Self-proclaimed prophet Jeffrey Lundgren, 39, his son Damon, 19, and his wife Alice, 38, are held at an extradition hearing. Jeffrey, the founder of a small Mormon fundamentalist cult, and his followers were wanted for killing a family of five fellow members in Ohio (California, 1990) [1332 x 892].

[Bloodline and Blind Faith: Untold Stories of the Kirtland Cult Killings](https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/investigations/kirtland-cult-lundgren-jeffey-bloodline-blind-faith-killings-avery-family-damon-danny-kraft/95-7103db51-bde6-461c-adf1-255a85ec836f)

Jeffrey Lundgren’s [clemency report](https://drc.ohio.gov/wps/wcm/connect/gov/e2a1fcb5-cfb8-42b1-951f-a572fc989a0c/Jeffrey+Lundgren+Clemency+Report+-+Final.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CONVERT_TO=url&CACHEID=ROOTWORKSPACE.Z18_JQGCH4S04P41206HNUKVF31000-e2a1fcb5-cfb8-42b1-951f-a572fc989a0c-obchGQE) gives a fairly good summary of what happened.

The victims were Dennis Avery, Cheryl Avery, and their three daughters, Trina, Rebecca, and Karen.

Jeffrey was convicted of five counts of aggravated murder for being the triggerman.

Alice Lundgren was convicted of five counts of complicity to aggravated murder and kidnapping and sentenced to 150 years to life. As she was sentenced, she lashed out at the court. “Justice and fairness are not equal,” she said. “My name is Alice Elizabeth Lundgren. I’m not Josef Mengele. I’m not the ‘Angel of Death’. I’m the mother of four.” Prosecutors said an Angel of Death was exactly what Alice was. They called her the “matriarch” of her husband’s religious cult, saying she held it together by teaching the women to be submissive and to submit to the sexual advances of her husband. In a prison interview years later, Alice expressed remorse over the murders and said she felt stupid for having ever believed Jeffrey.

Damon Lundgren was convicted of four counts of aggravated murder. He’d acted as a lookout and taped Dennis’s hands and feet and held him down when Jeffrey shot him.

Ronald Luff, the key facilitator and planner of the murders with Jeffrey, was convicted of five counts of aggravated murder.

Daniel Kraft pleaded guilty to five counts of aggravated murder and was sentenced to 50 years life in prison.

Gregory Winship and Richard Brand, a college trained engineer, and testified against the others in exchange for leniency. They pleaded guilty to five counts of murder and were both sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. Sharon Bluntschly, Deborah Olivarez, and Susan Luff pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and were each sentenced to 7 to 25 years in prison.

Winship, Brand, Bluntschly, Olivarez, and Luff were all paroled between 2010 and 2011.

Kathryn Johnson, Dennis Patrick, and Tonya Patrick, who did not participate in the murders, were only tried for obstruction of justice. Johnson was sentenced to a year in the county jail. Dennis and Tonya received suspended sentences.

The prosecution sought the death penalty for Jeffrey Lundgren, Damon Lundgren, and Ronald Luff, viewing them as the most culpable participants in the murders.

At the sentencing phase of his murder trial, Damon, who’d turned 18 four months before the murders and was 19 when he went on trial for his life, took the stand and begged the jury to let him live. He claimed to have not known about the plot until the day it happened. Damon said his father was abusive. He would put an empty gun to his head and pull the trigger while telling him to trust him, and beat him with a belt on the face, chest, and arms.

>”My whole life has been centered around my father and the way he taught me to behave. I was never allowed to be like other children and go do things I always had to be home and do what he said. I was afraid that if I disobeyed him I would end up just like those other people that died. As far as my father was concerned those people disobeyed him and he killed them. I would like a chance to make up in any way I can some of the things my father has done.”

Damon’s attorneys reminded the jury that Jeffrey was the triggerman:

>”What chance did Damon have against the monster that was Jeffrey Lundgren?”

The jury voted for the most lenient sentence possible, 20 years to life on each count, albeit the judge still had discretion for sentencing. One juror said she didn’t view Damon as a cold-blooded murderer and thought he was scared of his father. Friends of Damon offered a petition with 514 signatures, requesting the minimum sentence of 20 years to life. “I know the kind of person he is,” said former classmate Jim Ford, 19. “I know the kind of person his dad is, and I feel his dad had everything to do with the cult and the killings, and he was a very overpowering person, and Damon was the type of person who could be pulled into someone who could lead him around.”

The judge sentenced Damon to 150 years to life in prison:

>”You accept no blame. You blame your father. You claim this was your father’s doing and none of your own. Jeffrey Lundgren could not have done anything without the help and devotion of you and his other followers. Society cannot tolerate such excuses. You apologized for what your father did and for what happened to the Averys. But you did not apologize for your own part.”

Luff, too, was spared execution after his attorneys argued that his lack of a criminal history and Jeffrey’s manipulation warranted leniency. He was sentenced to 170 years to life in prison.

Mormon fundamentalists are a wild bunch