by Ray Black
Back in Kirtland, the police officer who had been contacted by the FBI after Kevin Currie had left Lundgren’s group for a second time, was doing a routine patrol past the farmhouse the day after the murders when a ghostly shiver travelled up and down his spine. Deputy Ron Andolsek noticed that the farmhouse was deserted and he thought to himself that it was odd that the group had just suddenly disappeared. But there was not much he could do as they had not, he thought, done anything wrong. Little did he know that a family of five were laying murdered in a shallow grave within one of the barns on the farmhouse’s land.
With the soldierly base camp now up and running in West Virginia, Lundgren embarked on a tough regime. There was round the clock guard duty and Lundgren instructed the men of the group to shoot down anybody or anything that came towards them, they even had an anti-aircraft sub-machine gun for use if helicopters were to attack. Jeffrey Don Lundgren was at his most paranoid and at his most vicious, and by August 1989 his teachings had become as extreme as his personality, he even ordered that the men surrendered their wives to him so that they could be cleansed and purified by his godly seed.
On October 13, 1989, Lundgren decided that it was time for his flock to move on. He knew that a friend of one of his women had an empty barn just outside of Chilhowee, Missouri that they had been given permission to use temporarily. The group stayed there for around ten days before Lundgren decided that they should all split up for the winter, get jobs, save their salaries, meet back up in the spring and pass their earnings over to him.
Was Lundgren now scared that he was going to get found out for what he had done? Was he worried that his flock were about to turn on him? Did he really think that after the winter break his flock would still be willing to return to their master?
The winter parting was the moment a few of Lundgren’s trustee members had been waiting for. It was their chance to escape from Jeffrey’s throws without any worries. Richard Brand and Greg Winship, both of whom had been heavily involved in the April massacre, had started to see the past few months from a new perspective, they could no longer live with the past or live with a future at the hands of Lundgren and his teachings. The two men left camp at the end of October and were followed closely after by Ron Luff and two of the women, Sharon Bluntschly and Kathy Johnson, who were both carrying Lundgren’s children.
By December, Jeffrey was starting to panic, realization hit him that many of his members were probably glad to be out of his clutches and may even feel the need to confess to either friends or the police about their lives under the rule of him. The Lundgren family and a few others decided to move on to California, where they would lay low and see if any investigation arose. Lundgren stored all his weapons and ammunition in a safety deposit box and waited.
On December 31, 1989 Keith Johnson was crushed, the guilt that had been building up inside him since April had finally exploded and he decided that he needed to inform the police about Jeffrey Lundgren and the murders that had taken place. He told the Kansas police everything about life under Lundgren’s regime and gave detailed accounts of each of the five murders, ending his confession by drawing a map of where the bodies were buried. The map was immediately faxed over to the FBI department in Cleveland. The FBI agent who received the fax, did not for a minute believe what he was reading and thought it would be a waste of the bureau’s time if they were to investigate the report. Instead, the FBI passed the telephone number of Kirtland police department onto Kansas police department. Thankfully the Chief of Police in Kirtland, Dennis Yarborough took the matter as serious, he knew that his Deputy, Ron Andolsek, had been commenting on the oddities of Lundgren and his flock for months now and appointed him the task of tracking down the Avery family – why they did not go straight to the barn as drawn on the map, is another matter altogether.
After a few days of speaking to friends and family members of the Averys, it became apparent that there had been no sight or sound of them for months. Cheryl Avery’s mother, Donna Bailey, had always received letters from her daughter but they had recently stopped. Deputy Adolsek took this as a sign that a search of the farm needed to take place. He gained permission from the farmhouse owner and on January 3, 1990, both Adolsek and Yarborough made their way to the farmhouse that had been the Lundgrens home for over a year. With the map in hand that Johnson had sketched, the police officers made their way to the barn and could never have been ready for what they were about to encounter.
The first thing that hit the Chief and his Deputy was the putrid smell of decay, there is nothing quite like the smell of rotting flesh. When they reached the area marked on the map it did not take long for the policemen to work out what they had uncovered. They were standing next to the grave of the Avery family. The two men immediately called for back up and also requested the service of the fire brigade to help with the excavation.
Although they had been briefed on the situation, the firemen were not quite ready for the smell that rapidly got worse as they started to dig. The smell got so bad that many officers had to leave the barn and were violently sick. The ones that carried on were met with murky brown water with what looked like flesh floating on the top. After a few minutes they unearthed the first body which was less than a metre under the ground and there was now no getting away from what they had found. The FBI were called and this time they had to take the call seriously. They began an intensive search of the barn and the rest of the buildings.
It wasn’t long before the horrific news was broadcasted over TV stations across the world and slowly members of Lundgren’s flock came forward and gave themselves up, maybe hoping that it would help them get a lesser sentence.
