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Cops Find Family of Five Murdered Inside Barn · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So imagine a town called Kirtland, Ohio. If you were
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to drive through it today or, you know, even back
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: in the 1980s, it would probably strike you as just
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: this this quintessential peaceful American town.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Like a postcard.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah. It sits beautifully atop this hill. It's a
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: quiet rural community where people actually know their neighbors. And
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: it's a place that is like built entirely around faith.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Which is really central to its whole identity.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: It is. I mean, Kirtland is famous for its historic
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Mormon temple. Originally, it was a major gathering place for
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Joseph Smith and his followers, and then later for the
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: reorganized Church of Latter-day Saints.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you picture, like, choir practice, Sunday school, community potlucks,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Right. It's the visual definition of idyllic.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: A sanctuary, really.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: A total sanctuary. But I want you to keep that
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: peaceful image in your mind. Hold on to it. because
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I need to violently contrast it with a discovery that just,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: it shattered this town's history forever.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's quite a shift.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. Inside this massive, rustic red barn on a farm,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: right off Route 6, authorities spent hours digging through like
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: four feet of tightly packed clay and dirt and heavy debris.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Which was intentionally packed down, yeah?
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly. And beneath all that earth, they didn't find
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: old farming equipment or, you know, animal bones. They found
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: an entire family of five buried in a pit.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Avery family. Dennis, Cheryl, and their three young daughters, Trina, Becky,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: and little seven-year-old Karen.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It is just a staggering image.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: And the mission of our deep dive today is to
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: unpack the chilling evolution of the man who put them
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: in that ground.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: We really have a lot to go through here.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: We do.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: To do this, we are pulling from a massive stack
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: of sources. We've got FBI investigation files, literal courtroom trial transcripts,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: psychological profiles of the cult members, and firsthand interviews.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: It's a very comprehensive set of documents.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: It really is. And we are going to deconstruct how
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a seemingly knowledgeable Sunday school teacher, a guy who literally
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: gave friendly tours at that beautiful historic temple, morphed into
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: this narcissistic cult leader named Jeffrey Lundgren.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: A man who orchestrated one of the most cold-blooded, methodical
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: massacres on record.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Because the transition from a Sunday school teacher to a
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: mass murderer is not a cliff you jump off. It's
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: a staircase you walk down.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: A staircase, yeah. I like that analogy.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: And the sources we have today, they really map out
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: that psychological descent, step by step. We are looking at
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: the actual mechanics of extreme manipulation.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: And that is exactly what I want to zero in
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: on today, the mechanics. Because reading through these transcripts, I just...
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I kept hitting a wall.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: What do you mean?
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Well, you, the listener, are probably going to hit the
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: same wall. We all like to think we would recognize
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: a dangerous manipulator the moment we met them, right?
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, sure. The whole I'd see the crazy in their
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: eyes and walk away mentality.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But how do ordinary people, people who were just
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: looking for meaning or a connection to something larger than themselves,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: how do they allow themselves to be systematically stripped of
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: their autonomy, their life savings? And, like, eventually their fundamental humanity.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Well, to understand that, we have to start by completely
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: throwing out the idea of the mustache-twirling villain.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Right. It doesn't start with violence.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Not at all. Lundgren's initial hook was incredibly subtle. If
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: we look back at the mid-1980s, Lundgren is just volunteering
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: as a tour guide at the Kirtland Temple.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Just a normal guy, ostensibly.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He isn't preaching violence. He is studying. But he
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: memorized the Book of Mormon to a degree that really
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: astounded people.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: He didn't just study it, though, did he? Because the
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: psychological profiles make it clear. He absorbed the text specifically
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: to weaponize it. Yes.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: He engaged in what he literally called scriptural warfare.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Scriptural warfare? That phrase alone is so intense.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: It is. He would actively hunt down church officials... provoke debates,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: and corner them using only scripture to prove them wrong.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Just hammering them with verse after verse.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Right. And notice the phrasing there, scriptural warfare. The text
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: isn't a guide for spiritual peace for him. It's ammunition.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, ammunition.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: When someone is that adept at citing scripture, they can
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: build this impenetrable armor. They create a dynamic where they
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: are the ultimate authority.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: So if you disagree with them.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: You aren't just arguing with Jeffrey Lundgren. You are arguing
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: with God.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: That is such a powerful trap to set. And amazingly,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: this aggressive, combative style actually drew people to him.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: It projected confidence.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And people are drawn to that.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: They really are.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: He started telling his Sunday school classes that he was
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: a seer, a revelator, like a literal prophet of the
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: last days sent to restore things before Christ's coming.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge claim to make in a mainstream setting.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Huge. But people bought it. The interviews show these followers
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: were just desperate for, as one put it, words from God.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: You really have to look at the vulnerability of the
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: people he targeted. When individuals are in a state of transition,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: maybe they're facing a divorce, financial ruin, or just, you know,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: feeling unmoored by the complexities of modern life. The human
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: brain craves certainty.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: It's a survival mechanism, right?
