Imagine getting a text from your husband at 10:49 p.m. saying he’s almost finished kayaking and is heading back to shore. You fall asleep thinking he’ll be home in an hour. Instead, you wake up to a nightmare that lasts months, only to find out the man you’ve been married to for 22 years didn't drown in the 200-foot depths of Green Lake—he just didn't want to be a dad anymore.
Honestly, the story of Ryan Borgwardt is the kind of thing that makes you lose a little faith in humanity. For 54 days, his wife, Emily Borgwardt, and their three teenage children lived in the crushing limbo of grief. They thought he was at the bottom of a lake. While divers scoured 1,500 acres of water and sonar teams spent hundreds of hours looking for a body, Ryan was actually thousands of miles away in Eastern Europe, starting a "new life" with a woman he met online.
The Day Everything Changed for the Borgwardt Family
On August 11, 2024, Ryan drove 50 miles from the family home in Watertown, Wisconsin, to Green Lake. He told his wife he was just going for a quick paddle. He even went through the trouble of overturning his kayak and leaving his life jacket, fishing rod, and car behind to make it look like a tragic accident.
While Emily and the kids were likely calling his phone in a panic, Ryan was busy. He had stashed a child-sized inflatable raft and an e-bike near the shore. He paddled back, hopped on the bike, and rode 70 miles to Madison. From there, it was a bus to Toronto, a flight to Paris, and eventually a landing in the country of Georgia.
What’s truly wild is how much effort he put into the deception. He hadn't just "snapped." He had been planning this for nearly a year.
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- January 2024: He took out a $375,000 life insurance policy.
- May 2024: He lied to the government, saying his passport was lost so he could get a secret replacement.
- Pre-disappearance: He actually underwent a vasectomy reversal.
Why? Because the woman he was talking to in Uzbekistan apparently wanted a family. He was willing to trade his real, breathing children in Wisconsin for the possibility of new ones in Eastern Europe.
Where is Ryan Borgwardt's Wife and Kids Now?
If you're looking for a happy reconciliation, you won't find it here. Emily Borgwardt didn't wait around for long once the truth came out. In December 2024, just days after Ryan was convinced by law enforcement to finally return to the U.S., Emily filed for a legal separation. By early 2025, that turned into a full divorce.
The court documents are pretty blunt. She cited the marriage as "irretrievably broken." Honestly, can you blame her? She spent two months mourning a dead man only to find out he was a fugitive who viewed his family as a "mess" he needed to escape.
The kids have been through the ringer. Being a teenager is hard enough without your father becoming a national symbol of the "runaway dad." Emily sought sole custody of the three children, and by all accounts, Ryan has been effectively excised from their daily lives. While he was off in Georgia using a VPN to check the news about his own "death," his children were likely attending memorials or therapy sessions.
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The Legal Fallout and the 89-Day Sentence
By the time we hit August 2025, the legal system finally caught up with him. A judge in Green Lake County didn't take kindly to the fact that Ryan let the search continue for so long. The sheriff's department and groups like Bruce’s Legacy spent roughly $40,000 searching for a man who wasn't there.
Judge Mark Slate ended up doubling the recommended sentence. Ryan got 89 days in jail—one day for every day he was "missing" and actively obstructing the investigation. He also had to pay $30,000 in restitution.
During the sentencing, Ryan said he "deeply regretted" the pain he caused. But the District Attorney, Gerise LaSpisa, hit the nail on the head: the destruction to his family can never be undone. You can pay back the $30,000 for the fuel and the divers, but you can’t pay back the 54 days his kids spent thinking they were orphans.
What happened to the "other woman"?
Not much is known about the woman in Georgia/Uzbekistan, other than the fact that Ryan's "grand plan" fell apart once the Green Lake County Sheriff, Mark Podoll, started "tugging at his heartstrings" via email. Ryan eventually realized he couldn't hide forever, especially after his digital trail—found on a laptop Emily turned over to police—exposed everything from his secret bank transfers to his travel inquiries.
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The Reality of "Starting Over"
A lot of people fantasize about disappearing, but the Borgwardt case shows the gritty, pathetic reality of it. Ryan ended up back in Wisconsin, living with his parents after his release from jail in late 2025. He went from being a self-employed family man to a convicted misdemeanant with no marriage, no custody, and a massive debt to the county.
He was granted "Huber privileges" during his jail stay, meaning he could leave to go to work, but his life is now under a microscope.
If there is any lesson here, it's about the digital footprint we leave behind. Even with replaced hard drives and cleared browsers, the truth came out because of a simple passport check in Canada and a wife who was smart enough to hand over the right electronics to the cops.
Moving forward, if you or someone you know is struggling with the weight of family or financial pressure, reaching out to local family mediation services or mental health professionals is the only way to "start over" without destroying the people you claim to love. For those following the case, the most important thing now is the privacy and healing of the family in Watertown, who are finally trying to build a life that doesn't include a kayak-shaped hole in the middle of it.