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[Music] [Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:45
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who has already received four letters from his
00:01:52
HOA about his Halloween decorations ladies and gentlemen the captain to mini pumpkins it's good to be seen and good
00:02:00
to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend it's the second half of October
00:02:10
my friends and we are in the mood for some dark and scary good beer so this week we are featuring an old favorite
00:02:18
for real beer lovers how about some Dragon milk from the brilliant women and men Brewing up Liquid black magic at New
00:02:27
Holland Brewing this is a b Barrel aged Imperial Double Stout that means it's dark delicious and Powerful baby ABV
00:02:38
11% garage grade 4 and A2 bottle caps out of five and here's some cheers and thank yous to our friends for helping us
00:02:47
out with this week's beer run first up a big shout out to my friend Walker down in Knoxville Tennesse and a big we like
00:02:54
your jib to Manny and the major and West Friendship Maryland that's right thank you all for helping us out with this
00:03:02
week's beer run if you want to help us out with next week's Beer Run go to True Crim garage.com and click on the Donate
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button always love to give the dragons milk out as a gift it's a tasty treat and Powerful stuff Bou R beer run if you
00:03:18
need more True Crime garage for your earballs make sure you go to our website sign up for off the Record over 160
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episodes if you're not listening that you are nasty and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather
00:03:36
around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime true crime stories about the Manson
00:04:13
family the Jonestown Massacre and Waco Texas have fascinated Americans for decades the fascination of these real
00:04:23
life tragedies and crimes is so strong that each year someone new turns out a new version of each of these old news
00:04:31
stories complete with new details and neverbe seen footage recently documentaries and fictionalized
00:04:40
streaming shows continue to see much success with titles like The Vow wild wild country and devil in Ohio the
00:04:49
masses are reading watching and listening because we want to know more we want to know how it all
00:04:57
works what are the beliefs Bel and the rules of a cult we want to learn about the cult's
00:05:04
leaders followers and their enemies should they have any how do they recruit and why or what
00:05:12
turns a small number of these groups toward violence defining Cults and deciding
00:05:18
which groups should be labeled as such is sometimes a difficult task because of the variety of groups that exist outside
00:05:26
of the mainstream the will to kill a 2001 book by James a fox and Jack Levan Define the
00:05:35
results as being Loosely structured in unconventional forms of small religious groups the members of which are held
00:05:43
together by a charismatic leader who mobilizes their loyalty around some new religious cause typically a cause that
00:05:53
is at odds with that of more conventional religious institutions in other words many Cults are small groups of seemingly
00:06:03
like-minded individuals who are taught teach and practice their beliefs or religion which in most cases is a
00:06:11
Loosely structured version of a more widespread and regularly practiced religion some of the largest religious
00:06:19
groups are Christians Muslims and in some parts of the world Jews in spite of the many differences of these religions
00:06:28
they share a fundamental belief in a God is compassionate and just as a result those communities have nurtured people
00:06:37
of extraordinary kindness from the Bible Matthew 5 the good book teaches us that
00:06:44
Jesus also set very high ethical standards for his followers including an unbounded
00:06:51
willingness to forgive wrongdoing non- retaliation against evil and love of enemies
00:07:00
yet some of the most appalling atrocities in history have been rooted in religion religious violence can take on
00:07:08
a particularly intense and ruthless character if the objects of that violence are seen as blasphemy or
00:07:15
enemies of God or God's way narrowly conceived in the case of what we have here today it's ruthless violence doled
00:07:24
out judge jury and executioner Style by the Cults leader upon some of his followers God and religion do ask of us
00:07:33
and try to teach us to live our lives out practicing High ethical standards God wants us to possess an
00:07:42
unbounded willingness to forgive wrongdoing to not retaliate against evil and to love our enemies if we truly
00:07:51
believed and followed these teachings well we would not commit acts of violence against one another we would
00:07:58
