Dennis and Tonya Patrick had known Alice and Jeffrey from their days at University and had moved to Kirtland, from Independence with their daughter Molly. Like all the others before them they were so taken aback by Lundgren’s teachings that they thought that there was no alternative, even though they did not like the way in which he treated his children – the abuse was continuing – they looked past it, and selfishly thought of themselves.
Throughout the year Lundgren’s teachings became more and more extreme and rigid, violence started coming into play, but like many extreme religious groups, balanced thinking gets replaced with abiding by the prophet’s rules. Lundgren was by this point seen as the next step from Joseph Smith Junior, and in Mormon terms, you couldn’t get much higher on Earth therefore his instructions even surpassed the importance of the Scriptures.
By the end of 1986 Lundgren started claiming to his flock that he had received prophecies from God regarding the end of the world. The prophecy, Lundgren claimed, stated that Jesus would return to Earth and destroy everything except those righteous few who were within the Kirtland Temple. He gave his followers two dates on which this would happen, but each time the date came and went with no avail. So Jeffrey quickly changed his prediction. He stated that his group should take hold of the Kirtland Temple on May 3, 1988, conveniently enough this date was also Lundgren’s birthday.
It was around this time that member Kevin Currie decided enough was enough and left the group as he could no longer handle the teachings of Lundgren. The rest of the congregation started to prepare for the day of the siege. Lundgren ordered his flock to wear military style uniforms, they had to march everywhere and were trained, just as Jeffrey had been by his own father, to load, unload and fire guns proficiently. They regularly practised combat tactics and watched violent Vietnam style war films in order to psyche themselves up for the main event. Lundgren had them believe that they were the good people of the world fighting a true and just cause of worldly evil.
In 1987 a family that Lundgren had known from his religious seminars in Independence, the Averys, moved to Kirtland in order to join the Lundgren cause. Jeffrey had never liked the family but upon their arrival in Kirtland he could not do enough for them, he knew too well that they had collateral from the sale of their house and once he had convinced them that he would care for them like he would his own family, they donated $10,000 of their savings to him. They were convinced that it would make them better off in the future as surely giving up such a huge amount of money to such a saintly person would make them slightly more god-like themselves?
Lundgren had become so obsessed with his personal plight that it was not surprising when officials from the RLDS started to question his practices and went as far as to annul all the religious titles that he held. This angered Lundgren and he immediately cancelled his membership of the church, left his job, and moved into a large farmhouse property that would soon house both his family and many of his followers. They settled on their 15-acre farm and prepared for the day that they would meet God, which in turn would be their final day on planet Earth.
At the beginning of September, Kevin Currie the member who had left, decided he had made the wrong decision and reinstated himself as a member of Lundgren’s clan. Currie had felt extreme guilt after leaving the first time and decided to return and this time not listen to the part of his consciousness that was questioning Lundgren’s authenticity.
Throughout the latter part of 1987, Lundgren managed to stock pile a vast amount of ammunition and weaponry which his eldest son, Damon, was in charge of. Jeffrey Lundgren’s children had been part of their father’s ever growing strangeness since birth, they did not know a different life, to them their father spoke the truth and it was the only one they knew.
At the beginning of 1988 Kevin Currie once again left the group, this time for good, as he could not get certain quirks of Lundgren’s out of his head. All Currie had wanted was to be a godly righteous man, but as Lundgren’s teachings went on he became more and more disillusioned by them and his mind had stayed strong enough to break out while he still could. Currie wanted to make a clean break, but Lundgren’s strange ways kept playing on his mind, so much so that he filed a report to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI just presumed that it was a hoax, and if not a hoax a minor problem that could be sorted by the local authorities so they passed the information onto Kirtland police department. The police chief immediately started investigating Lundgren and his group as he had a feeling that it was much more than a hoax.
Lundgren had no idea that an investigation had started on him, but he was extremely angry that Currie had walked out for a second time, this anger was to build when a lady by the name of Shar Lea Olsen also decided to leave. Shar had joined the group in 1987 after she had spent the weekend in Kirtland visiting a couple of friends who were already solid group members. She had been extremely impressed by Lundgren and had wanted to learn more. But by the time Shar left she had a rather different view of Lundgren and his enlightenments. She had wanted to leave for many months before she finally did so but had become so scared for her life that it took her time to build up the courage to make the final break.
THE SHOWN GOES ON
Jeffrey Lundgren may have lost two of his followers but he still had many more who were willing to do anything for him and follow his every instruction. By the autumn of 1988 Lundgren was holding lengthy scripture lectures that would last well into the night, he got into the habit of wearing military combat gear during his lectures and kept a loaded gun at his side. His scripture lectures became more and more violent and he translated the meanings for his own purpose. Anything he didn’t like about his flock he would bring to their attention in the following lecture and say that the Scripture stated that it was a sin.
The main promise that kept his flock so obeying was that Lundgren had sworn that they would get to see God. Over the months Lundgren started to analyse this promise and decided that God would be so angry with the sins of man when he returned to Earth that the Kirtland group would be at his mercy. This did not bode well, so to rectify this Lundgren amended his divine forecast. He told his followers that he had had another vision which told him that he needed to sacrifice the Avery family in order to save the rest of them. Lundgren demonstrated this by claiming that Dennis Avery was dismissive and did not listen to his teachings, Cheryl Avery was too obstinate to be virtuous and their children were uncontrollable. All these signs, Lundgren told his flock, showed that they were sinners who should be sacrificed for the good of the rest of them. Lundgren’s flock did not question his statements, in fact now Lundgren had mentioned it, they too could see what sinners the Averys were – sinners who deserved to be punished. In Lundgren’s warped mind, killing the Averys in the name of God was the only sensible thing to do.
SACRIFICE
By the beginning of April 1989, a plan for the demise of the Averys started to come together. Lundgren instructed that a pit should be dug in one of the farm’s outbuildings which would conceal the bodies. Lundgren told his flock that it was imperative that the murders happen and once they had they would all abandon the farmhouse and reform at a new venue. At the same time he informed the Averys to pack up their belongings and told them that they were all going on a pilgrimage.