RedHanded - Episode 86 - The Community of Christ: Kirtland Cult

Episode Date: March 21, 2019

The Kirtland Cult were an offshoot of an offshoot that broke away from the Reorganised Church of Latter Day Saints in 1987. Like most cults they were led by a single-minded, self-appointed, narcissistic leader - Jeff Lundgren - who demanded absolute control of his followers; exploiting them psychologically, sexually and financially. Soon after the group moved onto a remote compound in Kirtland, Ohio the stockpiling and the paranoia began - and it would end in the brutal murder of a family of 5.  HarmonTown Tickets - https://www.dynastytypewriter.com/calendar/harmontownmar25   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Huh, fancy. She's a big carbon tax supporter, yeah? Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here.

She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM,

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I'm Hannah. I'm Hannah I'm Suriti and welcome to Red Handed before we get going if you are in LA we are also going to be in LA next week and if you would like to come and see us you can do that by coming to

the Harmontown show we'll put a link to where you can buy tickets in the description of the show because I have absolutely no idea where it is because LA is very big and confusing. We'd love it if you guys came out and joined us. We're super excited to be in LA and to be hanging out with Dan Harmon and to be on Harmontown. So come hang out too. Oh, also, if you want to take your mother's day to your mother's day, if you want to take your mother's day, if you'd like to take your mum to a nice afternoon tea, our mate Rav has got one at the Laylit Hotel in London. We went yesterday and it was lovely. And you should probably explain who our mate Rav is, not just some random friend we have, but it's Rav from the Great British Bake Off who is doing a super lovely afternoon tea for mum's, for mum's, for mother's day at the lalit we're really off to a shocking start today as hannah said he was lovely enough to invite us yesterday we went

along and there were all of the people from the great british bake-off and then us and rav's family it was so funny everyone just kept looking at us being like why are you here who the fuck like which season were those two idiots on so if you you like the Great British Bake Off and you like your mum, maybe think about taking her to the Lallet Hotel. There you go. So yeah, let's get on with it. We've got a cult. We haven't had a cult for ages. I was trying to think of, I think we've done two. Yeah. Does Fall River really count though? No, I don't think Fall River really counts. It's not what I would call a cult. Yeah, so then we've only really done one. Okay, but this one is a proper culty cult. And like the first ever cult that we did, this one didn't really give themselves a name. But then I also think, do people in cults know they're in cults enough to name the cult, if you see what I mean?

Apart from obviously the People's Temple and the Children of God. But they just say, I'm a religion. But then I feel like part of the whole cult thing is, this is us and then everyone else is the other. And therefore having like a name to which you belong is probably quite powerful. So I don't know. I feel like, yes. But like, did the Manson family call themselves the Manson family or did the media give them that name? The media gave them that.

But then if you have things like Om Shinrikyo, they called themselves that. That was the name of their cult. You have, like you said, the Children of God. You had the People's Temple. What else was there? What was the Jim Jones one? That was the People of their cult you have like you said the children of god you had the people's temple what else was that um what was the jim jones one that was the people's temple the people's temple was the apple gate one then oh um heaven's gate was that it heaven's gate exactly yeah i feel like people like like to have a name to which they belong so yes i think but not these guys no not these guys or the other cult cult we've covered. So they didn't give themselves a specific name, but they were a splinter cell of a religion that's called

the Reorganised Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And those of you with a particularly keen religious ear will already know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is what Mormons call themselves. I'm going to do my absolute best not to drop in a load of Book of Mormon, the musical references in here today, but I've no promises because I listen to that soundtrack all the time. I love that. Especially when I need to hype myself up. On my way to the live shows, I was listening to Book of Mormon because there's a song called,

it's called I Believe and it goes through all of the things that Mormons believe and it starts off quite usual Christianity, like I believe that Jesus died for my sins etc and then it just gets incrementally more insane as it goes through the song and I just tell myself if Mormons believe this Hannah you can believe in yourself for five fucking minutes well good Hannah whatever you need whatever you need to believe in yourself I'm glad but we also we're going to try not to be not to just reduce a religion to jokes we also can't pretend, we're going to try not to be, not to just reduce a religion to jokes. We also can't pretend that we're going to be able to give you a complete review of the entirety of Mormonism, but we can give one of our classic rundowns of the basics. Professor

Douglas Davis from the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University told the BBC that Mormons believe God and human beings are of the same basic stuff, but at different levels of progressive development. Everything that is has always existed, and there was no initial creation. Mormons do have a squeaky clean public image. I feel like everyone can picture what a Mormon looks like. It's two guys with a side parting, a short-sleeved white shirt, and a tie. And there's always two of them. There's nothing I hate more than a short-sleeved shirt. Don't do it. short-sleeved white shirt and a tie. And there's always two of them.

There's nothing I hate more than a short-sleeved shirt. Don't do it. Half-sleeved shirt. They are quite upsetting, aren't they? Just wear a full sleeve and roll it up. Don't buy half-sleeved shirts. I think doctors in hospitals aren't allowed to wear long-sleeved shirts anymore. I don't care.

