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Ryan Borgwardt of Wisconsin has been talking to authorities since Nov. 11 after being missing for three months, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll said at a news conference.
The sheriff later showed the video Borgwardt had sent to the sheriff’s office that day.
“The great news is we know he’s alive and well,” Podoll said.
“The bad news is we don’t know exactly where Ryan is and he hasn’t decided to come home yet.”
Borgwardt, who was wearing an orange T-shirt and was not smiling, looked directly into the camera in the video, which appeared to have been shot on his phone.
Borgwardt said he was in his apartment and turned the camera around briefly, but it mostly just showed the door and bare walls.
“I’m safe and protected, no problem,” Borgwardt said.
Borgwardt told authorities he fled because of “personal matters,” the sheriff said.
Podoll did not provide details.
“He was just going to try to make things better in his mind, and that’s how it was,” Podoll said.
Borgwardt told authorities he traveled about 50 miles from his Watertown home to Green Lake, where he capsized his kayak, threw the phone into the lake and then rowed the inflatable boat to shore.
He told authorities he chose the lake because it is the deepest in Wisconsin at over 72 feet.
After leaving the lake, he rode an electric bicycle about 110 km through the night to Madison, the sheriff said.
From there, he took a bus to Detroit, then boarded a bus to Canada and boarded a plane there, the sheriff said.
Police are still verifying Borgwardt’s account of what happened, Podoll said.
The sheriff suggested that Borgwardt could be charged with obstructing the investigation into his disappearance, but so far no charges 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 ($53,768).
Podoll said Borgwardt told authorities he didn’t expect the search to last more than two weeks.
Whether Borgwardt returns will depend on his “free will,” Podoll said.
Borgwardt’s biggest concern about returning is how the community will react, the sheriff said.
“He thought his plan would work, but it didn’t go as planned,” the sheriff said.
“And so now we’re trying to give him a different plan to come back.”
The sheriff said authorities “continue to tug at his heartstrings” to return home.
“Christmas is coming,” Podoll said.
“And what better gift could your children 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 northwest of Milwaukee, in August.
But subsequent clues – including that he had received a new passport three months before he disappeared – led investigators to speculate that he had faked his death to meet 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 said police contacted Borgwardt “through a woman who spoke Russian.”
Before the sheriff’s office spoke to Borgwardt last week, he had not heard from him since the night of Aug. 11 when he texted his wife in Watertown shortly before 11 p.m., saying he was headed toward the coast after a kayaking trip.
Deputies found his vehicle and trailer near the lake.
They also found his overturned kayak with a life jacket attached in an area where the lake’s water runs deeper than 60 meters.
The search for his body lasted more than 50 days, and divers explored the lake on several occasions.
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 a lost or stolen passport and had obtained a new one in May.
The sheriff’s office said an analysis of the laptop turned up a digital trail that showed Borgwardt planned to head to Europe and tried to mislead investigators.
The laptop’s hard drive was replaced and browsers were wiped the day Borgwardt went missing, the sheriff’s office said.
Investigators found passport photos, inquiries about transferring money to foreign banks and communications with a woman from Uzbekistan.
They also discovered he had taken out a life insurance policy worth $US375,000 ($576,094) in January, although the policy was for his family and not himself, the sheriff said.
Authorities tried every phone number and email address on the laptop “quickly,” Podoll said.
Eventually they reached a Russian-speaking woman who put them in touch with Borgwardt.
It is not clear if she is a woman in Uzbekistan.
Podoll said he wasn’t sure how Borgwardt supported himself, but guessed he had a job: “He’s a smart guy.”
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