The Kirtland Cult Killings /// Part 1 /// 621 | Forensic Files

[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are
doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who
has already received four letters from his HOA about his Halloween decorations ladies and gentlemen the cat two mini
pumpkins it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend
[Music] it's the second half of October my friends and we are in the mood for some
dark and scary good beers so this week we are featuring an old favorite for real beer lovers how about some Dragon's
Milk from the brilliant women and men Brewing up Liquid black magic at New Holland Brewing this is a bourbon
barrel-aged Imperial Double Stout that means it's dark delicious and Powerful baby ABV 11
garage grade four and a half bottle caps out of five and here's some cheers and thank yous to our friends for helping us
out with this week's beer run first up a big shout out to my friend Walker down in Knoxville Tennessee in the big we
like your jib to Manny in the major and West Friendship Maryland that's right thank you all for helping us out with
this week's beer run if you want to help us out with next week's Beer Run go to truecrime garage.com and click on the
button always love to give the dragons milk out as a gift it's a tasty treat and Powerful stuff b double e double r u
n beer run if you need more True Crime garage for your your balls make sure you go to our website
sign up for off the Record over 160 episodes if you're not listening then you aren't nasty
that's enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab
a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] thank you true crime stories about the Manson
family the Jonestown Massacre in Waco Texas have fascinated Americans for decades
the fascination of these real-life tragedies and crimes is so strong that each year someone new turns out a new
version of each of these old news stories complete with new details and never before seen footage
recently documentaries and fictionalized streaming shows continue to see much success
with titles like the vowel wild wild country and devil in Ohio the masses are reading
watching and listening because we want to know more we want to know how it all works
what are the beliefs and the rules of a cult we want to learn about the cult's leaders followers and their enemies
should they have any how do they recruit and why or what turns a small number of these groups
toward violence defining Cults and deciding which groups should be labeled as such is sometimes a
difficult task because of the variety of groups that exist outside of the mainstream
the will to kill a 2001 book by James a fox and Jack Levin Define the results as
being Loosely structured in unconventional forms of small religious groups the members of which are held together
by a charismatic leader who mobilizes their loyalty around some new religious cause
typically a cause that is at odds with that of more conventional religious institutions
in other words many cults are small groups of seemingly like-minded individuals who are taught
teach and practice their beliefs or religion which in most cases is a Loosely structured version of a more
widespread and regularly practiced religion some of the largest religious groups are
Christians Muslims and in some parts of the world Jews in spite of the many differences of
these religions they share a fundamental belief in a God as compassionate and just
as a result those communities have nurtured people of extraordinary kindness from the Bible Matthew 5
the good book teaches us that Jesus also set very high ethical standards for his
followers including an unbounded willingness to forgive wrongdoing non-retaliation
against evil and love of enemies yet some of the most appalling atrocities in history have been rooted
in religion religious violence can take on a particularly intense and ruthless character
if the objects of that violence are seen as blasphemy or enemies of God or God's
way narrowly conceived in the case of what we have here today it's ruthless violence dulled out judge
jury and executioner Style by the cult's leader upon some of his followers God and religion do ask of us and try to
teach us to live our lives out practicing High ethical standards God wants us to possess an unbounded
willingness to forgive wrongdoing to not retaliate against evil and to love our enemies
if we truly believed and followed these teachings well we would not commit acts of
violence against one another we would not kill and there should never be a Killing In The Name Of God
this is a Kirtland cult killings this True Crime garage [Music] foreign [Music] on December 31st
1989 a tip was called into the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms it was relayed to the chief of police in
Kirtland Ohio because the tip was related to his jurisdiction the caller said that a family was missing and some
bodies were buried in a barn on a property of a rented Farmhouse this is located at 8671 Euclid Chardon Road this
would be one and a half miles east out of town authorities proceeded to the property in question upon arrival here
Captain so far so good because when they get to the property they can in fact see
that a barn is on the premises so there may be some truth to this tip that they received right police found the property
deserted with evidence that the residents had left in a hurry but of course what the police really needed to
search based on the tipster's information was that barn on the property you could just feel the surge
