True Crime with Kendall Rae
The Man Who Faked His Death for a New Life With His Mistress
Thu, 20 Mar 2025
In August 2024, 44-year-old Ryan Borgwardt went missing after leaving for a kayaking trip. But this wasn’t a typical missing person case. Borgwardt had faked his own death in order to flee to the country for a woman in Uzbekistan, leaving behind his wife and three children. Please check out Bruce's Legacy! https://www.bruceslegacy.com/ -- This episode is sponsored by: Earnin - When you download the EarnIn app type in True Crime with Kendall Rae under PODCAST when you sign up. Rocket Money Check out my foundation: Higher Hope Foundation: https://www.higherhope.org/ Watch my documentaries: 530 Days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjUWkmOjNLk Apartment 801: https://bit.ly/2RJ9XXr True Crime with Kendall Rae podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3rks84o Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3jC66pr Shop my Merch! https://kendallrae.shop Check out my other podcasts: Mile Higher (True Crime) @milehigherpod YouTube: https://bit.ly/2ROzJcw Instagram: http://instagram.com/milehigherpod The Sesh (Current events, a little true crime, pop culture, and commentary) https://bit.ly/3Mtoz4X @the_seshpodcast Instagram: https://bit.ly/3a9t6Xr *Follow My Social!* @KendallRaeOnyt Instagram: http://instagram.com/kendallraeonyt Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kar4NK True Crime TikTok: https://bit.ly/3VDbc77 Personal TikTok: https://bit.ly/41hmRKg REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://zfrmz.com/yg9cuiWjUe2QY3hSC2V0 Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://zfrmz.com/HGu2hZso42aHxARt1i67 Join my discord to chat with other viewers about this video, it’s free! https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN C O N T A C T: For Business Inquiries - [email protected] Send me mail: Kendall Rae 8547 E Arapahoe Rd Ste J #233 Greenwood Village, CO 80112
Chapter 1: Who is Ryan Borgwart and what did he do?
Alright, like I said, today we're going to be discussing Ryan Borgwart. And honestly, there isn't that much known about him before all of this unfolded. However, we do know that he was living with his wife and three kids in Watertown, Wisconsin, and we also know that he had his own woodworking business.
And of course, as you guys know, I typically like to share as much background on victims as possible, but Ryan is not a victim. In fact, he is far from it. His wife Emily and his three children, they were the true victims in this case.
But since this is something that they're still going through personally and has been very traumatic, I don't want to get into a bunch of details about them personally. And just for the sake of their privacy, I think it's just not necessary. And they've expressed not really wanting to be part of the media coverage.
What I will say, though, is his children are around middle school to high school age, meaning they are old enough to understand what's going on. Which if you ask me, that makes what Ryan did so much worse. I mean, it's horrible no matter what age a child is when they experience something like this, but you guys know what I mean. So what exactly did Ryan do?
Well, it all started on August 11th, 2024, and it was a Sunday. And like they normally did, Ryan went to church with his whole family. And then later that afternoon or into the evening, really, he was planning on going fishing. Specifically, he was going to drive an hour north to go fish at Green Lake, which is in Green Lake, Wisconsin.
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Chapter 2: How did the search for Ryan Borgwart unfold?
And because Ryan is a very outdoorsy guy, Emily likely didn't think twice about this trip. He was just going to go kayaking up north, fish for a couple hours, and then come home late that night. However, despite a text that came in from him at 1045 saying that His plan was to paddle into shore and then drive straight home.
Ryan never showed up, which, of course, if your partner doesn't come back home after something like a fishing trip, you're going to get concerned pretty quickly. And she did what any other wife would do. Emily reported him missing. And as soon as she did, there was no hesitation from law enforcement to try and find him.
And by 5.32 on the 12th, so the next day, the Green Lake County Sheriff's Office was notified of the missing kayaker, and right away, they sent out deputies to go over to the lake and try and locate him. And while they didn't find Ryan, they did find his car and his trailer.
leading them to believe that something happened to him out on the lake and less than an hour later they made a shocking discovery out on the water they ended up finding a capsized kayak in the western part of the lake which obviously doesn't look good now for some context green lake is actually the second biggest lake in wisconsin by volume and the deepest natural lake inland in the state.
