replace a piece of equipment, to allow us to keep searching for Ryan."

The sheriff's office confirmed that they would pursue restitution for the search expenses that were funded by taxpayers.