becoming more intense if you're a law enforcement in the barn they found some personal possessions of presumably this
missing family this included some drawings in notebooks that clearly belonged to children
they decided that they are going to need to do a little Excavating in the barn to
see if they could find what it was that they were looking for but also keep in mind they're out there looking for what
was called in on their tip but you're also I would guess you're also hoping to not
find what was called in on the tip exactly so on January 3rd 1990 they started digging Dan Dunlap was a
lieutenant in the Lake County Sheriff's Office at the time he was a patrol officer on the day the
Kirtland police chief Dennis Yarbrough requested assistance from the Sheriff's Office and the Lake County Crime Lab in
processing the crime scene AKA The Barn officer Dunlap told the News Herald the place was damp cold dark and full of
trash and Rubble so there was a lot of clearing going on he said they found bodies beneath layers of soil rocks and
garbage in the rear portion of the Barn's lower level this would be a difficult day to be law enforcement they
found the first body buried about four feet deep after that they stopped and obtained search warrants for the whole
place additional digging the next day revealed not one not two not three but sadly four
additional corpses all in the same burial pit three of them were children the caller that phoned in the tip
predicted that five bodies would be found all members of one single family and the
caller turns out he was right the fire chief that was present that day told the News Herald that they meaning the bodies
they had rocks on top of them and they were back filled with clay so somebody took a considerable amount
of effort to bury and attempt to conceal these bodies now none of these bodies were identified
right away Captain the the bodies were very badly decomposed in fact if the tipster was right
they had been there and they had been buried there for nearly a year by the time that they were Unearthed but the
caller did tell authorities who they would find buried in that Barn so the identification
of the bodies was not so much a mystery it really at this point in our timeline just needed to be confirmed yeah the
caller is telling you the truth or seems to be telling you the truth there's no reason not to believe them now yes in
fact the the caller was right and you were right there Captain the bodies once the bodies were identified we would
learn that the five bodies were that of five members of the Avery family this is
Dennis Avery age 48 and his wife Cheryl age 41 and then the three children were their three daughters Trina Rebecca and
little Karen and their ages respectively are 15 13 and 7. each victim was found to have been bound they were executed
and then dumped in the hole in the ground inside this Barn all of them had been shot with a 45 caliber gun do we
have any autopsy information from law enforcement we do get some brief autopsy report information that makes its way to
the newspapers and it's as follows the autopsies on the five members of the Avery family revealed the following
Dennis the father was shot twice in the chest Cheryl was shot three times in the chest
Trina was shot in the head and chest Rebecca was shot once in the back and once in the left side and then Karen the
youngest member of the family was shot once in the head and once in the chest the coroner found silver duct tape
wrapped around the victim's heads feet and hands so in short this was the murder of an entire family of five now
no gun was found in the pit with the bodies every one of the victims were found bound with tape as we just described so
this family as it appears from the start of this investigation and based off of these reports this family was executed
and then buried in this bar now we need to introduce dale luffman dale was a reverend and the leader in the Kirtland
branch of the reformed Latter-Day Saints and I might say rlds at times if I do Captain I'm
referring to reformed Latter-day Saints when the five bodies of the Avery family
were found he was one of the first people to come forward to talk to police about what he knew about this situation
which in the case of Dale luffman turned out to be a whole heck of a lot this eager
cooperation on his part was likely an attempt by luffman to separate his organization the reformed Latter-Day
Saints from this whole murder Scandal this murder of a family of five he told the Dayton Daily News that the five-acre
Kirtland area farm this is the property where the bodies were found had been leased by a man who was
formerly a member of the reformed Latter-Day Saints organization in Kirtland Ohio the man he was talking
about was a lay Minister what's referred to as a lay Minister who was defrocked by the reformed Latter-Day Saints
because quote he was silenced for ethical reasons he would have been expelled from the church on the basis of
unchristian conduct had he not withdrawn his membership well if you're not going
to act like a Christian you're going to get defrocked he's saying that this man then later formed a radical splinter
group of his own because this man had been kicked out of the reformed Latter-Day Saints he
essentially formed his own cult a spin-off a splinter group of of the original group if you're law enforcement
and you find a burial ground in this Barn the the first thing you're going to look
for is who is the owner who is operating this property correct and that makes sense with what this man is telling
