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[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are
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doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who
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has already received four letters from his HOA about his Halloween decorations ladies and gentlemen the cat two mini
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pumpkins it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend
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[Music] it's the second half of October my friends and we are in the mood for some
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dark and scary good beers so this week we are featuring an old favorite for real beer lovers how about some Dragon's
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Milk from the brilliant women and men Brewing up Liquid black magic at New Holland Brewing this is a bourbon
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barrel-aged Imperial Double Stout that means it's dark delicious and Powerful baby ABV 11
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garage grade four and a half bottle caps out of five and here's some cheers and thank yous to our friends for helping us
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out with this week's beer run first up a big shout out to my friend Walker down in Knoxville Tennessee in the big we
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like your jib to Manny in the major and West Friendship Maryland that's right thank you all for helping us out with
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this week's beer run if you want to help us out with next week's Beer Run go to truecrime garage.com and click on the
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button always love to give the dragons milk out as a gift it's a tasty treat and Powerful stuff b double e double r u
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n beer run if you need more True Crime garage for your your balls make sure you go to our website
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sign up for off the Record over 160 episodes if you're not listening then you aren't nasty
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that's enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab
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a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] thank you true crime stories about the Manson
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family the Jonestown Massacre in Waco Texas have fascinated Americans for decades
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the fascination of these real-life tragedies and crimes is so strong that each year someone new turns out a new
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version of each of these old news stories complete with new details and never before seen footage
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recently documentaries and fictionalized streaming shows continue to see much success
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with titles like the vowel wild wild country and devil in Ohio the masses are reading
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watching and listening because we want to know more we want to know how it all works
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what are the beliefs and the rules of a cult we want to learn about the cult's leaders followers and their enemies
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should they have any how do they recruit and why or what turns a small number of these groups
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toward violence defining Cults and deciding which groups should be labeled as such is sometimes a
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difficult task because of the variety of groups that exist outside of the mainstream
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the will to kill a 2001 book by James a fox and Jack Levin Define the results as
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being Loosely structured in unconventional forms of small religious groups the members of which are held together
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by a charismatic leader who mobilizes their loyalty around some new religious cause
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typically a cause that is at odds with that of more conventional religious institutions
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in other words many cults are small groups of seemingly like-minded individuals who are taught
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teach and practice their beliefs or religion which in most cases is a Loosely structured version of a more
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widespread and regularly practiced religion some of the largest religious groups are
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Christians Muslims and in some parts of the world Jews in spite of the many differences of
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these religions they share a fundamental belief in a God as compassionate and just
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as a result those communities have nurtured people of extraordinary kindness from the Bible Matthew 5
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the good book teaches us that Jesus also set very high ethical standards for his
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followers including an unbounded willingness to forgive wrongdoing non-retaliation
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against evil and love of enemies yet some of the most appalling atrocities in history have been rooted
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in religion religious violence can take on a particularly intense and ruthless character
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if the objects of that violence are seen as blasphemy or enemies of God or God's
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way narrowly conceived in the case of what we have here today it's ruthless violence dulled out judge
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jury and executioner Style by the cult's leader upon some of his followers God and religion do ask of us and try to
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teach us to live our lives out practicing High ethical standards God wants us to possess an unbounded
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willingness to forgive wrongdoing to not retaliate against evil and to love our enemies
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if we truly believed and followed these teachings well we would not commit acts of
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violence against one another we would not kill and there should never be a Killing In The Name Of God