not kill kill and there should never be a Killing In The Name Of God this is a Kirtland C killings and this is true
00:08:10
crime [Music] garage [Music] on December 31st 1989 a tip was called into the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and
00:08:59
Firearms it was relayed to the chief of police in Kirtland Ohio because the tip was related to his
00:09:07
jurisdiction the caller said that a family was missing and some bodies were buried in a barn on a property of a
00:09:15
rented Farmhouse this is located at 8671 uid shardan Road this would be 1 and a half miles east out of town
00:09:26
authorities proceeded to the property and question upon arrival here Captain so far so good because when they get to
00:09:35
the property they can in fact see that a barn is on the premises so there may be
00:09:42
some truth to this tip that they received right police found the property deserted with evidence that the
00:09:50
residents had left in a hurry but of course what the police really needed to search based on the tipster information
00:09:58
was that barn on the property you could just feel the search becoming more intense if you're law enforcement in the
00:10:05
barn they found some personal possessions of presumably this missing family this included some drawings in
00:10:14
notebooks that clearly belong to children they decided that they are going to need to do a little Excavating
00:10:22
in the barn to see if they could find what it was that they were looking for but also keep in mind they're out there
00:10:30
looking for what was called in on their tip but you're also I would guess you're
00:10:36
also hoping to not find what was called in on the tip exactly so on January 3rd 1990 they started digging Dan Dunlap was
00:10:48
a lieutenant in the Lake County Sheriff's Office at the time he was a patrol officer on the day the Kirtland
00:10:56
police chief Dennis yarboro request requested assistance from the Sheriff's Office and the Lake County Crime Lab in
00:11:03
processing the crime scene AKA The Barn officer Dunlap told the News Herald the place was damp cold dark and full of
00:11:13
trash and Rubble so there was a lot of clearing going on he said they found bodies beneath layers of soil rocks and
00:11:23
garbage in the rear portion of the Barn's lower level this would be a difficult day to be law enforcement they
00:11:30
found the first body buried about 4 ft deep after that they stopped and obtained search warrants for the whole
00:11:38
place additional digging the next day revealed not one not two not three but sadly four additional corpses all in the
00:11:50
same burial pit three of them were children the caller that phoned in the tip predicted that five bodies would be
00:12:00
found all members of one single family and the caller turns out he was right the fire chief that was present that day
00:12:12
told the News Herald that they meaning the bodies they had rocks on top of them and they were backfilled with Clay so
00:12:22
somebody took a considerable amount of effort to bury and attempt to conceal these bodies
00:12:29
now none of these bodies were identified right away Captain the the bodies were very badly
00:12:37
decomposed in fact if the tipster was right they had been there and they had been buried there for nearly a year by
00:12:47
the time that they were Unearthed but the caller did tell authorities who they would find buried in that Barn so the
00:12:57
identification of the bodies was not so much a mystery it really at this point in our timeline just needed to be
00:13:05
confirmed yeah the caller is telling you the truth or seems to be telling you the
00:13:09
truth there's no reason not to believe them now yes in fact the the caller was right and you are right there Captain
00:13:15
the bodies once the bodies were identified we would learn that the five bodies were that of five members of the
00:13:24
Avery family this is Dennis Avery age 48 and his wife Cheryl age 41 and then the three children were
00:13:34
their three daughters Trina Rebecca and little Karen and their ages respectively
00:13:40
are 15 13 and seven each victim was found to have been bound they were executed and then dumped in the hole in
00:13:50
the ground inside this Barn all of them had been shot with a 45 caliber gun do we have any autopsy information from law
00:13:58
enfor we do get some brief autopsy report information that makes its way to the newspapers and it's as follows the
00:14:08
autopsies on the five members of the Avery family revealed the following Dennis the father was shot twice in the
00:14:16
chest Cheryl was shot three times in the chest Trina was shot in the head and chest Rebecca was shot once in the back
00:14:25
and once in the left side and then Karen the Young member of the family was shot
00:14:30
once in the head and once in the chest the coroner found silver duct tape wrapped around the victim's heads feet
00:14:40
and hands so in short this was the murder of an entire family of five now no gun was found in the pit with the