You'd rather have the germs. Yes. I love when Mormons come to your door. And I was watching this documentary about Mormonism. And it was like, if Mormons come to your door, don't tell them that they're wrong, or don't tell them that you disagree, because they won't take that as like, oh, I'll leave them then. They'll take that as an opportunity to convince you about why they're right. But also, when I was at uni, I lived in this house in Birmingham, and these Mormons came around,

they knocked on the door. And we'd been seeing them like walking around knocking on our door before and we just never answered the door before and that day I was like fuck it so I opened the door and I was gonna be like look just stop coming here and as soon as I opened it they weren't like oh hello could we talk to you about Jesus they were like oh is your housemate in they clearly look took one look at me and were like we can't convert this brown girl it's too late for her I've never seen Mormons in the UK I saw them in Korea oh no I've seen them yeah I've seen them really yeah mad I get Jehovah's Witnesses get them all the time maybe they were Jehovah's Witnesses I don't remember whatever I'm surprised that Jehovah's Witnesses were like, no, no brownies here. Thank you very much.

I don't know what gave them the impression that I was not up for converting. I mean, I'm not, but yeah, good read. So they might have this sort of squeaky clean, harmless public image because they smile and they're very polite to everyone and they always dress quite smartly, even if they are wearing short sleeve shirts. But here are some of the slightly darker cornerstones of the Mormon doctrine. Mormonism is anti-abortion, it's anti-gay marriage and Mormons believe that homosexuality is a sin. Although they do use the old Catholic trick of gay thoughts fine, gay actions very not fine. No sex before marriage is allowed, no porn, no gambling, no smoking, no alcohol, no tea, and certainly no coffee. Multiple wives, though, at least in Mormonism's earliest iterations, was totally fine. Some hardliners still practice polygamy today, but it's really not very many.

Did you watch that documentary on Channel 4, like, The Man With Four Wives? Oh, probably. That sounds bang up my street. It's about those Mormons who live in, they literally are in Utah. They've just used a load of dynamite to blow up massive caves into the mountains there and then built houses in there. Yeah, they all practice polygamy. Pretty crazy. I think I've watched a documentary about a town that's like a super Mormon town and there everyone sort of lives not communally but massive families will all live in the same house and there's one husband and two or three wives and just a hundred million children in the documentary it was like how the state was trying to make it illegal to be in polygamous relationships and they were like obviously going there and protesting and talking about their right

but it was like the people trying to change it were like this kind of situation just becomes a breeding ground for child sexual abuse. Whatever their intentions are, good or not at the beginning and, you know, whatever, do what you want. But when you remove yourself from society, you move out into the middle of the desert. You have all of these kids running around, people doing whatever. Like it just becomes like a beacon for people to come and abuse children and vulnerable people. Like guaranteed. That's how these things always end up going. Another one of Mormonism's greatest hits is that no black men were allowed to be priests between 1849 and 1978.

And I say men because women are still not allowed into the Mormon priesthood, no matter what colour they are. So when Joseph Smith started Mormonism in around sort of 1830, he did allow black men into the priesthood. But then his successor was like, no, we've changed our mind on the black people, actually. Up until the 1970s, that was the rule. They're just like, actually, God said in an edit, he was like, no black men to get out. This is the whole thing with this kind of thing, with like religion or cults or anything.

It's just completely at the behest of the power of the person in charge interpreting it. Oh, I'm speaking to God and he actually says now no black men. Just got off the dog with God and he's changed his mind. In 1830, the founder of Mormonism added an extra bit onto the Bible. There's the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Book of Mormon, penned by Mormonism's very own, albeit self-proclaimed prophet, Joseph Smith. The Book of Mormon was transcribed by Joseph Smith after the angel Moroni appeared to him in his back garden in upstate New York,

carrying some golden plates. The stories on the golden plates were then translated by Joseph, and he never showed anyone where the golden plates were. But they do definitely exist, I promise. I promise. They definitely exist, and they definitely were sent to me by an angel. Now, similarly to the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, study of the Book of Mormon is understood to give followers of the Mormon faith the tools to live a good life that will be rewarded in the afterlife. That all sounds pretty standard, right? Be good, do good. Be good, do good, get good. Religion, right? That's going to be the tagline of my religion. Be good, do good, get good religion right that's gonna be the tagline of my religion be good do good get good hannah mcguire cult leader love it there is something we're not totally 100 sure of and

we haven't been able to get to exactly the bottom of it because it seems to be that they get their own planet when they die but there does seem to be a little bit of controversy over whether they actually get their own planets or not once they die. I may have this horrendously wrong, but what I read is that there is a joke about it in the Book of Mormon that when Mormons die, they get their own planet. I don't know if it's an individual planet or whether it's just one big Mormon sphere. God lives on his own planet. Then the idea is that the afterlife is near him somewhere in space. So when Mormons say like, oh, well, you can't say that we believe we're going to get our own planet because it's actually just a place in space. Like it wouldn't be a

planet like that would be outrageous. Again, it's just these kind of things are completely open to interpretation. I would feel like getting each and every person's own planet doesn't make much sense. So I feel like maybe they think there's a Mormon planet. But the rest of it, total sense. And we'll all go there and we'll be happy because then we can not have to live by anyone else's laws. Who knows? So there you go. If you're interested, sign up. We can't encourage people to join Mormonism.