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this is a Kirtland cult killings this True Crime garage [Music] foreign [Music] on December 31st
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1989 a tip was called into the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms it was relayed to the chief of police in
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Kirtland Ohio because the tip was related to his jurisdiction the caller said that a family was missing and some
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bodies were buried in a barn on a property of a rented Farmhouse this is located at 8671 Euclid Chardon Road this
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would be one and a half miles east out of town authorities proceeded to the property in question upon arrival here
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Captain so far so good because when they get to the property they can in fact see
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that a barn is on the premises so there may be some truth to this tip that they received right police found the property
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deserted with evidence that the residents had left in a hurry but of course what the police really needed to
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search based on the tipster's information was that barn on the property you could just feel the surge
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becoming more intense if you're a law enforcement in the barn they found some personal possessions of presumably this
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missing family this included some drawings in notebooks that clearly belonged to children
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they decided that they are going to need to do a little Excavating in the barn to
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see if they could find what it was that they were looking for but also keep in mind they're out there looking for what
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was called in on their tip but you're also I would guess you're also hoping to not
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find what was called in on the tip exactly so on January 3rd 1990 they started digging Dan Dunlap was a
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lieutenant in the Lake County Sheriff's Office at the time he was a patrol officer on the day the
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Kirtland police chief Dennis Yarbrough requested assistance from the Sheriff's Office and the Lake County Crime Lab in
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processing the crime scene AKA The Barn officer Dunlap told the News Herald the place was damp cold dark and full of
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trash and Rubble so there was a lot of clearing going on he said they found bodies beneath layers of soil rocks and
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garbage in the rear portion of the Barn's lower level this would be a difficult day to be law enforcement they
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found the first body buried about four feet deep after that they stopped and obtained search warrants for the whole
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place additional digging the next day revealed not one not two not three but sadly four
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additional corpses all in the same burial pit three of them were children the caller that phoned in the tip
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predicted that five bodies would be found all members of one single family and the
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caller turns out he was right the fire chief that was present that day told the News Herald that they meaning the bodies
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they had rocks on top of them and they were back filled with clay so somebody took a considerable amount
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of effort to bury and attempt to conceal these bodies now none of these bodies were identified
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right away Captain the the bodies were very badly decomposed in fact if the tipster was right
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they had been there and they had been buried there for nearly a year by the time that they were Unearthed but the
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caller did tell authorities who they would find buried in that Barn so the identification
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of the bodies was not so much a mystery it really at this point in our timeline just needed to be confirmed yeah the
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caller is telling you the truth or seems to be telling you the truth there's no reason not to believe them now yes in
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fact the the caller was right and you were right there Captain the bodies once the bodies were identified we would
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learn that the five bodies were that of five members of the Avery family this is
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Dennis Avery age 48 and his wife Cheryl age 41 and then the three children were their three daughters Trina Rebecca and
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little Karen and their ages respectively are 15 13 and 7. each victim was found to have been bound they were executed
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and then dumped in the hole in the ground inside this Barn all of them had been shot with a 45 caliber gun do we
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have any autopsy information from law enforcement we do get some brief autopsy report information that makes its way to
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the newspapers and it's as follows the autopsies on the five members of the Avery family revealed the following
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Dennis the father was shot twice in the chest Cheryl was shot three times in the chest
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Trina was shot in the head and chest Rebecca was shot once in the back and once in the left side and then Karen the
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youngest member of the family was shot once in the head and once in the chest the coroner found silver duct tape
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wrapped around the victim's heads feet and hands so in short this was the murder of an entire family of five now
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no gun was found in the pit with the bodies every one of the victims were found bound with tape as we just described so
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this family as it appears from the start of this investigation and based off of these reports this family was executed
