Cult Leader Gets Executed
24 October 2006 by King Retard
This guy would probably be appointed as a judge in Pastor Bob’s Monarchy. Jeffrey Lundgren, cult leader, was executed for killing a family of five.
LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) — Ohio executed a religious cult leader Tuesday for murdering a family of five followers who were taken one at a time to a barn, bound and shot to death. The youngest was a girl just 7 years old.
Jeffrey Lundgren, 56, died by injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.
“I profess my love for God, my family, for my children, for Kathy (his wife). I am because you are,” Lundgren said in his final statement.
The evidence against him in the deaths of the Avery family — Dennis, 49, Cheryl, 46, Trina, 15, Rebecca, 13, and 7-year-old Karen — was compelling.
Upset by what he saw as a lack of faith, Lundgren arranged a dinner hosted by cult members. Afterward, he and his followers led the family members one by one — the father first, young Karen last — to their deaths while the others unknowingly cleaned up after dinner.
Lundgren shot each victim two or three times while a running chain saw muffled the sound of the gunfire.
Lundgren argued at his trial in 1990 that he was prophet of God and therefore not deserving of the death penalty.
“It’s not a figment of my imagination that I can in fact talk to God, that I can hear his voice,” he had told the jurors. “I am a prophet of God. I am even more than a prophet.”
Lundgren formed the cult with about 20 members in the northeast Ohio town of Kirtland after he was dismissed in 1987 as a lay minister of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of the Mormon church.
He said God commanded him, through interpretation of Scriptures, to kill the Avery family, who had moved from Missouri in 1987 to follow his teachings.
Lundgren’s attorneys had tried to put off the execution, arguing that he should be allowed to join a lawsuit challenging Ohio’s use of lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment. They said his execution had more of a chance of being painful because he was diabetic and overweight at 275 pounds.
Late Monday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati issued an order allowing the execution to go forward. The U.S. Supreme Court refused a last-minute request to stop his execution Tuesday, and Gov. Bob Taft denied clemency.
Thirteen cult members were charged in the case, including Lundgren’s wife, Alice, now 55, and their son, Damon, now 35, both serving life prison terms.
Isn’t it funny how when they’re emptying your wallets in the name of faith, they’re “religious leaders,” but when they’re putting a few bullets in you they’re “cult leaders?” Either way, they’re victimizing people in the name of gawd.
24 October 2006, on 1:49 pm
That is scary shit.
“religious leaders”, “cult leaders”
It’s nothing to do with bullets or wallets, more to do with the fact that they aren’t going along with the consensus and, thus, are rocking the boat. The only thing that religious (read cult) leaders have is their image and the image of their organizations. If they lose that, they have nothing with which to extort that money.
24 October 2006, on 1:59 pm
He said God commanded him, through interpretation of Scriptures, to kill the Avery family, who had moved from Missouri in 1987 to follow his teachings.
Once again this gawd awful book has been used as justification for murder. As one source states: “The Biblical God is herein charged with about 170 counts of “God Murders” and God’s commands for others to murder.” Murders committed by those who say “god told me to” since biblical times are countless (right up to our current president’s invasion of Iraq).
24 October 2006, on 2:00 pm
“It’s not a figment of my imagination that I can in fact talk to God, that I can hear his voice,” he had told the jurors. “I am a prophet of God. I am even more than a prophet.”
The really frightening thing about this quote to me is that it easily could be the Shrub saying this; the only difference is that he doesn’t do his own wetwork.
24 October 2006, on 2:04 pm
and that quote, if used in any other context (hearing voices) would require involuntary committment and a psych eval.
24 October 2006, on 2:25 pm
But…in the picture, he has such warm and fuzzy appeal…
They said his execution had more of a chance of being painful because he was diabetic and overweight at 275 pounds.
Awwww…well then, take him out to the barn and shoot him to the song of the chainsaw.
If only he could have been lethally injected 5 times.
24 October 2006, on 2:42 pm
Look at this whackadoo. Does this look like she is possessed by a loving Jeebus/gawd?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyJI9xDUYV8
24 October 2006, on 2:59 pm
Well Praise Cheeses he had his belief in god and bible to keep him moral. Just imagine the horrible things he would have done if he didn’t believe.
