‘Do I go to Uzbekistan or stay here?’: TikToker seems to talk to Ryan Borgwardt, the Wisconsin dad accused of faking his own death to meet a woman in Uzbekistan

TikToker Pull Over for Advice has posted a portion of her conversation with a man she says could be Ryan Borgwardt, a married Wisconsin dad accused of faking his death last summer, possibly to run off to Uzbekistan to be with a woman he met online. The man looks like Borgwardt, but Wisconsin police now say it’s not him.

TikToker Baylee Boomhower is reportedly behind the Pull Over for Advice TikTok channel, and the clip she posted was from June at Pacific Beach in San Diego, California. Borgwardt told his wife in August he was kayaking at Green Lake near Milwaukee, but he never returned and was reported missing. Authorities searched the lake for months. Borgwardt’s body was never found, but his overturned kayak and other personal belongings were recovered in the Green Lake area.

Based on forensic evidence from Borgwardt’s laptop, investigators now think Borgwardt may have staged his drowning to leave the country for Uzbekistan to be with a woman. He perhaps left through Canada, where Borgwardt’s name had been checked by law enforcement after he was reported missing.

“Do I got to Uzbekistan or stay here?”

In the clip, Boomhower sits alongside a palm tree-lined bike path, holding a sign that says, “Ask me for free advice.” She speaks to a man sitting on a bike who looks like Borgwardt, who asks her, “Do I go to Uzbekistan or stay here?” The man then explains he’s married with kids but wants to go to the Eastern European country “to meet a woman.” He adds, “I want to find a companion I’m content with.”

“You don’t like American women?” Boomhower asks. The man shrugs and responds they’re “familiar.” The TikToker seems understandably confused by the scenario and tries to clarify what the man means. She asks the man whether or not he should get divorced. Or would he instead leave for Uzbekistan without divorcing his wife first?

The man seems to suggest he and the Uzbekistani woman had talked over what to do next, but he otherwise seemed indecisive. When pressed whether he would get a divorce, he responds, “Possibly.”

The TikTok post raises many questions. If it is Borgwardt in the footage, why was he in San Diego in June and either unaware the woman was filming for TikTok or indifferent that the footage might blow his cover? One inconsistency is that Borgwardt still has school-age children, but the man in the video says his kids are grown.

Boomhower told Wisconsin news outlet WBAY she learned that Borgwardt is accused of staging his drowning to flee to Eastern Europe the same day everyone else did, and the fact the men look so much alike and that the man she spoke with mentioned Uzbekistan only two months before Borgwardt disappeared was too much to ignore.

“I had never even heard of that place before, so it was just a very, like, odd parallel that the man that’s missing is also connected to Uzbekistan,” she said.

But referring to the video, Green Lake County Chief Deputy Sheriff Matthew Vande Kolk said, “We’re not actively pursuing this as a lead in this case, but we have seen the video, and we have contact info for the people involved,” according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We do not believe it is Ryan,” Vande Kolk added. But that conclusion is just as strange: Given the man’s strong resemblance to Borgwardt, how many married men could be considering leaving their families for a woman they met in Uzbekistan?