by Ray Black
What did for him had already happened: he was arrested in Mexico and extradited to the United States, on 1 June 1979, for ordering the murder of Allred. In 1980, he was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Utah State Penitentiary in Draper, where he died, some say of a heart attack others claim suicide, on 16 August 1981.
The postscript to LeBaron’s demise reads like a sickening catalogue of vengeance killings from beyond the grave. It started ironically with the coincidental death of his brother Verlan, in a car crash two days after Ervil’s own death. The first on LeBaron’s post mortem death list may not have perished at the hands of the infamous henchmen, but many more would. Following LeBaron’s hit list, composed in jail and incorporated into his voluminous Book of the New Covenants, it appears that at least twenty-five opponents have so far been murdered, including wives Lorna and Yolanda and children Isaac and Arturo. In the infamous four o’clock murders, Duane Chynoweth, Eddie Marston and Mark Chynoweth, were all shot simultaneously at 4 pm on 27 June 1988. The long arm of the lifeless outlaw, Ervil LeBaron, seemingly still locks his hapless opponents in its vile embrace, choking the truth to death and prolonging the terrible myth of blood atonement.
Glenn Taylor Helzer
The sudden appearance of duffel bags containing dismembered body parts, in the Mokelumne river in California, heralded one of the most unusual murder trials of recent years. In a case that implicated a Playboy centrefold model, a witch and a would-be army of Brazilian orphan assassins, lapsed Mormon Glenn Taylor Helzer pleaded guilty to five grisly murders he had carried out with the intention of bringing about the second coming of Jesus Christ.
NICE KIDS
Born to devoutly religious parents, Glenn Helzer – who was known to most by his middle name, Taylor – and his younger brother, Justin, had an ordinary childhood and were referred to as ‘nice kids’ by witnesses who knew them in their early years. Taylor was the more outgoing of the two, whereas Justin was more introverted and looked up to his older brother. Taylor embraced the sense of superiority afforded him by his younger sibling and would often tell him: ‘I’m No. 1 and you’re No. 2.’ The normality seemed to continue into the time when both brothers fulfilled the Mormon requirement of two years’ mission work. Justin spent this time in Texas while Taylor went to Brazil where, it seems, he conceived at least one of the many unusual facets to his elaborate plan. On his return to America, things still seemed to be unexceptional; he got a job as a stockbroker, got married and became a father to two girls. In 1996, however, the first signs of what were to come became evident as, three years after getting married, he left his wife. He cited the restrictive nature of the Mormon faith and his desire to expand his life beyond the confines of the church as his reasons. He wanted to drink, smoke and have sex with other women and started wearing black as a sign of rebellion. Eventually, he was excommunicated by the church, but not before he had met one of his future accomplices, Dawn Godman. Godman was a loner with a troubled history; she had lost one child shortly after birth and lost custody of the other to her ex-husband. Seeking some purpose, she made what would prove to be a life-changing decision as she joined the same church as the Helzer brothers.
I AM PERFECT
Around this time, Helzer started to develop his own belief system, one of the fundamentals of which was that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ were fraudulent concepts and that society was foolish for buying into the notion that there were such things as right and wrong. A hastily scribbled, twelve-point manifesto formed the basis of his prospective cult and included maxims such as ‘I am already perfect and therefore can do nothing wrong.’ Ultimately, he believed that he was a prophet and that God was telling him what to do. Godman soon became acquainted with the brothers and actually ended up dating Justin, but the sibling who had made the real impression was Taylor. This didn’t go unnoticed by the latter, who became her spiritual leader and convinced her that he was a prophet who planned to start a self-help group called Impact America that would destroy Satan. Taylor planned to fund the group via drugs, prostitution and blackmail. He also planned to adopt some of the orphans he had met during his mission work in Brazil and train them to be assassins, in order to eliminate the fifteen Elders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah, so that he could take over. He also told her that it was his destiny to take over the Mormon church and that he would kill its leaders if he needed to. Finally, he divulged the only one of his deranged plans that would come to pass; he would extort money from a client to start his group and that he would need her to kill in God’s name. She agreed and, along with Justin, became Taylor’s follower and did his bidding.