These are the classic cases to bring up when we run into that goddamn, stupid argument that without gawd and the Buybull we have no morality or sense of right or wrong.
“He said God commanded him, through interpretation of Scriptures, to kill the Avery family, who had moved from Missouri in 1987 to follow his teachings.’
Huh. And atheist aren’t trust by a majority of the American people because of our “situational ethics”.
24 October 2006, on 3:17 pm
Stardust,
I watched that. Classic appeal to the irrational and emotional aspects of social primates. And those fools don’t even realize they are being exploited by religious leaders. By asserting that kind of behavior is a sign of the Holy Spigot’s possession, they make it ‘acceptable’. Oddly (or maybe not) the videos I have seen of alleged “demon possession” look remarkably similar.
24 October 2006, on 3:50 pm
I was once the leader of a cult- or, if not the leader, then a member with aspirations. It was called the “First Church of the Rembrandt Pussyhorse” and we rightfully recognized Gibby Haynes as the Bastard Messiah with the rest of the Butthole Surfers as His Daddy, where the Wholly Spirit was actually a sheet of liquid-drenched paper cut into quarter-inch squares and taken as Communion. We really weren’t much of a cult- hell, we only killed a handful of folks, none of them a pregnant woman, and forgot to write messages in their blood at the crime scenes, and we didn’t have rules or anything. Plus, the cult tended to disperse in the morning when everybody crashed.
24 October 2006, on 4:11 pm
Stardust
I didn’t have any sound, but the video was still very moving. I think I may convert. Jesus says, “Flap your hands like a chicken!”
All the screaming can’t be good for the poor fetus in the preggars chick’s uterus. The guy in the green plaid shirt got a good laugh out of it all.
24 October 2006, on 4:11 pm
RDZ,
I saw them live twice. Absolute wacked out audience. They were living in Athens GA while I was there and another grad student friend of mine would occasionally go over to “Butthole Hollow”. She claimed they never went a day not tripping. You are a righteous buttholier. You have earned a Hairway to Steven.
24 October 2006, on 4:15 pm
My last girlfriend told me that she was called by gawd to dump me after my office party in the parking lot of the restaurant, and pursue jeebus.
She pursued the lawd, as well as a friend of mine who makes more money than me and owns a house, lol!
What makes some people intelligent, and others over-superstitious nut bags? Maybe gawd will tell me the answer tonight while I kill my followers, muha ha haa.
24 October 2006, on 4:21 pm
Here is a link to the real pic of Jeffrey Lundgren and article
“Attorney Ties Murders to Young’s “Blood Atonement”.
Picture of the murdered Avery family and another article.
24 October 2006, on 5:06 pm
Stardust
That looked like a prelude to the funky chicken. Damn that is something else. It used to take me quite a few hours of serious drinking before I could work myself into such a tumultuous uproar.
Three cheers to the state of Ohio for doing the right thing. What a bunch of sick freaks.
24 October 2006, on 5:55 pm
Stardust
Actually, I prefer the photo provided in the thread. At least he doesn’t look like one of my neighbors.
24 October 2006, on 6:02 pm
Karen, that’s why no matter how nice or safe a neighborhood seems, I always lock my doors.
24 October 2006, on 6:08 pm
Sad thing is, can you imagine the horror of those little girls when they were led into the barn and saw their parents and sisters lying dead or dying? And all this in the name of gawd.. or more correctly, in the name of a narcasitic madman who needed to prove his machismo and ‘power’ over others and used the superstition of gawd to do so.
And these people MOVED to the area to follow him, wtf?
24 October 2006, on 6:23 pm
And these people MOVED to the area to follow him, wtf?
Just like sheep are led to slaughter.
24 October 2006, on 6:53 pm
A slightly less funky chicken.
24 October 2006, on 8:17 pm
“Kalimar! Kalimar! Kalimar!”
Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
24 October 2006, on 8:27 pm
You know, wackjobs like this make it really hard not to soften up just a little in my opposition to the death penalty.