00:14:50
bodies every one of the victims were found bound with tape as we just described so this family as it appears
00:14:58
from the start of this investigation and based off of these reports this family was executed and then buried in this
00:15:06
barn now we need to introduce dale luffman dale was a reverend and the leader in the Kirtland branch of the
00:15:16
reformed latterday Saints and I might say rld DS at times if I do Captain I'm referring to reformed Latter Day Saints
00:15:27
when the five IES of the Avery family were found he was one of the first people to come forward to talk to police
00:15:37
about what he knew about the situation which in the case of Dale luffman turned out to be a whole heck of a lot this
00:15:47
eager cooperation on his part was likely an attempt by lman to separate his organization the reformed Latter-Day
00:15:57
Saints from this this whole murder Scandal this murder of a family of five he told the date and daily news that the
00:16:06
five acre Kirtland area farm this is the property where the bodies were found had
00:16:12
been leased by a man who was formerly a member of the reformed Latter-Day Saints
00:16:19
organization in Kirtland Ohio the man he was talking about was a lay Minister what's referred to as a lay Minister who
00:16:27
was defrocked by the reformed Latter-Day Saints because quote he was silenced for
00:16:34
ethical reasons he would have been expelled from the church on the basis of unchristian conduct had he not withdrawn
00:16:42
his membership well if you're not going to act like a Christian you're going to get defrocked he's saying that this man
00:16:48
then later formed a radical splinter group of his own because this man had been kicked out of the reformed
00:16:56
latterday Saints he essentially formed his own cult a spin-off a splinter group of of the original group but if you're a
00:17:04
law enforcement and you find a burial ground in this Barn the the first thing you're going to look for is who is the
00:17:12
owner who is operating this property correct and that makes sense with what this man is telling police for many
00:17:21
reasons okay first off police had some general idea that something not so great going on on that property with a with a
00:17:32
a considerable group of people and they were already aware of this man that is being described to them they were aware
00:17:40
of this let's say air quotes for now cult that was operating on this property and as you pointed out captain and what
00:17:49
this man is telling police confirming what they likely already knew was that this man that he was talking about was
00:17:57
Leasing this 15 Acres this property and he was leasing the barn in which they found the five bodies so the man that he
00:18:07
was talking about is a is a man named Jeffrey lungren so Jeffrey lungren had been kicked out of the reformed Latter
00:18:15
Day Saints and essentially formed his own little cult in which he was viewed as the supreme leader and his followers
00:18:25
did his bidding lman went on to desperately try to delineate his own religious organization from this
00:18:34
splinter group from this criminal one the way all this went down from my understanding here Captain is that
00:18:39
Jeffrey lungren once he was pushed out or decided to leave the reformed latterday Saints he moved to the farm
00:18:48
with some of his devotees and then ran this commune of sorts on its grounds up until April of 1989 9 when he and his
00:19:00
family and some of his followers decided to split Town whereabouts unknown lman told investigators he was certain
00:19:08
lungren was behind the killings so what we have going on here at this time right
00:19:13
is murder and defrocking we have bodies that according to the tipster have been in this Barn for almost a year several
00:19:24
months and what we know so far is that when police get there they recover the bodies the family of five from this
00:19:32
burial inside of the barn they're learning a couple of things lungren who leased the
00:19:39
place had these followers he split town we don't know where he and some of the followers are and now we're being
00:19:49
told months later that Jeffrey lungren is the one that is behind the killings of these
00:19:58
five people that we just found well and on top of that he did something bad within the church or bad enough where
00:20:06
the church didn't want to have him be a part of it yes and this is where the story gets a little complicated because
00:20:13
we have to try to well there's a family of five buried in a barn it's already complicated try to understand the this
00:20:21
religion and then even more so what's more important is to try to understand this little fact this little splinter
00:20:29
group of of this religion so and I don't want a bunch of emails if I get this wrong because look I'm not well versed
00:20:36
on my own religion let alone everybody else's so Kirtland Ohio established by the founder of the Church of Jesus