Steven Tourette, a county prosecutor, was given the Avery murder case, and the more information that came in regarding the murders the more disgusted he became. There was no way he was going to let anybody involved in the crime get an easy ride. He immediately obtained arrest warrants for the 13 adults within the Lundgren clan and within hours Ron Luff, Susan Luff, Dennis Patrick, Tonya Patrick and Deborah Olivarez were at Jackson County Jail for questioning. It didn’t take long for Sharon Bluntschly, Richard Brand and Greg Winship to give themselves up, but there were still five members at large; Kathy Johnson, Danny Kraft and the Lundgrens – Alice, Damon and Jeffrey.
MEXICO AND FREE?
Jeffrey was smart, if he made it to the Mexican border he would be free, whether it was the guilt that was making him run or if this was still part of God’s master plan is anybody’s guess, but he was determined not to get caught.
But Jeffrey was too trusting, he called his mother-in-law on January 5, 1990 and told her to go to California in order to collect her grandchildren. He gave her a phone number of where he could be contacted. Alice’s mother agreed implicitly to his request but as soon as she was off the phone she contacted the police. The FBI traced the phone number to a Californian motel just six miles from the Mexican border. Jeffrey Don Lundgren was six miles from heaven.
The Ohio FBI agent in charge of the case flew south immediately as he wanted to be there when the arrest was made. Local Californian agents surrounded the motel and as soon as they spotted him they pounced – Jeffrey Don Lundgren was arrested on five accounts of murder. It was a much smoother arrest than it could have been as when they searched his motel room and safety deposit box they found a small arsenal, which they did not doubt that Lundgren would have used if he had been given the chance.
They also found Alice Lundgren, Damon Lundgren and the younger children all sitting in the motel room watching television awaiting their master’s return. As soon as Damon saw the FBI he immediately told them that he hadn’t done the shooting.
Compassion has to be felt for somebody like Damon, from a baby he had lived and learned from his father, but was also scared of his father due to years of abuse. How was he ever to know the real right and wrong, it is up to parents or guardians to nurture children into loving human beings and to teach them the ways of the world. All Damon had done
was to obey his father but in the eyes of the law Damon Lundgren was as much at fault as every other group member over the age of 18. As an adult, law believes that Damon should have been able to work out the real right and wrong for himself.
With the three Lundgrens now under arrest there were just two more suspects at large. Danny Kraft and Kathy Johnson were found five days later on a San Diego motorway travelling south in Danny’s pick-up truck. There was no chase, no fight, they knew it was now over.
IN THE COURT ROOM
The following months saw trial after trial as one by one the 13 religiously devout men and women stood up and took their oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help them God.
By January 1991 they had all been sentenced. Sentences ranged from 18 months probation for obstruction of justice for Tonya and Dennis Patrick to five death sentences for Jeffrey Lundgren. Damon Lundgren was found guilty of four out of the five murders but his life was saved from death row after the jury heard statements from his friends and family, instead he was given 20 years to life for each of the four murders.
Alice Lundgren was sentenced to ten to 20 years for five accounts of kidnapping and 20 years for complicity to commit murder on five counts, with all sentences having to be served consecutively.
So, how could it have come to this, 12 people all with compassionate hearts ended up being part of killing five innocent people, including three little girls. How could 12 people who would have at one time never let such a thing happen, be twisted into believing that it was a call of God – an event that had to take place? Jeffrey Lundgren had scared them or brainwashed them into a new way of thinking and by the time the murders took place there was no free-thinking left, anything view or thought that came into those 12 people’s heads had passed through Jeffrey Lundgren’s mind first where it had taken on a different form.
And what about Jeffrey Don Lundgren? In a five-hour long statement, which he issued during his penalty phase, Lundgren declared that he: ‘considered [himself] a prophet and through interpretation of the scriptures, God had told him that the Avery family were to be killed’. To this day whilst on death row Jeffrey Don Lundgren is still writing letters to anybody willing to read them stating his reasoning behind the murders and giving biblical proof for his actions.
TRYING TO UNDERSTAND
Ten years after the murders, in April 1999, some of Lundgren’s flock opened up to the Cleveland Plain Dealer – Ohio’s largest newspaper – and reported that they actually felt freer in prison than the whole time they had spent under Lundgren’s grasp. One woman in paticular feels this a lot, and that is Susan Luff. She believes that she was deceived by both Lundgren and her husband Ron, who was the leader’s right-hand man. Susan Luff insists to this day that she did not understand what was going on due to being so mentally brainwashed by her life in the cult. Now, in prison, she is once a again a free-thinker with no worries of death threats or abuse. She can also contact her friends and family whenever she likes, can study new subjects and can pray when she wants to, not when dictated to. In the Plain Dealer article on April 11, 1999, she was quoted as saying:
You see, there are no guns here, no death threats, and no one can even be verbally abusive here . . . I do not want to just be a survivor, I’m doing everything I can here to give back to society.
So how can these ‘survivors’ keep their faith after such a traumatic experience at the hands of religion? Why did God not strike Lundgren down when he saw what sins were taking place?
Ron Luff believes that he has to start his religion from the beginning again and re-learn everything he thought he already knew:
God had become so ugly I couldn’t go any further, I just kind of had to take everything that I ever thought I knew about Scripture and put it completely out of my mind and start over.
