Posted on 11/13/2005 2:15:56 PM PST by grjr21
Pennsylvania State police are searching for a 14-year-old girl reportedly kidnapped at gunpoint after her parents were murdered.
Authorities have issued an Amber Alert for Kara Beth Borden, who was last seen at 8 a.m. in Warwick Township, Lancaster County.
Police reported that the teen was taken by 18-year-old David G. Ludwig. Authorities say he was last seen driving a red Volkswagen Jetta with Pennsylvania registration E-H-H-0-9-9-4.
Borden is described as white, 5-feet-1, and 100 pounds, with brown hair with blond highlights. She was last seen wearing a black sweat shirt with "Pillar" across the front, blue jeans and black sneakers.
Ludwig is a white male with brown hair and brown eyes.
State police are urging people in the following counties or cities to be on the lookout for Ludwig: Lancaster, Lebanon, Dauphin, Perry, Juniata, York, Cumberland, Mifflin, Snyder, Northumberland, Franklin, Berks, Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, Philadelphia, Delaware, Schuykill, Lehigh and Northamption counties.
It was not immediately clear how authorities discovered the killings.
Neighbor John Hohman, 40, said he first noticed an ambulance on the street around 8:15 a.m. About 25 minutes later, he said he got a phone call from Lancaster emergency management officials telling his family to stay inside.
Looking out the window, Hohman said he saw teams of police running through the neighborhood; around 10:15 a.m., authorities told him to go into his basement and wait there until further notice.
"We were really upset; we didn't know what going on," Hohman said.
Hohman said Borden, who played soccer, occasionally babysat for him. "She's a very nice girl," Hohman said.
Neighbor Tod Sherman, 47, has lived in the quiet suburban development for 12 years and said that Borden was one of five children.
The Borden family has lived on the street in a tan, two-story house for several years, he said. Kara's father, Mike Borden, worked for a printing company, said Sherman.
"He was very smart and focused, a nice guy. They were super people," Sherman said. "They were just a fine family."
The Bordens home-schooled their children and knew Ludwig through a home-schooling network, Sherman said.
Sherman's son Tyler, 11, played with Kara's youngest brother, David. Tyler said he sometimes saw Ludwig at the Borden house, frequently dressed in black.
"I didn't find him to be very friendly," said Tyler.
The eldest two Borden children, both male, are in their 20s and no longer live at home, Sherman said. The whereabouts of David Borden and Kara's older sister, both of whom still live at home, were not immediately clear.
The Amber Alert system uses a state's emergency notification system to give broadcasters a description of a missing child and a suspect's vehicle. The information is also displayed on electronic highway signs.
It is named for 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was kidnapped and killed in Arlington, Texas. It is used in 47 states.
Amber Alert: http://www.amber.state.pa.us/amber/site/default.asp
Thanks for the ping, Gondring.
I agree with most of what you say. But I think that God may have some mercy for a 14 year old girl who had no inkling that her boyfriend was going to murder her parents, if that is the case.
Nontheless, this particular girl is going to have to live with the actual consequences of her disobedience, even if she didn't know Ludwig had a gun.
Personally, I would have a hard time forgiving a sister who had, through her (allegedly) flagrant disobedience and bad behavior, put into motion the events which happened here.
If what we've read about her behavior is true, then both the girl and Ludwig had real problems before this crime occurred. I cannot understand how a girl raised in her environment could behave as she did even before the murders took place. Hers was not normal behavior for a teenager, lovesick or not, IMO.
That place where the two had their blogs shocked me. What's worse, my own son mentioned that another kid had told him about the site, and he wanted a blog there. Never! I'm installing Net Nanny or Cybersitter on our computers today.
Am I missing something here? I'm a parent of a set of pre-teens who are nearly 12 years old.
How does a girl who is from her family environment end up behaving as badly as she did even before the murders? Wasn't there a way for her parents to know about what she was doing and stop her? Or is the behavior of teenagers outside the parent's control?
There is something wrong about this story. Ours is a two parent, Christian, homeschooling, large family. I cannot see my kids being able to get away with outrageous behavior like the girl had previous to the murders. If the stories were true, she was running wild.
Now, if my kids just had one parent, that being my husband, they could get away with a lot more. My husband is gullible and would believe whatever the kids say and it wouldn't cross his mind that they would do anything he would consider bad.
I'm different. I anticipate potential bad behavior and put roadblocks in the way to stop it if it should occur. No one gets away with anything on my watch. My kids don't need to think "if my Mom finds out about this...". They know I will, and it won't be pretty when I do.
I think the biggest question in this case is how did something like this happen. Where did the downward spiral start, and how did it get out of control? How did the girl and Ludwig behave as they did without anyone putting a stop to it? Why did they behave as they did in the first place? Certainly they knew it was wrong. Love and hormones just aren't good enough reasons, to my way of thinking.
Why couldn't the adults in the picture put the brakes on what was going on? Is it that they didn't know about it? If so, why didn't they? Did they blindly trust their kids, as my husband would be apt to do if he weren't married to me?
This story has legs because it is so very far from the norm for this type of family environment. Well, I don't think that kids like these just hatch. Am I a wrong?
I think blind trust and naivete on the part of her parents played a huge role. They probably could never imagine their 14 yr old daughter letting her boyfriend sneak into their house at night to sleep with her. Her "friends" all knew.
So much for controlling the peer group by homeschooling and rigorous family participation in faith.
Never assume your kids won't learn about or be tempted to practice sneaky, dangerous behaviors when they get of an age to try out their "independence".
Never let a kid have a computer or TV in their own room.
Always be able to track the activities that occur on the family computer.
Want a good laugh? Come back and read your post in a few years. I'm guessing that once they're teens, you might see it differently. :-)
I well remember the years before we had kids. That didn't stop my husband and I from being experts and having a list of things we would never do or allow.
Having an actual child around sure does change things!
Could we hear and perhaps learn; a bit more from their lives? The 'inside' story seldom shared in media; despite the myriad of other details shared.
In this case; did the boy have 'hobbies' or other interests. . .sports (home-schooled kids participate as well). . .musical interests/talents. . .how much time spent viewing/(participating) in videos w/violent content. . .was happy in 'home school' or wanted to matriculate further or not. . .did he ever take anti-depressant or need to and did not. . .
Were his parents - or hers - 'normal conservative' or religious zealots? (OR. . .shoulde we just surmise that maybe he bumped his head one, too many times and so 'just' became a little frickin sociopath here. . .)WHAT?
Tragedy not only gives hindsight. . .it can offer at least a little 'foresight' and lessons shared for more parents. Perhaps. . .
I mean surely there is more to the 'story' than just two strong-willed, hormonal teenagers. . .maybe? Or just 'not'. . .
Well, does not have to be sneaking in at night.. .there are surely times when parents are not home; so that access; probably not even a challenge. . .whether homeshooled or not.
Seems the kids have caught the my freedom/my rights fever'; so appreciated these days. . . and the disproportionate sense of entitlement that comes with it. Not to mention the lack of appreciation that it engenders for 'boundaries'.
On one of her blogs she lists her birthday as May 1991.
I heard that one of them had served in Iraq, so maybe they were in the military.
I'll guarantee you Audrey Hepburn plucked them to keep them shapely.
But at least she didn't remove them except for an imperceptible line that somehow resembles clown eyebrows.
I'm just a naturalist. I'm not opposed to women making themselves more attractive by a little this and that. But when it gets to the point where they require pounds and pounds of equipment, chemicals, tools, three way viewing mirrors, surgical intervention and so on, I say "plastic fantastic - no thanks".
Inner beauty is the real beauty. And if someone has inner beauty, it illuminates the outer. With no inner beauty, the outward is just like a mask anyway.
Well, since the cops took all those guns out of the parents' house, I can see why they are keeping a low profile.
I hope all those guns and ammo were held legally, or the parents will be in trouble too.
I also hope the cops don't find that any of those guns were used in the commission of a crime by their son or someone else.
Otherwise, the (large) amount of guns taken isn't really germane to this case because only one gun was necessary to kill Kara's parents.
Now I'm wondering, just as an aside, whether Kara killed her mother after Ludwig killed her father. I don't think that's likely, but it is possible.
I'm also thinking that this wasn't pre-planned, because Kara's father called Ludwig back into the house to discuss the events of the night. Ludwig and Kara didn't know that would happen.
I suppose it's also possible that Ludwig and Kara decided to run away together and to shoot anyone who got in their way and that morning was an opportune time to do that.
But pre-planned doesn't mean it wasn't premeditated. It only takes seconds for premeditation to occur, and Ludwig definitely had killing on his mind when he brought a loaded gun into the house.
I wonder how the cops can tell if Kara is lying to them. If she puts on a sweet little girl sad scared victim act, will that fool them?
Conversely, what if Ludwig lies and implicates Kara when she actually didn't do anything wrong (during the course of the murders and afterwards).
Yeah, I know a jury's job is to sort that all out. But it's better if the trial doesn't disintegrate into he says-she says.
If I were a member of Kara's family, I'd be deeply angry at her right now, no matter what, because she brought all this onto the family.
They have the two younger sibling's stories to compare to hers. Who was where when the shooting started.
I suppose they will also test her skin for evidence of fire arms use.
I'm not sure if gunshot residue would still be on her skin after all this time. If it was there, I hope it's still there.
More than likely Ludwig killed the mother, too, with the same gun -- and the bullet tests will prove that.
Ludwig, whether acting alone or in concert with Kara, destroyed a family that morning.
It made me angry when his attorney spouted all that presumed innocent crap. There was a witness to Ludwig killing the father, and presumed innocent only applies in a court of law. The rest of us don't have to presume a darned thing. All it means is that the prosecution has to prove their case to the jury.
Also, why would anyone care if Ludwig is scared and anxious? The attorney is trying to make him into a kid. To me Ludwig is a kid, but that's because I'm middle-aged, not because I think of him a child who made a mistake. In the eyes of the law he's an adult and I'm glad of it. I don't think he should be cut any slack based on his age.
The defense is going to end up pleading insanity or a mitigating mental illness, what do you want to bet?
I think the parents stayed away from the arraignment because they were avoiding the press, knowing all those guns and ammo had been seized from their home.
I do wonder why they didn't get on t.v. to plead with David to turn himself in, or to let Kara go. If they cared so much about the Bordens, it seems to me they would have done that.
Read this: http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/18714
hmmm... sounds like he was a very strange character, to say the least
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