He Faked His Death to Start New Life with Woman He Met Online: Here Were His Last Texts to His Wife By Nicole Acosta

The last text messages exchanged between a wife and a Wisconsin man who faked his own death and fled the country to Europe have been revealed.

Ryan Borgwardt disappeared on Aug. 11, 2024, after a kayaking trip on Green Lake in Wisconsin. While authorities searched for him, his wife and children mourned his loss.

That night, Borgwardt texted his then-wife, Emily, that he “may have snuck out on a lake” to watch the northern lights, with his wife responding, “That would have been nice to know. I was beginning to wonder why you weren’t home,” according to new case documents filed by the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office and released this week to the Associated Press.

She said his actions were “nothing new.”

“I should be used to it by now. So many nights I have no idea where you are when it’s late,” she texted Borgwardt.

Borgwardt then said he loved her and wished her goodnight before she told him that she loved him too and to be safe. The last message sent by Borgwardt was him informing his wife that he would be “heading back to shore soon” just before 11 p.m., the AP reported, citing the case documents.

Hours later, around 5 a.m., Emily sent concerned texts to her husband, wondering where he was. Some of the texts read, “Where are you????” and “Babe?”

He never answered.

In reality, Borgwardt had been plotting his disappearance for months in an attempt to start a new life with a woman he had met online, prosecutors said, per ABC News. Police called off the search for Borgwardt in early October of last year after learning that Canadian law enforcement had checked his passport on Aug. 13.

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Borgwardt returned “willingly” in December 2024, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said during a press conference at the time. A month earlier, Podoll announced that Borgwardt was actually alive and believed to be in Eastern Europe. 

On Aug. 11, 2024, Podoll said, Borgwardt took photos of his passport, changed his email, moved money to a foreign bank — and had been communicating with a woman from Uzbekistan. Podoll added that Borgwardt took out a $375,000 insurance policy in January 2024, possibly to take care of his family in his absence.

The sheriff’s office later got in touch with Borgwardt, with the help of a Russian-speaking woman, possibly the woman from Uzbekistan, Podoll said. Borgwardt, who sent a video of himself to investigators showing he was “safe” and “secure,” revealed how he pulled off his plan to disappear.

Borgwardt said he had stashed an e-bike near the boat lodge and paddled his kayak and a child-sized inflatable boat out into the lake, where he overturned the kayak to fake an accident.

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He paddled the inflatable boat to shore, got on his e-bike and rode through the night to Madison. There, he boarded a bus to Detroit and then to the Canadian border. He continued on the bus to “an airport and got on a plane,” Podoll said.

The AP reported that Borgwardt’s wife divorced him in May.

Borgwardt has since pleaded no contest to a charge of obstructing an officer and was sentenced in August to 89 days in jail to match the amount of time he had been gone. He also had to pay $30,000 in restitution to law enforcement after misleading the police, despite initially pleading not guilty to the misdemeanor, ABC News, Fox 6 Milwaukee and WDIV reported.

“I deeply regret the actions that I did that night and all the pain that I caused my family and friends,” Borgwardt said prior to his sentencing, per ABC News.