Jeffrey managed to graduate from high school, and was accepted on an electrical engineering course at the Central Missouri State University. In his first year at University he met some students that he was able to befriend at the RLDS student house; one person in particular would prove to have a life changing effect on him. This person was Alice Keeler.
A SUITABLE PARTNER
Alice was born on January 21, 1951 in a small town about 20 miles outside of Independence, called Macks Creek. She possessed many similarities to Jeffrey whilst growing up, preferring her local church group to her school and peers. She was the eldest of four siblings and had a relatively happy childhood up until the age of 12 when her father found out he had multiple sclerosis. As her father got weaker so did the family. He was no longer able to provide for them so Alice’s mother had to get a job as a secretary at a local firm. This meant that as the oldest child, Alice instinctively took on her mother’s role as carer for her three siblings and her infirm father. This misfortune caused her to become even more introverted at school but she managed to stay on top of things with the help of the church youth group which continued to take precedence over school activities. When everything else had crumbled around her, her faith had kept her going.
Despite her problems at home and school, Alice graduated from high school and gained a place at the Central Missouri State University where again she became an active member of the student church youth group. It was here that Jeffrey and Alice first met and it was not long before they became an item.
Alice fell pregnant to Jeffrey in 1969, and to the disappointment of both sets of parents, they dropped out of their university courses. Jeffrey’s parents were so enraged by their son’s behaviour that they refused to go to the wedding when the couple married the following spring.
Jeffrey needed to start providing for his new family so he signed up to the Navy and was enlisted to serve as an electrical technician. He served four years in this position and by the time he came out on honourable discharge his second son had been born.
The family of four settled in San Diego, California and rekindled their interest in the RLDS. Before long they were strong members of the congregation who spent a lot of their spare time organising and participating in the churches events and making a conscious effort to enlist new members, trying especially hard to convert any friends, old and new, who were of different beliefs.
Things started to take a turn for the worse in the late ’70s. Ever since he had left the US Navy, Jeffrey had found it extremely difficult to find a job that would bring in a big enough income to support his ever growing family. He decided to relocate his family back to Independence hoping that finding a job would be easier there, but the job market did not seem to be the problem as whenever Jeffrey did manage to get a job he could not hold it down due to his dream-like, irresponsible personality.
VIOLENT STREAK
When the Lundgrens’ third child, Kirsten, was born in 1979 Jeffrey seemed to switch from being annoyingly irresponsible to downright aggressive, and started to abuse his wife and children. It is reported that Alice even needed surgery once after Jeffrey pushed her down a flight of stairs.
In the September of 1980, Alice gave birth to the Lundgrens’ fourth child – family and friends have speculated that she became pregnant in order to try and save her rapidly crumbling marriage; to stop the abuse and curb Jeffrey’s roaming eye.
TOO LIBERAL
Around this time, in the early ’80s, the RLDS was having a spring clean and started to change some of their archaic rules. When, in 1985, they announced that they were going to start allowing women to become ordained as priests, Jeffrey knew it was time to move onto something new. Jeffrey felt disenchanted with these liberal ideologies, and the lay minister desired to return to the fundamentals of the Mormon faith, which among other things, taught women to be submissive to men.
Jeffrey believed that the truth lay somewhere in the Scriptures and even though the RLDS was not going to help him, he would still find the answers. It was not long before a Mormon splinter group had formed, with Jeffrey Lundgren in command and other disillusioned RLDS members as his followers.
Bible teachings and study groups were held regularly at the Lundgren house and soon many of his friends and family moved away from the RLDS and into his arms.
Even though as a boy, Jeffrey had been quite a loner, over the years he had learnt how to come across as confident and this side of his personality was what shone at this time of his life. He had a real way with people and it did not take long for his followers to become convinced that he had uncovered the true meaning of the Scriptures. The strange effect that he had started to have on people even caused some followers to donate money for the upkeep of his family – did this start Jeffrey Lundgren’s brain ticking with ideas, or did he think it was God’s way of saying thank you?
The sums of money that Lundgren was receiving were helpful but modest, and it wouldn’t be long before greed would start to take over.
Lundgren soon declared that God had spoken to him and told his followers that they needed to move to Kirtland, Ohio to start a revolution. He told his congregation that they were going to do good deeds such as feed the hungry and help the poor, much in the way that Christ had done over 1,500 years previously, and very true to the ideologies of the RLDS. Such positive statements enthralled his followers and they wanted to find out more.
So, in mid August, 1984, the Lundgren family and a handful of followers arrived at the Chapin Forest Country Park, a few miles from the Kirtland Temple.
The Kirtland Temple was built by Joseph Smith Junior, the 1830 founder of the Latter Day Saints in Western New York. The temple started to be built in 1833 after Smith apparently received a revelation from God telling him that a place of worship was to be constructed in Kirtland and it has become a source of history and divinity ever since.
It was in Chapin Forest that Lundgren declared his revelations to his flock, funnily enough they were much like Joseph Smith Junior’s revelations, and described how they would have to use the original RLDS temple for a while. Both Alice and Jeffrey managed to get jobs as temple guides, due to their extensive knowledge of the faith. The job gave them a small salary and also free lodgings and meals. This was a perfect set up for the vision that was starting to grow within Lundgren’s head as he knew he would be able to use his position to subconsciously pass his views onto the temple visitors, and maybe even sway some more recruits.
THE MAKING OF A LEADER
Slowly, the greed that was growing inside Lundgren started to take over, and he began pilfering from the donations that the church received and from the earnings of the visitor centre, that both he and Alice had easy access to. Nobody suspected that such a religiously moral man would do such a thing, that he got away with daylight robbery. In fact, people were starting to see Lundgren as the opposite to a petty criminal and more like a saint.
Jeffrey restarted his home seminars and bible groups in Kirtland and his group of followers grew quickly. He mesmerised people with his endless knowledge of the Scriptures and his promises of kindness yet to come. In 1984 one of Jeffrey’s old navy friends, Kevin Currie, was visiting Kirtland Temple and was surprised to find Lundgren there working as a guide. Currie was bewitched by Lundgren’s wisdom and aura that he immediately relocated to Kirtland and moved in with Lundgren’s ever increasing flock, Currie even surrendered his monthly earnings to the Lundgrens cause. More and more people would re-think their lives after going on one of Jeffrey’s temple tours, many saw him as a prophet and believed that to get close to God they would have to be close to Lundgren.