By Steve Huff
LANCASTER, Pa. (Crime Library) — (Continued)
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| David Ludwig |
As David Ludwig was brought from Indiana back to Pennsylvania in shackles on November 15, 2005, and Kara Beth Borden returned to stay with an uncle in Lititz, PA, where her parents had been murdered just two days before, many reading about the crime still were suffering a kind of cognitive dissonance. There was the Kara Beth Borden, for instance, who proclaimed her love of Jesus in online profiles, who posed on those same pages in ways perfectly appropriate to a girl her age — no come-hither looks or sullen attitude, just silliness — and the Kara Beth Borden defending the apparently sexual nature of her relationship with David Ludwig, stating to her friend that she had to "act."
And David Ludwig was the meek-looking, thin boy of 18 seen in various news stories, looking cowed, the ardent fan of Christian rockers "Pillar," a kid happy to get a new laptop in his Xanga, and the young man accused of shooting 50-year-old Michael Borden in the back of the head as the older man ushered him from his home, then cold-bloodedly executing 50-year-old Cathryn Lee Borden as she sat in her bedroom. In one set of photos on his webpages Ludwig glared, a cutlass held in a combat pose, in another set he smiled while he gutted a freshly-killed deer.
It was hard to believe that Kara was anything but the third victim of a horrible and unexpected crime, yet it was hard to ignore the chat transcript she'd posted at her otherwise little-used second Xanga. Hard to ignore that at least up until October 17, 2005, almost a month before Michael and Cathryn Borden were allegedly shot in their home by David Ludwig, staunchly Christian Kara Beth Borden and David Ludwig were involved in a relationship that could easily have gotten the young man jail time in most of the states in the Union.
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| Kara Beth Borden, rapper |
Few believed Kara could have truly been complicit, yet as Pennsylvania authorities methodically sifted through the evidence and questioned everyone they were allowed to question, the public sat wondering, bewildered. Of the faces David Ludwig and Kara Beth Borden presented online, which was closer to the real person? Was Kara Beth the silly blonde 14-year-old at a playground in pictures with her girlfriends, or the young woman narrowing her eyes in the photo on the page holding the chat transcript, seemingly ready for a fight? Was David Ludwig the silly kid who posted a little photoplay of himself deciding on which laptop to buy at http://www.xanga.com/haydren, or the cold-eyed young man in a hooded sweatshirt wielding a sword? Even though the missing girl was back with family, with her 4 siblings, and the alleged killer under lock and key, many reading about the case,or watching television coverage felt no closer to anything resembling an answer to the question asked every time a person is murdered: why?
Previous Page
The Flight of David Ludwig and Kara Beth Borden
David Ludwig Scared
Idle Chatter or Ominous Warning; Did Ludwig Hint at Plans?
David Ludwig - An Online Portrait of the Alleged Killer and Kidnapper
David Ludwig and Kara Borden - Full Coverage
Feature Story - Kara Beth Borden and David Ludwig
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