24 October 2006, on 8:46 pm
Too bad Ohio doesn’t have Death-by-Firing Squad…would’ve, y’know, seemed to fit the crime.
I don’t think any state has death-by-firing squad anymore, it’s pretty much all lethal injections these days, I think. No more electric chair either, I don’t think.
I haven’t followed the other links yet, but I hope the other cult members were charged as accessories to murder.
Oddly enough, if the Avery family had sought to lead Lundgren “away from God”, then the O.T. endorses EXACTLY the “punishment” that Lundgren brought down on the hapless Averys, in no uncertain terms. It doesn’t do any good to quote that kind of blood-curdling stuff to Xtians, though, they just get all defensive and complain we’re taking the “Word of Gawd” out of context and “even the Devil can quote scripture”, etc, etc…Religion REALLY has it in for smart people who think…or rather, any human being, actually, who actually decides to use her (especially *her*!) rational faculties that millions of years of human evolution and collective experience have given us.
A little Off topic, but vis a vis gun-toting Christians, has anyone seen the movie FLYBOYS, about the American Esquadrille Lafayette of the French Air Force in WW1? Was it just me, or was their token “Christian” pilot just a bit creepy, bordering on psychotic…? Happily singing “Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching as to War” while opening up with his machineguns on German pilots who were likely also just as Christian as he…But there I go again, expecting Logic from people clearly beyond its reach.
It’s amazing–Some Christians can be total pacifists, really hold to that sword-into-plowshares stuff, while others are Gawd, Duty, Country/Bush, kill ‘em all, let gawd sort ‘em out…and then true Freaks like Lundgren and Andrea Yates…and so I don’t trust ANY of them.
I may work pragmatically with the liberal Christians on common social goals, but I’ll never view such collaboration as anything more than a temporary alliance. I’m not a total pacifist, I do believe in the right of self-defense, the right to keep & bear arms…but I don’t support standing armies with career military people (neither did many of the Founding Fathers). Though I view them as less-than-reliable allies, at least Liberal Christians are modernized enough to have accepted the “live and let live” philosophy of pragmatic secular morality. One of the things that initially drew me to Judaism on my road to atheism was its non-prostelytising aspects…versus Christianity…some of the Xtian-to-Jewish “deconversion/reconversion” stories are almost as fun to read as outright religious–>atheist deconversion narratives.
Anyway, I’m driftin’ pretty far afield here, so I’ll close for now
24 October 2006, on 9:13 pm
This wondrous event (the massacre), which showed God in all his/her glory, took place just up the freeway from me (Kirtland is northeast of Cleveland). Gosh it was so much fun, the suspicion, the tip, the digging up of the barn, the finding of the bodies, the articles about the Averys, who came to Kirtland to make a new life and found death, just a laugh riot; I’m so sorry you couldn’t all have been here. I remember beginning to think then that perhaps there should be some exceptions to the no-kill rule, which I ascribed to then.
Since then, I’ve revised my convictions over time for numerous reasons. For example, without a belief in god, there is no reason to call all life sacred. Some life is the very opposite of sacred or even worth preserving, i.e. serial killers, pedophile killers, and the kinds of killers like Lundgren. People who - when they are not prevented from doing so - kill. As for the state killing people, I disagree with those who say they can’t support the state killing in their name. The state kills people in our name every day - many, many more than are ever executed, and for far less reason, including, oh, none.
The one argument I wholly accept re the death penalty is that related to mistakes, which are so often due to race and class, and I don’t know what to do about that, except to work for a system in which every death penalty conviction is backed up by incontrovertible DNA or other forensics, and when will we get a society like that? However, with events such as the Lundgrens and serial killers, one is usually pretty sure. Though I realize there are still questions about Wayne Williams in Atlanta. But then he’s black, so there you have it.
I’d be interested in hearing others’ views on this matter. For my money, Lundgren had 17 years of life that the Averys didn’t. That’s way more than enough.
24 October 2006, on 9:16 pm
And re the little girls, the last one was carried into the barn by the fuck himself, as he often carried the children around on his shoulders.
As you can see, I have barely concealed rage over all of this, which has been reawakened by the legal contortions involved in trying to save his life.