00:20:45
Christ and the latterday Saints a christian-based religion that follows the tenants of Joseph Smith as some
00:20:53
believe he was a prophet of Jesus the latterday Saints Church church is otherwise known as the Mormon church it
00:21:01
was founded by Smith in the 1820s he wrote the Book of Mormon in 1830 so Joseph Smith settled in Kirtland Ohio in
00:21:11
1831 and established the town as the base of his burgeoning sect in 1836 he built a temple that was to be a
00:21:23
beacon or not to be it was a beacon to the members of the church everywhere so members of this church and of this
00:21:32
religion they're flocking to Kirtland Ohio back in the early 1800s because he built this Temple if you build it they
00:21:40
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
00:21:50
when the church that he established splintered so Brigham Young led some of the members to Utah and founded what is
00:22:02
known today as the modern Church of the Latter Day Saints the church members who
00:22:07
stayed in Kirtland Ohio transformed their offsho of the latterday Saints Church into the reformed latterday
00:22:15
Saints Church this was formed in 1852 in the wake of Smith's death and the splintering of the church he established
00:22:23
the reformed Latter-Day Saints was headquartered in independent Missouri okay so are we all on the same
00:22:33
page here roughly yeah the best way to explain this is you have a pizza shop and it's called
00:22:38
Ray and then some people worked at Ray pizza shop and they wanted to start their own pizza shop so they started
00:22:45
another one called Original Rays after Ray passes away right and then those people decide to start another pizza
00:22:53
shop and call it famous Ray so it's all raay pizza but it's just kind of little bit different versions The Devil is in
00:23:03
the details the the or or here in this case maybe not the devil but but uh something is in the details and you're
00:23:10
right Captain the the crust may be a little different the cheese might be a different blend the the pepperoni used
00:23:17
is ordered from someplace else but but it's it's generally from my understanding again
00:23:24
this is just some garage guys understanding of something that's much larger than
00:23:30
him it's at the at the center of it all it's all very much the same and it all kind of comes from the same place well
00:23:39
it sounds like Jeffrey started a division of shady Rays yes that's that's exactly right well and we're we're going
00:23:48
to find out exactly why here as we continue on looking into some of these different characters here now the Dead
00:23:57
family the averies they were members of the reformed latterday Saints in Kirtland Ohio but they were part of a
00:24:09
small group of people that left the church to join yet another offshoot one that was not sanctioned by
00:24:17
the church establishment this being Jeffrey Lundgren's offshoot of the reformed Latter-Day
00:24:25
Saints well lman wasn't the only only one that wanted to talk to law enforcement after these bodies were
00:24:32
found yeah others had a lot to say as well and a lot to say about Jeffrey lungren police heard one name over and
00:24:40
over again from people who were familiar with the cult and the outcast from the reformed latterday Saints the name that
00:24:47
kept coming up lungren lungren lungren this from The akan Beacon Journal on January 6th 1990 which said
00:24:57
says lungren who police say headed a militant and a very secretive religious cult calling itself the family was being
00:25:06
sought late Friday so this is the akan Beacon Journal reporting that police have talked to a lot of people and we we
00:25:16
know who we are looking for um we we are actively looking for a man named Jeffrey
00:25:22
lungren because we believe either a he knows intimate details about the killing of this family or he was the person
00:25:31
responsible with all these people so willing to talk it was really easy for police to start rounding up suspects
00:25:39
unfortunately Jeffrey lungren was not one of those that they were able to round up so easily he was missing an
00:25:46
action but other members of his cult were living in Kansas City on January 5th this is really just hours after the
00:25:55
bodies were uncovered a Lake County grand jury quickly indicted 13 people seven of whom were
00:26:04
already in custody in Kansas City according to the akan Beacon Journal the 13 were quote accused of plotting the
00:26:11
ritual slangs following lungren religious tenants arrest warrants for all 13 people were issued one person was
00:26:21
deemed to be the trigger man the rest the other 12 were decided it was they were all accomplices to this mass murder
00:26:30
but still no sign of Jeff LD that's right and police were really trying to get a handle on what actually happened
00:26:38
here uh there were stories about Jeffrey lr's involvement we know that but they needed
00:26:45
