Wisconsin kayaker who faked his death and fled to Asia says plan was a ‘crazy, emotional dream’

MADISON Wis AP A Wisconsin kayaker who faked his own death so he could start a new life with a woman in the country of Georgia texted his wife he loved her on the night he executed the plan telling her he had gone to the lake to watch the northern lights Emily Borgwardt woke up alone the next morning her desperate texts of Where are you and Babe going unanswered By that point her husband Ryan Borgwardt had already overturned his kayak on Green Lake and biked through the night to catch a bus to Canada the first leg on his journey to the Georgian capital of Tibilsi to meet a Ukranian woman he was secretly courting online The texts were among a massive file of development documents the Green Lake County Sheriff s Office issued to The Associated Press this week that offer a glimpse into the couple s tense marriage In one included interview Borgwardt notified detectives that he was a failure and called his plan to abscond to the country at the crossroads of Europe and Asia a crazy emotional dream Borgwardt was convicted of obstruction last month His wife divorced him in May The AP left a phone message Tuesday for her attorney listed in online court records as Andrew Griggs An elaborate plot and frantic search The cabinetmaker who lived with his wife and their three children in Watertown traveled about miles kilometers to Green Lake to go kayaking on the night of Aug He never came home Sheriff s deputies discovered his kayak on the lake in an area where the water was about feet meters deep The search for his body went on for days Borgwardt had intentionally overturned the kayak and paddled back to shore in an inflatable raft He retrieved an electric bike he had stashed nearby and rode miles kilometers through the night to the Wisconsin capital of Madison where he caught a bus to the Toronto airport He eventually made it to Tibilsi where he met a woman named Katya he d met on a dating website in December By February of they had become close friends and he began researching how to fake his own death that April so he could be with her Sheriff s investigators eventually contacted him via email using information on a laptop he had left behind They convinced him to return to Wisconsin in December largely by pleading with him to do right by his family A door kind of opens up for you Before they booked Borgwardt into jail investigators urged him during a three-hour interview why he did it He noted he felt like a failure saying later in the interview that he has accumulated about in credit card debt and in business debt He noted he didn t have a good relationship with his wife and his children didn t want to do anything with him anymore I think just the inability to feel like you could talk to your wife about chosen of this stuff and maybe the complete hopelessness that you have in the situation that you re in he announced And you end up meeting a friend somewhere on the other side of the world who sort of has a somewhat similar story and you just end up becoming friends and the friend thing ends up turning into more but you didn t really plan on that It wasn t your intention So a door kind of opens up for you in a way to possibly make things work like that he added He revealed he hoped that he could avoid detection long enough to be declared legally dead At that point he planned to apply for citizenship in Georgia but hadn t figured out how to do that if he was declared dead A revealing text exchange The tension in the Borgwardts marriage was evident in their last texts the night he fled He explained her at p m that he may have snuck out on a lake That would have been nice to know Emily Borgwardt responded I was beginning to wonder why you weren t home After he apologized she responded Nothing new I should be used to it by now So countless nights I have no idea where you are when it s late He responded that he ll work on their communication adding that he saw the northern lights and they were pink He then texted I love you goodnight Emily Borgwardt stated him that she loved him too and to be safe I ll be heading back to shore soon he responded at p m his final message before his wife s frantic ones at a m asking where he was Throughout the interview with detectives Borgwardt repeatedly requested whether Katya was in trouble too He reported he would like to return to her because the cost of living is so much cheaper in Georgia than in the U S At the end of the interview he questioned the detectives if he could use the justice center s Wi-Fi to let Katya know he was OK One of the deputies tells Borgwardt he ll email her for him Borgwardt pleaded no contest to the obstruction charge on Aug He was sentenced to days in jail - Associated Press writer Scott Bauer contributed to this account Source