Cult Linked To 5 Murders Is Offshoot Of Mormon Group

KIRTLAND, Ohio - The cult suspected in the slayings of five people is a splinter group of the Independence, Mo.-based Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which split from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a dispute over church leadership.

Thirteen people from the cult were indicted Friday on charges of aggravated murder or conspiracy to commit aggravated murder. Police said the suspects bound a family of five with duct tape, shot them to death and buried them in a common grave inside a barn.

Such splits are not rare, but the splinter groups usually faded after the passing death of a charismatic leader, said Steven Shields, author of a book about dissension in both the Reorganized Church and the much larger Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormon Church.

``Theologically, the Reorganized Church is very definitely and solidly in the Christian camp. You could line up the beliefs in God and Christ and a lot of mainline Protestant beliefs would match up quite comfortably,'' said Shields, a minister of a Reorganized Church congregation in Los Angeles.

``The Reorganized Church has only had three or four viable movements separate themselves, mainly because of the church's pluralistic attitude.''

For that reason, Shields said, the type of cult represented by Lundgren is generally unheard of in the Reorganized Church.

``It sounded to me like a very extremist group, which is a really weird aberration in the Reorganized Church's history,'' he said.

Dale Luffman, a minister familiar with the cult, said yesterday that Lundgren preached that Jesus would return to Earth and destroy all but Lundgren's followers.

Luffman, president of the northeast Ohio chapter of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Lundgren worked from 1985 to 1987 at a church temple in Kirtland and once was a Reorganized Church lay minister.

Several of Lundgren's followers who left the cult told authorities that the leader had violent beliefs, which included death threats against his followers, who were estimated at more than a dozen, that Jesus would destroy anyone not inside the historic Kirtland temple where he once worked.

Lake County Prosecutor Steven LaTourette said the shootings occurred between April 16 and April 19 because that's when Lundgren and his followers began leaving the Kirtland area.

Eight people were arrested as of yesterday. Still at large are five suspects, including Lundgren, 39, a burly 6-footer who proclaimed himself a prophet and was expelled in 1987 from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Kirtland. Also being sought are Lundgren's wife, Alice, 32, and their son, Damon, 19.

``It was a group that skewered religious beliefs,'' said George Rodriguez of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Kansas City.

The bodies were found Wednesday and Thursday in the barn on the 15-acre farm rented by Lundgren, where about 17 members of Lundgren's commune lived.

Kirtland police knew exactly where to look. They were aided by a map drawn by an ATF informant in Kansas City. The map was transmitted to Kirtland police by facsimile machine, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said the agents learned of the slayings on New Year's Eve while investigating an unrelated firearms case in Kansas City.

The victims have been tentatively identified as Dennis Avery, 49; his wife, Cheryl, 42; and their three daughters, Trina, 15; Rebecca, 13; and Karen, 7.

Luffman said he was familiar with the 13 people who were indicted.

``Some of them were paired up on the so-called revelation of Jeff,'' said Luffman. ``He paired up men and women like appointed marriages.''