Cult Member Admits Guilt in Ritual Slaying

A religious cult member who sat in on meetings where the ritual murder of a five-member family was discussed pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit aggravated murder.

Susan Luff, 31, told Common Pleas Court Judge James Jackson that she should have told authorities about cult leader Jeffrey Lundgren’s plan to kill Dennis and Cheryl Avery and their three daughters.

“It was morally and legally wrong” not to do so, she said.

At the pretrial hearing, Luff said she was present at Scripture meetings where Lundgren discussed killing the Avery family.

Luff was among 13 members arrested in January for the 1989 murders. The bodies of the victims were buried under a barn at a farm in Kirtland, about 30 miles from Cleveland, where the cult members lived in a commune. All five had been bound with duct tape, gagged and shot.

The Averys were considered less steadfast in their support of Lundgren’s beliefs, prosecutors say, and may have been killed as a sacrifice before the cult members left the Kirtland area in April, 1989, for a wilderness trip in West Virginia.

Jeffrey Lundgren, 40, who prosecutors allege shot the Averys, could get the death penalty if convicted at his trial, scheduled for Aug. 13.

Prosecutors said they would drop five counts of complicity to commit aggravated murder and five counts of kidnaping once Luff has cooperated in other cases. No sentencing date was set on the five counts against Luff, who could face life in prison.

Her 30-year-old husband, Ronald Luff, is charged with aggravated murder and kidnaping.

Alice Lundgren, 39, the cult leader’s wife, was convicted Wednesday on five counts each of complicity and conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and five counts of kidnaping. She faces life in prison.

Four other cult members have entered guilty pleas on various charges.

Lundgren, a defrocked lay minister from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, formed his own group in 1988.