GREEN LAKE, Wis. – Beseeched by his family and authorities to come home, a Watertown man who faked his own drowning in Green Lake has returned. Ryan Borgwardt, 45, had been in eastern Europe 4-1/2 months, in the country of Georgia. Now back in the States he was charged with a misdemeanor – obstructing police — as a legal half-step pending further charges. In Borgwardt’s first court appearance the judge released him without bail and told him to report back to court in a couple days — after authorities have figured out what charges are in order. Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll says $40,000 was spent searching for Bordwardt. The lake search lasted 54 days and included underwater drones, towable submersible sonar, divers and three K-9 cadaver teams.

Disappearance scheme

Borgwardt. In orange jail jumpsuit being ushered into his first court appearance. His parents were in the courtroom. His wife and three children were not.

A probable cause document filed with the Green County court confirmed much of what has been reported already about Borgwardt’s disappearance. Still, much isn’t about why he did it. The court document alleges that he paddled an inflatable child’s play raft to shore after staging his disappearance, then bicycled 70 miles at night to Madison. From there he took a Greyhound bus to Toronto in Canada. He then flew to Paris and made his way to Georgia – a 9,100-mile trip. The first tip in Green Lake that Borgwardt was on the run was a belated report that his passport had been checked at a Canadian port-of-entry en route to Toronto. He was waved through because he said he was catching a flight to Europe. Eventually the authorities in Green Lake traced information on his whereabouts from a laptop Borgwardt thought he had scrubbed. He was online in Georgia checking on news back in the States. Sheriff Podoll telephoned the address in Georgia. A woman answered and passed the phone to Borgwardt. The sheriff said family and friends wanted him back. He agreed to return. He was intercepted by U.S. authorities changing planes in Paris on Tuesday and taken into custody without resistance when he landed on U.S. soil.

First Green Lake court hearing

In court Wednesday in Green Lake. Borgwardt sat alone at the defense table. He told the judge did not have enough money to pay an attorney. He said he had only $20 in his wallet. “I will defend myself,” he said. Judge Mark Slate entered a plea of not guilty on Borgwardt’s behalf and set bail at $500 but said it wouldn’t be collected unless Borgwardt skipped out. The judge ordered Borgwardt’s passport confiscated. Sheriff Podoll said Borgwardt has been cooperating with investigators.

Earlier: Missing man not drowned but absconded abroad

WINONA Minn. – A storm system from the southwest is forecast to collide with the arctic air mass that has settled into the region. Expect dangerously freezing temperatures and dreadful chill factors on Thursday. Freezing rain and snow will follow with temperatures below zero and chill factors in the minus-20s. It’ll worsen Friday and Saturday. Meteorologists explained that a complicated layer of warm air one to two miles high will thaw precipitation its way down. Before reaching ground, much of the precipitation will have frozen but not all – a mix of snow, ice and rain. Expect a cold and slick Saturday.

WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 39 emergency medical calls plus 18 fire calls in recent days:

> Tuesday, December 10: 9 medical calls plus 3 fire call.

> Monday, December 9: 4 medical calls plus 5 fire call.

> Sunday, December 8: 6 medical calls plus 1 fire call.

> Saturday, November 7: 7 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.

> Friday, December 6: 5 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.

> Thursday, December 5: 3 medical calls plus 2 fire call.

> Wednesday, December 4: 5 medical calls plus 3 fire call.

Earlier: Emergency, fire crews make 41 calls

Basketball (women): Saint. Benedict 68, Saint Mary’s 62

WINONA, Minn. – A bicyclist suffered minor injuries when stuck by a car on Mankato Avenue at Belleview Street. The bicyclist, age 20, was taken a few blocks to the hospital with leg cuts. This was about 8:30 p.m. Police said the automobile driver, Misty Rose Marie Peterson, 39, of Winona, stopped to check on the bicyclist. Saying she had a deliver to make, she promised to return and drove off. When she came back, officers said, Peterson appeared under the influence of a controlled substance. A blood sample was sent to the state crime for testing.

Mayor on boxcar stage. Mayor Scott Sherman extends greetings to a hearty Winona crowd of all ages at annual the Holiday Train’s annual pass through town. Image: Andy Frank

Earlier: Tooting its way up the Mississippi

WALKER, Minn — Deputies recovered the body of an 18-year-old four-wheeler who broke through ice on Blackwater Lake. Dead was Blake Herman, from 50 miles south in Brainerd. A second man on the vehicle was pulled from the water and was flown 115 miles to a hospital in St. Cloud. He was expected to recover. The accident was about 1 p.m. Tuesday.

