Jeffrey Don Lundgren, the self-proclaimed prophet who orchestrated the brutal massacre of an entire family in the name of God, was executed by lethal injection Tuesday morning at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. He was 56 years old and had spent 17 years on death row for one of the most horrific crimes in Ohio history.
The execution began at 10:17 a. m. and was declared complete at 10:27 a.m. , with the official time of death recorded at 10:26 a. m.
For his final meal, Lundgren requested turkey, potatoes, gravy, salad, and pumpkin pie, declining coffee and syrup though offered a full breakfast spread. In his last words, he professed love for God, his family, his children, and his “beloved wife,” saying, “I am because you are.”
But those quiet final moments stand in stark contrast to the unspeakable violence Lundgren directed on a spring evening in April 1989, when he commanded his followers to murder Dennis Avery, Cheryl Avery, and their three daughters—Trina, 15, Rebecca, 13, and Karen, 7—in a barn behind his rented farmhouse. The victims were bound with duct tape, shot with a .45-caliber handgun, and buried in a pit while the rest of the cult unwittingly cleaned up after dinner inside.
Lundgren, a former RLDS church lay minister, had built a cult of about 20 followers who believed he spoke directly to God. He demanded total obedience, all their money, and even selected women to be his plural wives. When authorities began investigating his violent plans to seize the Kirtland Temple, he changed course, telling followers a blood sacrifice was needed to bring about the second coming.
He chose the Avery family—whom he considered disloyal—as the offering.
On the night of April 17, 1989, Lundgren’s followers lured Dennis Avery to the barn on a pretense of moving camping equipment. They tackled him, bound him with duct tape, and forced him into the 6-by-7-by-4-foot pit. As Dennis struggled and screamed through the tape, “No, no, this isn’t necessary.
God damn it,” Lundgren shot him twice in the back.
One by one, the rest of the family was brought to the barn—Cheryl was shot three times; Trina twice in the head; Rebecca shot in the thigh and back, left to bleed out; and little Karen, given a piggyback ride by a follower, was placed in the pit and shot twice. The chainsaw left running to mask the gunfire did its job. No one inside the farmhouse heard a thing.
The bodies were covered with lime, soil, and garbage. The next day, police and FBI agents searched the property for cult activity but walked directly over the grave. Lundgren fled to West Virginia with his followers, living off-grid for eight months.
Cheryl’s forced letter to family in Missouri—claiming the Averys had moved to Wyoming—kept anyone from looking for them.
The murders might have gone undiscovered but for a disillusioned cult member, Larry Keith Johnson, who contacted ATF agents on December 31, 1989. He drew a map showing exactly where the bodies were buried. On January 4, 1990, investigators excavated the barn and found all five victims, still bound, still shot.
Lundgren was arrested near the Mexican border three days later. At trial, the prosecution painted him as a manipulative, vulgar criminal who killed for control. The defense argued he genuinely believed he was following a divine decree.
The jury disagreed, convicting him on five counts of aggravated murder and five counts of kidnapping. They recommended death after just two hours of deliberation.
During 17 years on death row, Lundgren filed numerous appeals, all rejected. He claimed the murders were a misinterpretation of scripture and that he felt remorse. But prosecutors who knew him best insisted he never truly understood what he had done.
In a clemency hearing, he shared details of his abusive childhood but the parole board unanimously denied mercy.
On October 24, 2006, Lundgren’s final hours were marked by tears. At 8:23 a. m.
, while on the phone with his wife Alice, he broke down crying. The official time log noted that with 2 hours and 28 minutes left in his life, the 6-foot-1, 275-pound man sobbed. Alice, convicted for her role in the conspiracy, is serving 150 years to life.
In the execution chamber, witnesses included Cheryl Avery’s brothers, Donald Bailey and Kent Kilby. Bailey stood at the window as Lundgren was brought in, wanting the man who killed his sister to know he was there. Also present was prosecutor Steven LaTourette, who had overseen the excavation of the bodies.