to figure out were those stories in fact true and if so how did a separatist religious
00:26:52
leader turn into some kind of coldblooded killer of children and and their parents right Kirkland Police
00:27:00
Chief Dennis yarboro told the date and daily news on January 5th that the leader of the group Jeffrey lungren
00:27:08
appeared to be forcing or persuading the other members to sign all properties and
00:27:14
checks their their money checks over to him personally and from what they were being told the murder of this family of
00:27:23
the Avery family was not the act of one person instead it was done in a ceremonial way with multiple Witnesses
00:27:31
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[Music] that all right we are back cheers mates cheers the the captain has been inspired
00:29:53
to to start his own religion right out of our little garage here he's we're going to call original Rays original
00:30:01
rays and 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
00:30:10
to cash well just to be clear just to be clear what we have here is we have a religious group some of the
00:30:21
members create a offshoot some of those members from the offshoot then are killed and this is all witnessed or
00:30:32
participated by the members of the offshoot and their leader is Jeffrey lungren so all right let's take a look
00:30:41
at who this guy is and how did he become the leader of this corrupt organization
00:30:48
a cult leader now all entangled up in murder and murder charges Jeffrey lungren was born in 1950 and
00:30:57
Independence Missouri now keep in mind you're going to notice throughout the telling of this True Crime Story that
00:31:05
you will hear several cities that are repeated throughout the course of the telling of this True Crime Story one of
00:31:14
them you've already noticed is Independence Missouri lungren was raised in the reformed laner Day Saints Church
00:31:21
which is based in his hometown Independence Missouri court documents indicate that as a youth lungren was
00:31:30
mostly a loner but was active in sports and church activities his father was a strict disciplinarian and it's reported
00:31:41
that his father may have even enjoyed teasing and punishing a young Jeffrey yeah some would say abusive Jeffrey
00:31:49
lungren attended Central Missouri State University where he met his future wife Alice who was also a church member
00:31:57
but lungren was not academically inclined and he never did very well in in school he married Alice In 1980 he
00:32:07
joined the Navy and was sent to Vietnam after he completed his Tour of Duty and was honorably discharged he held some
00:32:16
shortterm jobs like Hospital maintenance worker but he really struggle to keep a
00:32:23
position finally he and Alice moved to Kirtland oh Ohio in 1984 this with their two kids and then
00:32:32
they would go on to have two more children the move was motivated by Jeffrey lr's affinity for the reformed
00:32:41
Latter Day Saints church and the historic and iconic Temple remember the one that was built by the church founder
00:32:50
more than a century earlier in this small town this is a small town in Ohio population roughly about 6,000 people he
00:32:58
worked as a senior Church tour guide for the Kirtland Temple historic Center this
00:33:06
is considered to be before he shamed it obviously this was considered to be an honored volunteer position where he led
00:33:14
tours through the temple discussing its history and sacred role within the reformed latterday Saints Church as a
00:33:25
perk of being a guide for he had to be very well versed in the church's teachings the lungren family got to live
00:33:32
in an apartment which was owned by the church they got to live there rentree all of this was fine at first for a
00:33:38
period of time Church devotees admitted lungren into the fold and began to look up to him because he had like a
00:33:48
legendary grasp of scripture and was able to recite passages from memory as lman who we've brought up several times
00:33:57
described to the Beacon Journal said quote he could quote scripture not always accurately in a rapid fire style
00:34:06
that some people found impressive end quote indeed Jeffrey lungren was effective at drawing people to the faith
00:34:15
and recruiting them to the reformed latterday Saints Church he would take trips back to his home state of Missouri
00:34:22
and attend meetings at his old church this to find recruits apparently Captain he had an uncanny
00:34:30
ability to pre on people who were vulnerable manipulable to be a douche Cano looking for change seeking guidance
00:34:38
so he was good at recruiting regardless of the methods he was using several people described him as a spiritual
00:34:47
bully uh he promised a warm supportive loving and strong Church community in Kirtland Ohio and people actually moved
00:34:56
there to to join up with that legit church at the time of the reformed latterday Saints well obviously it
00:35:05
