Cult Chief Convicted, Wife Sentenced in Slayings of 5

A cult leader was convicted Wednesday of killing a family of five and burying the bodies on a farm where his group lived, and his wife was sentenced to life in prison for her role.

A Lake County Common Pleas Court jury deliberated a little more than three hours before convicting Jeffrey D. Lundgren, 40, of five counts each of aggravated murder and kidnaping. He could be sentenced to death.

Lundgren showed no emotion when the verdict was read by Judge Martin O. Parks, who set a sentencing hearing for Sept. 10. Jurors are to consider which of three sentences to recommend to the judge: 30 years in prison without parole, 40 years without parole, or death.

Earlier in the same courthouse, Lundgren’s wife, Alice, 39, was sentenced to five consecutive life terms. She was convicted Aug. 1 on five counts of conspiracy and complicity to commit aggravated murder and five counts of kidnaping.

Defense lawyers admitted that Lundgren shot Dennis Avery; his wife, Cheryl, and three daughters, ages 7, 13 and 15.

Each victim was lured to a barn in April, 1989, at the Lundgrens’ rented farm in Kirtland, 30 miles east of Cleveland, and gagged, shot and dumped into a common grave. Authorities searching the barn found the bodies in January.

The Lundgrens’ 19-year-old son, Damon, was among 13 cult members arrested early this year. His trial on the same charges as his father is pending. Five other cult members have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing, and five more are awaiting trials.

After Mrs. Lundgren was sentenced, she read a statement criticizing the prosecution’s portrayal of her as cold and an active player in the killings. Instead, she said she was abused by her husband and stayed with the group out of fear for herself and her children.

Lundgren had been a lay minister in Kirtland for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He was defrocked in 1988 for inappropriate conduct and later founded his own sect.

The cult members left Kirtland shortly after the murders for wilderness homes in West Virginia and Missouri. The Lundgrens were arrested in January in a motel near San Diego, Calif.