Before they could carry out their plan, Helzer and his two followers needed to recruit one more unwitting accomplice to their cruel plan to launder the money. Taylor soon found the ideal candidate when he met Selina Bishop, a young woman newly arrived from a small town and looking for love. He was the tall, dark stranger she was looking for and he knew it. He told her that his name was Jordan and acted mysteriously, shunning opportunities to meet her friends and family or to divulge his surname, but she fell for him. She willingly agreed to open bank accounts to deposit Helzer’s stolen money in and gave him a key to her apartment, oblivious to his true motives and the dire consequences becoming involved with him would have for her.
VICIOUS MURDERS COMMENCED
With Bishop unwittingly on board, Helzer could put his extortion plan into action. He exploited his contacts at work to draw up a list of potential victims who he thought could be manipulated – and killed, if the need arose – easily. The first victim on the list was out when Taylor and Justin called at his home; undeterred, the brothers simply moved on to the next target: Annette and Ivan Stineman, an elderly couple who had actually come to think of Taylor as a friend. After forcing the Stinemans to drink rohypnol – which he had acquired on a trip to Mexico in 1999 with his then-girlfriend and future Playboy model, Keri Mendoza – he coerced them into writing cheques to the value of $100,000 payable to Selina Bishop. The couple were then led to the bathroom where they were viciously murdered; Annette Stineman’s throat was slit by Taylor while Justin smashed Ivan’s head against the floor. Taylor then summoned Godman – who had witnessed the entire episode – to join him and Justin in kneeling beside the corpses to thank them for giving their lives for his cause. Ever calculating, Helzer had gone as far as getting a Rottweiler to eat the remains of his victims. This, however, didn’t work, so their bodies were cut to pieces with a power saw after their teeth had been knocked out with a hammer and chisel to complicate identification.
Once the money obtained in the brutal attack on the Stinemans had been paid in to the relevant account, Helzer decided that Bishop was no longer needed. Afraid that she may suspect him, the only option as far as he was concerned was to have her killed. He offered her a massage and she accepted, lying face down on the floor. Justin crept into the room before hitting the back of her head several times with a hammer. Taylor then called Godman into the room.
‘Spirit says you get to know this isn’t a dream,’ he told her, before lifting Bishop’s head and slitting her throat.
With the key witness to his scheme eliminated, Helzer remained paranoid that he could still be caught. He had briefly met Bishop’s mother, Jennifer Villarin, and quickly came to the conclusion that she should be slain too. Using the key that Bishop had given him to her apartment and knowing that her mother would be there house sitting, Helzer descended on his latest victim in the small hours. However, she wasn’t alone; her partner, James Gamble, was also present. Unfazed, Helzer approached the sleeping couple, shot them at point blank range and hurriedly left the scene of his latest crime. A neighbour immediately reported the gunshots and police were soon on the scene. Similarly, it didn’t take long for the first three of his victims to be missed with the Stinemans’ daughter and Bishop’s colleagues reporting them missing respectively. Wanting to talk to the mysterious ‘Jordan’, law enforcers were soon in pursuit of Helze
r and his cronies and found damning evidence at the brothers’ home. After a protracted chase, the Helzer brothers and Godman were all apprehended before, later the same day, the duffel bags containing the body parts of their first three victims – which had been mixed up to hinder identification – surfaced.
Once legal proceedings began, it emerged that a woman who described herself as a Wiccan witch had provided the three suspects with a phony alibi before realising the extent of their crime and confessing to police. With all the evidence against them, there was little doubt that the case would be decided quickly. Realising this, Godman struck a deal with prosecutors; in return for pleading guilty to five counts of murder and testifying against the Helzer brothers, she would avoid the death penalty and be sentenced to thirty-eight years for her part in the killings. Despite a plea of insanity, Justin Helzer was found guilty and sentenced to death for three of the slayings while Taylor was given the death penalty for all five.
