World News | Wisconsin Kayaker Who Faked His Death and Fled to Eastern Europe Has Willingly Returned to US

Green Lake, Dec 11 (AP) A Wisconsin man who faked his own drowning and left his wife and three children and was believed to have been in Eastern Europe willingly returned to the US after roughly four months and is in custody, a sheriff said Wednesday.

Ryan Borgwardt “came back on his own” because of his family, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said.

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“We can stand here feeling relieved,” Podoll told reporters.

Borgwardt, 45, landed Tuesday and was being held at the county jail, pending an afternoon court appearance. The sheriff said his office has recommended a number of charges, including obstruction.

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Last month, Podoll said Borgwardt began communicating with authorities on November 11 after disappearing for three months but hadn't committed to returning to Wisconsin. Podoll said police were "pulling at his heartstrings” to come home. He suggested Borgwardt could be charged with obstructing the investigation into his disappearance.

Borgwardt told authorities last month that he faked his death because of “personal matters,” the sheriff said. He told them that in mid-August he travelled about 80 kilometres from his home in Watertown to Green Lake, where he overturned his kayak, dumped his phone and then paddled an inflatable boat to shore. He said he picked that lake because it's the deepest in Wisconsin.

After leaving the lake, he rode an electric bike about 110 kilometres through the night to Madison, the sheriff said. From there, he said he took a bus to Detroit, then boarded a bus to Canada and got on a plane.

The sheriff said at the time that investigators were working to verify Borgwardt's description of what happened.

The sheriff's office has said the search for Borgwardt's body, which lasted more than a month, cost at least USD 35,000. The sheriff said that Borgwardt told authorities that he didn't expect the search to last more than two weeks. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)