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

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[Music] [Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime 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 captain to mini pumpkins it's good to be seen and good
to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend it's the second half of October
my friends and we are in the mood for some dark and scary good beer so this week we are featuring an old favorite
for real beer lovers how about some Dragon milk from the brilliant women and men Brewing up Liquid black magic at New
Holland Brewing this is a b Barrel aged Imperial Double Stout that means it's dark delicious and Powerful baby ABV
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episodes if you're not listening that you are nasty and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather
around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime true crime stories about the Manson
family the Jonestown Massacre and 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 neverbe seen footage recently documentaries and fictionalized
streaming shows continue to see much success with titles like The Vow 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 Bel 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 Levan 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 is 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 doled
out judge jury and executioner Style by the Cults 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 kill and there should never be a Killing In The Name Of God this is a Kirtland C killings and this is true
crime [Music] garage [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 uid shardan Road this would be 1 and a half miles east out of town
authorities proceeded to the property and 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 information
was that barn on the property you could just feel the search becoming more intense if you're law enforcement in the
barn they found some personal possessions of presumably this missing family this included some drawings in
notebooks that clearly belong 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 yarboro request 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 4 ft 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 backfilled 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 are 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 seven 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
enfor 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 Young 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
barn now we need to introduce dale luffman dale was a reverend and the leader in the Kirtland branch of the
reformed latterday Saints and I might say rld DS at times if I do Captain I'm referring to reformed Latter Day Saints
when the five IES 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 the 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 lman to separate his organization the reformed Latter-Day
Saints from this this whole murder Scandal this murder of a family of five he told the date and 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
latterday Saints he essentially formed his own cult a spin-off a splinter group of of the original group but if you're a
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 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 he was leasing the barn in which they found the five bodies so the man that he
was talking about is a is a man named Jeffrey lungren so Jeffrey lungren had been kicked out of the reformed 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 lman 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 lungren once he was pushed out or decided to leave the reformed latterday 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 9 when he and his
family and some of his followers decided to split Town whereabouts unknown lman told investigators he was certain
lungren 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 family of five from this
burial inside of the barn they're learning a couple of things lungren 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 lungren is the one that is behind the killings of these
five people that we just found well and 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 fact 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 latterday Saints a christian-based religion that follows the tenants of Joseph Smith as some
believe he was a prophet of Jesus the latterday Saints Church 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 established 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 offsho of the latterday Saints Church into the reformed latterday
Saints Church this was formed in 1852 in the wake of Smith's death and the splintering of the church he established
the reformed Latter-Day Saints was headquartered in independent Missouri okay so 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
Ray and then some people worked at Ray 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 it famous Ray so it's all raay pizza but it's just kind of little bit different versions The Devil is in
the details the the or or here in this case maybe not the devil but but uh 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 yes that's that's exactly right well and we're 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 latterday 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 lman wasn't the only 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 lungren police heard one name over and
over again from people who were familiar with the cult and the outcast from the reformed latterday Saints the name that
kept coming up lungren lungren lungren this from The akan Beacon Journal on January 6th 1990 which said
says lungren 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 akan Beacon Journal reporting that police have talked to a lot of people and we we
know who we are looking for um we we are actively looking for a man named Jeffrey
lungren 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 lungren was not one of those that they were able to round up so easily he was missing an
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 akan Beacon Journal the 13 were quote accused of plotting the
ritual slangs following lungren religious tenants arrest warrants for all 13 people were issued one person was
deemed to be the trigger man the rest the other 12 were decided it was they were all accomplices to this mass murder
but still no sign of Jeff LD that's right and police were really trying to get a handle on what actually happened
here uh there were stories about Jeffrey lr'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 coldblooded killer of children and and their parents right Kirkland Police
Chief Dennis yarboro told the date and daily news on January 5th that the leader of the group Jeffrey lungren
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
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[Music] that all right 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 we're 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 a 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 lungren so all right let's take a look
at who this guy is and how did he become the leader of this corrupt organization
a cult leader now all entangled up in murder and murder charges Jeffrey lungren was born in 1950 and
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 lungren was raised in the reformed laner Day Saints Church