I'm not encouraging. I'm saying here are some things they believe. If you would like to, go ahead and join the Mormon church. If you're not interested, just carry on listening and don't join the Mormon church. Now, Mormons also believe that Jesus visited America after his resurrection. This is just the best bit of Mormonism. They believe basically that he came to America after his resurrection, and that's why his tomb lay empty when it was discovered. They basically think he popped over to the New World to have a chat with people there before nipping back over to Jerusalem for a few weeks. This is very much speaks to that like very conservative Christians, you know? Yeah. And I feel like that's what Mormonism, that's who

Mormonism was created for. So then obviously Jesus, after his little trip, he ascended into heaven, never to be seen again, despite several promises from several people leading several different religious groups that he would return any minute. The rapture. Is that what Mormons believe? I think the rapture is the end of the world. I don't know if it's Jesus coming back. Oh, I thought when Jesus came back, it was the end of the world. I don't know. I've been out of Catholic school too long. I'm pretty sure when Jesus comes back, it's the apocalypse. It's the end of the world and we'll get raptured. Well, we won't get raptured. We'll get left behind. Everyone else will get raptured.

We'll have the planet to ourselves. I've tried really hard to dig out this Jesus going to America story because it just seems so outlandish to me that I was like, I really want to find out if that is actually what is said and that is actually what they believe. But also like 2000 years ago when Jesus was supposedly like kicking about, white Europeans weren't in America. So who was he going to visit? A bunch of scared Native Americans.

Well, the Book of Mormon argues that ancient Israelites sailed to America quite early on. Oh. After the Tower of Babel, I believe. Oh, wow. After the falling that far back. That really is early. But you won't find the Jesus story on any What Mormons Believe About Jesus pages that have been written by actual Mormons. www.catholic.com, however, absolutely love talking about it.

But luckily for you, it's quite simple to find a PDF of the entire Book of Mormon online, and I can confirm that it definitely does say that Jesus went to America, showed the descendants of the Israelites the holes in his hands, declared his atonement, and there was much singing of Hosanna, and then Jesus went on his way. The Church of Mormonism grew very quickly in the 1800s. A large percentage of Mormon families today can trace back their lineage to this time, the Romneys included. Just seven years after the church was established, Mormon missionaries made their first trips overseas, a practice that famously is still a cornerstone of the church today. Wasn't that guy something chow, the guy who went to North Sentinel Island trying to convert them to Mormonism? I'm not sure if he was a

Mormon. No, I don't think so. I think he was just felt very strongly about his Christianity. Oh, wow. Well, yeah. I mean, he was immediately mormon and i don't think so i think he was just um felt very strongly about his christianity oh wow well yeah i mean he was immediately killed by that tribe yeah leave them alone yeah they're doing fine they don't need your flu and your god exactly because whenever you read about that island it's all like untouched by modern man anthropologists have been loads of times like there's been a good three or four anthropologists who have gone and lived amongst those tribes and managed to not get killed so they they really just didn't want his God. Really just no God, thank you. So Mormonism, like any other breakaway sect, claimed that all other denominations of Christianity were too pagan and had got it wrong. The Mormons were persecuted wherever they went, and in the early days, communal living was encouraged, so the Mormons moved from place

to place in a large group. Joseph Smith and his successor Brigham Young led their Mormon followers through various places in America before eventually settling in Salt Lake City where the very famous temple is that looks like Cinderella's Palace. There's also one in San Diego where my friend is from and when she was a kid she genuinely thought it was Cinderella's Palace so every time she drove past in the car she would ask her mum if she could go in and her mum would be like, uh, maybe next week. But before Salt Lake City, Joseph Smith built a temple in Kirtland, Ohio, which is where our story unfolds today. That temple is now the property of the Community of Christ, the artist formerly known as the Reorganised Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And from now on we're going to just start calling it the RLDS because like my mouth will actually fall off if I

keep saying the full name. It's very long. It's very long. But the cult we're dealing with today is an offshoot of an offshoot. So let's leave Mormonism in its traditional sense behind and move on to what has been called the Community of christ since 2001 the rld has had two major strongholds before it changed its name kirtland ohio and independence missouri i don't know why but independence missouri that name just sends a chill through me really it's not as bad as truth and consequence truth and consequence new mexico it's like those kind of places though those kind of names like freedom truth i just feel like it's where people get murdered I don't know but we do talk about quite a lot of them so you're not entirely wrong it's

true I just imagine them being out in like the middle of nowhere a desert there's nowhere I can escape to and I'm being chased by pitchfork wielding folk and there's a giant Mormon temple yes exactly that Joseph Smith literally built with his hand. Exactly. With his hand. So this church is actually, though, interestingly, more chill than traditional Mormonism. When we first read that, I was really surprised because I felt like an offshoot of an offshoot with an even longer, crazier name, especially one that went on to be called the Community of Christ. I was like, they're going to be more mental. But no, they're actually more chill.

Women are allowed into the priesthood, as are sexually active lesbian and gay people. That's quite progressive. It is. It's very progressive. And this is all in like the 70s and 80s. So it's not like yesterday. Yeah. So today's story starts when the RLDS and their newfound chillness started to ruffle a few feathers, specifically the feathers of one Jeffrey Lundgren, who was born into the RLDS in Independence, Missouri in 1950. His parents were very active members of the church community, and it played a very big role in little Jeffrey's upbringing.

