Friends, documents indicate teens met in girl's home, exchanged intimate photos, notes
By Cindy Stauffer And Janet Kelley
Updated Feb 20, 2007 12:12
The 18-year-old told friends he was sneaking into his 14-year-old girlfriend’s house in the middle of the night to see her.
Another of Ludwig’s friends told police the couple had a secret sexual relationship and exchanged “inappropriate images of one another” via their cell phones and computers.
Ludwig is in Lancaster County Prison today, after being formally charged Wednesday with murdering Borden’s parents and kidnapping his girlfriend Sunday morning.
Borden was reunited with family members Wednesday and is expected to talk to local investigators today about the killings.
Police caught the pair Tuesday in Indiana. Ludwig surrendered to police after leading them in a high-speed chase and crashing his car.
A more detailed picture of the couple’s relationship and of Ludwig is emerging through court documents and an interview with a friend who knows the couple.
In the past weeks, Ludwig’s and Borden’s friends and families became concerned about the intense relationship between the couple, said Zach Horvath, 16, of Denver.
“I knew he was sneaking into her house in the middle of the night,” Horvath said, adding that two of Ludwig’s friends told him about it. “People were getting pretty upset about it.”
“They were scared about the welfare of their friends,” Horvath said.
“People were telling (Borden) that (Ludwig) could get into trouble,” Horvath said, due to the fact that Ludwig was 18 and Borden was 14. “David was slipping in the last couple of months, drawing back from everyone and putting on a facade. ... Nobody really knew the real David anymore.”
In fact, on Friday night, Ludwig, Borden and a group of friends met to go to a school play and Ludwig said something that concerned friends, Horvath heard.
“He had been making comments, ‘Oh, I could kill someone and get away with it, disappear and nobody would find me,’ ” he said.
The couple maintained Web sites filled with personal writings and pictures, which also suggested the two were involved in a relationship that Borden wanted to keep secret from her parents.
Her parents allegedly confronted Ludwig about that relationship Sunday morning, after discovering that Borden had been gone all night with her boyfriend. The shootings followed that conversation.
Investigators also are analyzing two laptop computers, a Palm Pilot and a desktop computer confiscated from Ludwig’s and Borden’s homes, to see what instant messages or e-mails the couple exchanged.
Warwick Township police Detective Eric Zimmerman and Lititz Borough police Detective John Schofield interviewed one of Ludwig’s friends, Samuel Peter Lohr, 19, of Lititz, Monday night about the couple.
“Lohr stated that through his relationship with Ludwig, he was well aware that Ludwig and Kara Borden were involved in an ongoing secret intimate relationship of a sexual nature,” a detective wrote in court documents.
“They often communicated flirtatious messages and exchanged inappropriate images of one another via various electronic media.”
Until the recent troubling events, Horvath said, Ludwig was a good friend and a caring person.
In his final year of home schooling, Ludwig had a circle of other home-schooled friends who enjoyed doing things together and gathering at each other’s homes. He was outdoorsy, and enjoyed rock climbing, snowboarding and hunting.
Ludwig cares about his friends and has a strong faith, Horvath said.
“He was a good kid,” he said. “He was. And he was a fun kid. People are making him out to be some psychopath kid but he really was not.”
The two teenagers were flown back separately to Lancaster County on Tuesday afternoon.
Ludwig, of 422-A W. Orange St., Lititz, was arraigned in a courtroom packed with members of the media, and then committed to Lancaster County Prison.
Borden arrived at the Lancaster Airport around 3 p.m. and then reunited with her family, including her sister, her younger brother, and two adult brothers, Justin and James, who are in their 20s.
Accompanied by an FBI special agent and two detectives, Borden was escorted from the airport in a convoy of three police vehicles.
“Kara’s upset and crying,” said Warwick Township police Chief Richard F. Garipoli Jr. “She is a 14-year-old-child, and I think some have forgotten that.”
