The Disappearance of Lisa Jane Borden, October 1979
Warning: this write-up mentions the use of a homophobic slur that was originally used in a purposefully derogatory way. While it is not immediately relevant to the mystery at hand, I believe it is important to include any information I am able to find on such under-reported cases.
Lisa Jane Borden was born on January 15, 1960 in Cooke, Texas to parents Jack Fred Borden and Joyce Mildred Borden (nee Hester). She grew up alongside her five siblings, one brother and four sisters. From what little I could find, it seems that Lisa was the baby of her family: her mother was 38 when she was born, and Lisa's older sister Shirley Arlene was already 18 at the time, and gave birth to her own daughter in 1961. The only other sibling of Lisa’s that I could find, her sister Jackie, was born in 1952, making her 7-8 years older than Lisa.
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| Lisa Borden. Photo from the Charley Project. |
Lisa was last seen by her family on Wednesday, October 10, 1979 in Big Spring. Shortly afterward, she traveled to California. Later that month, she called her family, and she was last known to be in Lodi, San Joaquin County. Lisa's boyfriend — whose name is not provided in any of the sources — sent her a plane ticket for a return flight back to Texas, but she never retrieved it. She has not been heard from again.
At some point, an unknown friend of Lisa's told the Borden family that Lisa was living in Amarillo, Potter County, TX, and working as a waitress there. The friend did not provide further information, and this account has not been confirmed.
Lisa was known to hitchhike. According to Charley Project, authorities believe Lisa may have been taken against her will. Big Spring PD is investigating her case. I could not find any newspapers mentioning Lisa in California or Texas. She is listed on both the TX Department of Public Safety's Missing Persons Clearinghouse database as well as the CA Department of Justice website. According to the former, her Case Type is Involuntary. She is classified as Endangered Missing on both Charley Project and Doe Network.
Lisa is listed as missing from Lodi, CA on Charley Project, while all other databases list her as missing from Big Spring, TX. Her picture was last updated on the TX MP Clearinghouse site on October 16 2001, and her NamUs case was created on December 14 2010. She was reported missing by her sister, though it is not stated when this was; however, we know from the previous statement that she must have been reported missing sometime before or around October 2001.
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| Lisa Borden. Photo from the Charley Project. |
Lisa was a nineteen-year-old white female who was 5'8 and 140 lbs at the time of her disappearance, though NamUs broadly states that she was 5'8 to 5'11 and 140 to 150 lbs. She has brown hair, brown eyes, and a scar on her left hand. She has metals and screws implanted in her left hand after an injury sustained in an automobile accident. It is not known what she was wearing when she disappeared.
Lisa's fingerprints and DNA are available, while her dentals are not. She has seventeen exclusions on NamUs, none of which were found in California; one was found in Nevada and two found in Texas, though all three have since had their NamUs pages become unavailable.
Lisa is also on the NamUs exclusion list of Corona Jane Doe 1981, though the reverse is not true. They are likely still exclusions, as, according to a personal email from Mary Bell of the Doe Network, "Unfortunately, listing NamUs exclusions is not a high priority. We get exclusions all the time that never show up on the NamUs exclusion list."
Anyone with information regarding Lisa's disappearance is urged to please call the Big Spring PD at (432) 264-2550. The agency case number is 98-C-3365.
Lisa's father passed away in 2010, and her mother died in 2016, both with no answers regarding Lisa's whereabouts. Lisa is not mentioned in her mother's obituary; I could not find one for her father. Two of Lisa's sisters have also passed away in the years since her disappearance, though her two other sisters, as well as her brother, are still alive with families of their own, and seem to still be looking for her, as one of the sisters was the one to report her missing.
Further Sources
California Department of Justice
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