But he, just like his dad, would grow up to be one horrible bastard. Lundgren always maintained that his relationship with his father was very abusive. He began his academic career at the Central Missouri State University, where he met his future wife, Alice Keeler. Jeffrey's family hated Alice, even though she too was a member of the RLDS and was reasonably well-respected, as she claimed to have had an actual encounter with the devil. I love that in this scenario, claiming to have had an actual encounter with the devil. I love that in this scenario, claiming to have had an actual encounter with the devil equates to you being reasonably well respected. Yeah, yeah. She's like,

oh, she's legit. She's physically seen the devil. But the thing is, as much as his family hated Alice, Geoffrey didn't care. He was totally obsessed with her. His obsession meant that he didn't go to any classes. And like a classic narcissist, he dropped out of university. Now, I'm not saying everyone who drops out of university is a narcissist, but lots of narcissists do drop out of university. Yeah, it's that idea of I'm too good to be here. Like, you can't possibly teach me anything. I know I've posted it on the Facebook group,

but I've devoured that podcast, The Dropout, about that woman, Elizabeth Holmes. Oh my God, me too. Yeah. Oh my God, if you haven't listened to it, go listen to it. It's so good. Back to this. Alison Jeffery married in 1970. Geoffrey Lundgren would continue to drop a breadcrumb trail of narcissism his whole life. He could never hold on to a job.

Nothing was good enough for him. He enrolled in the Navy as a part of a delayed entrance program, hoping to get away with not being called up for the war in Vietnam. His plan failed and after a tour in Vietnam, Geoffrey Lundgren was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1974, by which time he and Alice had two children. And in case you forgot your bingo cards this week, we've already had three pretty large red flags when we're talking about Lundgren. We've got number one, the childhood abuse slash distant father, number two, can't

hold down a job, and number three, military service. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Bingo. Like seriously, he is such a classic example, like an archetype of this kind of leader, of cult leader. After the Navy, Lundgren wasn't any better at holding down jobs despite his stint of military discipline. He frequently stole from his employers and never learned his lesson, even though he was caught and very quickly fired every single time. In the early 80s, presumably because of the horrendous reputation he had created for himself in Missouri, Lundgren moved himself and his family to the second stronghold of the RLDS, Kirtland, Ohio. As devout reorganized Mormons, the Lundgren family were immediately welcomed

into the fold and into the Kirtland Temple. Lundgren became a tour guide at the temple and quickly was promoted to senior temple guide. Temple guides don't get paid, but they are allowed to live with their families in accommodation paid for by the church near the temple. Apart from showing people around the temple, Geoffrey also taught Bible and Book of Mormon study classes. This was the sweetest deal he had ever had. He didn't have to work for people he thought he was better than. He could live off the charity of the church and its congregants and people listened to him

when he talked. This is every messiah complex having narcissists wet dream. It's literally the perfect situation for him. And the thing about Jeffrey Lundgren is that he didn't think that he should have to work like everyone else. He thought he was so special that other people should look after him as he was doing God's work on earth. Fuck it out. That is just so perfectly typical. Alice, his wife, was extremely on board with this and would tell everyone about how wonderfully special her husband was,

even though he would quite regularly throw their children against walls, breaking their bones. Yeah, not just once or twice, like consistently. He knocked her around a lot as well. But despite this being the happiest he'd ever been, old Jeff just couldn't keep his hands out of the till. The Temple in Kirtland believed that over the years that he worked at the temple, Landgren managed to snarf somewhere between $25,000 and $40,000 from the temple's bookshop. Firstly, who the fuck is spending so much money in a temple bookshop? That is my question. I don't know. Is it like thousands and thousands

and thousands of people? They all come through, buy like, they have to buy their reading books there because are they being carried by like Amazon? Probably not back then, no. But I just sort of wonder like how many different types of the Book of Mormon can you have? Like paperback, hardback, pop-up, colour in your own Book of Mormon. It does have a lot of pictures in it though. That is something I can say for it. Lots of pictures of like boats and stuff. So maybe there are just lots of different books.

And I suppose if it's over a period of a few years, it might not be that much money. But I was just quite amazed that a temple gift shop had $40,000 to go missing, you know? I guess over the time he did work there, maybe he could have. But yeah, it is a lot of money. Totally unable to tow any kind of party line for any significant amount of time. His Bible study classes began to cause quite the stir and attracted a very specific crowd. Landgren practiced a type of Bible and Book of Mormon study called chiasm. And this bit is honestly terrifying, Mormon study called chiasm and this bit is

honestly terrifying what we understand chiasm to be it's reading the first sentence and the last sentence of a passage of a holy text and basically ascribing whatever meaning you want to it so I'm going to take this book I'm going to take this passage this holy passage in which I can use to tell people it's the word of God. And therefore, they are already primed to use this to change their behavior, change the way they live their life, change their thinking. Just going to take the first sentence, take the last sentence, and basically decide whatever the hell I want to say the meaning is in between. That is honestly one of the most terrifying things I've ever read. This is, of course, a cult leader's gateway drug. But as with everything, I've put it very

