By Cindy Stauffer
Updated Feb 20, 2007 12:12
That’s the question being asked on several online news magazines and Web logs.
In the sites, which include Court TV’s “Crime Library” and “The John Powers Action Report,” the authors allege that Ludwig sent e-mails to girls that show he talked about his faith to get close to them.
Ludwig, 18, is charged with shooting the parents of his girlfriend, Kara Borden, 14, in their Warwick Township home more than a week ago. Ludwig and Borden then fled to Indiana, where police caught up to them.
Police originally believed Ludwig kidnapped Borden, but prosecutors said Monday that she told police she went willingly with Ludwig after the shootings.
The story has attracted national media attention as well as spawned online discussions and the publication of alleged e-mails sent by Ludwig to others. Those e-mails could not be independently verified by the New Era.
John Powers, of Long Island, N.Y., has written about the case on his “Action Report” Web site.
In an interview today, he said that an anonymous source gave him access to Ludwig’s e-mail account and that Ludwig’s e-mails show Ludwig had another relationship with a girl he met while on a trip to Hawaii last summer.
Ludwig had contact with several other girls around the same time, Powers said.
In the e-mails, Powers said, “He starts off preaching the word. It’s a level of communication they all could understand, something they all have in common.”
The girls responded in the same vein, and the relationship developed, Powers said.
Ludwig had gotten into trouble locally and, it appears, in Hawaii, for his actions in the past year, according to news accounts and the Web sites.
The pastor of Ludwig’s church told a reporter last week that Ludwig took a girl to Ludwig’s family’s cabin in Juniata County without her parents’ permission last spring, but that the girl’s parents did not contact authorities about it.
In a story posted on Court TV’s “Crime Library” Web site, writer Steve Huff said, “David Ludwig, at least, seemed to use his ‘faith’ in the same way other men use sports cars — as a ‘hook.’ ”
Huff, who references Powers’ Web site, then goes on to quote from an e-mail allegedly between Ludwig and the girl he met in Hawaii.
The girl writes (spelling and punctuation are reproduced exactly): “I’m also sorry that I let ‘us’ go as far as I did. I knew it waswrong. I think I even told you it felt wrong, but I never did anything about it. I guess I just believed that same old lie that somehow this one would be different. I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for what was right more when I should have. ... I regret that I became a stumbling block rather than encouraging you the way a sister in Christ should have, but I don’t regret spending time with you or anything we did.”
In an e-mail back to the girl, Ludwig allegedly wrote, according to Powers’ site (Powers reads the e-mail aloud on his site): “I made my own choices and honestly I don’t regret them although I do regret getting caught. ... Sometimes I wonder if all the scars in my heart will ever heal. But I know that Jesus has taken away the pain and I’m so grateful for that.”
Ludwig also makes reference to getting in trouble with his parents in Hawaii, allegedly writing in another e-mail Powers reads on his site: “If we hadn’t gotten in trouble we would have been able to stay. Oh, well, whatever. I guess it’s just really sinking in even more today how bad this whole situation is because my mom was talking about it on the way to pick up the rental car we’re in now and she was like, ‘Well, I think you’re going to need to go to weekly counseling’ ... Don’t worry though, I’m going to be staying far away from girls from now on.”
He also allegedly writes, “I’m just trying to trust God but it’s so hard because I so didn’t want to go through this again.”
(Staff writer Tom Murse contributed to this report).
