Judge finds Crosslake woman guilty on all counts of child torture

BRAINERD — A Crow Wing County judge found a Crosslake woman guilty on all counts of child torture, attempted murder and Medicaid fraud Wednesday, June 5.

The investigation began in 2022 after suspicions arose at the Children’s Hospital of Minnesota, which treated one of 34-year-old Jorden Borders’ three children with unexplainable injuries.

"Child 2 was monitored with the only explanation of his numbers dropping is that someone was removing blood from his body," stated the complaint.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s office took the lead on prosecution at the request of the Crow Wing County Attorney’s Office for the multi-week bench trial, where a judge rather than a jury makes the verdict.

During the trial, the children testified to various forms of abuse at the hands of their mother, including being forced to stand outside in the winter until their bodies felt like burning, being forced to wear casts for nonexistent injuries, having food withheld and being beaten with various objects like phone charging cords, wooden spoons and leather belts, even being threatened with death.

Attorney General Keith Ellison said how Borders abused her children for more than five years was “nothing short of horrifying.”

"It strains the imagination and breaks my heart into pieces to think about the torture and anguish — physical, mental, and emotional — that Borders that inflicted on her own children. I ask every Minnesotan to join me in praying for these children’s healing,” stated Ellison in a release.

Borders, as proven in the trial, engaged in child medical abuse by diagnosing her children with various diseases, like brittle-bone disease. Two of the children testified to witnessing Borders withdraw blood from their brother, then age 9, before doctors’ appointments. One child, then age 11, spent more than two years of his life in a cast. Another, then age 8, wore unprescribed hearing aids that caused a boil on the back of her ear.

Borders was also convicted of defrauding Medicare by receiving personal care attendant reimbursements as the caretaker of her children.

Borders’ parental rights to her three children have already been terminated, and she will face sentencing for the 11 guilty counts on August 7. She was remanded into Crow Wing County's custody without bond.