24 October 2006, on 9:36 pm
Why the hell do people contort their arms like that and call it dancing? It is more like they are having some kind of seizure. And it don’t look good either.
24 October 2006, on 10:03 pm
Om nu Shiva!
Om nu Shiva!
Om nu Shiva!
24 October 2006, on 10:08 pm
Actually, I prefer the photo provided in the thread. At least he doesn’t look like one of my neighbors.
The guy in the picture would just reach into someone’s chest and pull his or her heart out. Ah, Mola Ram…
24 October 2006, on 11:04 pm
Oh. Man. I somehow missed they finally killed the son of a bitch. Jeffrey Lundgren is partially responsible for my deconversion. I grew up RLDS in the same county as Lundgren and his followers. I knew almost everyone involved — it was very weird when families just started up and moving to Kirtland to follow him. And then my friend Trina Avery (the oldest girl in the the family that was murdered) and her family left too… When the news broke about their death I was in a daze for weeks. I couldn’t get their faces — I knew the entire family pretty well — out of my mind. And Trina and Becky and Karen all killed in a barn for this whacko. And now I’m crying. It’s been almost 20 years and I still remember them and cannot believe that asshole killed these very gentle and unassuming people because of religion.
24 October 2006, on 11:11 pm
I would like to volunteer for flogging duty. I, myself, was schooled with a hickory switch- don’t worry, I deserved it, and can testify to the sting. Not to seem Hammurabic or anything but folks like Lundgren, those two fucks who dragged James Byrd to death, Andrea Yates and Matthew Shephard’s killers should have done to them what they’ve done to their victims- hey, it’s kind of like a legislated golden rule.
25 October 2006, on 1:05 am
…and here we ALL are, on this…EXTREMELY STRANGE…and indeed…Cosmically bizarre…”Little Blue Dot”!
Somehow, I was reminded of Carl Sagan’s bit of perspective regarding our planetary home. In spite of earth’s perceived beauty from afar…this extremely weird event is just ONE of so many past and present horror stories played out on this, inexplicable, dinky little planet.
Scotty…where are Ye?
25 October 2006, on 1:23 am
…and here we ALL are, on this…EXTREMELY STRANGE…and indeed…Cosmically bizarre…”Little Blue Dot”!
Somehow, I was reminded of Carl Sagan’s bit of perspective regarding our planetary home. In spite of earth’s perceived beauty from afar…this extremely weird event is just ONE of so many past and present horror stories played out on this, inexplicable, dinky little planet.
Scotty…where are Ye?
ChuckA, thanks for the Sagan quote. It’s one of my favorites. It made me smile a little bit, despite the depressing nature of my post here.
S, welcome and thanks for stopping by and sharing that with us. Despite the horrors committed by humanity, I hope you’ll find us a bastion of sanity in an otherwise insane world.
25 October 2006, on 3:54 am
When I look into the eyes of this man, I see the sadness of an aging man who is no longer able to ejaculate substantially. Unlike me, I blow huge cheese flavored loads.
25 October 2006, on 6:03 am
These shite religions always need to punish people, why cant they just wait for Gawd to do it.
25 October 2006, on 9:42 am
Jimmy Dean, I think you’re in the wrong forum. The child-molester teen chat room is somewhere else, try the RNC web site.
25 October 2006, on 9:50 am
“It’s not a figment of my imagination that I can in fact talk to God, that I can hear his voice,” he had told the jurors. “I am a prophet of God. I am even more than a prophet.”
So they don’t believe this guy even though he has zero evidence to suggest he talks to God?
How is he any different from Jesus?
25 October 2006, on 11:05 am
These shite religions always need to punish people, why cant they just wait for Gawd to do it.
Because the little gawd voice in their head tells them to do it and if they disobey gawd they can’t go to the great freak show in the sky.
25 October 2006, on 9:09 pm
Like Flame821 noted, it loses all credibility if you substitute a name. It’s so frustrating that people hold one specific, communal imaginary friend higher than all others.
But, hey, if you don’t kiss Hank’s ass, he’ll kick the shit out of you.