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a survival mechanism. Lundgren didn't offer suggestions. He
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: offered absolute, unwavering certainty. He claimed he heard God's voice,
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: not as a metaphor, but literally.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, I get the appeal of certainty. I really do.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: But I have to push back here. Because this is
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: where the narrative hits its first massive contradiction.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: The embezzlement?
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Yes. Lundgren is building this following. But he immediately gets
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: into a fierce conflict with a local minister. The minister
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: is highly suspicious of him. And, spoiler alert, The minister
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: was right.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Very right.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: The mainstream church investigates and discovers their so-called prophet has
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: embezzled $ 40, 000 in temple donations.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Which was a massive amount of money.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Massive. He was exposed, he's fired, and he's physically kicked
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: out of the church.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: It was a completely undeniable documented theft.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So logic dictates that this is the moment the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: spell breaks, right? If you are following a holy man
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and he gets caught stealing 40 grand, You run.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: You would think so.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: But his followers don't run. They pack up and leave
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: the church with him. So break this down for me.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Are these people just incredibly naive? Or is there a
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: specific psychological lever he pulled to blind them to raw accounting?
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: It's not naivety at all. It's a brilliant exploitation of
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: cognitive dissonance. Okay.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: This early scandal wasn't a failure for Lindgren. It actually
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: functioned as a vital loyalty test.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: A loyalty test. By getting caught stealing.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, because months before the theft was even discovered, Lundgren
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: had already been planting seeds that the mainstream church was
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: in apostasy.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So he was setting the stage. Right.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: He was telling them the church was corrupt, lost, and
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: turning away from God.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Ah, so he preemptively poisoned the well.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Precisely. He built the narrative beforehand, so when the church
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: inevitably caught him and accused him of theft, he didn't
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: even have to deny the friction.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: He just leaned into it.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: He simply reframed it. He told his followers, look, The
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: corrupt establishment is attacking me because I am the true prophet.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: They are trying to silence the truth.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: That is so twisted. He turns an indictment for embezzlement
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: into literal proof of his divinity.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And here is where the cognitive dissonance locks the followers in.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Think about the friction happening in their brains at that moment.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Right, because they have to choose between the facts and
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: their faith in him.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Exactly. These followers have already committed socially and emotionally to Lundgren.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: If they admit he is a common thief, they have
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: to admit they were conned.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: They have to face their own foolishness.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the terrifying reality that they gave their souls
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: to a fraud. The human ego will do almost anything
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: to avoid that level of psychological pain.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: It's just too much to bear.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: It is literally easier for their brains to alter their reality,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: to accept his narrative of persecution, than to admit they
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: were wrong. By choosing to believe him over the hard evidence,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: they become complicit in his lie.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Wow. They become co-conspirators in his alternate reality.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: So once he's kicked out of the official church, he
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: needs a new stronghold. Because a con man who is
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: exposed can't just hang around the temple anymore. And this
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: necessity for a new base forces him to build a fortress.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to the isolation phase. Physical isolation is
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: the absolute prerequisite for total psychological control. Right.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Because you can't have outside voices interfering.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: You cannot brainwash someone if they are still going to
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: their secular job and talking to their non-cult family members
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: every single day.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: So he moves his flock.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: He finds this 20-acre farm right on Route 6 in Kirtland.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: It's got this huge white house, which actually happens to
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: be the very first house ever built in Kirtland.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: A detail that Lundgren's ego absolutely loved.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, I bet.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: And it also has a massive red barn. So he
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: gathers about 27 to 30 people to leave their lives
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: behind and live there with him.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't just a change of address, was it?
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: No, not at all. The financial isolation is immediate and ruthless.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: The sources detail how they sold their cars, their homes,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: everything they owned, and brought the cash directly to Jeff.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: He used scripture to justify taking their wealth. He created
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: a scenario where poverty was pious and wealth was corrupting.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Unless, of course, the wealth was held by the prophet.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Right, naturally. He was the exception to his own rule.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: There is one specific interview in the files that perfectly
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: illustrates how predatory this was. It's the story of Jeff's
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: own cousin.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, that story is heartbreaking.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: It really is. She had just gotten out of an
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: 18-year marriage. She was emotionally devastated, completely vulnerable. And she
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: says in the interview... It just seemed like Jeff had
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: the answers to all my questions.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Again, seeking certainty in a moment of chaos.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So she moves to the farm. She brings all
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: her possessions. Jeff holds a massive yard sale and sells
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: all her stuff. He even has her sell her house.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Jeff takes the check, cashes it, and she never saw
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: a single dime.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: This is where we see the sunk cost fallacy weaponized
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: to just an extreme degree.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, unpack the sunk cost fallacy in this context for us.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Because giving up a house check seems like a leap
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: most people wouldn't make. Sure.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: You sitting at home right now might think, I would
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: never fall for that. I would never hand over my
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: life savings.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Right. It seems crazy from the outside.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: But think about a time you stayed in a toxic
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: relationship or a miserable job just because you'd already invested
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: three years into it.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, totally. You think, if I quit now, all that
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: suffering was for nothing.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Lundgren took that very normal human flaw and amplified it.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Once his cousin signs over that check, her brain is
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: backed into a corner.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Because what else does she have left?
