Jeffrey Lundgren

Jeffrey Don Lundgren (born May 3, 1950 in Missouri) is a self proclaimed prophet and convicted murderer. Lundgren is the former leader of a cult group.

Childhood

Lundgren grew up as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but left the faith after he attained adulthood. According to his allegations (supported by some of his former neighbors) he was severely abused as a child, particularly by his father. His mother merely stood by as she witnessed her children being beaten.

Lundgren was, by most accounts, a loner when he was in middle and high school. According to one of his neighbors, Lundgren killed a rabbit when he was a teenager.

Lundgren became an expert hunter when he began to hang out with his father as a teenager. The pair would go on hunting trips, and Lundgren became a gun expert, learning shooting and maintenance techniques.

Lundgren enrolled at Central Missouri State University, and he spent time at a house that was specially built for RLDS youth. While at the house, he became friends with Keith Johnson and Alice Keeler.

Keeler, who had been abused by her father as well, quickly bonded with Lundgren, and the two became lovers. By 1969, Keeler was pregnant with Lundgren's baby. The couple married in 1970, and Lundgren went to service with the Navy.

Adulthood

On December 2, 1970, the couple's first child, a boy, was born. By 1974, Keeler was pregnant for the second time. Lundgren received an honorable discharge from the Navy, and another son was born soon after.

Lundgren and his new family settled in San Diego after he was discharged from the Navy. Once economic problems began to set in, the Lundgrens moved back to Missouri. In 1979, Keeler gave birth to a third child, a daughter. People close to the couple claim that Lundgren seemed distraught by the family's money problems and was tired of his wife.

Lundgren allegedly became abusive after the birth of his daughter. According to hospital records, his wife was hospitalized for a ruptured spleen, which may have been caused by Lundgren pushing her down some stairs. In 1980, the couple had their fourth child, another boy.

By 1981, Lundgren was asked to become a priest for the RLDS, but refused. He had grown disillusioned with the sect because it was giving women more rights.

"Prophet"

Lundgren and his family soon abandoned the religious group, and Lundgren began to feel that it was his calling to teach the Bible in the way he understood it. He formed his cult soon after. Membership never exceeded more than 12, but those 12 would eventually find themselves in a large, national crime scandal.

Lundgren began to offer Bible study services at his home, and he would convince his worshipers that he was God's last prophet.

Lundgren asked for money from his supporters, some would give him their life savings, which often were calculated to be thousands of dollars.

Lundgren then proclaimed he had received a call from God to move to Kirtland, Ohio, a small town off Cleveland. According to Lundgren, he was told by God that he and his supporters would soon witness the second coming of Christ if they moved to Kirtland.

By this time, seven of Lundgren's 12 followers had moved in to the family home. The remaining five were members of the Avery family. Lundgren felt that the Averys were committing a sin by not living in his house. The Avery family patriarch, Dennis, sold his Missouri house in order for his family to move to Ohio. Avery decided to set apart a relatively small amount of money for his family's use, with a bank account. Once again, Lundgren considered this a sin, because he wanted all of his followers' money to be given exclusively to him.

In 1984, Lundgren, his family, and his followers moved to Ohio. In Kirtland, Lundgren received a job as a tour guide at the Kirtland Temple, owned by the RLDS church, by now a tourist museum.

Lundgren convinced his followers that they had to seize the RLDS temple in Kirtland, from which Lundgren had stolen about $20,000, and to kill anyone who stood in their way. Lundgren changed his mind, however, and started telling his followers that they had to kill a family of five instead if they wanted to see God. As punishment for their "disloyalty," he chose the Averys.

The murders

On April 10, 1989, Lundgren ordered two of his followers to dig a pit in the barn, to bury the Averys' corpses. Lundgren told the rest of his followers, including the Averys, that they would go on a wilderness trip.

On April 17, 1989, Lundgren rented a motel room and had dinner with all of his followers. He then called his group's men into his room, handling them the guns and rifles with which the murders would be committed. Dennis Avery was not invited to the motel room meeting.

According to followers' admissions, Lundgren later went inside the barn, with Ron Luff luring Dennis Avery into a place where the other men awaited by asking him for help with equipment for the camping trip. Luff attempted to render Avery unconscious with a stun gun; the stun gun had a mechanical failure, however, and, while a stun bullet did hit Avery, it didn't knock him out. Avery then was gagged and dragged to the place where Lundgren awaited. He was shot twice in the chest, dying almost instantly. Luff then told Avery's wife, Cheryl, that her husband needed help. She was gagged, like her husband, but also had duct tape put over her eyes, and dragged to Lundgren. She was shot three times, twice in her breasts and once in the abdomen. Her body lay next to her husband's. The Averys' 15-year-old daughter, Trina, was shot twice in the head. The first shot missed, but the second killed her instantly. Thirteen year old Becky Avery was shot twice and left to die, while six-year-old Karen Avery was shot in her chest and her head.

Case

Officers coincidentally came to Lundgren's farm the day after the murders to talk to Lundgren, after which he left town. Nine months later, following a tip from an informant they returned to the long abandoned farm and uncovered the bodies.

Lundgren and the rest of his group, meanwhile, went east to West Virginia. But as months went by and nothing happened, Lundgren became disillusioned, and he and his family returned to California, leaving the rest of the surviving cult members behind.

What followed was one of the most widely open religious scandals in American history. The Lundgrens were fugitives, the media began to speak constantly about the murders and police began to track the cult members. The FBI joined in the hunt. Eventually, all of Lundgren's followers were found, and they helped catch him and his family.

All of those involved in the Avery family murders were given sentences of 100+ years. Jeffrey Lundgren was given the death penalty.

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