police for many reasons okay first off police had some general idea that something not so great was going on on
that property with a with a a considerable group of people and they were already aware of this man
that is being described to them they were aware of this let's say air quotes for now cult that was operating on this
property and as you pointed out captain and what this man is telling police confirming what they likely already knew
was that this man that he was talking about was leasing this 15 Acres this property and it was leasing the barn in
which they found the five bodies so the man that he was talking about is an is a
man named Jeffrey Lundgren so Jeffrey Lundgren had been kicked out of the reform Latter-Day Saints and essentially
formed his own little cult in which he was viewed as the supreme leader and his followers did his bidding luffman went
on to desperately try to delineate his own religious organization from this splinter group from this criminal one
the way all this went down from my understanding here Captain is that Jeffrey Lundgren
once he was pushed out or decided to leave the reformed Latter-Day Saints he moved to the farm with some of his
devotees and then ran this commune of sorts on its grounds up until April of 1989 when he and his family and some of
his followers decided to split Town whereabouts unknown luffman told investigators he was certain Lundgren
was behind the killings so what we have going on here at this time right is murder and defrocking we have bodies
that according to the tipster have been in this Barn for almost a year several months
and what we know so far is that when police get there they recover the bodies the the family of five from this burial
inside of the barn they're learning a couple of things Lundgren who leased the place
had these followers he split town we don't know where he and some of the followers are
and now we're being told months later that Jeffrey Lundgren is the one that is behind the killings of these five people
that we just found one on top of that he did something bad within the church or bad enough where the church didn't want
to have him be a part of it yes and this is where the story gets a little complicated because we have to try to
well there's a family of five buried in a barn it's already complicated try to understand the this religion and then
even more so what's more important is to try to understand this little faction this little splinter group of of this
religion so and I don't want a bunch of emails if I get this wrong because look I'm not well versed on my own religion
let alone everybody else's so Kirtland Ohio established by the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ
and the Latter-Day Saints a christian-based religion that follows the tenets of Joseph Smith
as some believe he was a prophet of Jesus the Latter-Day Saints Church is otherwise known as the Mormon church it
was founded by Smith in the 1820s he wrote the Book of Mormon in 1830. so Joseph Smith settled in Kirtland Ohio in
1831 and established the town as the base of his burgeoning sect in 1836 he built a temple that was to be a beacon
or not to be it was a beacon to the members of the church everywhere so members of this church and of this
religion they're flocking to Kirtland Ohio back in the early 1800s because he built this Temple if you build it they
will come well he built it and yes they did come Smith dies in 1844. he was killed by a mob in Illinois and this is
when the church that he establish splintered so Brigham Young led some of the members to Utah and
founded what is known today as the modern Church of the Latter-Day Saints the church members who stayed in
Kirtland Ohio transformed their offshoot of the Latter-Day Saints Church into the
reformed Latter-Day Saints Church this was formed in 1852 in the wake of Smith's death and the splintering of the
church he established that reformed Latter-Day Saints was headquartered in Independence Missouri
okay so are are we all on the same page here roughly yeah the best way to explain this is you have a pizza shop
and it's called raise and then some people worked at Ray's Pizza Shop and they wanted to start
their own pizza shop so they started another one called Original Rays after Ray passes away right and then
those people decide to start another pizza shop and call Famous Rays so it's all Ray's Pizza
but it's just kind of a little bit different versions The Devil is in the details
or or here in this case maybe not the devil but but something is in the details and you're right Captain the the
crust may be a little different the cheese might be a different blend the the pepperoni used is ordered from
someplace else but but it's it's generally from my understanding again this is just
some garage guys understanding of something that's much larger than him it's at the at the center of it all it's
all very much the same and it all kind of comes from the same place well it sounds like Jeffrey started a division
of shady Rays yeah that's that's exactly right well and we're going to find out exactly why here as we continue on
looking into some of these different characters here now the dead family the averies they were members of the
reformed Latter-Day Saints in Kirtland Ohio but they were part of a small group of
people that left the church to join yet another offshoot one that was not sanctioned by the
church establishment this being Jeffrey Lundgren's offshoot of the reformed Latter-Day Saints well
luftman wasn't the only one that wanted to talk to law enforcement after these bodies were found yeah others had a lot