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Nothing. If she leaves, she has no husband, no house,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: no money, and no community. He has entirely dismantled her
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: safety net.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: He is no longer just her spiritual guide. He is
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: her landlord, her bank, and her sole lifeline to survival.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: He guarantees their physical dependence by destroying their financial independence.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: That is so calculated. And once he has them trapped
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: on this farm, completely reliant on him, The ideology takes
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: a dark, sharp turn.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: The nightly Sunday school classes really change at this point.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: They do. They stop being about finding peace or studying scripture.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: The focus pivots entirely to the military.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: The rhetoric shifts from salvation to the, quote, destruction of
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: the wicked.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: He starts obsessing over the prophet Alma from the Book
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: of Mormon, hammering home this idea that they must separate
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: themselves from the wicked. And he isn't speaking metaphorically here.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: No, he's taking it very literally.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: He rolls out this grand plan. He tells them that
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: to trigger Christ's return, they have to physically purify the area.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: And his definition of purification is a bloodbath.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: He announces an objective to take over the Kirtland Temple
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: by force.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: A hostile armed takeover. He says that they need to
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: kill all the Gentiles and so-called evil people within a
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: five-mile radius of the church.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: And he had specific targets in mind, too.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: He did. He specifically plans to capture that same minister
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: who got him fired and murder the minister's wife and
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: three children right in front of him inside the temple.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Notice how the divine mandate perfectly aligns with his petty
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: personal grievances.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: It's so transparent.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: The man who exposed his theft is now supposedly the
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: man God wants dead.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: And the date he chooses for this apocalyptic slaughter? May 3rd,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: which happens to be Jeffrey Lundgren's birthday.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: It is pure, unadulterated narcissism to schedule the end of
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: the world as your own birthday present.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: It really is. But the followers don't balk. They actually
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: start militarizing. He arms them with AR-100 semi-automatic rifles.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And this wasn't just a boys' club thing either.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Not at all. The files describe how the women in
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the group were given highly specific combat assignments. They were
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: put into dark rooms and trained to identify different types
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: of ammunition by feel alone. so they could rapidly load
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the clips for the men during the temple assault.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Think about the psychological impact of that specific training exercise
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: for a second.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: It must have been terrifying.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: When we talk about trauma bonding, this is a master
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: class in it. Sitting in a pitch black room, running
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: cold bullets through your fingers because you genuinely believe the
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: outside world is about to slaughter you, that solders a
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: group together.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: It's shared trauma. Yes.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: It's not just tactical preparation. It's psychological glue. Lundgren is
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: artificially inducing extreme fear, framing everyone outside that farm as
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: demonic and positioning himself as the only commander who can
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: keep them alive.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: It's just this extreme us versus them mentality.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: But this carefully constructed pressure cooker gets interrupted. As May
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: 3rd approaches, as they are literally loading magazines for a massacre,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: a random, completely unscripted event throws a wrench into the prophecy.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Because reality always eventually intrudes on the cult's bubble.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Always.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: In April 1988. An informant named Kevin Curry goes to
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the FBI and the Kirtland police and tips them off
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: about the group's stockpile.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: So law enforcement is officially aware. Right.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: The cops start running covert surveillance. But the tipping point
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: is just a seemingly mundane traffic stop. A Kirtland police
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: lieutenant is on patrol and spots Jeff in his truck.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Jeff gets spooked. Yeah.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: He tries to cut through a gas station to evade
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the cruiser. The lieutenant pulls him over.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Just a standard moving violation.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The lieutenant walks up, asks for his license, and
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: casually glances into the bed of Jeff's truck. Sitting right
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: there in the open are these cardboard canning jar boxes.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And what's inside them?
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Well, what the lieutenant doesn't know in that moment is
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: that those boxes are packed to the brim with firearms.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: The cop ends up letting Jeff go with just a warning.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: And Jeff brings the story back to the farm to
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: spin it.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Of course he does. He plays it off like a miracle.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: He tells his terrified followers, see, God blinded the cop.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: He looked right at the guns and didn't see them.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: But internally, he knows they're in trouble.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the psychological profile shows Jeff was panicking. He realized
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: they were under surveillance. The police were watching the farm.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: He knows he can't pull off an armed assault on
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: a town with the FBI watching his driveway.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So May 3rd comes and goes. No temple takeover,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: no blood on the altar, no return of Christ. Just
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: you know, a regular Tuesday.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: In the life cycle of an extremist group, the failure
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: of a core prophecy is the most dangerous moment for
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: the leader.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: It has to be.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: When you promise the literal end of the world on
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: a specific date and the sun comes up the next morning,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: the illusion is supposed to shatter.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I would think this is the moment the spell breaks
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: for sure. If the prophet is wrong about the apocalypse,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: he's not a prophet. How does a leader survive that?
