ORLANDO, Fla.,None — An Orange County wife and mother took the witness stand in court Tuesday and told a terrifying tale of being held hostage, beaten and shot while she was pregnant.
The trial is under way for one of three accused kidnappers who allegedly used their travel business to get the victims' financial information and then rob them.
Marcela Borges was beaten, shot and threatened with death. And after she used a kitchen knife to try to force one of her alleged kidnappers to call 911, she thought she and her family was going to be killed. The investigators' photographs forced her to relive every horror-filled moment.
“I got my face broken. I got my nose broken,” said Borges.
Borges was two months pregnant at the time, but that did not stop the kidnappers from beating her and her husband, pointing guns at them and their young, autistic son, and threatening to kill them numerous times.
Another photo showed Marcela Borges wounded and lying on her lawn when Winter Garden Police arrived at the crime scene. She had been shot in the back and another bullet passed through one of her arms.
Borges was able to escape on her third day of captivity by jumping out the family's second story window, back first with her feet bound together with tape. She landed right between two air conditioning units.
Borges made a run for it after getting into a knife fight with a female kidnapper and removing the kidnapper's disguise.
“She got the gun. She tried to shoot at me (but) there were no bullets in the gun. I heard click,” said Borges.
The kidnappers forced their way into the Borges’ home on a Sunday morning in November of 2009. The assailants were demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars from the couple. They retrieved $30,000 from a safe and forced Borges to withdraw $23,000 from her bank account.
Borges says Victor Sanchez kept the family at bay with a gun pointed at them and their young son Ryan.
“I could see his fear,” recalled Borges. “How he was crying he was shaking.”
The defendant, Sanchez, is not denying he was involved. But defense attorneys want the jury to believe Sanchez was forced into his role in the kidnapping by the others, under the threat of his own life.
WFTV