to say as well and a lot to say about Jeffrey Lundgren police heard one name over and over again from people who were
familiar with the cult and the outcast from the reformed Latter-Day Saints the name that kept coming up Lundgren
Lundgren Lundgren this from the Akron Beacon Journal on January 6 1990 which says Lundgren
Who police say headed a militant and a very secretive religious cult calling itself the family was being sought late
Friday so this is the Akron Beacon Journal reporting that police have talked to a lot of people and
we we know who we are looking for um we're we are actively looking for a man named Jeffrey Lundgren because we
believe either a he knows intimate details about the killing of this family or he was the person responsible with
all these people so willing to talk it was really easy for police to start rounding up Suspects
unfortunately Jeffrey Lundgren was not one of those that they were able to round up so easily he was missing in
action but other members of his cult were living in Kansas City on January 5th this is really just hours after the
bodies were uncovered a Lake County grand jury quickly indicted 13 people seven of whom were already in custody in
Kansas City according to the Akron Beacon Journal the 13 were quote accused of plotting
the ritual slangs following Lundgren's religious tenets arrest warrants for all 13 people were
issued one person was deemed to be the trigger man the rest the other twelve were decided it was they were all
accomplices to this mass murder but still no sign of Jeff Lundgren that's right and police were really trying to
get a handle on what actually happened here uh there were stories about Jeffrey Lundgren's involvement
we know that but they needed to figure out were those stories in fact true and if so how did a separatist religious
leader turn into some kind of cold-blooded killer of children and their parents right Kirkland Police
Chief Dennis Yarbrough told the Dayton Daily News on January 5th that the leader of the group Jeffrey Lundgren
appeared to be forcing or persuading the other members to sign all properties and
checks their their money checks over to him personally and from what they were being
told the murder of this family of the Avery family was not the act of one person instead it was done in a
ceremonial way with multiple Witnesses slash participants supporting the executions
foreign [Music] [Music] we are back cheers mates cheers the the captain has been inspired to
to start his own religion right out of our little garage here he's going to call original Rays original rays and
he's already got me I'm fully enrolled I'm signing over my paycheck to the captain as we speak should I make it to
cash well just to be clear just to be clear what we have here is we have a religious group
some of the members create an offshoot some of those members from the offshoot then are killed
and this is all witnessed or participated by the members of the offshoot and their
leader is Jeffrey Lundgren so all right let's take a look at who this guy is and how did he become the
leader of this corrupt organization occult leader now all entangled up in murder and murder charges Jeffrey
Lundgren was born in 1950 in Independence Missouri now keep in mind you're going to notice throughout the
telling of this True Crime Story that you will hear several cities that are repeated throughout the course of the
telling of this True Crime Story one of them you've already noticed is Independence Missouri
Lundgren was raised in the reformed Latter-Day Saints Church which is based in his hometown Independence Missouri
court documents indicate that as a youth Lundgren was mostly a loner but was active in sports and church activities
his father was a strict disciplinarian and it's reported that his father may have even enjoyed teasing and punishing
a young Jeffrey yeah some would say abusive Jeffrey Lundgren attended Central Missouri State University where
he met his future wife Alice who was also a church member but Lundgren was not academically inclined and he never
did very well in in school he married Alice In 1980 he joined the Navy and was sent to Vietnam after he
completed his Tour of Duty and was honorably discharged he held some short-term jobs like Hospital
maintenance worker but he really struggled to keep a position finally he and Alice moved to Kirtland
Ohio in 1984. this with their two kids and then they would go on to have two more children the move was motivated by
Jeffrey Lundgren's affinity for the reformed Latter-Day Saints Church and the historic and iconic Temple
remember the one that was built by the church founder more than a century earlier in this small town this is a
small town in Ohio population roughly about 6 000 people he worked as a senior Church tour guide for the Kirtland
Temple historic Center this is considered to be before he shamed it obviously this was considered
to be an honored volunteer position where he led tours through the temple discussing its history and sacred role
within the reformed Latter-Day Saints Church as a perk of being a guide for which he
had to be very well versed in the church's teachings the Lundgren family got to live in an
apartment which was owned by the church they got to live their rent free all of this was fine at first for a period of
time Church devotees admitted Lundgren into the fold and began to look up to him
because he had like a legendary grasp of scripture and was able to recite passages from memory as luffman who
we've brought up several times described to the Beacon Journal said quote he could quote scripture not
