GREEN LAKE, Wis. — A Wisconsin man who faked his own drowning this summer so he could abandon his wife and three children has been communicating with authorities daily from Eastern Europe, even telling them how he did it, but has not committed to returning home, a sheriff said Thursday.

Ryan Borgwardt has been talking with authorities since Nov. 11 after disappearing for three months, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said at a news conference. The sheriff later showed a video that Borgwardt had sent the sheriff’s office that day.

“The great news is we know that he is alive and well,” Podoll said. “The bad news is we don’t know where Ryan exactly is, and he has not yet decided to return home.”

Borgwardt, wearing an orange T-shirt and not smiling, looked directly into the camera in the video, which appears to have been taken on his phone. Borgwardt said he was in his apartment and briefly panned the camera but mostly showed just a door and bare walls.

“I’m safe and secure, no problem,” Borgwardt said. “I hope this works.”

Borgwardt told authorities he fled because of “personal matters,” the sheriff said. Podoll did not elaborate.

“He was just going to try and make things better in his mind, and this was the way it was going to be,” Podoll said.

Borgwardt told authorities he traveled about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from his home in Watertown to Green Lake, where he overturned his kayak, dumped his phone in the lake and then paddled an inflatable boat to shore. He told authorities he picked that lake because it’s the deepest in Wisconsin at 237 feet (over 72 meters).

After leaving the lake, he rode an electric bike about 70 miles (110 kilometers) through the night to Madison, the sheriff said. From there, he took a bus to Detroit, then boarded a bus to Canada and got on a plane there, the sheriff said.

Police were still verifying Borgwardt’s description of what happened, Podoll said.

The sheriff suggested Borgwardt could be charged with obstructing the investigation into his disappearance, but so far no counts have been filed. The sheriff’s office said the search for Borgwardt’s body, which lasted more than a month, cost at least $35,000. Podoll said that Borgwardt told authorities that he didn’t expect the search to last more than two weeks.

Whether Borgwardt returns will be up to his “free will,” Podoll said. Borgwardt’s biggest concern about returning is how the community will react, the sheriff said.

“He thought his plan was going to pan out, but it didn’t go the way he had planned,” the sheriff said. “And so now we’re trying to give him a different plan to come back.”

The sheriff said authorities “keep pulling at his heartstrings” to return home.

“Christmas is coming,” Podoll said. “And what better gift could your kids get than to be there for Christmas?”

Borgwardt’s disappearance was first investigated as a possible drowning after he went kayaking on Green Lake, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Milwaukee, in August. But subsequent clues—including that he obtained a new passport three months before he disappeared—led investigators to speculate that he faked his death to meet up with a woman he had been communicating with in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia.

The sheriff declined to comment when asked what he knew about the woman, but he said police contacted Borgwardt “through a female that spoke Russian.”

Prior to the sheriff’s office speaking with Borgwardt last week, he had not been heard from since the night of Aug. 11 when he texted his wife in Watertown shortly before 11 p.m., saying he was headed to shore after kayaking.

Deputies located his vehicle and trailer near the lake. They also found his overturned kayak with a life jacket attached to it in an area where the lake’s waters run more than 200 feet (60 meters) deep. The search for his body went on for more than 50 days, with divers on several occasions exploring the lake.

In early October, the sheriff’s department learned that Canadian law enforcement authorities had run Borgwardt’s name through their databases the day after he was reported missing. Further investigation revealed that he had reported his passport lost or stolen and had obtained a new one in May.

The sheriff’s office said the analysis of a laptop revealed a digital trail that showed Borgwardt planned to head to Europe and tried to mislead investigators.

The laptop’s hard drive had been replaced and the browsers had been cleared the day Borgwardt disappeared, the sheriff’s office said. Investigators found passport photos, inquiries about moving money to foreign banks, and communication with a woman from Uzbekistan.

They also discovered that he took out a $375,000 life insurance policy in January, although the policy was for his family and not him, the sheriff said.

Authorities tried every phone number and email address on the laptop in “a blitz fashion,” Podoll said. They eventually reached the Russian-speaking woman, who connected them with Borgwardt. It’s unclear whether she is the woman in Uzbekistan.

Podoll said he wasn’t sure how Borgwardt was supporting himself but speculated he has a job: “He’s a smart guy.”

—Associated Press writer Scott Bauer in Madison contributed to this report.

GREEN LAKE, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man who faked his own drowning this summer so he could abandon his wife and three children has been communicating with authorities daily from Eastern Europe, even telling them how he did it, but has not committed to returning home, a sheriff said Thursday.