which is based in his hometown Independence Missouri court documents indicate that as a youth lungren 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
lungren attended Central Missouri State University where he met his future wife Alice who was also a church member
but lungren 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
shortterm jobs like Hospital maintenance worker but he really struggle to keep a
position finally he and Alice moved to Kirtland oh 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 lr'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 latterday Saints Church as a
perk of being a guide for he had to be very well versed in the church's teachings the lungren family got to live
in an apartment which was owned by the church they got to live there rentree all of this was fine at first for a
period of time Church devotees admitted lungren 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 lman 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 end quote indeed Jeffrey lungren was effective at drawing people to the faith
and recruiting them to the reformed latterday 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 pre on people who were vulnerable manipulable to be a douche Cano 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 to join up with that legit church at the time of the reformed latterday 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 secret Land
lman said the first problem started back in 1986 this is when lungren 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'd like to be the fly on the wall during one of those
tours for example we have some examples here for example lungren would tell people that he had a special power to
determine what was true in the Bible and what wasn't so that's that's that's interesting to learn while you're on
your 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 Lan's words here a lot of what we know about lungren comes from
this lman character lman says quote people were complaining that he meaning Jeffrey lungren 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 lungren wasn't just a tour guide who was speaking out of turn by this point in
our timeline he is a lay Minister per so this is somebody who would be permitted
to counsel parishioners even in their homes and to preach at some actual church services so 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 lunden'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 text 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 Joe's right this is from a much later report that came out that states quote lungren
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 lungren 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 lungren 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 Rage Cage and the rest of us his secret powers and the secret of his powers one
boy the reformed latterday 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 KK 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 lungren was let go for ethical and moral issues that are critically important to
us to their religion and to that to the church church later it revealed that the temple
officials accused Jeffrey lungren of stealing between 25,000 up to maybe $40,000 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 lungren
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 lungren and the lungren family they going to 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 uid chardan road and that's going to cost money right lungren is now
going to have to pay for his living arrangements and for this Farm where he moved his family to so Jeffrey lungren
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 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 to 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
encourage probably demanded the defection of his quote loyal followers from the reformed 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 reformed latterday Saints church and moved in
with the lungren they were reportedly attracted by his fiery preachings and seemingly Insider
knowledge of scripture meanwhile according to lman lungren was then defrocked by the rlds church not only
were his ministerial priv privileges revoked but he was excommunicated so you can see where this
is going right Captain Jeffrey lungren 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 lung 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 dumb asses liked his group better because it was considered to be a much
more conservative group than the traditional reformed Latter-day Saints the reformed latterday 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 lungren 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 lungren
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 molet 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 lungren when he was back
in Missouri wasn't doing so well as far as making ends meet now he goes moves to
Ohio starts telling a couple fibs all of a sudden feels like he's getting some kind of power and money is 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 lungren had blinders on himself
like did he become so delusional or 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 MH 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 podcast 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 that
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 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 lungren would find
ways to EES drop 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 cond them
into believing that he has these Powers it it was all just trickery really and a
lot of it too and we see this in unfortunately we see this in uh 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 lungren 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 convince 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 an offering and a lot of
times these offerings are 15% of what you 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 to 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 I 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 missive nightly
scripture meetings to hear Jeffrey lungren 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 [Music]
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The Kirtland Cult Killings /// Part 1 /// 621

Part 1 of 2

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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.

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Brief Summary

The episode details the Kirtland killings involving the Avery family and cult leader Jeffrey Lundgren's role in their murder.

Key points

The Avery Family Tragedy. Five members of the Avery family were found murdered and buried in a barn.
Cult Connections. The investigation reveals ties to a radical splinter group of the Reformed Latter-Day Saints.
The Rise of Jeffrey Lungren. Jeffrey Lungren transforms from a church tour guide to a cult leader, manipulating followers.
Cult Control Tactics. Lungren isolates his followers, forbidding them from talking among themselves.
The Demands of Leadership. A leader requires complete financial devotion from his followers, not just a percentage.
Nightly Scripture Meetings. Followers gather nightly to hear their leader preach, reinforcing his authority.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

There should never be a killing in the name of God.

Reflecting on the religious implications of violence.

8:02WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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