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: The leader survives by never ever admitting fault.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Not even a little bit.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Never. If Jeff says, I made a mistake, he loses everything.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: So he must pivot. He has to construct a narrative
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: where the prophecy didn't fail, but rather the conditions for
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: the prophecy were sabotaged by someone else.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: He needs a scapegoat.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Precisely. He needs someone to blame.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: And his pivot is lethal. Jeff goes up on the mountain,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: meaning he retreats to his room, and emerges with a
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: convenient new revelation. He tells the group the temple takeover
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: is off, but not because of the police.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: So what's his excuse?
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: He claims they are barred from triggering the apocalypse because
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: there is, quote, sin in our own group.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: He seamlessly shifts the crosshairs. The enemy is no longer
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: the outside world. The enemy is inside the house.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: It's so fast. He targets one specific family within his flock,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Dennis and Cheryl Avery, and their three daughters, Trina, Becky,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: and little Karen, who's only seven.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Just a horrific pivot.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: He tells the group they have to purify the camp
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: by eliminating the Averys. But the reasons he gives the
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: group are absurdly thin. He claims Dennis didn't have his
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: wife under control.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Misogyny is a very common tool here.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. And he says the kids were rebellious and
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: that rebellious children are an abomination. But the trial transcripts
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: reveal the terrifying, petty reality behind this death sentence.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: The real reason.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Alice, Jeff's own wife, overheard a conversation. She asked
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Jeff why the Averys were even allowed in the group
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: if they were so sinful. And Jeff's response? He said,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: so I could have their money.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: It just strips away all the theological mystique.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Completely.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: It always comes back to the baseline desires of a narcissist. Power.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: control and money.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: And the Averys had stopped giving Jeff the massive sums
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: of money he demanded. That was their true sin.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: It is chilling.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: It really is. Theology was nothing but a mask for
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: a financial grievance. It's like a mob boss using the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Book of Mormon to order a hit over unpaid protection money.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what it was.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: But I have to stop here and ask you, How
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: do the other 25 people in that camp accept this?
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: How do they hear that a family of five needs
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: to be executed because the kids are rebellious and not
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: run for the door?
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Because you are looking at it through the lens of
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: a healthy mind.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Fair point.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: By this point, the followers' minds have been systematically dismantled. First,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Jeff had conditioned them for years that his voice.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Was God's voice. So disagreeing with him is disagreeing with
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the Almighty. Exactly.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: To question the execution of the Averys was to question
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: the creator of the universe. Second, Jeff had been quietly
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: isolating the Averys within the group for months.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, so you laid the groundwork.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Yes. The other members referred to Dennis and Cheryl as bookworms,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: implying they didn't quite fit in. Jeff exploited that slight difference,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: slowly turning them into an other.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: So he dehumanized them to their own friends. Exactly.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: And the final, most potent element is pure terror.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Right, the guns.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: The followers had just spent weeks loading weapons for a bloodbath.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: They knew Jeff was capable of violence. Subconsciously, they realized
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: that if they defend the Averys, they will be thrown
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: into the pit next.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: It's self-preservation.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: So their brains rationalize the horror. They convince themselves the
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Averys deserve it, adopting Jeff's psychopathy as a shield for
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: their own survival.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: That terrifying rationalization brings us to the darkest part of
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: this timeline, the anatomy of the massacre inside the Red Barn.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: This is where the details get incredibly grim.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: They really do. The details from the forensic files and
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the follower testimonies are incredibly difficult to process, but they
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: are vital to understanding the The absolute eradication of empathy
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: in this group.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: We have to look at how he staged it.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the staging first. Jeff chooses the red barn.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: He justifies this by claiming the red wood represents Pharaoh's
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: army being swallowed in the depths of the Red Sea.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: He preaches about Hebrew darkness, which he defines literally as death.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: He creates a physical theater for his delusions.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: It's all a show for him.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Right. It gives the impending murders a veneer of holy ritual,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: which makes it easier for the followers to participate. They
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: aren't committing a crime. They are acting out scripture.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: They spend a week digging a massive pit inside the barn.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And then, on April 17th, Jeff orchestrates a literal last
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: supper for the Averys.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Just incredibly twisted.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: The entire cult sits down at a long table. Everyone
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: at that table except the five members of the Avery
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: family knows exactly what is about to happen.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: What did the Averys think was happening?