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and then buried in this bar now we need to introduce dale luffman dale was a reverend and the leader in the Kirtland
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branch of the reformed Latter-Day Saints and I might say rlds at times if I do Captain I'm
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referring to reformed Latter-day Saints when the five bodies of the Avery family
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were found he was one of the first people to come forward to talk to police about what he knew about this situation
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which in the case of Dale luffman turned out to be a whole heck of a lot this eager
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cooperation on his part was likely an attempt by luffman to separate his organization the reformed Latter-Day
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Saints from this whole murder Scandal this murder of a family of five he told the Dayton Daily News that the five-acre
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Kirtland area farm this is the property where the bodies were found had been leased by a man who was
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formerly a member of the reformed Latter-Day Saints organization in Kirtland Ohio the man he was talking
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about was a lay Minister what's referred to as a lay Minister who was defrocked by the reformed Latter-Day Saints
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because quote he was silenced for ethical reasons he would have been expelled from the church on the basis of
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unchristian conduct had he not withdrawn his membership well if you're not going
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to act like a Christian you're going to get defrocked he's saying that this man then later formed a radical splinter
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group of his own because this man had been kicked out of the reformed Latter-Day Saints he
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essentially formed his own cult a spin-off a splinter group of of the original group if you're law enforcement
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and you find a burial ground in this Barn the the first thing you're going to look
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for is who is the owner who is operating this property correct and that makes sense with what this man is telling
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police for many reasons okay first off police had some general idea that something not so great was going on on
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that property with a with a a considerable group of people and they were already aware of this man
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that is being described to them they were aware of this let's say air quotes for now cult that was operating on this
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property and as you pointed out captain and what this man is telling police confirming what they likely already knew
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was that this man that he was talking about was leasing this 15 Acres this property and it was leasing the barn in
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which they found the five bodies so the man that he was talking about is an is a
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man named Jeffrey Lundgren so Jeffrey Lundgren had been kicked out of the reform Latter-Day Saints and essentially
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formed his own little cult in which he was viewed as the supreme leader and his followers did his bidding luffman went
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on to desperately try to delineate his own religious organization from this splinter group from this criminal one
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the way all this went down from my understanding here Captain is that Jeffrey Lundgren
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once he was pushed out or decided to leave the reformed Latter-Day Saints he moved to the farm with some of his
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devotees and then ran this commune of sorts on its grounds up until April of 1989 when he and his family and some of
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his followers decided to split Town whereabouts unknown luffman told investigators he was certain Lundgren
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was behind the killings so what we have going on here at this time right is murder and defrocking we have bodies
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that according to the tipster have been in this Barn for almost a year several months
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and what we know so far is that when police get there they recover the bodies the the family of five from this burial
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inside of the barn they're learning a couple of things Lundgren who leased the place
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had these followers he split town we don't know where he and some of the followers are
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and now we're being told months later that Jeffrey Lundgren is the one that is behind the killings of these five people
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that we just found one on top of that he did something bad within the church or bad enough where the church didn't want
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to have him be a part of it yes and this is where the story gets a little complicated because we have to try to
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well there's a family of five buried in a barn it's already complicated try to understand the this religion and then
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even more so what's more important is to try to understand this little faction this little splinter group of of this
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religion so and I don't want a bunch of emails if I get this wrong because look I'm not well versed on my own religion
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let alone everybody else's so Kirtland Ohio established by the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ
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and the Latter-Day Saints a christian-based religion that follows the tenets of Joseph Smith
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as some believe he was a prophet of Jesus the Latter-Day Saints Church is otherwise known as the Mormon church it
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was founded by Smith in the 1820s he wrote the Book of Mormon in 1830. so Joseph Smith settled in Kirtland Ohio in