simply, but as with everything, it's not quite that simple. So what Geoffrey Lundgren was doing, it was what he called chiastic reading. That's not what it is. And I have brought dishonour upon my ancestors by failing to completely get my head around this. But my potentially flawed understanding of what actual chiasm is, is this. Many passages in the Bible can be described as chiastic because they mirror themselves. So a good example of a chiastic phrase is, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Or like a more biblical example would be, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And those are quite short examples, but these mirroring words are often found at the top and bottom of longer passages in the Bible. There is just quite a lot of the Bible that

is chiistic in its structure. What Lundgren was doing was extending and distorting this common biblical structure and using it to make holy texts say basically whatever he wanted. He's not the first and he will not be the last. And here are a few of Jeff's favourite Bible passages. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. Or another one. If man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them. But looking at some pictures of Jeff, doesn't look like he was that bothered about the mixing fabric bit of the Bible because he wears quite a lot of polyester. So he's

cherry picking. Even though he's quite traditionalist, there are some things that he is ignoring. We're in the late 80s and quite a few people were getting increasingly uncomfortable with the RLDS's insistence on beginning to treat women and gay people like human beings, giving them the same rights as men. So disgruntled members of the congregation started to gravitate towards Jeffrey's more traditionalist teachings. A sense was growing among some members of the RLDS that their church was following the wrong path. This idea is pretty central to Mormonism. The church was founded by people who thought that all other Christians had got it wrong. In their eyes, their church was going down the toilet and they needed to rectify that. And they rectified it in the most Mormon way possible, by following a self-appointed

prophet. And Geoffrey Lundgren was ready and waiting. Prophets are reasonably commonplace in Mormonism, so breaking off to follow a new one is much less of a golden calf than it would be in other denominations of Christianity. Geoffrey's quasi-chaistic readings of Mormonism was such a hit with the ultra-conservative members of the RLDS that when he and his family were evicted from their church-funded housing and Geoffrey lost his tour guide slash teaching gig because of his five-finger discount in the gift shop, a good 20 of the congregants left the church with him in October 1987. Lundgren didn't need the RLDS anymore. He was building a church of his own.

And the rock on which he built his church was a bit of farmland just outside Kirtland, Ohio, where he and his followers fulfilled how to be a cult rule number one and all started to live communally in a rented farmhouse called 8671 Euclid. As discussed at length previously, I don't know how to say long numbers like that. But I think if we do 8671... When I saw that, I got scared.

But I know how to say long numbers. Don't you have an A level in maths? Americans wouldn't say 8671. I'm not scared of big numbers. I definitely am. I tried to work out a percentage the other day and I couldn't do it. Oh, Hannah, should I give you some tutoring? I'm not scared of big numbers I definitely am I tried to work out a percentage the other day and I couldn't do it Oh Hannah, should I give you some tutoring? I'm happy to

On the plane? We've got time Is it 8671? Is it 8671? What do I say? But I think it's 8671 Euclid Euclid 8671 Euclid Chardon Road

Good? Good. Also, fucking hell, if anyone makes you go live on a rural bit of farmland, communally fucking run. Nothing sounds worse to me. Like, that is hell. You wouldn't go on a yoga retreat? Living communally on some rural farmland?

Kill me. Actually kill me. I'm itchy just thinking about it. But 15 people, during this time, didn't feel itchy thinking about it but 15 people during this time didn't feel itchy thinking about it because they all went and lived communally on this farm and everyone who lived there ding ding ding red flag number two gave their entire paychecks directly to jeffrey lundgren who continued to malinger about and never got another job as long as he lived a day on the not really mormon cult farm went like this. They all got up. The men went to work, apart from Geoffrey Lundgren, obviously. He was far too busy being God's

conduit on earth. The women stayed at home and did household shit, and the children went to school. After they all got back from work or school, all of Geoffrey's followers would eat dinner together, and then Geoffrey Lundgren would lead his communally living congregation in Bible study long into the night. The longer they all lived on the farm, the more outlandish Lundgren's teachings became. It really wasn't long at all before Lundgren was calling for paramilitary action. Again, absolute classic. When I was reading this about this case, I was like, it can't be this classic. Like, everything happens in the order it always happens in. It's kind of like a

Baby Jonestown. Or even like a little Waco. Like the whole paramilitary action, everything. I mean, it's just so step by step by step, perfect cult. But the key thing is that not everyone who attended these late night Bible parties actually lived on the farm. Most of them did. The Avery family, made up of Dennis, who was 49, Cheryl, 46, and their three children, Trina, 15, Rebecca, 13, and Karen, who was only 7. They all kept their distance. But this wasn't because of concern over Lundgren's increasingly erratic teachings. The Avery family were pretty on board with them, especially Cheryl,

even though Lundgren would regularly beat the children brought to the 15-acre farm. Geoffrey didn't save his abuse just for children, though. Like every Messiah complex cliché, he was also a massive pervert. And we're talking like leaving shit-covered dildos lying around level of massive pervert. Oh my god, that is the most disgusting thing I've ever read. Yep, gross. Just lying around on the porch. Oh my god, what? Yeah. around yep gross just lying around on the porch oh my god yeah now like the averys the luff family moved to kirtland to follow jeff's teachings the husband ron luff was a particular favorite of