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: The Averys mistakenly believe that after dinner, the group is
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: finally going into the wilderness to see the Lord.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Stop and think about the psychological compartmentalization required here.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: They are passing bread and pouring drinks for a seven-year-old girl,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: knowing they have dug her grave 50 yards away.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: It's sickening.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: The bystander effect has metastasized into active complicity. They have
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: completely stripped the aviaries of their humanity. They view them
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: as a diseased limb that must be amputated for the
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: body to survive.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: After dinner, Jeff goes out to the barn and stands
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: by the pit. He orchestrates the executions one by one.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: They lure Dennis out first, telling him he is needed
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: for a task.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: And as soon as he's inside.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: The second Dennis steps into the barn... They hit him
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: with a stun gun. Dennis goes down, but he fights.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: He's struggling. And in his confusion, he shouts, this isn't necessary.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: God damn it, this isn't necessary.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Even as he is being attacked, Dennis is trying to
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: use reason.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: He still thinks there's logic here.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: He thinks this is a misunderstanding. He doesn't comprehend that
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: reason left this farm months ago.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: The men pin him down. They wrap duct tape around
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: his mouth, his hands. And his ankles. But they make
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a very specific, chilling choice. They intentionally leave Dennis' eyes untaped.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: And why is that?
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Because Jeff wants Dennis to be forced to look him
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: in the eye as he murders him.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: That detail shatters any illusion that this was about divine justice.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Completely.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate assertion of mortal power. Jeff needs
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Dennis to know who beat him. It's pure sadistic ego.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: They carry the bound Dennis into the room with the pit.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Jeff recites a twisted version of Psalms 55, stating, And
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: no one outside hears this? Well, while this is happening,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: another cult member named Greg is standing right outside the
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: barn doors, revving a chainsaw.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: To muffle the sound of the gunfire from the surrounding town. Exactly.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: It highlights the cold, calculated premeditation. This was an engineered
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: assembly line of death.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Jeff turns to his men and simply says, bring in
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the next one. Wow. They walk back to the house
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: and tell Cheryl that Dennis needs her help in the barn.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: As Cheryl is getting up, little seven-year-old Karen asks, where's
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: my mama going?
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: And a follower looks this child in the eye and says, oh,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: she'll be right back.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: The act of deception of a child to ensure her
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: mother complies. They are functioning like a highly efficient machine.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: They walk Cheryl to the barn. This time they tape
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: her eyes. One of the main enforcers, Ron Luff, actually
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: tells Cheryl as he's binding her, don't struggle. It'll be
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: easier for you this way.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Did she fight?
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: The testimonies note she didn't fight back. She just stood there,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: likely in shock, unable to process the betrayal. They carry
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: her in, drop her into the pit next to her
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: dead husband. And Jeff shoots her in the back of
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the head.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Jeff was obsessed with the parable of the vineyard, twisting
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: it to mean that to cleanse the earth, the roots,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: the entire family tree had to be eradicated.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Next are the daughters. Fifteen-year-old Trina is lured out. They
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: tell her they are going to play a game. They
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: tape her eyes and mouth, place her in the hole,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and Jeff fires.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Just horrific.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: The followers standing around the pit later reported hearing a
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: muffled ouch. and a small cry before she died. Then
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: they go get 13-year-old Becky. They bring her in, and
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the depravity hits a new low. They physically sit Becky
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: down in the pit so she is resting on top
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: of her mother's legs. And Jeff shoots her.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: To force a teenager to feel her mother's lifeless body
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: beneath her in the dark before executing her, the cruelty
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: is incomprehensible.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: It is. And then the final victim, 7-year-old Karen. This
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: is where the banality of evil just screams at you
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: from the transcripts.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: How do they get her out there?
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Ron Luff goes into the farmhouse. He doesn't drag her out.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: He gives her a piggyback ride.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: He carries this little girl on his back out to
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the barn, telling her they are going to see the horses.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: A child, entirely trusting of the adults who have been
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: her community, enjoying a piggyback ride, completely oblivious that she
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: is being ferried to her slaughter.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Inside the barn, they tape her tiny hands, her feet,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: her eyes, and her mouth. Ron picks her up, carries
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: her into the room, and drops her into the pit.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: I can't even fathom it.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: In the interrogation tapes, one of the followers describes this
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: moment to a detective. And the detective later noted how
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: his blood boiled just listening to the tape. Because the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: follower's voice was so incredibly nonchalant.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Just completely disconnected.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: The follower just matter-of-factly states, I saw him point the gun,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I saw him shoot, and all I saw was the
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: top of a little girl's head when he shot.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: That horrifying nonchalance is the ultimate product of total indoctrination.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: How do they get to that point, though?
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: When a leader successfully convinces a group that a family
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: are literally demons, the followers no longer register violence against
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: them as a human tragedy.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: What do they register it as?
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: They register it as a chore. sweeping the floor, doing
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: the dishes, burying a child. It all carries the exact
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: same emotional weight. It is just an administrative task ordered
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: by God.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: A chore. That is exactly how they handle the aftermath.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: The bodies are lying in the pit, and Jeff orders
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: his men to fill it in.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: They didn't just use dirt, did they?
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: No. They covered the family in lime and rocks, which
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Jeff justifies by referencing a passage in Deuteronomy, about casting
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: stones at sinners. They weigh the dirt down with heavy
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: farm equipment. And then, just 20 minutes later.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: 20 minutes.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: 20 minutes after wiping a family of five off the
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: face of the earth, Jeff calls the group together for
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: a classroom session in the farmhouse.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: A rapid return to normalcy is a classic control tactic.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: It is. He cannot let them sit in silence and
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: process what just happened.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: If they sit in silence, the reality might creep in.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Some of the members are starting to crack. The
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: adrenaline is fading, shock is setting in, and a few
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: start crying. Jeff immediately shuts it down.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: What does he say?
