LANCASTER, Pa. – After a night together at his house, David Ludwig drove his young girlfriend home at about 5:30 a.m. and then waited for the customary text-message that she had made it into her room safely.
But several messages via cell phone went unanswered, until he learned from Kara Borden a short time later that she had been caught and her parents wanted to see him, he told detectives.
Ludwig then stuck a Glock pistol in his waistband, grabbed some other weapons and headed for the Borden home, according to a new court filing that sheds more light on the events leading up to the killing of Borden's parents.
The details are in a police account of an interview they conducted with Ludwig, 18, the day after the killings. By the time Ludwig was captured in Indiana following a high-speed chase, Borden was in the passenger's seat and, he said, headed west with him to start a new life together.
Ludwig said he grew worried after he dropped off his 14-year-old girlfriend. He repeatedly tried to contact Borden but did not hear back from her until she answered her cell phone at about 6:15 a.m. The news wasn't good.
Borden "said she was caught and her parents were there," according to the court filing Tuesday, which seeks to preserve cellular telephone and Internet records of the two. "According to Ludwig, [Borden] said she needed him to come over to her house."
It was about 7 a.m. when Ludwig showed back up at the Borden family home, a two-story brick home along a cul-de-sac in an upscale suburban neighborhood. He had two guns and a hunting knife, according to police.
There was a 30- to 45-minute talk with Borden's father, Michael. A police affidavit called it an argument that ended with Mike Borden telling Ludwig he could no longer see his daughter.
Ludwig told police that he then decided to kill his girlfriend's parents.
First, he shot Mike Borden in the back as he was going down the hallway to the front door, prosecutors said.
"I did not aim. I have a lot of shooting experience, and I usually hit what I shoot at," Ludwig told investigators, according to the prosecution filing.
He then turned, stepped down a hallway, took two steps into the living room and shot Cathryn Borden from six feet away as she was getting out of her chair, according to the court papers.
In earlier court records, police said that Kara Borden's sister Katelyn watched Ludwig shoot Mike Borden in the back of the head, then hid in a bathroom. She then heard a second shot, which may have been the bullet that killed her mother, Cathryn.
Katelyn said she could hear Ludwig run through the house after the shootings, calling for Kara Borden, who apparently was in the kitchen. He said he left when he couldn't find her, police said.
Ludwig told police he started to drive away, then turned back -- "even if it meant that he would be caught."
That's when Kara Borden came running after him and got in the car.
The case was considered a kidnapping until authorities concluded the girl went willingly. Her lawyer said Tuesday that she did not know ahead of time that Ludwig might shoot her parents and that she had no role in planning the killings.
The new filing seems to confirm that account, as Ludwig told police the girl never asked him to kill her parents.
Ludwig said he told Borden he had shot her parents and believed he killed them. They drove away and threw their cell phones out the window, he told detectives.
Within minutes, police were called to the neighborhood for a report of shots being fired, and almost immediately afterward the Bordens' young son showed up at a home across the street and said his father had been killed.
They drove west in his parents' car. Police caught up to the teens the next day after a high-speed chase ended with Ludwig crashing the car into a tree in Belleville, Ind.
Ludwig now in jail, is awaiting a Dec. 16 preliminary hearing on two counts of criminal homicide and one count of reckless endangerment.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox