WISCONSIN DAD OF 3 DEAD IN LAKE, MISSING SNUGGED UP WITH UZBEKISTAN LOVER?

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

The morning of August 12, Ryan Borgwardt's wife calls authorities, her husband never came home from kayaking on Green Lake last night and isn't answering his phone. Green Lake County Sheriff's office gets involved and with Borgwardt's last known location being Green lake, deputies begin searching the area around 5:32pm and locate Borgwardt's vehicle and trailer parked in the area of Dodge Memorial Park. About an hour after deputies respond to a missing persons call at Green Lake, authorities find a capsized kayak in the western part of the lake. It is this part of the lake where the water is around 220 feet deep. Deputies find the life jacket still attached to the kayak. Volunteers join deputies in the search for Ryan Borgwardt.

24-hours into the search for Ryan Borgwardt search crews use a drone and send boats out to complete a grid search of the lake. As the search efforts continue, Sheriff Mark Podoll says they are searching the deepest waters of the lake, searching hundreds of acres across Green lake with help from Bruce's Legacy, a nonprofit that assists in search and recovery efforts. The sheriff says now they are looking for a body, believing that Ryan Borgwardt drowned in the lake. Three cadaver dogs, and a dive team are brought in to help in the recovery efforts.

Sheriff Mark Podoll and his team takes the search for Ryan Borgwardt into a different direction starting back at the begining, and right away they find out that Ryan Borgwardt's name was run on August 13 by Canadian Law enforcement. Early in the search, Borgwardt's passport was found at his home, but now investigators learn that Ryan Borgwardt was issued another passport on May 22nd after reporting his other passport as lost.

Borgwardt's wife, Emily, provides investigators with her husband's laptop computer. Conducting a digital forensic analysis of the laptop and information retrieved leads investigators to believe that Ryan Borgwardt is somewhere in Europe. Sheriff Mark Podoll says Borgwardt replaced the hard drive in the laptop and cleared all the browser history the day he went missing.

Investigators find that Ryan Borgwardt moved funds to a foreign bank and changed his email address and was communicating with a woman from Uzbekistan before he vanished. The investigation also reveals that Borgwardt took out a $375,000 life insurance policy seven months before he vanished and purchased airline cards as well. Sheriff Mark Podoll says after everything they have uncovered; they know that Ryan Borgwardt is quote "Not in our lake".

Joining Nancy Grace today:

• Gregory Morse - Partner at the law firm of King Morse, PLLC. Current CJA counsel (Southern District of Florida), Former West Palm Beach Public Defender's Office. Author: "The Untested," website: kingmorselaw.com
• Keith Cormican - Underwater Search and Recovery Expert. Director, Bruce's Legacy. Searched for 23 days for Ryan in Green Lake.
• Dr. John Delatorre - Licensed Psychologist and Mediator, specializing in forensic psychology, psychological consultant to Project Absentis, website: resolutionfcs.com, Twitter, IG, and TikTok - @drjohndelatorre
• Barry Golden - Former Senior Inspector for the U.S. Marshals Service, Owner of Golden Consulting and Investigations, website: www.golden-ci.com
• Baylee Boomhower - mental health content creator, TikTok: @authenticalpha; Instagram: @authenticalphaco; Instagram: @bayleeboomhower; YouTube: @authenticalpha
• Alexis Tereszcuk - Crime Online investigative reporter

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