At its deepest point, it reaches a depth of 237 feet. It covers a total of 7,340 acres, and it has over 27 miles of shoreline. So clearly, they knew right away what a big undertaking this was going to be. I mean, it can't be stressed enough how difficult it would be to find a body in that lake, but that's exactly what they tried to do. Life doesn't happen biweekly, so why should payday?
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Chapter 3: What were the key discoveries in the investigation?
And one of the things that they're able to do is bring in this specialized sonar equipment that scans the bottom of the lake in order to see if there's a body down there. And obviously, like I just explained, this is a huge lake, so they knew that this was going to take a lot of time.
But based on where they found the kayak, they figured that his body couldn't have gotten much further than the western part of the lake, which, again, is still a huge area to search. So, of course, they got that sonar up and running. And meanwhile, drones were flown above the water and deputies were looking along the shoreline. and they ended up making a pretty big discovery just that morning.
Around 9.30 a.m., two fishermen were casting nets along the bottom of the lake, and they ended up pulling up a fishing rod, and it ended up being a fishing rod that belonged to Ryan. According to his wife, she was able to confirm it was his.
And then, later that afternoon, around 3.30, someone called in reporting that they had found a tackle box, and when they opened it, they found several items, which included... a wallet, a driver's license, and keys as well, all of which belonged to Ryan.
And all of these findings, the tackle box, the fishing rod, the kayak, and the car, ultimately helped confirm the belief that he must have fallen into the water. So for the next 54 days, the efforts to locate the missing 45-year-old father of three continued. And I really can't emphasize enough just how intensive this search actually was.
On August 24th, they ended up bringing in cadaver dogs and dive teams, and the conditions on the water were far from safe. I mean, Green Lake is known for being super mucky, so these divers had essentially zero visibility in the water. which of course is just dangerous on its own, not to mention how deep they had to dive in order to search for him.
But all these people that were spending their time and putting themselves at risk were happy to do it because it was important to everyone that Ryan's family had that closure. And Keith, with Bruce's legacy, was especially invested in finding his body. And he said he spent somewhere around $10,000 in expenses between repairs and replacing equipment.
And he even said that this whole thing was keeping him up at night because he could not figure out why he was not finding Ryan's body. And Keith is truly a professional at what he does and he's passionate about what he does. So not finding a body was making him start to question himself and his abilities.
He spent 23 days of his life out on that water with sonar equipment and just as many days reviewing that data. Yet nothing pointed to Ryan being in the water. And the divers were pretty much saying the same thing. Even with their expertise, they came up empty-handed time after time. And they were... I mean, everyone was becoming very frustrated.
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Chapter 4: How did Ryan Borgwart fake his disappearance?
And so on October 7th, after deciding to take their investigation in sort of a different direction, they made a huge discovery.
So we continued our search throughout the And it continued through 54 days. I think it was eight weeks. And during that time, it was unbelievable the amount of support that our community gave my department. It was unbelievable. From food to gift cards for Bruce's legacy to a thank you. And they were proud of us. They were proud that we were not giving up, and we were not. We continued.
And on October 4th, which was a Friday, I met with Keith from Bruce's Legacy. And he said to me, he said, Sheriff, he says, I've done a lot of searches, and I can't find them. He said, we searched and we searched. And if you see that picture that's on the screen behind me, all the yellow is where Keith searched. That was every spot of that western water of our lake.
With that being said, he also told me that, Sheriff, don't worry. I'm not giving up. He called the company and was asking for another piece of equipment, a top-notch sonar, and it was a new one, but it was going to be a couple weeks out. So October 7th, I got my crew together, my three detectives and my chief deputy and myself. We met and we talked, and we said we got to go a different direction.
And they did. The direction we went. Was offline. And we found out. That his name was Ron. On August 13th. Wow, yeah. That was something we didn't expect.