lundgren and a very devout member of the kirtland cult susan luff i think it's luff i'm saying why am i saying it in a French accent i'm like luff they live in ohio are they like luff luff luff. They live in Ohio. Are they like luff? Luff? Luff? Luff. I can't speak. Okay, Susan Luff, Ron's wife, moved to Kirtland under rather different pretenses. She thought she was headed to an arts community. Oh, Susan, love. All arts communities do eventually become some cults, I'm afraid. Yeah, so Susan genuinely moves to Kirtland Cult. Like this fucking patch of like fucking nothing. Oh, I'll just be able to sell my dream patches. I just thought she was going to be able to sell like crafty wares to raise money for the church. I'm like, Susan, if you just want to make crafty wares to sell to raise money for like a new fucking church roof,

why do you think your husband is insisting you move to like a fucking communal compound in the middle of nowhere? You don't need to do that to do this he's very good looking though he really is so maybe her husband yeah Ron Luff mm-hmm no I'll take a take a he'd get it gander he'd get it but I wonder what gave it away for Susan even if she did have a hot husband or not I wouldn't be totally okay you'd have to be so hot for me to be okay to move my family and hang out on a fucking compound with shit cover dildos lying around i feel like you might do it for jason momoa it's just so filthy i can't i want to live with jason momoa but in a like wholesome

life i mean an arts community is as wholesome as it gets you can make your own hummus this isn't an arts community this is a fucking cult it gets. You can make your own hummus. This isn't an arts community. This is a fucking cult where there are shit-covered dildos lying around. This is the opposite of an arts community. So leave Jason out of this. I was going to make a dildo joke about arts communities, but I'm not going to do it. Susan was eventually given quite a rude awakening when Lundgren told her to burn her college degree. Imagine this woman just turns up with a fucking degree and he's like, burn it, burn it to the ground.

Step one, burn it. Give it to me, I'll burn it for you. And then he told her, after you burn your degree, stop trying to talk to God. Because now he told her that her role would be to do all of the rest of the cult's washing. You're not here to make fucking crafty things to sell. You're just here to do 10 loads of laundry a day. And that would be your part to play in paradise

for the rest of your days, Susan. So hot husband or not, she's got a shit deal. I just find it quite like so bleak, just like knowing that nothing is ever going to change for me. No, this is it. This is what I will be doing for the rest of my life. And then in the afterlife, I will probably be doing something similar.

Exactly, because you're a woman. So what else could you expect to do? And this next bit that Lundgren also made Susan do is very reminiscent of like the Children of God cult. Oh, fully, yeah. They did exactly the same thing. So Lundgren would make Susan dance naked in the woods while he sat totally naked behind a sheet.

No prizes for guessing what he was doing behind there. He was making a dream catcher to sell in his arts community. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey.

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on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Jeffrey wasn't a fan of Dennis Avery in particular, because although the family came to chiistically read the Bible and the Book of Mormon every night of the week up at the farm, Dennis didn't pass on his paychecks to his illustrious leader. So yeah, he's in trouble. The Averys had moved to Kirtland in 1987 from Missouri and they had actually retained about $19,000

from the sale of their old house. And so alongside not paying their paychecks to Lundgren, they also hadn't handed this $19,000 over either and Lundgren never forgave them for it. Jeffrey thought that Dennis was spineless, with disobedient children and with a wife who was far too outspoken. I get the feeling that them moving to Kirtland was very much Cheryl's idea.

Like she was the one that was really into Jeffrey's teaching and I think Dennis just sort of went along with it. But having said that, moving uprooting your whole life to go and be a part of a church, like that is a team decision, you know. Yeah. Especially if they want to be a part of a church where women have such a diminished role it seems strange that it's the wife in the relationship being like no we're moving and we're doing this and the kids and going to this school it's odd isn't it then i often think that of like very hyper religious women who are like okay with most religions sort of like subservience of women like i find that weird there are so many women who are like okay with the teachings of most religions that women

are like seen as second-class citizens and i do always wonder why are they okay with this why are they part of their own oppression but i don't know it's a it's a question i haven't been able to find out the answer to or really understand so the next thing was that Lundgren accrued an arsenal of firearms that he trained the men, obviously, in operating. Branched Davidians all over, right? We're going to stockpile, we're going to learn how to use these weapons. Terrifying. Also, Lundgren encouraged the wearing of army fatigues about the farm. It's just, he's playing war. Yeah. On the 29th of April 1988, Ron Andelsek, one of the four police officers stationed in tiny Kirtland, got a call from one of the houses across the road from the farm. The neighbour was terribly concerned that there were loose geese running around in the farmyard.

So it's not the weaponry, it's not the army fatigues, it's the geese that get the police called. So Ron stepped up to his rural policeman role and assured the distress caller that he would head over to the farm on Chardon Road and take a look at the offending fowl. And it had also been reported that the Lundgren's youngest son, called Caleb, they had four kids by this point, had warned other neighbourhood children about demons emerging from the ground right there in Kirtland. So I think the police had their eye on them, but nothing had happened yet. Until the geese. Geese gate. When Ron got to the farmhouse and knocked on the door, Alice Lundgren answered. And she told Officer Ron that the geese actually belonged to the farm's landlord and weren't really

her problem. But she assured Officer Ron that she would contact the landlord about the birds and see if he could get them under control. As Officer Ron left the farm, he noticed a somber Geoffrey Lundgren staring at him from inside the barn. That's so terrifying. He's just like, oh, just here to talk about some geese and okay, fine, I'll go about my way. And then there's just Geoffrey Lundgren just death staring him from the corner, like sticking his head out of a barn. I just imagine him being totally naked as well, but with just like a camouflage hat on or something. And a dream catcher over his dick. So this image stayed with Ron for quite some time.

