Cult Leader’s Wife Returned to Ohio

The wife of a cult leader accused in the ritualistic slayings of an Ohio family returned to that state from San Diego to face charges, authorities said Sunday.

Alice E. Lundgren, 39, was flown Saturday to Cleveland, where authorities hustled her through a crowd of reporters and took her to the Lake County Jail, said Sgt. Kathy Silvi of the Lake County Sheriff’s Department.

Alice Lundgren faces 15 counts of conspiracy to aggravated murder, complicity to aggravated murder and kidnaping in the slayings of Dennis and Cheryl Avery and their three daughters. Their bodies were found buried in a barn near Kirtland, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb, earlier this month.

When Lundgren arrived at the jail in Painesville, she was nervous, Silvi said. As with other new prisoners, she was carefully monitored during the first 24 hours to make sure she was adjusting, Silvi said, adding, “She’s doing fine. She is really cooperative. She hasn’t posed any problems.”

Lundgren; her 39-year-old husband, Jeffrey D. Lundgren, and their 19-year-old son, Damon, were arrested Jan. 7 at a National City motel. Father and son, both being held without bail in San Diego County Jail, are fighting extradition to Ohio.

Thirteen members of what police say was a religious cult have been arrested in connection with the slayings. Alice and Jeffrey Lundgren and 11 others were indicted Jan. 5 by a Lake County grand jury on charges that included aggravated murder.

Officials say Jeffrey Lundgren, a defrocked lay minister in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, left the church and formed his own sect, which trained with firearms. Sect members turned their paychecks over to Lundgren, police said.

Lundgren and cult members left their 15-acre farm last April and went to West Virginia before traveling to Missouri, where the cult split up, police said. Police have speculated that the Averys, one-time followers of Lundgren, were killed after a dispute over money, sex or loyalty.

Federal officials have said that the Averys were killed between April 16 and 18 on the farm, owned by the 29-member cult. The bodies were discovered when an informant came forward New Year’s Eve.