Jeffrey Lundgren
What is it that makes otherwise normal, decent, caring people fall under the spell of misguided and deranged individuals, such as Jeffrey Lundgren? Could it be the sheer force cult leaders derive from their delusion that they have been chosen to usher in The Second Coming of Christ that subdues the reason and conscience of followers, who then acquiesce in ritualistic, brutal human sacrifice?
EMBRACED THE ROLE OF AVENGING ANGEL
Does ‘temporary’ insanity absolve them from guilt and qualify them for sympathy?
Whatever the conclusion, there can be absolutely no doubt about the deluded ravings of Jeffrey Lundgren, even though he, too, rediscovered some logic once he was in custody and facing the death penalty. Like the worst of all cult leaders before him, having deceived, browbeaten, robbed and, in some cases, violated his gullible followers, he joyfully embraced the roles of judge, jury and executioner – or, as he would have preferred it, avenging angel.
LAST PROPHET ON EARTH
With hindsight, Lundgren might appear to have always had in mind his life’s project, the return of Christ in the Temple of Kirtland, Ohio. Lundgren’s destiny, to be God’s last prophet on earth, was, he felt, beyond question. His visions, like those of his Mormon predecessor, Joseph Smith, concerned the ancient, golden tablets from which the Book of Mormon evolved. Lundgren convinced his utterly biddable disciples that the tablets were buried close to the Temple, established by Joseph Smith. To counter what would be undoubtedly formidable opposition to the Second Coming, he argued, opponents needed to be extinguished and sinners ‘spiritually cleansed’. Such a project would require, of course, a massive arsenal of weapons to fight the good fight. Nevertheless, the events of Lundgren’s unremarkable life give the lie to this notion of a predestined, holy mission.
Lundgren was born on 3 May 1950, in Independence, Missouri and grew up in the 1950s and 1960s as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), allied to the Mormon Church. Some claim his father was abusive, others merely that he was a strict parent, though all seem to imply a less than happy childhood for Jeffrey. However, the aloof schoolboy certainly spent a lot of time acquiring from his father the hunting, shooting and survival skills which would serve him to such devastating effect in later life. Father and son frequently went off on hunting trips, and the young Lundgren became an expert marksman.
His education appears not to have suffered unduly from the alleged poor parenting and Lundgren was clever enough to enrol on an electronics degree course at Central Missouri State University. His membership of the church also stood him in good stead, as he found accommodation in an RLDS youth house. Here he befriended Alice Keehler, who would later become one of his followers and, in 1970, his – pregnant – wife, after they had both dropped out of university. In order to support his family, Lundgren enlisted as an electronics technician in the US Navy for four years, by the end of which time Alice had given birth to two sons. By then, he seemed preoccupied with money problems and disenchanted with and abusive to his wife, who allegedly suffered a ruptured spleen as a result of his violent behaviour. No evidence as yet of a coherent series of events and actions on the part of Lundgren, to support his claim to be Christ’s messenger on earth – but proof aplenty to suggest an unbridled bully and poor husband and father without a plan.
In 1984, Lundgren and his family moved into a church house, next to the Kirtland Temple in Ohio, and he secured a position as a tour guide of the Temple. As a lay preacher since 1981, he now had access to a congregation and tourists, on whom he could try out his theories and reading of the Bible. His simplistic take on interpreting scriptures, along with increasing references to violence and sexual acts, nevertheless apparently persuaded many followers. Unsurprisingly, it also attracted criticism from more traditional church members, who felt ill-at-ease with his unchristian teachings and questionable ethics.