becomes a destination for somebody that especially somebody like Jeffrey he's raised in the church this is basically
00:35:13
their holy land and so when he has no job he has no opportunities he probably thought well
00:35:20
this is a good destination one because of my faith but because of this secret Land
00:35:27
lman said the first problem started back in 1986 this is when lungren was sort of
00:35:34
going off script starting to enjoy the spotlight as a tour guide espousing ideas that were increasingly radical so
00:35:44
he's supposed to be leading these tours and teaching all these people who could either be recruited into the religion or
00:35:50
are already a part of the religion because they want to visit the sacred ground as you pointed out
00:35:57
but he's giving these tours and now he's starting to like go off script and he's
00:36:01
throwing in his own ideas and and maybe things that the the church are not telling him to say or not don't and
00:36:09
don't want him to be saying during the course of these tours I'd like to be the fly on the wall during one of those
00:36:15
tours for example we have some examples here for example lungren would tell people that he had a special power to
00:36:23
determine what was true in the Bible and what wasn't so that's that's that's interesting to learn while you're on
00:36:31
your tour that the tour guide has a power to be able to discern what is true and untrue in the Bible he emphasized
00:36:38
that he had a connection to God again let's go back to Lan's words here a lot of what we know about lungren comes from
00:36:47
this lman character lman says quote people were complaining that he meaning Jeffrey lungren was misrepresenting the
00:36:55
teachings of the church during the tours he guided he was increasingly putting his own spin on Doctrine and many
00:37:04
patrons were very upset but lungren wasn't just a tour guide who was speaking out of turn by this point in
00:37:12
our timeline he is a lay Minister per so this is somebody who would be permitted
00:37:18
to counsel parishioners even in their homes and to preach at some actual church services so so he's not just a
00:37:27
tour guide anymore who's spouting off his own ideas he's now a person that is looked up to he's a lay Minister he's on
00:37:37
these tours and he's starting to push his own agenda not only push his own agenda but to promote himself as a man
00:37:44
with special powers yes so he's lunden's preaching about like the hidden meetings that he was able to glean from
00:37:53
the Bible based on his you know his method of of scripture interpretation that he was able to
00:38:03
determine what was true and what wasn't true and then he was also doing stuff that was reading text for reoccurring so
00:38:11
so he says that he was able to find within the Bible uh text that had reoccurring patterns that contained
00:38:18
messages and he was able to see what these messages are and he's able to deliver them to to people like me and
00:38:24
you the regular Joe's right this is from a much later report that came out that states quote lungren
00:38:32
generally fit within the traditions of the reformed Latter-Day Saints faith in that he described Visions direct
00:38:40
spiritual experiences and God speaking directly to prophets but lungren went far outside of the bounds of Prophecy
00:38:51
so he claimed to possess special powers um and I have a list of some of his his special powers if you would like to hear
00:39:01
how powerful this Jeffrey lungren actually was I can't freaking wait he had the ability to predict future
00:39:09
events well that comes in handy yes he claimed to have the ability to sense the presence of people and events which are
00:39:17
at a geographical remove from where he is he had the ability to trigger natural events such as Earth Tremors he
00:39:28
reportedly told his followers that he was present when Jesus Christ was crucified and that in other ways as well
00:39:36
he was able to transcend the restrictions of time well no wonder he looked so freaking old he claims to have
00:39:44
experienced multiple Visions where he is shown his special Mission or missions on
00:39:51
Earth this I can't help it Captain but this reminds me of maybe one of the greatest rock and roll
00:39:58
bands of all time depending on who you ask Tenacious D that wonderful song they had Wonder Boy where Jack Black
00:40:05
describes for Rage Cage and the rest of us his secret powers and the secret of his powers one
00:40:13
boy the reformed latterday Saints church leaders noticed that the historic Center
00:40:18
was missing some money as well so he's not just telling all these people all of his wonderful ideas on through the
00:40:25
course of his tours but money is coming up missing as well so the KK well that wasn't one one of his superpowers was
00:40:34
not personal finances or the ability to hide his his thiefdom from the uh from the people in power so the Kirtland
00:40:44
State president Dale luffman says lungren was let go for ethical and moral issues that are critically important to