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: He forbids anyone to shed a single tear. He tells
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: them to cry is sinning. He declares that their sins
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: are now completely gone, the vineyard is cleansed, and they
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: can finally pack up and move into the wilderness.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: By forbidding tears, he is policing their internal emotional reality.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: He's controlling their grief.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: If they cry, it implies they feel remorse. Remorse implies
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: that a wrong was committed. And the core pillar of
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: this cult is that Jeffrey Lundgren is never wrong. Wow.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: He forces them to bury their trauma in the exact
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: same psychological pit where they just buried the Averys.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: But the reality of what they've done comes knocking at
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: the front door less than 12 hours later.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: The authorities show up.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: It's the morning of April 18th. The dirt in the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: barn hasn't even settled. And who pulls up the driveway?
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: The ATF, the FBI, and the Kirtland police.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: But here is the insane twist. They aren't there for
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: the murders.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: They have absolutely no idea the five people were just
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: butchered feet away from where they are standing.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: It's unbelievable timing.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: The authorities are there to question the group about the
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Temple takeover conspiracy that the informant tipped them off about
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: weeks prior.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: So they're asking about the guns. Right.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: The agents interview everyone on the farm, and the cult members,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: terrified out of their minds, realize very quickly that the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: cops are only asking about guns in the temple. The
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: bodies are still a secret.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: It's a near miss that completely pierces the cult's bubble
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: of invincibility.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: It really shook them.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: The reality of the law of the outside world is
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: suddenly standing in their living room.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: As soon as the police leave, the panic sets in.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Jeff realizes they can't stay on the farm. That night,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: under the cover of a dense fog, the entire group
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: abandons the property.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Where do they go?
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: They consult the Book of Mormon, interpret a passage about
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: traveling three days into the wilderness, and they flee across
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: state lines. They eventually hide out in the mountainous woods
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: of Davis, West Virginia.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: And this geographic shift causes a fundamental structural collapse within
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: the group.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: How so? Because they were so tightly knit before?
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Because in Kirtland, Jeff maintained control by promising a grand,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: violent mission. Taking over the temple, cleansing the vineyard. It
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: gave his followers a twisted apocalyptic purpose.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: They had a goal.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Right. But in the woods of West Virginia, stripped of
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: that mission, hiding in tents like fugitives, the high-minded theological
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: facade just crumbles.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: There's nothing left to fight for.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: There is no holy war to prepare for. And without it,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Jeff's control devolves into pure, grotesque self-ratification.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: The mask completely falls off.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: It becomes entirely about sexual manipulation and hoarding women.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: He finds a new scripture to exploit.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: He does.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Jeff starts preaching from the Book of Mormon about the
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: plurality of wives. He fixates on King Solomon, noting that
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Solomon had 300 wives and 700 concubines.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: And he applies this to himself, of course. Yes.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Jeff decides this historical trivia means he, as the prophet,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: is entitled to claim any woman in the camp is
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: his own.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: He stops pretending to build a kingdom for God and
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: openly starts building a harem for himself.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: The coercion is brutal and entirely transparent. He zeroes in
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: on a woman named Tanya Janine Patrick. He calls a
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: camp meeting, stands in front of Tanya's husband, and announces
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: that because the husband has sinned, Tanya's soul is in jeopardy.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: So what is his so-called solution?
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: His solution? He removes Tanya from her husband's tent and
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: publicly declares, she is to be my wife.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Did anyone try to stop him?
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Well, just in case anyone thought about arguing, Jeff sits
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: in the center of the camp with a chambered. 45
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: caliber handgun in his lap, points it at anyone who
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: murmurs and states, if I hear any rebellion, I will
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: dispose of it.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: And so he is openly leveraging the fresh trauma of
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: the Avery murders. Exactly.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The threat is implicit, but very real.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Everyone sitting around that campfire knows exactly what that. 45
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: caliber gun just did to a seven-year-old girl in a barn.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Tanya later testified she submitted to him solely because she
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: feared for her own daughter's life.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Theology is dead at this point. The only thing holding
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: the group together is the raw, naked threat of a bullet.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: It devolves into absolute madness. Jeff realizes he's losing his
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: grip on the men in the camp, so he invents
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: a new degrading ritual to assert dominance.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: It's all about humiliation now.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: He declares that all the men have sinned, and the
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: only way to purify the camp and bring back Christ
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: is for the women to come into his tent, strip
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: entirely naked, and dance seductively for an hour.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: It's just vile.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: And while they do this, he watches and masturbates into
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: their underwear. He tells the group this act is required
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: to wash away the men's sins.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: I want you to look at how far they have
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: drifted from a Sunday school class.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: It's unrecognizable.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: He takes a holy text and weaponizes it to facilitate
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: serial sexual assault.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: He even found a scripture to justify it. He quotes
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: a line from the book of Hosea, lest I strip
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: her naked, claiming that being naked is righteous in the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: sight of God.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: It exposes the absolute vacuum at the core of his ideology.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: There was nothing there.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: There was never any grand divine plan. The end of
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: the world, the murders, the isolation. It was all just
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: an elaborate, bloody scaffolding built to support Jeffrey Lundgren's ego
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: and libido.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: But his unchecked greed is exactly what finally fractures the group.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: A cult member named Kathy Johnson volunteers to go into
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the tent and dance a second time for Jeff.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: And how does his wife react to that?