He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd missed something. And within a matter of weeks, Ron was walking the streets of Kirtland alone at night, just waiting for someone to put a foot wrong. And that wouldn't be Ron's last visit to the Lundgren farm, because behind closed doors, things were getting more and more violent. Geoffrey Lundgren was angry that he had been cast out of the temple, and he started to concoct a plan to bring down the RLDS. And that plan would take place on his 38th birthday. This man is such a fucking narcissist.

It's my birthday, gonna storm a temple. Then we're gonna go to Olive Garden. I don't know. I'm going to exact my revenge on my 38th birthday. We're all doing it. We're doing it. That's what I want. It's not even his 40th. What a weird birthday. It's my birthday. We're gonna do whatever I want to. And it's my birthday week, actually. So we're gonna do loads of things I want to do. First, we're gonna dance naked in the woods. And then we're to storm the fucking temple because that was his plan. So Lundgren gave his followers endless impassioned speeches about how they needed to redeem the vineyard. What is the vineyard? Vines, vineyards is very classic Christian imagery. So Jesus would describe himself as the vine and

we the followers are the branches and blah, blah, blah. So the vineyard is the church. Okay. In this particular instance. Okay. It's the congregation. He's saying that the RLDS temple is the vineyard and they need to prune it. They need to cull, they need to purge. So to do this Lundgren decided that they needed to storm the temple and kill 10 of the officials there. Festive for your birthday. I don't know why he picked 10. Maybe there were just 10 of them or maybe there's a council of elders or something like that. And this is what they had been training for. Remember all the army fatigues, all the stockpiling of weapons. This is where that was all headed. Lundgren had decided that the officials needed to be eliminated so that Geoffrey and his apostles could take over the temple and teach the true word

of God. Once they were established there, Lundgren would lead them all up to Zion. It was their mission to restore the church to its ancient purity. Lundgren promised to take each one of his disciples to meet actual God, who he of course spoke with on a regular basis. Even in the most modern of Christian traditions, the idea of storming the temple isn't an alien one. The only time we see Jesus getting violent in the New Testament is when he flips the tables of the traders in the temple, shouting that they turned his house into a den of thieves. So I can understand how if you think your prophet is the second coming, or for a prophet of any description, storming the temple and fucking shit up is kind of step one. You're getting it wrong and you've turned the house of

God into a den of thieves. It's pretty basic, if you think you're Jesus. And it's the only thing that makes Jesus angry. However, the murdering of temple officials, not so much. If the members of the Kirtland Mormon offshoot cult went through with this mass murder, then there was really no turning back. By taking part in a mass murder and doing something so against the moral code of society, you're saying my leader's rules are superior to yours and you have no power over me. Even if you catch me and I am imprisoned for a short time on earth, I will be rewarded for eternity. That's the mentality. So if his followers go through with it, go through with the storming of the temple, they are more reliant on their new moral code and in

turn their leader than ever before because they're separating themselves from society and in a very dramatic way absolutely you have to leave behind everything else that you've ever learned being a part of the rest of society to fully believe that this is the right action to take and if you're going to go so far as to kill these church officials you have to be so fucking sure and you can never come back from that you have to commit 100 this isn't like a sitting on the fence kind of situation and if any followers were going to break away this was the time to do it several calls were made to the fbi by disgruntled cult members and one lady who i've only ever seen referred to as sh. And these went directly to Officer Ron and three other members of the Kirtland Police Department,

which was headed up by Chief Dennis Yarborough. Shah spilled all of the temple takeover beans. This interview was more than enough to get Geoffrey Lundgren down to the police station for questioning on the 2nd of May 1988, just in time because Geoffrey Lundgren's birthday was the very next day. Chief Dennis Yarborough confronted Lundgren about his massacre plans and put the wind up him. Lundgren returned

to his farmhouse full of followers and told them that the temple raid was off. He had spoken to a higher power and had changed his mind. He didn't tell them though, of course, that the higher power was in fact a police chief. But Lundgren had now a new route to Zion planned for his followers. They would all go off into the wilderness together, and out of the wilderness would come their church. Again, this is a pretty Mormon idea. Early Mormons travelled around for ages, being driven out of most places they settled

before they put down roots in Salt Lake City. But before they could all ride off into the sunset together, Lundgren told his followers that there would have to be a sacrifice, something he called blood atonement or spilt blood. I find this interesting because their whole thing was like how all other branches of Christianity are too pagan. This sounds so pagan to me. Spilt blood is a bit complicated. It's quite an early Mormon concept and it's a metaphor for the redemption of the unrighteous. And this particular shade of Mormonism was not included in the doctrine of the RLDS,