00:40:53
us to their religion and to that to the church church later it revealed that the temple
00:41:00
officials accused Jeffrey lungren of stealing between 25,000 up to maybe $40,000 from the temple coffers that's a
00:41:11
whole lot of Rolling Papers especially in the late 80s that's a ton of rolling papers and in this economy with
00:41:19
inflation I mean come on maybe not so many rolling papers with inflation now as a result of his radicalism and him
00:41:31
being accused or the belief that he was stealing from the church Jeffrey lungren
00:41:36
of course lost his position as the temple tour guide this in October of 1987 and as a result of that he lost his
00:41:45
free living arrangements for him and his family so Jeffrey lungren and the lungren family they going to have to
00:41:54
move so they ended up renting the 15 Acre Farm that we've talked about where the bodies were found just outside of
00:42:04
town on that uid chardan road and that's going to cost money right lungren is now
00:42:11
going to have to pay for his living arrangements and for this Farm where he moved his family to so Jeffrey lungren
00:42:21
basically does a Jerry Maguire right he's getting kicked out and he he does the old uh you know who's coming with me
00:42:30
situation you had me at hello so he encouraged the defection of his of the people that that
00:42:38
believed him like he's giving these tours and he has people with inside the church that that he's spouting off his
00:42:44
radical ideas to and and bragging about his so-called powers to and people within the church are believing him and
00:42:55
so he even you know before he's asked to leave the church he has followers and he
00:43:04
encourage probably demanded the defection of his quote loyal followers from the reformed Latter-Day Saints
00:43:13
Church asking them to move with him to the commune that he was putting together that he was establishing on this farm
00:43:22
that he's now renting about 20 people formally resigned from the reformed latterday Saints church and moved in
00:43:31
with the lungren they were reportedly attracted by his fiery preachings and seemingly Insider
00:43:41
knowledge of scripture meanwhile according to lman lungren was then defrocked by the rlds church not only
00:43:53
were his ministerial priv privileges revoked but he was excommunicated so you can see where this
00:44:00
is going right Captain Jeffrey lungren was kicked out of the church where he enjoyed being some kind of big shot so
00:44:09
he established his own cult with himself as the leader and then we have his followers
00:44:15
now at this point they're referring to him as some kind of prophet they they called him dad never a good sign to
00:44:23
follow somebody that is one kicked out of the church but two is not saying call me Jeff or call me Mr lung they're
00:44:32
saying hey call me dad or father not good signs it was reported that people that left the
00:44:40
rlds they followed him because they were dumb asses liked his group better because it was considered to be a much
00:44:50
more conservative group than the traditional reformed Latter-day Saints the reformed latterday Saints is
00:45:01
lgbtq friendly and also allows women to become church leaders this is in contradiction of that of the Latter Day
00:45:12
Saints Church's teachings that women should be subservient to men so Jeffrey lungren started becoming
00:45:20
increasingly radical with his new little group of followers he starts doing things like predicting the return of
00:45:28
Christ to Earth and the destruction of everything except the temple and the devoted followers of Jeffrey lungren
00:45:38
preachings in other words if you didn't follow the path that he established you were doomed I am not
00:45:46
following this douche canoe with a horrible molet he promised to bring his followers to Zion where they would
00:45:54
witness the return of Christ he started to dictate the lives of everyone in the commune and he started
00:46:02
to control everything in their lives as well well this probably stems from like we said before lungren when he was back
00:46:12
in Missouri wasn't doing so well as far as making ends meet now he goes moves to
00:46:20
Ohio starts telling a couple fibs all of a sudden feels like he's getting some kind of power and money is coming in and
00:46:29
when they try to separate him from the church well if I take some followers with me then maybe I can con them into
00:46:36
my system 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
00:46:44
turned out felt like a failure and now these people make me feel good they think I'm something special I tell them
00:46:52
I'm something special They believe me and rinse and repeat Captain I think that you're probably right here the the
00:46:59
thing that I would say that also could be the situation would be that look for these
00:47:07
people to follow him they clearly had blinders on but is there a chance that Jeffrey lungren had blinders on himself