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: When Jeff's actual legal wife, Alice, finds out, she snaps.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: The jealousy and the realization of what her life has
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: become push her over the edge. Alice attempts suicide by
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: swallowing a massive handful of pills.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Alice's suicide attempt is the catalyst that bursts the pressure cooker.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Jeff goes into a complete panic. He realizes he has
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: lost control of his own inner circle. He's terrified that
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: if he leaves Alice behind, she will wake up and
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: talk to the authorities.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: But he's also terrified of being caught by the police
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: if he stays.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: So what does the glorious prophet do? He abandons his flock.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: He takes Alice and his son, sneaks out of the camp,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: leaves the rest of his followers stranded in the woods,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: and flees to California to save his own skin.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: The cowardice is just palpable.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: The man who ordered his followers to execute children flees
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: into the night the moment his own authority is challenged.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: But the system he built, a system running entirely on
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: abuse and paranoia, was completely designed to self-destruct.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: And it explodes spectacularly. Because Kathy Johnson, the woman who
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: danced for Jeff, ends up leaving with him.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Leaving her husband behind.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Yes. Her husband, Keith Johnson, is left sitting in the woods,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: furious that his wife ran off with the prophet. So
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Keith decides to burn Lundgren's empire to the ground.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: He finally talks.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Keith contacts the ATF. He doesn't just tell them about
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the illegal guns. He tells them everything. He literally faxes
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: the authorities a hand-drawn map of the Red Barn and Kirtland,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: marking in X exactly where the bodies are buried.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: With that map in the hands of the FBI, the
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: secrets buried in the Kirtland clay are finally brought into
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: the light.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: It's the beginning of the end.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: This initiates the final reckoning. Discovery, trial, and execution.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Let's go to January 3rd, 1990. The Kirtland Police and
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Fire Department arrive back at that red barn on Route 6.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: They walk into the room with a pit.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: What does the scene look like?
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: The cult had stacked household items, old clothing, and heavy
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: furniture three to four feet high over the dirt to
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: pack it down. The officers pull all that junk away.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: The incident reports note that as they walked on the dirt,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the ground felt noticeably spongy.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: A grim visceral detail that indicates the massive decomposition occurring
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: just inches below their boots.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: They start digging. And at 9.07 p.m. that night, an
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: officer's shovel uncovers the left torso of Dennis Avery.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: They had been down there for months.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: The bodies had been in the ground for nine months.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: The decomposition is severe and the smell of death is overwhelming.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: They have to bring in forensic teams to carefully dig
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: around the family. and lift them out of that blood-soaked pit.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Once the bodies are recovered and the warrants are issued,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: the dominoes fall incredibly fast.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: They do.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Colts are powerful in isolation, but they shatter instantly upon
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: contact with organized law enforcement.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Within five days, by January 7th, the nationwide manhunt sweeps
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: them all up. Jeff, his wife Alice, and his 19-year-old
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: son Damon are tracked down to a cheap motel room
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: in California.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: Do they put up a fight?
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: When heavily armed police bust the door down. They find
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: a room transformed into a bunker. It is packed with rifles,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: combat knives, and gas masks. But there is no shootout.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: There is no holy war.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: He just gives up.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: The great prophet who planned to cleanse the earth surrenders
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: without a fight. He is taken into custody without incident.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: He was prepared to send his followers to their deaths,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: but when his own life was on the line, he
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: surrendered quietly.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, five other key members, including Ron Luff, the man
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: who gave little Karen the piggyback ride to her death,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: are arrested on a Greyhound bus in Kansas City.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: So they're all rounded up?
