On the afternoon of Sunday, August 11, 2024, a few hours after attending church with his wife and three children, Ryan Borgwardt, a 44-year-old carpenter, left home with his kayak, tackle box, and fishing rod and arrived at Big Green Lake, one of the deepest lakes in Wisconsin. The Perseid meteor shower was expected to peak that night, one of the best times of the year to see shooting stars. Stargazers could glimpse dozens an hour, golden streaks that appeared to fall from the constellation Perseus.

At about 10 p.m., Ryan pushed the kayak into the inky-black water. He glided past the water lilies and cattails and headed toward the lake’s deepest part, near its western end. It was so dark, he could barely see beyond the kayak’s nose. Above him, the night sky sparkled.

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The Day of the Disappearance

A little after 6 o’clock the next morning, Matthew Vande Kolk, chief deputy of the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office, kissed his wife and daughter goodbye and stepped out of his Victorian farmhouse.

Vande Kolk, 47, was second in command of the department. Just back from a week’s vacation, he was hoping for a quiet day to catch up on paperwork. As Vande Kolk pulled onto a two-lane road, he alerted dispatchers that he was signing in for duty. Then he drove the roads he’d traveled since he was a boy, across prairies ripening with sweet corn and soybeans, gently sloping fields that met blue sky at the horizon.

Green Lake County’s 19,000 residents are predominantly white, churchgoing, and Republican, many of them farming, or working at gas stations and grocery stores, restaurants and lakeside resorts. To Vande Kolk and the other deputies, Green Lake was a place where people knew their neighbors, compared tractor sizes, and valued common sense above book smarts.

Although murders were rare in the county, deputies handled traffic crashes, child abuse, burglary, fraud—but at a much lower volume than in big cities. They also handled calls more typical of the rural Midwest: trespassing coyote hunters, missing snowmobilers, pickup trucks that had fallen through ice. Deputies knew many of the people they detained. Arrest Frank for a DUI on Monday, and you might find him ringing you up at the Dollar Store register on Thursday.

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It wasn’t Mayberry, but it was close. Many of the sheriff’s deputies had grown up in the area, the older among them driving tractors and milking cows. All of them knew how to skin a deer. All of them had chased suspects into cornfields, a reliable way to evade arrest in Green Lake.

As Vande Kolk headed to the office, he heard deputies on the radio talking about a kayaker who’d gone missing on Big Green Lake. A woman had called 911 at 5:24 a.m. to report that her husband had not returned home the previous evening. He’d last texted from the lake, where he’d gone to fish and stargaze.

Around 5:45 a.m., deputies had driven to public boat launches, searching for the family’s minivan, a gray Grand Caravan. In a back lot at Dodge Memorial County Park, a deputy spotted a car fitting that description. He tried the handles—all locked. He peered inside with a flashlight, looking for a note, clothes, anything. He saw a water bottle with Dad written on it. He walked around the car, looking for signs of damage or evidence of a struggle. Everything appeared intact.

Vande Kolk pointed his pickup truck toward the lake, known for a color that could shift from deep forest to nearly jade in different lights. Formed by the retreat of ancient glaciers that left a hole seven miles long and two miles wide, Big Green Lake is 236 feet deep at its cold, dark center. Large muskies, prehistoric-looking fish with canine-style teeth, lurk there. Vande Kolk had spent years on the lake trying to catch one. The shore is lined with multimillion-dollar homes, many of them owned by wealthy out-of-towners who swell the county’s population each summer. About once a year, someone drowns. Because of the depth, bodies are hard to find.

From left to right: Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll, Chief Deputy Matthew Vande Kolk, Detective Sergeant Josh Ward, and Detective Jeremiah Hanson, on a dock at Big Green Lake (Caleb Alvarado for The Atlantic)

Two deputies were searching the lake in a 21-foot Boston Whaler. Around 6:30 a.m., they pulled alongside a fisherman who said he’d spotted a kayak floating upside down near the middle of the lake. They sped that way, slowing as they caught sight of a kayak, its back half submerged. They flipped it over to see if anyone was trapped beneath. Nothing. One of the deputies marked the exact coordinates. Then they towed the kayak to shore.

Vande Kolk pulled into a parking lot where Sheriff Mark Podoll had recommended they gather. He stepped out of his truck and walked toward the lake glittering in the morning light, a thousand diamonds flickering back at him.

Detective Sergeant Josh Ward sat in his car near the water and called the kayaker’s wife, Emily Borgwardt. She answered quickly, sounding worried.