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1831 and established the town as the base of his burgeoning sect in 1836 he built a temple that was to be a beacon
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or not to be it was a beacon to the members of the church everywhere so members of this church and of this
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religion they're flocking to Kirtland Ohio back in the early 1800s because he built this Temple if you build it they
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will come well he built it and yes they did come Smith dies in 1844. he was killed by a mob in Illinois and this is
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when the church that he establish splintered so Brigham Young led some of the members to Utah and
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founded what is known today as the modern Church of the Latter-Day Saints the church members who stayed in
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Kirtland Ohio transformed their offshoot of the Latter-Day Saints Church into the
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reformed Latter-Day Saints Church this was formed in 1852 in the wake of Smith's death and the splintering of the
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church he established that reformed Latter-Day Saints was headquartered in Independence Missouri
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okay so are are we all on the same page here roughly yeah the best way to explain this is you have a pizza shop
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and it's called raise and then some people worked at Ray's Pizza Shop and they wanted to start
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their own pizza shop so they started another one called Original Rays after Ray passes away right and then
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those people decide to start another pizza shop and call Famous Rays so it's all Ray's Pizza
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but it's just kind of a little bit different versions The Devil is in the details
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or or here in this case maybe not the devil but but something is in the details and you're right Captain the the
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crust may be a little different the cheese might be a different blend the the pepperoni used is ordered from
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someplace else but but it's it's generally from my understanding again this is just
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some garage guys understanding of something that's much larger than him it's at the at the center of it all it's
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all very much the same and it all kind of comes from the same place well it sounds like Jeffrey started a division
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of shady Rays yeah that's that's exactly right well and we're going to find out exactly why here as we continue on
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looking into some of these different characters here now the dead family the averies they were members of the
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reformed Latter-Day Saints in Kirtland Ohio but they were part of a small group of
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people that left the church to join yet another offshoot one that was not sanctioned by the
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church establishment this being Jeffrey Lundgren's offshoot of the reformed Latter-Day Saints well
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luftman wasn't the only one that wanted to talk to law enforcement after these bodies were found yeah others had a lot
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to say as well and a lot to say about Jeffrey Lundgren police heard one name over and over again from people who were
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familiar with the cult and the outcast from the reformed Latter-Day Saints the name that kept coming up Lundgren
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Lundgren Lundgren this from the Akron Beacon Journal on January 6 1990 which says Lundgren
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Who police say headed a militant and a very secretive religious cult calling itself the family was being sought late
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Friday so this is the Akron Beacon Journal reporting that police have talked to a lot of people and
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we we know who we are looking for um we're we are actively looking for a man named Jeffrey Lundgren because we
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believe either a he knows intimate details about the killing of this family or he was the person responsible with
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all these people so willing to talk it was really easy for police to start rounding up Suspects
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unfortunately Jeffrey Lundgren was not one of those that they were able to round up so easily he was missing in
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action but other members of his cult were living in Kansas City on January 5th this is really just hours after the
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bodies were uncovered a Lake County grand jury quickly indicted 13 people seven of whom were already in custody in
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Kansas City according to the Akron Beacon Journal the 13 were quote accused of plotting
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the ritual slangs following Lundgren's religious tenets arrest warrants for all 13 people were
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issued one person was deemed to be the trigger man the rest the other twelve were decided it was they were all
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accomplices to this mass murder but still no sign of Jeff Lundgren that's right and police were really trying to
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get a handle on what actually happened here uh there were stories about Jeffrey Lundgren's involvement
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we know that but they needed to figure out were those stories in fact true and if so how did a separatist religious
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leader turn into some kind of cold-blooded killer of children and their parents right Kirkland Police
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Chief Dennis Yarbrough told the Dayton Daily News on January 5th that the leader of the group Jeffrey Lundgren
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appeared to be forcing or persuading the other members to sign all properties and