Herman. Search continued inti evening, Body found next day.

Every slip vacant. Before the water freezes over at Dick’s Marina on Latsch Island. Small boats all have been towed home to avoid the crushing grip of the sure-to-come ice. Larger vessels are high and dry, stacked on the levee at the far end. Image: Steve Lunde

Winona East Side. Fire caused moderate damage, mostly from smoke, to a single-family home in the 350 block of Zumbro Street. Firefighters located the family dog inside, dead of asphyxiation. No one else was home. Fire fighters had been called about 2:30 p.m. Image: Winona Fire Department

STPAUL, Minn. – In yet another setback for the Daley farm family at Lewiston, the Minnesota Court of Appeals said no to expanding the Daley herd. The issue was whether a Winona judge had erred in upholding the county’s cap on herd size. In the new decision, Appellate Judge Randall Slieter called the Winona court decision “reasonable and neither arbitrary nor capricious.” For eight years the Daleys have fought for an exception from the county’s 1,500 animal unit cap for feedlots, which were intended to protect underground water supplies from pollution. The Daleys want to expand to 6,000 animal units. Backed financially by large-scale dairy organizations, the Daleys have persisted through multiple legal appeals to have their way – and been rebuffed consistently. In the latest appeal, the Daleys claimed that the Winona Board was influenced unfairly by an advisory zoning commission that was stacked against them. Judge Slieter would have none of it. He noted that the Winona County Board had questioned every member of the zoning commission about their affiliations and tat all the members indicated that their vote on the variance application was based solely on information that was on record.

Earlier: State regulators slow Daley dairy expansion plan

Earlier: Large farm groups join Daley expansion fight

Feedlot max profile

Winona County adopted its animal cap in 1998 to balance the interests of farmers with the risks that industrial-scale agricultural practices pose to groundwater. The concern was nitrate contamination in Winona County’s porous underground geology. High nitrate levels are associated with blue baby syndrome , accelerated heart rates, nausea, stomach cramps and headaches. The usually acceptable max for nitrates iin drinking waters is 10 parts per million. The state Agriculture Department says nitrates in 10 townships in central and western Winona County and eastern Olmsted County exceed safe levels 10% to 55%. Nobody around Lewiston, for example, has drunk well water in years.

WABASHA, Minn. – A Wabasha mother has gone to federal court with her allegations of lax school discipline against  bullying and harassment. The case was originally in Wabasha County Court. The claim is that the Wabasha-Kellogg School District maintained a culture of meanness. According to the lawsuit, the bullying was so intense that the mother’s teen-age son, 14 at the time, considered suicide. The mother eventually withdrew the boy from school and sued. Although everybody in town knows those involved, news media have decided against reporting the names for the time being. The 26-page civil complaint alleges that the boy was sexually harassed and bullied for years. This culminated when lewd photos were passed around school. The boy was even physically harmed, according to the suit. The mother says the district failed to address the ongoing bullying sufficiently even though it was an explicit violation of the district’s anti-bullying prohibition and Title IX sexual nondiscrimination policies.

Earlier: Anger on school bullying consumes Wabasha

ALTOONA, Pa.  – Police arrested a man in a McDonald’s restaurant in the assassination of Minnesota health insurance executive Brian Thompson six day earlier  in New York. Arrested was Luigi Mangione, 26, who has family roots in Maryland. An alert employee at the McDonald’s called Altoona police that a customer seemed shifty. Mangione was arrested without resistance. With him in a sack, police said, were:

> An untraceable home-made handgun and silencer like was used to kill Thompson.

> A fake New Jersey driving card that had been used to check into a Manhattan hostel several days before the shooting.

> A three-page manifesto against corporate greed.

If Mangione is the right person, he would have fled the scene quickly to an urban transportation hub several miles up the Hudson River near the George Washington bridge and probably caught a bus. Altoona is 270 miles from New York.

Mangione profile

Luigi Mangione is one of 37 grandchildren of the late Nick Mangione Sr., a millionaire real estate developer in Baltimore. Members of the Mangione family own the Turf Valley Resort and Hayfields Country Club in Maryland. A cousins is Republican state legislator Nino Mangione. Over the years the Mangione family has donated more than $1 million to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center. Their properties include a nursing home.