Ryan Borgwardt has been talking with authorities since Nov. 11, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said at a news conference. The sheriff showed a video that Borgwardt sent the sheriff’s office that day. His investigators don’t know exactly where he is, Podoll said, but it was somewhere in Eastern Europe.

Borgwardt, wearing an orange T-shirt and not smiling, looked directly into the camera in the video, which appears to have been taken on his phone. Borgwardt said he was in his apartment and briefly panned the camera to show the inside, but mostly showed just a door and bare walls.

“I’m safe and secure, no problem,” Borgwardt said. “I hope this works.”

Borgwardt has supplied authorities with details about how he faked his death and fled, Podoll said. He traveled about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from his home in Watertown to Green Lake, where he overturned his kayak, dumped his phone in the lake and then paddled an inflatable boat to shore. He told authorities he picked that lake because it’s the deepest in Wisconsin at 237 feet (over 72 meters).

After leaving the lake, he rode an electric bike about 70 miles (110 kilometers) through the night to Madison, the sheriff said. From there, he took a bus to Detroit, then boarded a bus to Canada and got on a plane there, the sheriff said.

Police were still verifying Borgwardt’s description of what happened, Podoll said.

“The great news is we know that he is alive and well,” Podoll said. “The bad news is we don’t know where Ryan exactly is, and he has not yet decided to return home.”

Podoll suggested Borgwardt could be charged with obstructing the investigation into his disappearance, but so far no counts have been filed. The sheriff said authorities “keep pulling at his heartstrings” to return home.

“Christmas is coming,” Podoll said. “And what better gift could your kids get than to be there for Christmas?”

But whether Podoll returns, the sheriff said, is “on his own free will.”

Borgwardt’s disappearance was first investigated as a possible drowning after he went kayaking on Green Lake, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Milwaukee. But subsequent clues — including that he obtained a new passport three months before he disappeared — led investigators to speculate that he faked his death to meet up with a woman he had been communicating with in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia.

The sheriff declined to comment when asked what he knew about the woman, but he said police contacted Borgwardt “through a female that spoke Russian.”

Prior to the sheriff’s office speaking with Borgwardt last week, he had not been heard from in three months. On the night of Aug. 11, Borgwardt texted his wife in Watertown shortly before 11 p.m., saying he was headed to shore after kayaking.

Deputies located his vehicle and trailer near the lake. They also found his overturned kayak with a life jacket attached to it in an area where the lake’s waters run more than 200 feet (60 meters) deep. An angler later discovered Borgwardt’s fishing rod.

Investigators initially speculated that Borgwardt’s kayak capsized and he didn’t have a life jacket. The search for his body went on for more than 50 days, with divers on several occasions exploring the lake.

In early October, the sheriff’s department learned that Canadian law enforcement authorities had run Borgwardt’s name through their databases the day after he was reported missing. Further investigation revealed that he had reported his passport lost or stolen and had obtained a new one in May.

The sheriff’s office said the analysis of a laptop revealed a digital trail that showed Borgwardt planned to head to Europe and tried to mislead investigators.

The laptop’s hard drive had been replaced and the browsers had been cleared the day Borgwardt disappeared, the sheriff’s office said. Investigators found passport photos, inquiries about moving money to foreign banks, and communication with a woman from Uzbekistan.

They also discovered that he took out a $375,000 life insurance policy in January, although the policy was for his family and not him, the sheriff said.

Authorities tried every phone number and email address on the laptop in “a blitz fashion,” Podoll said. They eventually reached a Russian-speaking woman who connected them with Borgwardt. It’s unclear whether she is the woman in Uzbekistan.

Podoll said he wasn’t sure how he was supporting himself but speculated he has a job: “He’s a smart guy.”

Is Wisconsin — or the country — really as divided as the maps make it look?

On the spreadsheet of unofficial election totals posted by each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties following the election Nov. 5, a handful showed a clear majority for the Democratic presidential ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Many more counties were won by the winning Republican ticket of former President Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance. Trump garnered enough votes to carry Wisconsin and enough states to return to the Oval Office in January.

A lot of those Trump-voting counties were rural ones, contributing to longstanding stereotypes about a monolithic body politic of deep blue cities and a bright red countryside.

But months before Election Day, on a mild August evening in a quaint round barn north of Spring Green, the writer Sarah Smarsh cautioned against oversimplifying the politics of rural voters — and against turning a blind eye to a part of the country that, she said, has too often been written off.

“I grew up on a fifth-generation wheat farm in south central Kansas,” Smarsh said that evening. It’s a place of “tall grass prairie, which happens to be the most endangered ecosystem … and simultaneously the least discussed or cared about or protected. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that that’s the ecosystem of the place and people that I also happen to believe have not been given fair attention and due consideration.”