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: They are all extradited back to Ohio to face trial
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: for five counts of aggravated murder. But here is the
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: most baffling, tragic detail in this entire file. Physical capture
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: did not erase their psychological captivity.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: The chains in their minds were far stronger than the
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: handcuffs on their wrists.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: The followers are sitting in the Lake County Jail waiting
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: for trial. The jail happens to be located right next
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: to a major highway.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, so there's traffic noise.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Whenever heavy semi-trucks drive by at high speeds, the concrete
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: building physically vibrates. The guards report that the cult members
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: are waking up in cold sweats, terrified.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Because of the vibrations.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, because they genuinely believe that Jeff, sitting in a
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: different cell block, was using his divine powers to create
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: literal earthquakes to punish them for getting caught.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: This is exactly what I meant when I said the
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: trauma doesn't end just because the leader is gone.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: That fear is still so real to them.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: There is a profound quote from one of the imprisoned
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: cult members, given years later, that encapsulates this nightmare. He said,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: prison is just a big cult. The only thing they
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: don't have control of, like a cult does, is your mind.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: That is heavy.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: It really puts it into perspective.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: The physical bars of a prison cell are nothing compared
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: to the psychological prison Lundgren built inside their heads. Even
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: facing the electric chair because of his lies, they still
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: believe he controlled the tectonic plates beneath their feet.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: The scars of coercive control outlast the physical presence of
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: the abuser.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: And as for the abuser himself, let's look at his trial.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Jeff is represented by public defenders. The state has... mountains
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: of forensic evidence, a confession, and cooperating witnesses. Jeff admits
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: he pulled the trigger.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: But he doesn't show remorse, does he?
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: He doesn't use the trial to beg for mercy or
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: show remorse at all. He uses the courtroom as his
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: final grandstand pulpit.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: For a malignant narcissist, a courtroom is just a larger
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: stage with a captive audience.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: He demands to address the jury, and he preaches to
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: them for an entire day, He rambles on and on,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: trying to convert the jury box, claiming, I am a
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: prophet of God. It's not a figment of my imagination
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: that I can hear his voice.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Just delusional arrogance.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: When the prosecutor corners him on the brutal execution of
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the Avery family, he is completely stone-faced. He tells the jury,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the scriptures teach one is to abhor sin. I did
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: not abhor Mr. Avery as a person, but I abhorred
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: the sin that was in Mr. Avery.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate defense mechanism of the psychopath.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: He thinks they'll buy it.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: He attempts to reframe the mass murder of children as
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: a righteous, divine chore. He genuinely expects the jury to
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: view him as a glorious, misunderstood martyr.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: But the reality in that courtroom was a stark, pathetic
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: contrast to the myth he built in his own head.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: The journalists and witnesses who attended the trial didn't see
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: a glorious prophet.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: How did they describe him?
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: They described him in the papers as just a tall,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: fat man with long, greasy hair. The delusion of grandeur
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: was entirely one-sided.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: That really sums it up.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Abadu was dying breath. Maintaining the illusion of his own
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: power was more important to him than saving his own life.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: But the jury was immune to the illusion. They saw
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: the greasy con man for exactly what he was.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: They absolutely did. It took the jury a mere two
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: and a half hours of deliberation to recommend the death penalty.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Swift justice.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: The judge called Lundgren and his followers the coolest, most
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: inhuman people this county has ever seen. The prosecutor made
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: sure that no member of that inner circle walked away scot-free.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Because they were complicit.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Yes. Noting that the murders were so heinous, so deliberate,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: that no reasonable person could just blame it all on brainwashing.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: They pulled the triggers. They dug the pit. They were culpable.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: The community demanded justice. A crime that shatters the foundational
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: safety of a town requires a definitive, absolute punishment to
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: restore balance.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: It took 16 long years of appeals, but the end
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: finally arrived. On October 24, 2006, Jeffrey Lundgren was executed
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: by lethal injection at Lucasville Prison.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: He finally faced consequences.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: He accepted his fate quietly that morning. The state pronounced
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: his official time of death at 1026 a.m. The erasure
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: of the man, but.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Sadly, not the erasure of the tragedy. No.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: And that is why we have to bring this deep
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: dive back to where it truly matters. We cannot just
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: focus on the monster. We have to remember the lives
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: he consumed.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: The Avery family.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: The Avery family. Dennis, a father who fought back until
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: his last breath. Cheryl, a mother murdered beside her husband. Trina, 15. Becky, 13.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: And little Karen... Just seven years old who thought she
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: was going out to see the horses.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Just heartbreaking.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Five beautiful lives that were completely erased. A family wiped
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: off the face of the earth by a man who
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: twisted faith into a weapon to serve his own ego,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: his own greed, and his own vile desires.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: Their tragedy stands as a dark, permanent monument to the
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: dangers of surrendering our autonomy to anyone who claims to
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: hold all the answers. Exactly.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And that brings us to the lingering question I
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: want to leave you with today as we close this file.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about physical captivity today, the isolation
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: of the farm, the pit in the barn, the walls
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: of the jail cell. Right. But think about those followers
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: waking up in cold sweats in prison, terrified of earthquakes
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: they believed Jeff's was causing. It forces us to ask,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: what does it mean for our understanding of justice if
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: a steel prison cell can hold a body But a
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: person's mind remains completely, permanently captive to a leader who
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: isn't even in the room.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: It's a terrifying thought.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: When we desperately seek meaning in a chaotic world, at
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: what point do we lock the doors to our own
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: minds from the inside and hand the key to someone else?
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Because true critical thinking doesn't mean you have to have
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: all the answers yourself. It means you never, ever give
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: up your right to ask the questions. Thank you for
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: joining us on this deep dive.