Schooling. Mangione was graduated in 2016 from the private Gilman boys school in Baltimore, whose tuition is $40,000 a year. With the highest grades in his class, he was valedictorian. At the University of Pennsylvania he focused on computer science and mathematics. He belonged to the Eta Kappa Nu honor society for students in electrical and computer engineering students the top quarter of the junior class and top third of the senior class. He graduated with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering in 2020.

Employment. With his technical skills, employment was never a problem. He was chief mentor in the Stanford University pre-college studies program 2019. Among other jobs was a stint at TrueCar, a Santa Monica, California, firm that runs an online marketplace for cars. He left in 2022 and moved to Honolulu. He joined a co-living community for “digital nomads” on the 40th floor of the Surfbreak high-rise. Space ran $2,000 month for shared quarters. From there Mangione had remote customers. He left in 2024.

Spinal issue. Mangione had a major spinal problem, the origins of which are unclear: Congenital? A recent accident? An accident long ago? He underwent surgery apparently in Honolulu. He told a colleague at Surfbreak that he was working to get as healthy as possible in advance of a major operation. His lower vertebrae were misaligned almost a half-inch, which he said  pinched a nerve and caused excruciating pain off and on. He showed a friend an x-ray with four large bolts into his spine.

Lifestyle. Mangione had been athletic. He wrestled in high school. He played pickup soccer at Stanford and hiked in the hills around Santa Monica. He surfed in Honolulu until he gave up because of pain. His reading included “Back Mechanic: The Secrets to a Healthy Spine Your Doctor Isn’t Telling You” by pain expert Stuart McGill. He also read up on healthy eating. During this period Mangione switched out his mattress. He confided to a friend that he wasn’t dating because the pain precluded intimacy. He also had given up connections from school and college. One friend who had asked Mangoine to be in his wedding said that he agreed but then went silent. Mangione family members jn Maryland said that no one had bear from him since his surgery.

Earlier: New threats on insurance exec’s homes: Hoaxes

Earlier: Police gather clues in UnitedHealth slaying

Earlier: Minnesota insurance exec assassinated

WINONA, Minn. – Among residential property sales outside Winona logged by Bob Bambenek, county recorder, in November:

Dakota: 45584 Co. Rd 101, Dakota: Flynn to Wiese, $304,200.

Dakota: 1420 River Street, Gfriss ti Bonewitz, $320,000.

Rollingstone: 19906 Highway 248, Schotzko Trust to McBurns Properties, $450,000.

St. Charles: 1519 Whispering Hills Drive, Apse to Henslin, $490,000.

St. Charles: 1943 Brownell Street, Sandel to Neuenkirk. $325,000.

Utica: 16849 County Road 6: Bain to Mast, $357,000.

Earlier: Winona County home sales in October 2024

WINONA, Minn. – Among commercial property sales in Winona County exceeding $1 million, as logged by Bob Bambenek, county recorder, in November:

Winona: 27058 County Road 12, ARC WEMPSMN001,to Midwest Motor Express, $2.5 million.

Earlier: Winona County commercial property sales in October 2024

Thin ice held. The first Mississippi River ice of the season was mostly melted with a 50-degree afternoon. But in a still-water inlet off Winona’s fleeting harbor, a handful of fearless anglers pulled their sleds of gear out  on the ice and enjoyed the sunshine while dangling for dinner. Image: Steve Lunde

DARLINGTON, Wis. – Two adults and four children were thrown from a horse-drawn buggy when it was rear-ended by a car. Injuries were minor and treated 20 miles away at the Platteville hospital. The horses were not hurt. The accident was before dawn, about 5:55 a.m., on State Highway 81 west of Darlington near Burke Road. Lafayette County deputies said that the car, a Kia, was driven by a 26-year-old Illinois man who was eastbound toward Darlington. He was unhurt. The car required towing.

WINONA, Minn. – A Winna man admitted to a couple drinks and said he probably shouldn’t be driving. This according to a police officer, who agreed. Joshua David Hammond 37, was taken to jail. Hammond declined to be tested for his blood-alochol kvel, which meant a double charge of drunken driving and test refusal. He had been stopped about 2:45 a.m. at Garvin Heights Road and East Lake Boulevard for a broken taillight. The arresting officer justified the arrest: Hammond had blood-shot and watery eyes and slurred speech. He was on video showing poor balance and dexterity.

Hammond. His night ended badly due to broken taillight.