Authorities in Wisconsin believe a kayaker missing since August did not actually vanish while out on a lake, instead faking his own disappearance and fleeing the country.
The discovery came after search teams had probed the deep waters of central Wisconsin’s Green Lake for 54 days in hopes of locating 45-year-old Ryan Borgwardt, said Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll at a news conference Friday that was streamed by CBS News affiliate WFRV-TV.
Borgwardt was initially reported missing Aug. 12, according to the sheriff. Authorities who responded to the report found the man’s car and trailer parked on the bank of the lake, and a capsized kayak that apparently belonged to him in an area where the water was about 220 feet deep.
Keith Cormican, of a nonprofit search-and-rescue organization called Bruce’s Legacy, helped multiple law enforcement agencies over the course of several months to try and find Borgwardt.
Cormican had searched essentially every corner of the western part of Green Lake by early October, and although he told the sheriff he was not prepared to give up, Podoll recalled regrouping with his detectives on Oct. 7 and deciding to take the investigation in “a different direction.”
They learned shortly afterward that Canadian authorities had checked Borgwardt’s name on Aug. 13, according to the sheriff’s office. The investigation so far indicates border officials in Canada checked the name, said Green Lake Chief Deputy Matt Vandekolk.