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checks their their money checks over to him personally and from what they were being
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told the murder of this family of the Avery family was not the act of one person instead it was done in a
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ceremonial way with multiple Witnesses slash participants supporting the executions
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foreign [Music] [Music] we are back cheers mates cheers the the captain has been inspired to
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to start his own religion right out of our little garage here he's going to call original Rays original rays and
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he's already got me I'm fully enrolled I'm signing over my paycheck to the captain as we speak should I make it to
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cash well just to be clear just to be clear what we have here is we have a religious group
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some of the members create an offshoot some of those members from the offshoot then are killed
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and this is all witnessed or participated by the members of the offshoot and their
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leader is Jeffrey Lundgren so all right let's take a look at who this guy is and how did he become the
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leader of this corrupt organization occult leader now all entangled up in murder and murder charges Jeffrey
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Lundgren was born in 1950 in Independence Missouri now keep in mind you're going to notice throughout the
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telling of this True Crime Story that you will hear several cities that are repeated throughout the course of the
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telling of this True Crime Story one of them you've already noticed is Independence Missouri
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Lundgren was raised in the reformed Latter-Day Saints Church which is based in his hometown Independence Missouri
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court documents indicate that as a youth Lundgren was mostly a loner but was active in sports and church activities
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his father was a strict disciplinarian and it's reported that his father may have even enjoyed teasing and punishing
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a young Jeffrey yeah some would say abusive Jeffrey Lundgren attended Central Missouri State University where
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he met his future wife Alice who was also a church member but Lundgren was not academically inclined and he never
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did very well in in school he married Alice In 1980 he joined the Navy and was sent to Vietnam after he
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completed his Tour of Duty and was honorably discharged he held some short-term jobs like Hospital
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maintenance worker but he really struggled to keep a position finally he and Alice moved to Kirtland
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Ohio in 1984. this with their two kids and then they would go on to have two more children the move was motivated by
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Jeffrey Lundgren's affinity for the reformed Latter-Day Saints Church and the historic and iconic Temple
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remember the one that was built by the church founder more than a century earlier in this small town this is a
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small town in Ohio population roughly about 6 000 people he worked as a senior Church tour guide for the Kirtland
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Temple historic Center this is considered to be before he shamed it obviously this was considered
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to be an honored volunteer position where he led tours through the temple discussing its history and sacred role
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within the reformed Latter-Day Saints Church as a perk of being a guide for which he
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had to be very well versed in the church's teachings the Lundgren family got to live in an
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apartment which was owned by the church they got to live their rent free all of this was fine at first for a period of
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time Church devotees admitted Lundgren into the fold and began to look up to him
00:31:02
because he had like a legendary grasp of scripture and was able to recite passages from memory as luffman who
00:31:11
we've brought up several times described to the Beacon Journal said quote he could quote scripture not
00:31:18
always accurately in a rapid-fire style that some people found impressive and quote indeed Jeffrey Lundgren was
00:31:26
effective at drawing people to the faith and recruiting them to the reform Latter-Day Saints Church
00:31:34
he would take trips back to his home state of Missouri and attend meetings at his old church this to find recruits
00:31:42
apparently Captain he had an uncanny ability to prey on people who were vulnerable manipulable to be a douche
00:31:51
canoe looking for change seeking guidance so he was good at recruiting regardless of the methods he was using
00:31:58
several people described him as a spiritual bully uh he promised a warm supportive loving and strong Church
00:32:07
community in Kirtland Ohio and people actually moved there to join up with that legit
00:32:15
church at the time of the reform Latter-Day Saints well obviously it becomes a destination for somebody that
00:32:23
especially somebody like Jeffrey he's raised in the church this is basically their Holy Land
00:32:31
and so when he has no job he has no opportunities he probably thought well this is a good destination one because
00:32:37
of my faith but because of this sacred land lothman said the first problem started back in
00:32:46
1986. this is when Lundgren was sort of going off script starting to enjoy the spotlight as a
00:32:54
tour guide espousing ideas that were increasingly radical so he's supposed to be leading
00:33:00
these tours and teaching all these people who could either be recruited into the religion or are already a part
00:33:07
of the religion because they want to visit the sacred ground as you pointed out but he's giving these tours and now
00:33:14
he's starting to like go off script and he's throwing in his own ideas and and maybe things that the the church are not
00:33:21
telling him to say or not don't and don't want him to be saying during the course of these tours I like to be the