always accurately in a rapid-fire style that some people found impressive and quote indeed Jeffrey Lundgren was
effective at drawing people to the faith and recruiting them to the reform Latter-Day Saints Church
he would take trips back to his home state of Missouri and attend meetings at his old church this to find recruits
apparently Captain he had an uncanny ability to prey on people who were vulnerable manipulable to be a douche
canoe looking for change seeking guidance so he was good at recruiting regardless of the methods he was using
several people described him as a spiritual bully uh he promised a warm supportive loving and strong Church
community in Kirtland Ohio and people actually moved there to join up with that legit
church at the time of the reform Latter-Day Saints well obviously it becomes a destination for somebody that
especially somebody like Jeffrey he's raised in the church this is basically their Holy Land
and so when he has no job he has no opportunities he probably thought well this is a good destination one because
of my faith but because of this sacred land lothman said the first problem started back in
1986. this is when Lundgren was sort of going off script starting to enjoy the spotlight as a
tour guide espousing ideas that were increasingly radical so he's supposed to be leading
these tours and teaching all these people who could either be recruited into the religion or are already a part
of the religion because they want to visit the sacred ground as you pointed out but he's giving these tours and now
he's starting to like go off script and he's throwing in his own ideas and and maybe things that the the church are not
telling him to say or not don't and don't want him to be saying during the course of these tours I like to be the
fly on the wall during one of those tours for example we have some examples here for example Lundgren would tell
people that he had a special power to determine what was true in the Bible and what wasn't so that's what that's that's
interesting to learn while you're on the tour that the tour guide has a power to
be able to discern what is true and untrue in the Bible he emphasized that he had a connection to God again let's
go back to luffman's words here a lot of what we know about Lundgren comes from this luffman character luffman says
quote people were complaining that he meaning Jeffrey Lundgren was misrepresenting the teachings of the
church during the tours he guided he was increasingly putting his own spin on Doctrine and many patrons were very
upset but Lundgren wasn't just a tour guide who was speaking out of turn by this point in our timeline he is a lay
minister so this is somebody who would be permitted to counsel parishioners even
in their homes and to preach at some actual church services so he's not just a tour guide anymore who's spouting off
his own ideas he's now a person that is looked up to he's a lay Minister he's on
these tours and he's starting to push his own agenda not only push his own agenda but to promote himself as a man
with special powers yes so he's Lundgren's preaching about like the hidden meetings
that he was able to glean from the Bible based on his you know his method of of scripture
interpretation that he was able to determine what was true and what wasn't true and then he was also doing stuff
that was reading texts for reoccurring so so he says that he was able to find within the Bible uh text that had
reoccurring patterns that contained messages and he was able to see what these messages are and he's able to
deliver them to to people like me and you the regular Joes right this is from a much later report that
came out that states quote Lundgren generally fit within the traditions of the reformed Latter-Day Saints faith in
that he described Visions direct spiritual experiences and God speaking directly to prophets but Lundgren went
far outside of the bounds of Prophecy so he claimed to possess special powers um and I have a list of some of his his
special powers if you would like to hear how powerful this Jeffrey Lundgren actually was I can't freaking wait he
had the ability to predict future events well that comes in handy yes he claimed
to have the ability to sense the presence of people and events which are at a geographical remove from where he
is he had the ability to trigger natural events such as Earth Tremors he reportedly told his followers that he
was present when Jesus Christ was crucified and that in other ways as well he was able to transcend the
restrictions of time well no wonder he looked so freaking old he claims to have experienced multiple Visions where he is
shown his special Mission or missions on Earth this I can't help it Captain but this
reminds me of maybe one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time depending on who you
ask Tenacious D that wonderful song they had Wonder Boy where Jack Black describes
for reg cage and the rest of us his secret powers and the secret of his powers the reformed Latter-Day Saints church
leaders noticed that the historic Center was missing some money as well so he's not just telling all these people all of
his wonderful ideas on through the course of his tours but money is coming up missing as well
so the curtain well that wasn't one one of his superpowers was not personal finances or the ability to hide
his his thiefdom from the uh from the people in power so the Kirtland State president Dale luffman says Lundgren was
let go for ethical and moral issues that are critically important to us to their