“I can’t get the scene of the murder out of my mind,” LaTourette told reporters afterward. “I had hoped there would be no children as the bodies were being unburied.”
Lundgren did not acknowledge any of the witnesses. After his final words, the lethal injection proceeded without visible complications. The sedative thiopental sodium was injected at 10:17 a.
m. and 10:18 a. m.
, followed by a flush at 10:19 a. m. The paralytic pancuronium bromide was administered at 10:20 a.
m. and 10:21 a. m.
, with another flush. Potassium chloride, stopping the heart, was injected at 10:23 a. m.
Within minutes, Lundgren was dead.
The execution was the fifth in Ohio in 2006 and the 1,050th in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated nationwide in 1976. It brought a measure of closure to the small town of Kirtland, Ohio, where the gruesome case had overshadowed the historic Mormon temple for nearly two decades.
Fire Chief Rick Martinic said, “I think with him getting executed, it’s going to help the whole community. This will help put an end to it.” The farmhouse at 8671 Chardan Road—where the Avery family ate their last meal and where five innocent people were executed in a barn—was eventually demolished in November 2007.
A new church, New Promise Church, now stands on the property, purchased for $350,000 in an effort to transform a place marked by horror into one of hope.
Police Sergeant Ronald Andolsek, who led the investigation, compared Lundgren to infamous cult leaders like David Koresh, Jim Jones, and Charles Manson. “They used the same methods on their followers,” he said. “Lundgren wasn’t the first.”
The Avery family’s story is one of absolute trust betrayed. Dennis Avery, a devout RLDS member, had sold his house and moved his entire family from Missouri to Ohio to follow the man he believed was a true prophet. He gave Lundgren tens of thousands of dollars from the sale.
Instead of salvation, he found a shallow grave.
Cheryl Avery’s brothers, who waited 17 years for justice, said watching Lundgren die brought them peace. “I wanted him to know I was there,” Donald Bailey said. For the community, the execution allowed them to finally move on from a dark chapter that had defined Kirtland for too long.
The case raises profound questions about religious delusion, criminal responsibility, and the limits of belief. Can someone who genuinely believes they are following God’s command be held fully accountable for murder? Does a claim of divine authority absolve a person of guilt?
These are questions that scholars and legal experts continue to debate. But for the families of the victims, the answer was clear: Jeffrey Lundgren was a cold-blooded killer who used religion as a weapon.
Prosecutors said Lundgren never showed genuine remorse. Even at the end, he professed love for God and family, but never apologized to the Averys. His final words reflected his self-image as a prophet, not a murderer.
“I am because you are,” he said—a cryptic statement that witnesses interpreted as a final assertion of his twisted worldview.
The Avery family—Dennis, 49; Cheryl, 46; Trina, 15; Rebecca, 13; and Karen, 7—should have had futures. Dennis should have seen his daughters grow up, get married, have children. Cheryl should have been there for holidays and graduations.
The three girls should have experienced love, joy, and all the possibilities of life. Instead, they were executed in a barn, their bodies thrown into a pit, left to decompose for eight months while their killer fled.
When the bodies were exhumed, identification required forensic analysis. The children were so badly decomposed that investigators had to rely on dental records and clothing. The scene in that barn was one that prosecutor LaTourette said he could never forget.
Lundgren’s death does not bring back the Averys. But it does mark the end of a long legal battle and the final chapter in one of Ohio’s most notorious crime stories. The self-proclaimed prophet who demanded absolute obedience and punished perceived disloyalty with death is now dead himself.
The barn is gone. The cult is dissolved. And the law has had its say.
For the officers who worked the case, for the prosecutors who argued it, for the families who suffered through it, the execution was a necessary act of justice. It will not erase the pain, but it closes the door on a nightmare that began on a quiet Monday evening in April 1989 and ended on a Tuesday morning in October 2006.
Jeffrey Don Lundgren was executed. The Avery family is finally at rest. And the community of Kirtland can begin to heal.