Emily told the detective that Ryan had left their home in Watertown, about an hour from Big Green Lake, at around 4:45 p.m. the previous afternoon. He’d driven the family minivan to a friend’s house to pick up wood pellets for his stove. Before setting off, he’d mentioned that he might drop the kayak in the water somewhere on his way home, and attached an enclosed trailer with the kayak. He’d told Emily over the weekend that he wanted to fish on Big Green Lake, which would be roughly on his way.

Emily told the detective she’d texted with Ryan the previous evening. She forwarded screenshots of their exchange.

At 10:12 p.m., Emily had written, “Night. Love you.” About 15 minutes later, she’d texted again, telling him that their older son, 17, was spending the night at a friend’s house.

Five minutes later, Ryan texted back: “I may have snuck out on a lake.”

Emily: “That would have been nice to know...I was beginning to wonder why you weren’t home.”

Ryan apologized, but then added: “Temperature is perfect.”

Emily: “Nothing new. I should be used to it by now. So many nights I have no idea where you are when it’s late.”

Ryan: “The meteor shower is awesome in the dark.”

Emily asked Ryan to turn on his location-sharing in the Life360 app, which he did.

Emily: “Again, no communication. Would have been nice to know.”

Ryan: “I’ll work on this communication thing.”

Emily: “It sucks going to bed not having any idea where you are. Just saying.”

Ryan told Emily he’d forgotten his paddle and was instead using a fishing net.

Emily: “No paddle is dumb.”

Ryan: “I love you...goodnight.”

Emily: “Night. Love you too. Be safe.”

Ryan: “I’ll start heading back to shore soon.”

Emily: “K.”

After her last text, at 10:49 p.m., Emily said she fell asleep. When she woke around 5 a.m., Ryan still wasn’t home.

Emily texted him at 5:12 a.m.: “Where are you?????”

Then, at 5:16 a.m.: “Babe?????”

Ryan Borgwardt’s kayak, photographed by the sheriff’s office the day he was discovered missing (Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office)

To Sergeant Ward, Emily seemed earnest and cooperative. No, Ryan didn’t have any mental-health issues. She definitely didn’t think he was suicidal. He was an experienced kayaker, as well as a decent swimmer.

Ward asked Emily to send him screenshots from the Life360 app, which showed Ryan heading northwest toward the center of the lake and then moving eastward. After that, the app showed him taking a hard 90-degree turn north. At 11:55 p.m., his trail stopped. Ward wondered if Ryan had had an accident trying to paddle with the fishing net.

Deputies had blocked off part of Dodge Memorial County Park and were asking fishermen to keep an eye out. In the lot, they parked the county’s mobile command center, a large RV with computers and air-conditioning, along with a trailer that carried a search drone and had a big outdoor television on one side. Deputies watched live footage from the drone as it flew across the lake.

Chief Deputy Vande Kolk spent much of the day standing on the bow of the Boston Whaler, looking into the water. It was so clear that he could see at least 10 feet down. Unless Ryan had gotten tangled in the weeds near shore, Vande Kolk felt confident that they’d find him.

The Life360 app, and the location of the minivan and the kayak, had provided clues about where to look. But Ryan might have tried to swim to shore and gotten tired along the way. In the dark, disoriented, he could have headed in any direction.

If Ryan had drowned, his lungs would have filled with water, sinking him to the lake bottom. He’d remain there until his decomposing body built up enough gases to float back to the surface. In aquatic-rescue parlance, this is known as “the pop.” The depth and water temperature determine how long it takes for a body to pop to the surface—anywhere from days to weeks.

Below a certain depth, however, pressure prevents gases from building up, and keeps the body from rising. If Ryan had drowned anyplace deeper than about 100 feet, he might remain in Big Green Lake forever, unless divers or sophisticated sonar equipment were deployed to find him.

As Ward updated Emily throughout the day, he could tell she was struggling to get her mind around the idea that her husband was never coming home again, that she’d be raising three children alone. She was fiercely religious and had begun to say things like “Ryan loved the outdoors. If he had to meet God, that’s the place I would have picked for him.”

At sunset, the sheriff’s deputies called off the search for the night. When Emily asked Ward how long they would continue searching, he sensed she was worried that they would stop too soon, leaving her trapped in a sort of purgatory, trying not to hope but still hoping.

They resumed at daybreak. Around 9:30 a.m., a fisherman called to say that he’d hooked a fishing rod while trolling in about