Smarsh made her mark with the book “Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth.” As a journalist and author she has straddled the community of her upbringing and the urbane, academic world that she entered when she became the first in her family to pursue higher education.

The child of a carpenter and a teen mom, Smarsh has explored the socioeconomic divide in the U.S., mapping it to the destruction of the working class, the demise of family farms and the dismantling of public services from health care to public schools. 

“I write about socioeconomic class and I write about rural issues, but that’s because I grew up in working poverty, and that’s because I grew up on a farm,” Smarsh said. And while those identities “are enormously consequential,” she added, she seeks to break down the assumptions that people carry about them. Her message: “You don’t know who my family is, and especially if what we assume is that they’re white trash, worthless.”

It’s a story that gives new context to the election results from 2016 on, and takes on new importance after the election of 2024. The residents of those places dismissed as “flyover country,” Smarsh said back in August, have many of the same concerns of urban and suburban voters, including reproductive rights, public schools, gun violence and other subjects. And understanding them in their diversity and complexity casts politics, especially national politics, in a more diffuse and complicated light.

Where ‘people don’t care about political affiliations’

Concern about climate change and a desire to live more sustainably led Tamara Dean and her partner to move to western Wisconsin’s Vernon County in the early 2000’s, where they built a homestead, grew their own food and became part of the local agricultural community.

Climate change followed them. In their county, extreme weather events became almost the norm, with a 500-year flood “happening every few years or every year,” Dean said in an interview.

“A rural community really coalesces when extreme situations happen and they help each other out,” Dean said. “And when we were cleaning up after a flood, helping our neighbors salvage their possessions or even getting people to safety, no one’s going to ask who you voted for, and people don’t care about political affiliations.”

Dean has written a collection of essays on the couple’s time in the Driftless region of Wisconsin, “Shelter and Storm,” to be published in April 2025 by the University of Minnesota Press.

Distrust of the federal government

Residents, she found, had something of an ambivalent relationship with the federal government. 

For all the complexity of agricultural economics, the U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that provide financial farm support were familiar and well-understood by longtime farmers and easily accessible to them, she said. But when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) promised recovery assistance for flooding in 2018, “it just took forever to come, and it took a lot of bureaucracy to try to get it,” Dean said. For individual applicants, “getting any kind of assistance might be so daunting that they just wouldn’t think it’s worth it.”

For Dale Schultz, a former Republican state senator who has been thinking at length about politics and government in recent years, the election outcome has prompted contemplation.

Schultz left the Legislature a decade ago after splitting with Republican then-Gov. Scott Walker over legislation stripping public employees’ union rights and weakening Wisconsin’s mining laws.

Since then he has campaigned for redistricting reform and supported the overturning of Wisconsin Republicans’  gerrymandered legislative maps. iIn October he went public as a Republican supporting the Harris campaign for president.

In his part of the state, he saw a distinct contrast between the Democratic campaign and the Republican one.

“I saw an extremely good Democratic effort to talk to people face-to-face,” Schultz said in an interview. The GOP campaign along with allied outside groups such as American for Prosperity, however, appeared to him to focus almost entirely on mailings, phone calls and media.

“It became clear to me that politics is changing from the time I spent in office, being less people powered and more media powered,” Schultz said.

Ignored by both parties

Schultz said he’s observed a level of anger among some of his one-time constituents that has alarmed and surprised him, a product, he suggests, of having been ignored by both parties.

One target has been regulation, to the point where “they’ve lost track of why regulations are important and why they should support them,” he said. Yet he sees the direct answer to that question where he lives in Southwest Wisconsin.

“In the last 20 years there has been a renaissance in trout fishing, like I could not even have imagined 20 years ago,” Shultz said. He credits the Department of Natural Resources and its personnel for working with local communities to ensure conditions that would turn trout streams into suitable habitat to support a burgeoning population of fish. “That doesn’t happen without water quality and water quality regulations, and land use and land use regulations.”

Schultz has been  spending time in conversation with friends “who are like-minded and similarly curious,” he said. “And then you just watch and wait and see what happens, and try to voice concerns that are real and that need to be dealt with, and [that] we’re not going to be able to hide from as a country.”

He hopes for the return of a time when people like him,  who consider themselves “just to the right of center,” can again “talk to everyone and possibly craft a solution.”

Back in August, Sarah Smarsh offered a gentle warning about the coming election to her audience in the round barn north of Spring Green.

“Whatever happens in November, everybody else is still here — the other side is still here,” Smarsh said. “And so there’s going to be some caring to do, and that’s probably going to be for generations, because we didn’t arrive at this moment overnight.”