religion and to that to the church later it revealed that the temple officials accused Jeffrey Lundgren of stealing
between 25 000 up to maybe forty thousand dollars from the temple coffers that's a whole
lot of Rolling Papers especially in the late 80s that's a ton of rolling papers and in this economy with inflation
I mean come on maybe not so many rolling papers with inflation now as a result of his
radicalism and him being accused or the belief that he was stealing from the church Jeffrey Lundgren of course lost
his position as the temple tour guide this in October of 1987. and as a result of that he lost his free living
arrangements for him and his family so Jeffrey Lundgren and the Lundgren family they gonna have to move so they
ended up renting the 15-acre farm that we've talked about where the bodies were found
just outside of town on that Euclid Chardon Road and that's going to cost money right Lundgren's now going to have
to pay for his living arrangements and for this Farm where he moved his family to so Jeffrey Lundgren basically does a
Jerry Maguire right he's getting kicked out and he he does the old uh you know who's coming with me
situation you had me at hello so he encouraged the defection of his of the people that believed him like he's
giving these tours and he has people with inside the church that that he's spouting off his radical ideas to and
and bragging about his so-called Powers too and people within the church are believing him and so he
even you know before he's asked to leave the church he has followers and he encouraged
probably demanded the defection of his quote loyal followers from the reform Latter-Day Saints Church asking them to
move with him to the commune that he was putting together that he was establishing on this farm that he's now
renting about 20 people formally resigned from the reform Latter-Day Saints church and moved in
with the lundgrens they were reportedly attracted by his fiery preachings and seemingly Insider
knowledge of scripture meanwhile according to luffman Lundgren was then defrocked by the
rlds church not only were his ministerial privileges revoked but he was excommunicated so you can see where
this is going right Captain Jeffrey Lundgren was kicked out of the church where he enjoyed being
some kind of Big Shot so he established his own cult with himself as the leader and then we have his followers now at
this point they're referring to him as some kind of prophet they they called him dad never a good sign to follow
somebody that is one kicked out of the church but two is not saying call me Jeff or call me Mr Lundgren they're
saying hey call me dad or father not good signs it was reported that people that left the rlds
they followed him because they were dumbasses liked his group better because it was
considered to be a much more conservative group than the traditional reformed Latter-day Saints
the reformed Latter-Day Saints is lgbtq friendly and also allows women to become church leaders this is in
contradiction of that of the Latter-Day Saints Church's teachings that women should be subservient to men
so Jeffrey Lundgren started becoming increasingly radical with his new little group of followers
he starts doing things like predicting the return of Christ to Earth and the destruction of everything
except the temple and the devoted followers of Jeffrey Lundgren's preachings in other words
if you didn't follow the path that he established you were doomed I am not following this douche canoe with a
horrible mullet he promised to bring his followers to Zion where they would witness the return of Christ he started
to dictate the lives of everyone in the commune and he started to control everything in their lives as well well
this probably stems from like we said before Lundgren when he was back in Missouri
wasn't doing so well as far as making ends meet and now he goes moves to Ohio starts telling a couple fibs also feels
like he's getting some kind of power and money's coming in and when they try to separate him from
the church well if I take some followers with me then maybe I can con them into my system
and I think a lot of this was just because he just didn't didn't like his life didn't like the way things turned
out felt like a failure and now these people make me feel good they think I'm something special I tell them I'm
something special They believe me and rinse and repeat Captain I think that you're probably right here the the
thing that I would say that also could be the situation would be that look for these people to follow him they
clearly had blinders on but is there a chance that Jeffrey Lundgren had blinders on himself like did he become
so delusional are so delusional that he started to believe these things himself or to start to think that he was
something that he was not right or also just that he felt like he had the power to convince them to con them
there's also a lot of people out there too that even if they are doing wrong or if they are lying to others they have
the belief that if well if as long as what I'm doing is for the greater good then it doesn't matter how I get there
sounds like some of the popular True Crime podcasts out there right it doesn't matter how we get there or how I
get the followers or get people to join me and that could be the situation as well
that he he believed that he was trying to do good it's it's really difficult for us to try to crawl inside the brain
and the and figure out this this character now going back to his little followers his
little group of followers or his sheep as I will refer to them as at some point according to