And when he says Ryan's name was run on August 13th, he means that one day after he was reported missing, Ryan's passport was used. Yep, you heard that right. A literal day after he was reported missing, his passport was used at the Canadian border. And of course, this turned everything they thought they knew up until this point upside down because now they weren't looking for a body.
They were looking for a living, breathing human being who likely, and I think pretty obviously at this point, faked his disappearance. So to try and figure out what the hell is going on here, investigators turned to his digital footprint and they ended up finding some crazy shit, all of which pointed to the fact that Ryan had meticulously planned his disappearance for months.
Here's what a forensic analyst was able to find on Ryan's laptop.
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Chapter 5: What role did digital evidence play in uncovering the truth?
They saw that Ryan obtained a second passport, replaced the hard drive on his laptop, cleared his browser history on the day he disappeared, synced his laptop to iCloud on the day that he disappeared, took photos of his original passport, inquired about moving funds to a foreign bank, changed his email address associated with his bank on the day he disappeared, communicated with a woman in Uzbekistan.
And I bet you guys can guess this one. He acquired a $375,000 life insurance policy and purchased an airline gift card. And that second passport was purchased after he reported the original one as lost or stolen. Mind you, investigators ended up finding that other original passport very easily with the help of his wife, Emily. So yeah, the picture is starting to get a lot clearer.
Ryan never drowned in that lake. He's completely staged his disappearance. From what they were finding, it looked like he had faked his disappearance, or really his death, in order to be with this woman that he had been communicating with online. The problem, though, is they didn't know where he was. They figured that he was probably somewhere in Europe, but they didn't know exactly where.
The FBI and Homeland Security even got involved, so that just tells you how seriously they were taking this. And I'm glad they did, because what Ryan did is... just so fucked up on so many levels.
Homie was over here doing the absolute most, quite literally, for a woman that he had just met over the internet, and we don't know what was said between them, actually, but whatever it was had to have been enough for him to think it was worth giving up quite literally everything. And not only just giving up his wife and kids, but he was willing to let his wife and children think that he died.
I mean, to me, that is just... There's no other word for it other than evil. He and his wife had literally just celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary in July. And, you know, he has gone through the births of all three of his children and raising them. And I don't know the details as far as how involved he was in their life.
But it's just how could you do that to your family, to your wife and to your children to let them think and suffer with the images of you drowning? and the mourning and grieving that they would have to do for years, and you're just completely fine with them experiencing all of that. I mean, just think about it. Just picture this.
That morning, as I mentioned, Ryan was at church with his children and his wife. He's sitting there, you know, doing whatever you do in church. And meanwhile, he's thinking about what he is planning to do to his own family later that evening. I mean, how do you function like that? Oh my God, liars just blow my mind, especially at this level.
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Chapter 6: How did the community and authorities react to the case?
He could not figure out why he couldn't find his body, so to find out that he was never in the water...
mean i get that i probably would have been relieved too and then his second reaction was just pure sympathy for ryan's wife and his children and i think we all feel that way especially people who were directly affected by this case or in the community and had been following it closely worried about ryan the whole thing is just maddening it's baffling and it has just been quite a roller coaster for everybody and then at one point people were very confused because
This video resurfaced a TikTok actually from this girl in San Diego who was doing an ask me for free advice video. She was standing out on the boardwalk with a sign and basically people could go up to her and ask her for advice. I mean, I'm sure you've seen something like this.
Need advice on anything?
I go to Uzbekistan or stay here.
Say that one more time.
Do I go to Uzbekistan or stay here?
Do you have family there?
No.
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Chapter 7: What was the significance of the viral TikTok video?
It remains to be seen.
Mm-hmm.
So, would it be like a throuple or something?
No.
Okay. Oh, you guys would get a divorce, possibly?
Possibly, yeah.
Um... Do you just feel like there's no love left between you guys?
Diminished.
Diminished? Well, I think you guys should definitely have that discussion and see where things are going between you two before you leave the country.
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