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 case documents the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office released to The Associated Press this week that offer a glimpse into the couple’s tense marriage. In one included interview, Borgwardt told 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.”…