Cultist Given Death Penalty in Slaying of 5
A religious cult leader who called himself a prophet was sentenced to death Friday for killing a family of five.
Jeffrey Lundgren, 40, listened stoically as Lake County Common Pleas Judge Martin O. Parks set the death sentence for April 17, 1991, exactly two years after the slayings. Appeals probably will delay execution far beyond that date.
Parks said Lundgren displayed “a great lack of remorse.”
The sentencing occurred a day after a jury recommended the death penalty for Lundgren, who formed a cult after he was defrocked in 1988 as a lay minister of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
He was convicted on Aug. 29 of five counts of aggravated murder and five counts of kidnaping in the deaths of Dennis and Cheryl Avery and their three children, ages 7, 13 and 15. They were killed on a northeast Ohio farm where the cult members lived.
The Averys were bound, gagged and shot one at a time, then buried in a pit inside a barn. Police found the bodies on Jan. 4 after receiving a tip from an informant.
On the same day that Lundgren was convicted, his wife, Alice, was sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy, complicity and kidnaping. Their son, Damon, was convicted on the same charges as Lundgren. His sentencing hearing begins Monday.
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