The sun was getting ready to rise over a rural lake in Green Lake County, Wisconsin, when a sheriff's deputy shined his flashlight inside Ryan Borgwardt's minivan parked just yards away from the water's edge.

There was no one inside the car.

As the deputy took out his binoculars and gazed over the pier to see if he could spot anyone in the distance that morning in August 2024, he almost certainly could not have imagined that not only would Borgwardt not be found stuck in the lake, but would end up being traced across the world to the country of Georgia.

"I guess everything kind of hinged on me dying in the lake," Borgwardt told investigators in a December 2024 interview obtained by ABC News this week.

A husband and father of three, Borgwardt gained national attention last year after di

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