It seems that the need for a spiritual presence in some people’s lives is so strong that they stick with it even when it comes crashing down. Maybe their strong requirement for religion is the reason that they get so easily get caught up with in such destructive groups in the first place? People are made to feel special when they join such a group, recruits think they are about to be part of something remarkable, something worthy of a new sacred text.
If someone convinces you that they are the living prophet, spoken about in the religious text that you abide by, it is very difficult to shun that person away. It is a catch-22 situation, you can either follow the prophet’s every word, even if it means murdering innocent people, or you can detach yourself from the cause but face the risk of being deemed a sinner on judgement day.
And what about the Averys? They were just as much in agreement with Jeffrey Lundgren as the rest of the flock. They were willing to watch his children be abused, they gave Lundgren a vast share of their life savings, they bought guns and ammunition to use against anyone who tried to stop them. If Lundgren had chosen another family to sacrifice who is to say that they would not have participated in the slayings? Of course, this will never be known, but they were just as much part of a brain washed flock as the rest of them.
Although another theory is that the Averys were about to leave the cult as they had become disenchanted with Lundgren’s teachings. In doing so they would have become a real threat to Lundgren as other members could have been provoked into following suit.
Nobody will ever know if Lundgren was just a con-man who indoctrinated his followers, or a dilluded man who really believed what he was preaching.
Either way, Jeffrey Don Lundgren managed to get on side 12 intelligent, stable people who all played their part in committing five murders. Of course they are all victims, even Lundgren, if he is in fact mentally deranged, but three completely innocent children were killed that night, children who were not yet at an age to make any decisions for themselves. Their parents had taken them – unintentionally – into an unsafe environment in which they never got to live a true life. Is fanatical religion really worth that?
Aum Shinrikyo
The Aum Supreme Truth Terrorist Organisation
Chizuo Matsumoto had one ambition in life and that was to be rich. As the fourth son of a poor weaver, he had very little as a child. Times were hard for the family and they scraped together enough to be able merely to exist. Therefore, from a young age, growing up in southern Japan in the 1950s, Chizuo dreamt of being wealthy and having money to spend.
The young Chizuo also suffered from infantile glaucoma, a condition he had had since birth, rendering him blind in his left eye and only partially sighted in his right. To add to the misery of poverty, Chizuo was teased mercilessly for his disability and eventually his parents moved him to a government-funded school for the blind.
ROLE REVERSAL
The tables quickly turned and where Chizuo had suffered at the hands of the bullies in his former school, he now found himself, the only student with partial sight in a blind school, in a position of power which he exploited to the full. He dominated the other children and bullied them into doing whatever he told them to. His limited vision began to work in his favour financially too, and he would assist the other students in various tasks, but only if the price was right. The quest for money dominated his school life, and his reputation steadily worsened. So scared were the other children though, that nobody stood up to Chizuo and his behaviour was allowed to continue. By the time Chizuo graduated, a successful student with good grades and a black belt in judo, he had extorted a sum in the region of $30,000 from his fellow classmates.
With a good academic record behind him and a confidence gained by the standing he had achieved at his school (albeit a reign of fear rather than respect), Chizuo’s attention turned to his career. He again aimed high and declared his intention to become Prime Minister of Japan. To achieve this he planned to study at the prestigious Tokyo University, but he was dealt a crushing blow when his application was rejected. This affected him very badly, and he returned to his home town embittered and angry.
He did
not stay down long though, and within a couple of months he made his way back to Tokyo. Here he settled down quite quickly. He met and married Tomoko, an intelligent college student and they began to have children together. She steadied the impulsive Chizuo, and together they began to plan a joint business – an acupuncture clinic to be run primarily by Chizuo. To help the young, newlywed couple achieve their goals, Tomoko’s family invested money in the venture.
THE CLINIC
An instant success, the clinic began to make money immediately. An average three-month course of herbal remedies and yoga techniques would set one of Chizuo’s clients back by around $7,000. And the reason the money rolled in so quickly? Chizuo was spending next to nothing on his ‘miracle cures’. Far from the expensive herbal remedies he claimed to be selling, his medicines were knocked up in minutes. One was proved to be nothing more than alcohol-soaked tangerine peel. The scam came to light eventually and a fine of $1,000 was imposed upon the clinic. Chizuo hardly noticed, having made almost $200,000 already.
So it seemed that Chizuo was on course to realize the dreams of wealth and prosperity that he was only able to imagine as a child. Yet, he was not entirely satisfied. He told Tomoko that his life needed meaning, and he began to study religion, fortune telling and meditation. After long periods of meditation, an enlightened Chizuo claimed that he had the gift to ‘see’ people’s auras and that he could identify evil. He decided that this new-found spirituality was the new course his life was going to take.
In this pursuit, he began to research both established faiths and unorthodox sects and cults. He encountered hundreds, but decided that an essentially Buddhist sect called Agonshu was most suited to his calling. In order to gain admission into the Agonshu, Chizuo enthusiastically began the 1,000-day training period of daily, lengthy meditation. However, it was a somewhat different and cynical Chizuo who completed this period of training, and he consequently turned away from Agonshu claiming that it had destroyed his peace of mind.