THE SECOND COMING
Significantly, in 1987, he was evicted from the house and, accused of stealing as much as $25,000 of church funds, lost his job as tour guide. So, Lundgren’s honourable, early discharge from the Navy in 1974 had now been matched by a dishonourable removal from a position of trust and an accusation of theft from the church that had nurtured him. Was this to be the key moment in Lundgren’s ‘life project’, a mere thirty-seven years after his birth? Just like Ervil LeBaron, when he was demoted within the Mormon Church Firstborners group, Lundgren abandoned his RLDS church group and eventually moved his family to a rented farm house, where he started his own sect. Although sect numbers remained small, the twenty or so followers were sufficient for Lundgren’s needs: credulous disciples prepared to hand over some or all of their money to the cause and to subscribe to otherwise unthinkable deeds in the name of the Second Coming.
In order to exercise complete control over his followers and their assets, Lundgren insisted that they move in with him and his family. Small wonder, then, that he started to turn against Dennis and Cheryl Avery, who, after selling their home, effectively refused to be totally manipulated by Lundgren, when they found a rented house of their own and only donated part of their house sale profit to the sect.
PLAN OF ACTION
Lundgren made sure his followers accepted that his vision, directing him to Kirtland, revealed that on 3 May – coincidentally his own birthday – Christ’s successful Second Coming depended entirely on Lundgren and his followers taking the Kirtland Temple by force. He proposed spiritual cleansing of the people, land and property around the Temple, implying burglary and the deaths of those resisting the group’s objectives. Unfortunately for the Avery family, Lundgren soon identified softer targets, Dennis and Cheryl, as alternative major sinners and opponents and set about convincing sect members that the Averys should be put to death.
It was time for the practised hunter-killer to put together his plan of action. Thanks to his successful use of control techniques during his classes, members accepted that talking among themselves was disloyal and sinful and remained passive, as Lundgren became angry and intimidating whenever anybody, such as Dennis Avery, tried to raise objections. However, he needed reassurance that no-one would back out of the proposed murders. He invited his followers to dinner at a motel, on 17 April 1989. There, he questioned each of his co-conspirators separately; all of them swore their allegiance to the cause.
At the farm house, Lundgren and Ron Luff tricked Dennis Avery into going into a barn, on a pretext of helping them with some camping equipment. Bound and gagged, Avery was thrown into a pit dug beforehand and shot dead by Lundgren. The same fate awaited the rest of the family in succession: first, wife Cheryl, followed by fifteen-year-old daughter, Trina, then Becky, aged thirteen and, finally, Karen, six years of age. All were bundled into the communal grave and executed without a flicker of emotion from their killer. Lundgren’s accomplices finally buried the bodies with soil and lime, to speed up decomposure.
Lundgren and his cronies, with their families, fled to West Virginia and set up a military-style camp in order to
repel any attacks, especially from officers of the law. Now completely dominant, having subdued both physically and psychologically all of his followers, Lundgren became even more extreme in his teachings, going so far as to demand the right to cleanse through impregnation some of the wives of his followers. By the autumn, with group funds running low, the members dispersed and Lundgren and his family went back to California. Then, nine months after the slaughter in Kirtland, the bodies of the Averys were discovered by police following a tip-off. The net soon closed on Lundgren’s followers, who helped police to secure the arrest of thirteen in total, including the Lundgren family, in 1990.
So, how did the Supreme Court of Ohio react to Lundgren’s tale of spiritual cleansing and revelations of the Second Coming? Despite multiple, seemingly reasoned appeals, they rejected the arguments that had crucially swayed Lundgren’s followers – yet another murdering, false prophet met his maker, executed on 24 October 2006, at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. Alice Lundgren received five life sentences for conspiracy, complicity and kidnapping. And the rest of Lundgren’s cruelly brainwashed, formerly decent, law abiding disciples? Culpable in their own right, albeit on reduced charges, they attracted swingeing sentences that will keep many of them imprisoned without hope of parole until well beyond the end of their natural lives.
Jim Jones
When the shocking news broke that US Congressman, Leo J. Ryan, and four of his party had been gunned down while attempting to board a plane in Port Kaituma, Guyana on 18 November 1978, it was merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
