Cultist Gets Death for Murdering 5
A judge Friday sentenced religious cult leader Jeffrey Don Lundgren to death for killing a five-member family belonging to his cult.
Common Pleas Judge Martin Parks, in issuing the sentence, followed the recommendation of a Lake County jury. The other option was life in prison.
Defense lawyer Charles Grieshammer pleaded Thursday for the judge to spare Lundgren’s life, saying the Independence, Mo., native believed he was following God’s will when he shot the Dennis Avery family, which included children ages 15, 13 and 6, to death.
Lundgren, 40, a one-time lay minister in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was convicted on Aug. 29 of aggravated murder for the 1989 killings.
The murders were committed in April, 1989, but the bodies were not uncovered until early January this year, after a member of Lundgren’s former cult went to authorities in Kansas City.
The cult had broken up in December.
Also facing a possible death sentence is Jeffrey Lundgren’s 19-year-old son, Damon Lundgren. He was convicted of four counts of aggravated murder last week.
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