00:33:28
fly on the wall during one of those tours for example we have some examples here for example Lundgren would tell
00:33:35
people that he had a special power to determine what was true in the Bible and what wasn't so that's what that's that's
00:33:45
interesting to learn while you're on the tour that the tour guide has a power to
00:33:49
be able to discern what is true and untrue in the Bible he emphasized that he had a connection to God again let's
00:33:57
go back to luffman's words here a lot of what we know about Lundgren comes from this luffman character luffman says
00:34:05
quote people were complaining that he meaning Jeffrey Lundgren was misrepresenting the teachings of the
00:34:11
church during the tours he guided he was increasingly putting his own spin on Doctrine and many patrons were very
00:34:20
upset but Lundgren wasn't just a tour guide who was speaking out of turn by this point in our timeline he is a lay
00:34:30
minister so this is somebody who would be permitted to counsel parishioners even
00:34:36
in their homes and to preach at some actual church services so he's not just a tour guide anymore who's spouting off
00:34:45
his own ideas he's now a person that is looked up to he's a lay Minister he's on
00:34:52
these tours and he's starting to push his own agenda not only push his own agenda but to promote himself as a man
00:35:00
with special powers yes so he's Lundgren's preaching about like the hidden meetings
00:35:06
that he was able to glean from the Bible based on his you know his method of of scripture
00:35:16
interpretation that he was able to determine what was true and what wasn't true and then he was also doing stuff
00:35:22
that was reading texts for reoccurring so so he says that he was able to find within the Bible uh text that had
00:35:31
reoccurring patterns that contained messages and he was able to see what these messages are and he's able to
00:35:37
deliver them to to people like me and you the regular Joes right this is from a much later report that
00:35:44
came out that states quote Lundgren generally fit within the traditions of the reformed Latter-Day Saints faith in
00:35:52
that he described Visions direct spiritual experiences and God speaking directly to prophets but Lundgren went
00:36:01
far outside of the bounds of Prophecy so he claimed to possess special powers um and I have a list of some of his his
00:36:14
special powers if you would like to hear how powerful this Jeffrey Lundgren actually was I can't freaking wait he
00:36:21
had the ability to predict future events well that comes in handy yes he claimed
00:36:27
to have the ability to sense the presence of people and events which are at a geographical remove from where he
00:36:36
is he had the ability to trigger natural events such as Earth Tremors he reportedly told his followers that he
00:36:46
was present when Jesus Christ was crucified and that in other ways as well he was able to transcend the
00:36:54
restrictions of time well no wonder he looked so freaking old he claims to have experienced multiple Visions where he is
00:37:03
shown his special Mission or missions on Earth this I can't help it Captain but this
00:37:10
reminds me of maybe one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time depending on who you
00:37:15
ask Tenacious D that wonderful song they had Wonder Boy where Jack Black describes
00:37:21
for reg cage and the rest of us his secret powers and the secret of his powers the reformed Latter-Day Saints church
00:37:30
leaders noticed that the historic Center was missing some money as well so he's not just telling all these people all of
00:37:38
his wonderful ideas on through the course of his tours but money is coming up missing as well
00:37:45
so the curtain well that wasn't one one of his superpowers was not personal finances or the ability to hide
00:37:53
his his thiefdom from the uh from the people in power so the Kirtland State president Dale luffman says Lundgren was
00:38:03
let go for ethical and moral issues that are critically important to us to their
00:38:09
religion and to that to the church later it revealed that the temple officials accused Jeffrey Lundgren of stealing
00:38:18
between 25 000 up to maybe forty thousand dollars from the temple coffers that's a whole
00:38:26
lot of Rolling Papers especially in the late 80s that's a ton of rolling papers and in this economy with inflation
00:38:36
I mean come on maybe not so many rolling papers with inflation now as a result of his
00:38:44
radicalism and him being accused or the belief that he was stealing from the church Jeffrey Lundgren of course lost
00:38:52
his position as the temple tour guide this in October of 1987. and as a result of that he lost his free living
00:39:01
arrangements for him and his family so Jeffrey Lundgren and the Lundgren family they gonna have to move so they
00:39:11
ended up renting the 15-acre farm that we've talked about where the bodies were found
00:39:17
just outside of town on that Euclid Chardon Road and that's going to cost money right Lundgren's now going to have
00:39:27
to pay for his living arrangements and for this Farm where he moved his family to so Jeffrey Lundgren basically does a
00:39:38
Jerry Maguire right he's getting kicked out and he he does the old uh you know who's coming with me
00:39:45
situation you had me at hello so he encouraged the defection of his of the people that believed him like he's
00:39:54
giving these tours and he has people with inside the church that that he's spouting off his radical ideas to and
00:40:00
and bragging about his so-called Powers too and people within the church are believing him and so he
00:40:10
even you know before he's asked to leave the church he has followers and he encouraged
00:40:20
probably demanded the defection of his quote loyal followers from the reform Latter-Day Saints Church asking them to
00:40:30
move with him to the commune that he was putting together that he was establishing on this farm that he's now
00:40:38
renting about 20 people formally resigned from the reform Latter-Day Saints church and moved in
00:40:46
with the lundgrens they were reportedly attracted by his fiery preachings and seemingly Insider
00:40:56
knowledge of scripture meanwhile according to luffman Lundgren was then defrocked by the
00:41:05
rlds church not only were his ministerial privileges revoked but he was excommunicated so you can see where
00:41:15
this is going right Captain Jeffrey Lundgren was kicked out of the church where he enjoyed being
00:41:21
some kind of Big Shot so he established his own cult with himself as the leader and then we have his followers now at
00:41:31
this point they're referring to him as some kind of prophet they they called him dad never a good sign to follow
00:41:39
somebody that is one kicked out of the church but two is not saying call me Jeff or call me Mr Lundgren they're
00:41:47
saying hey call me dad or father not good signs it was reported that people that left the rlds
00:41:56
