Mother Accused of Abusing Her 3 Children and Fabricating Their Medical Conditions

A Minnesota mother has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term following a shocking and unusual pattern of mistreatment and torture inflicted upon her children, authorities revealed this week.

In June, 35-year-old Jorden Borders was found guilty of all 11 accusations against her, including attempted murder, three cases of child torture, three counts of stalking, and four incidents of theft by deception, as reported by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.

On Thursday, she was sentenced to spend 468 months – just shy of 40 years – in state prison by Crow Wing County Judge Patricia Aanes.

“Borders’ offenses rank among the most appalling and distressing cases I have encountered during my tenure as Attorney General,” stated Attorney General Keith Ellison. “I hope for her children’s healing from the profound harm and distress they experienced.”

Details of what the victims went through are particularly disturbing.

“Borders’ actions involved, among other things, medical child abuse executed by creating fictitious medical issues in her children for their healthcare providers,” detailed the attorney general’s office in a press release. “For instance, Borders would forcibly extract blood from her nine-year-old child before medical appointments using a syringe.”

The mother also utilized other methods to draw blood from her children, which included devices such as a PICC line, typically inserted into smaller arm veins, and a central line, placed in major arteries, like those in the chest or neck.

“Borders then presented the child at medical visits and hospitals, where he was found to have dangerously low hemoglobin levels,” the press release elaborates.

Law enforcement began investigating the defendant in May 2022 after the hemoglobin issue became unavoidable for staff at a children’s hospital. A search warrant was executed at the Borders home on Industrial Road in Crosslake – a tiny town located some 150 miles northwest of Minneapolis.

She was arrested in November 2022.

A probable cause affidavit details the blood extraction scheme:

Child 2 who is nine years old was seen at the Children’s Hospital with the concern of his hemoglobin numbers dropping. Child 2 was monitored with the only explanation of his numbers dropping is that someone was removing blood from his body. Defendant said that the Hospital lab was removing too much blood from Child 2, however, during a forensic interview on 11/21/2022, the three children disclosed that they have observed Defendant withdraw blood from Child 2 frequently before doctors’ visits where he was being tested. The children furthermore disclosed that they were directed by Defendant to then flush the blood down the toilet and they were told by Defendant not to say anything.

…

Child 2 said he got really sick and had to go to the hospital and Defendant just “kept drawing my blood and blood and blood” [and] “she kept doing it and said don’t tell anyone.” … Child 2 said this made his body feel “sick-sleepy.”

Other instances of faked illness included forcing her children to wear boots, casts, and neck braces even though they did not have any identified fractures or diagnosed injuries – while self-diagnosing them with brittle bone disease. One child was in a cast for over two years.

“Another child stated that Borders would instruct the child to vomit at the doctor even though he didn’t need to, and to cough as if he had asthma, at which time asthma medication was prescribed,” the press release continues. “The defendant also forced one of the children to wear unprescribed hearing amplifiers, which led to the child developing a boil on the back of her ear.”

The physical abuse was not limited to the medical. Borders’ three children all testified they were beaten with charging cords, belts, and spoons – one child said they were beaten with a cord until they bled.

The children also testified their mother made them stand outside in the cold without clothing until their bodies felt like burning, withheld food, and regularly threatened to kill them.

During trial, prosecutors proved the since-condemned woman’s reign of child-victimizing terror went on for some five years. The torment suffered by her three children was not just physical, however, and also included instances of verbal and emotional abuse.

The defendant was also convicted of defrauding the Land of 10,000 Lakes Medicaid program to the tune of $18,000, according to the AG’s office. This was done by falsifying symptoms for one of her children, and then claiming to be the child’s personal care assistant.