“Kara is being treated as a victim as far as I’m concerned,” Garipoli said. “She is being taken care of well.”
Ludwig is charged with kidnapping Borden, but investigators still want to talk to her about her knowledge and involvement, if any, in Sunday’s events.
“It’s an ongoing investigation,’’ District Attorney Donald Totaro said today, “we still have a lot of witnesses to interview.’’
Totaro added that he met with members of the Borden family earlier this week.
“It’s very difficult to try and explain the legal process to them when they are still in a state of shock,” Totaro said.
Totaro, who will prosecute the case himself, added that he still had not determined whether to seek the death penalty.
Police were called to the Borden home at 15 Royal Drive, in the Owl Hill Perch development, southeast of Lititz borough in Warwick Township, around 8 a.m. Sunday.
Borden’s 11-year-old brother, David, reportedly ran out the front of the house, past his father’s body, and to a neighbor’s home, telling them to call 911.
When police arrived, Borden’s 15-year-old sister, Katelyn, was running out of a back door to another neighbor’s home.
Inside the house, police found the bodies of Michael F. and Cathryn Lee Borden, both 50. Both had been shot in the head.
The Bordens reportedly confronted their younger daughter after she returned home at 6 a.m. after being out all night. They called Ludwig to the home around 7 a.m. for a discussion.
On Monday, the teens were found in Indiana.
It was the Indiana State Police who captured Ludwig after troopers spotted the red 1998 Volkswagen Jetta he was driving.
After a brief, high-speed chase, just west of Indianapolis, Ludwig crashed into a tree.
The teenagers were not hurt. Borden jumped out of the car, crying frantically, police said, while Ludwig resisted slightly before he was handcuffed by troopers.
After his arrest and during the ride home, Ludwig was quiet, said Indiana State Police Sgt. Richard Cool, who piloted the plane with Sgt. Eric Streeval.
“The prisoner was handcuffed, shackled and seat-belted between two officers,” Cool said. “I didn’t hear him say a word.”
Accompanied by deputy sheriffs, Ludwig shuffled into the courtroom wearing black flip-flips and prison-issued pants and shirt with orange and white horizontal stripes. His legs and wrists were shackled with chains.
The young man looked around the crowded courtroom, as if he were searching for a familiar face, but saw only members of the news media.
Warwick Township Police Detective Lt. Ed Tobin, the lead investigator, and Michael Landis, chief of the county detectives, also accompanied Ludwig into the courtroom.
Tobin charged Ludwig on Monday with two counts of homicide, and one count each of kidnapping and recklessly endangering another person.
During the brief court proceeding, Totaro read the charges, noting that the punishment for the crimes Ludwig faces could be death or a life term in prison.
Quietly, calmly and respectfully, Ludwig answered questions put to him by Magisterial District Judge Daniel B. Garrett.
Ludwig stated his name, phone number and address and told Garrett he has lived in Lititz for seven years and worked at Circuit City for five months.
Asked if he has a criminal record or is addicted to drugs or alcohol, Ludwig responded, “No, sir” to both.
Garrett gave Ludwig a packet of information, explaining his right to an attorney and how to go about getting legal counsel.
The arraignment was moved from Garrett’s Lititz office to the Lancaster County Courthouse to accommodate the hoard of media.
Outside the courthouse, a news helicopter circled the downtown area while photographers paced outside and television mobile units set up lights and satellite dishes.
Following the four-minute hearing, Ludwig was taken to the nearby Lancaster City police station to be photographed and fingerprinted, then sent to Lancaster County Prison where he will remain without bail pending a hearing.
In Lancaster County, bail is not usually set for persons charged with criminal homicide. Garrett set a tentative preliminary hearing date for Nov. 23, but that most likely will be changed.
Ludwig was flown back to Lancaster County on Tuesday after agreeing to waive extradition.
When the airplane touched down at 3:45 p.m., he and several police officers were met by a van from the county sheriff’s department. Ludwig was put in the van and taken to the courthouse.