like we talked about him trying to and starting to dictate their lives and to control them and control everything
going on on this piece of property here this 15 Acres Wikipedia which is not my favorite
source to go to but they you know sometimes they give you the good short and sweet version of things
and here on Wikipedia they say for example to show his his control the cult members
were forbidden to talk amongst themselves doing so was determined to be a sin and
he even came up with a term for it he called it murmuring so all if we were his followers we were forbidden to Talk
Amongst ourselves to conduct and well there goes the podcast be a part of this murmuring and and it would be considered
a sin there's also reports that he that Jeffrey Lundgren would find ways to eavesdrop on the cult members
so he's listening into their conversations and such when they are talking amongst themselves and they're
unaware of this and later he's using the information that he gets from from listening in on their conversations
to get them to believe that he could read their minds right like I said another way to con them into believing
that he has these powers it was all just trickery really and a lot of it too and we see this in
unfortunately we see this in bad domestic situations or controlling boyfriend situations
a lot of these types of behaviors right we see time and time again in these different cases that we cover and they
all are very different cases but it's interesting to see similar behaviors by the controlling individual right so in
this situation we have Jeffrey Lundgren who starts to I mean he actually managed to isolate
his sheep from from almost from the rest of the world entirely not completely but almost
right he's got these people living with him on his commune on this 15 acres of land in Kirtland
Ohio just outside of town and he he's convinced them to contribute their worldly possessions and their
paychecks to the greater good which was him his followers they work their day jobs that but they
turn their checks over to him well a lot of these religions when you go to mass on Sunday or maybe Saturday
night or whenever you choose to go you're you don't have to but they appreciate offering and a lot of times these
offerings are 15 of what you are bringing in which is can be pretty high for some individuals and family
but this guy is saying no not 15 I need it all and he probably was telling them hey we're just getting started so we
need as much as possible so we can build as quick as possible well and they would
work the the followers that he allowed to work they're basically working their day jobs most days long days and then
turning over their paychecks to him uh that that is used for things like taking care of everybody in the group
but but primarily taking care of him and his actual biological family and and his you
know marital family well he is the prophet but then after they're done working for the day at their jobs
they're required to gather in the submissive nightly scripture meetings to hear Jeffrey Lundgren just preach and
preach and preach about his interpretation of scripture all of this going on on the farm every
evening at night and this is all really designed to continue to keep him in power to remind his flock that they
needed his leadership or they were lost [Music] want to thank everybody for listening
joining us here in the garage so much more case to get to make sure you're following us on social media Facebook
Twitter Instagram Tick Tock or YouTube at True Crime garage and until tomorrow be good be
kind and don't litter [Music] thank you foreign

The Kirtland Cult Killings /// Part 1 /// 621 Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com December 31st, 1989 - A tip was called into the Bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms. The caller said that a family of five was missing and he knew where they were. The caller told authorities that the family could be found buried in a barn in Kirtland, Ohio. This call sparked a recovery effort and a manhunt. This week in the Garage we discuss the senseless murders of the Avery family and the cult living on the property where the bodies were buried.

Beer of the Week - Dragon’s Milk by New Holland Brewing Garage Grade - 4 and half bottle caps out of 5

Recommended Reading - I Don’t Like Mondays: The True Story Behind America’s First Modern School Shooting by N. Leigh Hunt

Our show - True Crime Garage “Off the Record” is available only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Brief Summary

The episode discusses the Kirtland cult killings and Jeffrey Lundgren's role in the murders of the Avery family.

Key points

Dark and Scary Beers. Featuring Dragon's Milk, a bourbon barrel-aged Imperial Double Stout with an ABV of 11%.
The Kirtland Cult Killings. Exploring the brutal murder of the Avery family and the cult behind it.
The Discovery of Bodies. Police uncover the remains of the Avery family buried in a barn.
Lundgren's Special Powers. Lundgren claimed to have extraordinary abilities, manipulating followers with his supposed gifts.
The Rise of Jeffrey Lundgren. Jeffrey Lundgren, once a respected church member, spirals into radicalism and cult leadership.
The Cult's Isolation. Lundgren isolated his followers, controlling their lives and finances.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

We want to know how it all works.

3:52WatchOct 19, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Garage TV

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.