they followed him because they were dumbasses liked his group better because it was
00:42:03
considered to be a much more conservative group than the traditional reformed Latter-day Saints
00:42:12
the reformed Latter-Day Saints is lgbtq friendly and also allows women to become church leaders this is in
00:42:24
contradiction of that of the Latter-Day Saints Church's teachings that women should be subservient to men
00:42:32
so Jeffrey Lundgren started becoming increasingly radical with his new little group of followers
00:42:41
he starts doing things like predicting the return of Christ to Earth and the destruction of everything
00:42:47
except the temple and the devoted followers of Jeffrey Lundgren's preachings in other words
00:42:56
if you didn't follow the path that he established you were doomed I am not following this douche canoe with a
00:43:04
horrible mullet he promised to bring his followers to Zion where they would witness the return of Christ he started
00:43:12
to dictate the lives of everyone in the commune and he started to control everything in their lives as well well
00:43:22
this probably stems from like we said before Lundgren when he was back in Missouri
00:43:29
wasn't doing so well as far as making ends meet and now he goes moves to Ohio starts telling a couple fibs also feels
00:43:39
like he's getting some kind of power and money's coming in and when they try to separate him from
00:43:46
the church well if I take some followers with me then maybe I can con them into my system
00:43:53
and I think a lot of this was just because he just didn't didn't like his life didn't like the way things turned
00:44:00
out felt like a failure and now these people make me feel good they think I'm something special I tell them I'm
00:44:07
something special They believe me and rinse and repeat Captain I think that you're probably right here the the
00:44:14
thing that I would say that also could be the situation would be that look for these people to follow him they
00:44:23
clearly had blinders on but is there a chance that Jeffrey Lundgren had blinders on himself like did he become
00:44:30
so delusional are so delusional that he started to believe these things himself or to start to think that he was
00:44:39
something that he was not right or also just that he felt like he had the power to convince them to con them
00:44:49
there's also a lot of people out there too that even if they are doing wrong or if they are lying to others they have
00:44:55
the belief that if well if as long as what I'm doing is for the greater good then it doesn't matter how I get there
00:45:02
sounds like some of the popular True Crime podcasts out there right it doesn't matter how we get there or how I
00:45:08
get the followers or get people to join me and that could be the situation as well
00:45:13
that he he believed that he was trying to do good it's it's really difficult for us to try to crawl inside the brain
00:45:21
and the and figure out this this character now going back to his little followers his
00:45:28
little group of followers or his sheep as I will refer to them as at some point according to
00:45:37
like we talked about him trying to and starting to dictate their lives and to control them and control everything
00:45:46
going on on this piece of property here this 15 Acres Wikipedia which is not my favorite
00:45:53
source to go to but they you know sometimes they give you the good short and sweet version of things
00:45:59
and here on Wikipedia they say for example to show his his control the cult members
00:46:08
were forbidden to talk amongst themselves doing so was determined to be a sin and
00:46:16
he even came up with a term for it he called it murmuring so all if we were his followers we were forbidden to Talk
00:46:24
Amongst ourselves to conduct and well there goes the podcast be a part of this murmuring and and it would be considered
00:46:30
a sin there's also reports that he that Jeffrey Lundgren would find ways to eavesdrop on the cult members
00:46:40
so he's listening into their conversations and such when they are talking amongst themselves and they're
00:46:46
unaware of this and later he's using the information that he gets from from listening in on their conversations
00:46:54
to get them to believe that he could read their minds right like I said another way to con them into believing
00:47:02
that he has these powers it was all just trickery really and a lot of it too and we see this in
00:47:12
unfortunately we see this in bad domestic situations or controlling boyfriend situations
00:47:20
a lot of these types of behaviors right we see time and time again in these different cases that we cover and they
00:47:27
all are very different cases but it's interesting to see similar behaviors by the controlling individual right so in
00:47:37
this situation we have Jeffrey Lundgren who starts to I mean he actually managed to isolate
00:47:45
his sheep from from almost from the rest of the world entirely not completely but almost
00:47:52
right he's got these people living with him on his commune on this 15 acres of land in Kirtland
00:47:59
Ohio just outside of town and he he's convinced them to contribute their worldly possessions and their
00:48:08
paychecks to the greater good which was him his followers they work their day jobs that but they
00:48:19
turn their checks over to him well a lot of these religions when you go to mass on Sunday or maybe Saturday
00:48:28
night or whenever you choose to go you're you don't have to but they appreciate offering and a lot of times these
00:48:37
offerings are 15 of what you are bringing in which is can be pretty high for some individuals and family
00:48:48
but this guy is saying no not 15 I need it all and he probably was telling them hey we're just getting started so we
00:48:58
need as much as possible so we can build as quick as possible well and they would
00:49:05
work the the followers that he allowed to work they're basically working their day jobs most days long days and then
00:49:14
turning over their paychecks to him uh that that is used for things like taking care of everybody in the group
00:49:23
but but primarily taking care of him and his actual biological family and and his you
00:49:30
know marital family well he is the prophet but then after they're done working for the day at their jobs
00:49:37
they're required to gather in the submissive nightly scripture meetings to hear Jeffrey Lundgren just preach and
00:49:45
preach and preach about his interpretation of scripture all of this going on on the farm every
00:49:53
evening at night and this is all really designed to continue to keep him in power to remind his flock that they
00:50:02
needed his leadership or they were lost [Music] want to thank everybody for listening
00:50:20
joining us here in the garage so much more case to get to make sure you're following us on social media Facebook
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Twitter Instagram Tick Tock or YouTube at True Crime garage and until tomorrow be good be
00:50:39
kind and don't litter [Music] thank you foreign