00:47:13
like did he become so delusional or so delusional that he started to believe these things himself
00:47:22
or to start to think that he was something that he was not right or also just that he felt like he
00:47:29
had the power to convince them to con them MH there's also a lot of people out there too that even if they are doing
00:47:37
wrong or if they are lying to others they have the belief that if well if as long as what I'm doing is for the
00:47:44
greater good then it doesn't matter how I get there sounds like some of the popular true podcast out there right it
00:47:51
doesn't matter how we get there or how I get the followers or get people to join
00:47:54
me and that could be the situation as well that he he believed that he was trying to do good it's it's really
00:48:03
difficult for us to try to crawl inside the brain and the and figure out this this character now going back to his
00:48:12
little followers his little group of followers or his sheep as I will refer to them as at some point according
00:48:21
to like we talked about him trying to and starting to dictate their lives and to
00:48:29
control them and control everything going on on this piece of property here this 15
00:48:35
Acres Wikipedia which is not my favorite source to go to but they you know sometimes they give you the good short
00:48:43
and sweet version of things and here on Wikipedia they say for example to show his his control that
00:48:52
cult members were forbidden to Talk Amongst themselves doing so was determined to be
00:48:59
a sin and he even came up with a term for it he called it murmuring so all if we were his followers we were forbidden
00:49:08
to Talk Amongst ourselves to conduct and and well there goes the podcast be a part of this murmuring and and it would
00:49:15
be considered a sin there's also reports that he that Jeffrey lungren would find
00:49:21
ways to EES drop on the cult members so he's listening into their conversations and such when they are talking amongst
00:49:29
themselves and they're unaware of this and later he's using the information that he gets from from listening in on
00:49:37
their conversations to get them to believe that he could read their minds right like I said another way to cond them
00:49:46
into believing that he has these Powers it it was all just trickery really and a
00:49:54
lot of it too and we see this in unfortunately we see this in uh bad domestic situations or controlling
00:50:02
boyfriend situations a lot of these types of behaviors right we see time and time
00:50:09
again in these different cases that we cover and they all are very different cases but it's interesting to see
00:50:16
similar behaviors by the controlling individual right so in this situation we have Jeffrey lungren who
00:50:26
starts to I mean he actually managed to isolate his sheep from from almost from the rest of
00:50:34
the world entirely not completely but almost right he's got these people living with him on his commune on this
00:50:42
15 acres of land in Kirtland Ohio just outside of town and he he's convince them to contribute their worldly
00:50:52
possessions and their paychecks to the greater good which was him his followers they work their day jobs that
00:51:03
but they turn their checks over to him well a lot of these religions when you go to mass on Sunday or maybe Saturday
00:51:13
night or whenever you choose to go you're you don't have to but they appreciate an offering and a lot of
00:51:22
times these offerings are 15% of what you you are bringing in which is can be pretty high for some individuals and
00:51:32
family but this guy is saying no not 15% I need it all and he probably was telling to them hey we're just getting
00:51:42
started so we need as much as possible so we can build as quick as possible well and they would work the the
00:51:50
followers that he allowed to work they're basically working their day jobs most days long days and then turning
00:51:59
over their paychecks to him I that that is used for things like taking care of everybody in the group but but primarily
00:52:10
taking care of him and his actual biological family and and his you know marital family well he is the prophet
00:52:18
but then after they're done working for the day at their jobs they're required to gather in the missive nightly
00:52:26
scripture meetings to hear Jeffrey lungren just preach and preach and preach about his interpretation of
00:52:34
scripture all of this going on on the farm every evening at night and this is all really designed to continue to keep
00:52:43
him in power to remind his flock that they needed his leadership or they were [Music]
00:52:54
lost [Music] want to thank everybody for listening and joining us here in the garage so
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YouTube at True Crime garage and until tomorrow be good be kind and don't litter
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