Cult leader to be executed

[CoolWaters]

MURDERER OF INDEPENDENCE FAMILY | Ohio Supreme Court sets date

Cult leader to be executed

Jeffrey Lundgren killed five people in 1989 in a Cleveland suburb.

By BRIAN BURNES

The Kansas City Star

A religious cult leader convicted of killing a family of five from Independence in 1989 will be executed Oct. 10, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Jeffrey Lundgren, 56, was convicted of shooting to death a man, his wife and three daughters. The family had moved from Missouri in 1987 to follow Lundgren’s teachings. He referred to the killings as “pruning the vineyard.”

The case riveted the Kansas City area for months, and memories remain strong with many people today.

Lundgren formed a religious cult after he was dismissed in 1987 as a lay minister of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, today known as the Community of Christ.

Several people moved with him to a rented farmhouse about 30 miles east of Cleveland, Ohio, where they called him “Dad” and contributed money for group expenses.

The victims were Dennis Avery, 49; his wife, Cheryl, 46; and daughters Trina, 15; Rebecca, 13, and Karen, 7.

On April 17, 1989, the Avery family was invited to dinner and then led to a barn. They were bound and placed into a pit, where Lundgren shot each one. Police in Kirtland, a Cleveland suburb, found Dennis Avery’s body Jan. 3, 1990, leading to Lundgren’s arrest days later in California.

A jury convicted him of five counts of aggravated murder and five counts of kidnapping. Lundgren said a combination of messages from the Bible had told him to kill the Averys.

Cult members testified that although the Averys were members of the sect, Lundgren considered them less enthusiastic.

(Bolding added by me.)

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Full article.

[Kevlar2000]

"Pruning the vineyard."

Is that the same as "keeping the household clean"?

It makes me wonder - If LCM had not been forced to resign his position, how long would it have taken before "the ministry" tried something like this.

LCM certainly had the inclination for it:

(From the July 1994 letter to the Way Corps)"Some of us do walk by the spirit of God, and if you give us time we will smoke your sorry asses out and bring degradation to your lives so that you can't hurt anybody in The Way Ministry again. You should be thankful your'e not in the Old Testament times, because there are some of us who would gladly execute you. I (LCM) would rejoice at the privilege, as angry as I am spirtually about this right now." (Emphasis mine)

I feel for every one of you who suffered under this lunatic. I can only echo the sentiments of others who say Thank God for the Allens, who really got the ball rolling for this guy's ouster.

[oilfieldmedic]

It makes me wonder - If LCM had not been forced to resign his position, how long would it have taken before "the ministry" tried something like this.

LCM certainly had the inclination for it:

Now that's a scary thought!

[rascal]

I know that the purges n the late eighties were refferred to as *pruning the way tree of dead wood*

That line about pruning the vine chilled me.

I agreee kev, thank GOD for the allens for eliminating the avenue for this lunatic to hurt people.

[Dot Matrix]

WOW that could of been us--

[BikerBabe]

Thanks CW. I have followed this case thru the years via CourtTV, but have been busy with the recent move, so hadn't heard his time is about up. I'm happy to hear they do plan to execute him and carry out his sentence. Very bad man.

[Linda Z]

He's out of appeals, too, thank God. I'm amazed no one has killed him in prison, and I'm glad that my tax dollars will stop feeding this twisted SOB's sorry a$$.

The guy who was prosecutor on the case says that Lundgren said he shot the 7-year-old child in the head a second time, "just to see if he could hit the same place twice."

[Pirate1974]

If there was ever a case where the death penalty is justified, it would be this one.

I don't doubt for a minute that there were people who would have killed for VP if they thought it was necessary. Martindale, I don't know.

[Lifted Up]

If there was ever a case where the death penalty is justified, it would be this one.

Kevlar's and Rascal's "lunatic" assertion referred to LCM, but there is obviously a connection being made with the subject of this thread.

Now that brings up an interesting point. Is a lunatic...an insane or mentally ill person...subject to the death penalty? Such a person presumably (and legally I guess) Does not really know that what he is doing is wrong. Or, are we simply using the "lunatic" label too freely?