but Lundgren lifted it anyway. It's the standard sacrifice thing. It's the spilling of blood to atone for your sins. And fun fact, the state of Utah still allows execution by firing squad because of this Mormon principle. So what Lundgren used it to mean was that if they spilled some blood on the farm, he and all of his disciples would be given a free pass to Zion. And he laid the groundwork for this revelation by explaining that all of humanity was split into

three equal groups. People who would live side by side with God, people who would fight for that privilege, and those who needed to be eliminated. Lundgren had 30 followers by this stage in the game. So by this law of thirds, 10 of them were on the chopping block. Unease was widespread. Nobody knew who would be the ones chosen to die. And cunningly, Lundgren had outlawed conferring with your fellow cult members. He called this murmuring, and it was a sin. So nobody was talking to anyone else about their fears, and nobody was forming alliances. This was a cult, not a democracy. And I think it's pretty clear what's happening here. Geoffrey has promised a storming of the temple. He told everyone that that was a way to meet God himself, but he had to change his plans because of the police chief. So something violent

still needed to happen or his followers would start to lose faith in him. And this is the thing with all those cults that like make promises of like, you know, this is the doomsday. This is when it's going to end. And then when the world doesn't end, they have to like move everything around. Because the thing is, if you think about a cult, you have to have an end game. You have to have this is the end of days or this is the action that we need to do to get closer to God or this is the syrup we need to drink to get onto that magic comet that's going to take us to another planet. Whatever it might be, you have to

have an end game. So he's under pressure now. He needs something to happen. It was the day before they were supposed to do it, he changes his mind. So I think it's a high pressure situation for him and he's already losing people. People are already leaving. They're leaving enough to go to the police and he knows the police are on. Definitely. So he is under a huge amount of pressure now to make something happen. So the blood sacrifice slash wilderness plan took almost a year to manifest. But April 1989, the Lundgren lot were ready to go. On the 16th, Lundgren brought three firearms using Dennis Avery's credit card. On the 17th, all three Avery children were taken out of school, never to return. On the 18th of April, the Kirtland Police Department went round to the farm with 18 FBI agents and individually questioned each member of the cult.

Every single one of them told police that they were all there of their own free will and they denied any knowledge of a plot to take over the temple and murder its employees. The FBI and the local police left those interviews with nothing, not even enough evidence to get a search warrant or arrest warrant. Poor Officer Ron, I love him. It must be such a frustrating feeling just to know that something is wrong, but be completely powerless to do anything about it. Definitely, and this guy, like Officer Ron, I have so much respect for him

because, you know, he's in like rural Ohio, he's just called to like check on some geese that are running amok and he fucking clocks on to this cult he knows that they're up to something and he's doing everything he can to stop it and still like we said after all this time he couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing something was wrong so we returned to the farmhouse the next day the 19th of April 1989 and there was no one to be found. The farmhouse is completely dead. All 30 members, including Geoffrey Lundgren himself, who had been questioned just the day before, had all vanished into thin air. They had, of course, all headed into the wilderness, but there was no evidence of a blood sacrifice, and none of them had breathed a word about it

to the authorities. The Kirtland cult first headed to a campsite in West Virginia. After a few months on the road, they ended up in Missouri, near Kansas City. They hadn't told anyone where they were going, and at no stage in their months on the road were any missing person reports filed. Ron and his department continued to stake out the RLDS temple back in Kirtland, but it was never stormed by gun-wielding semi-Mormons. Ron and his pals were just four small-town police officers with no FBI backup, waiting for something terrible to happen.

And then, on the 31st of December 1989, something terrible did happen. ATF agents in Kansas City received a call from Keith Johnson, a member of the Kirtland cult, who had disappeared without a trace eight months before. Keith had fallen out with Geoffrey Lundgren because Keith's wife, Catherine, had left him to become Lundgren's second wife. It hadn't taken old Geoff very long to reinstate the polygamy rule of Mormon yore. Keith Johnson told the ATF that if they dug up the earth in a certain corner of the barn on the farm the cult had left, they would find five bodies buried there. He even drew a picture of where they could be found.

This picture, along with the news, was faxed immediately to the Kirtland Police Department and the expectant officer Ron Andelsick. A nationwide manhunt for the remaining cult members and their leader was launched, and on the 3rd of January 1990, the ATF and the Kirtland Police and Fire Departments headed to the barn. So they get the call on New Year's Eve, and they don't go to the barn until the 3rd of January. I do quite enjoy how they've all just let their New Year's hangovers dissipate before they go and dig up some dead bodies. But, I mean, maybe I'm being too harsh, but maybe there was paperwork they had to get through before they could go, but it does seem like quite a long time to leave it. But once they did get inside the barn, it was pretty obvious where the burial pit was.

The floor on the barn was covered with rubbish and debris, except one corner, where the earth had clearly been disturbed. So the fire department began to dig, and they found five bodies, two adults and three children. And remember, no missing persons reports had been filed. So the police department didn't know who they were looking for. The bodies had been covered in lime, which I always thought made bodies decompose faster. But we found a study conducted in Belgium in 2011, which showed that the carcasses of pigs covered in lime decayed slower than pigs

that hadn't been given the lime treatment. What lime can do though, is neutralize the smell of a decaying corpse. Maybe that is what the Lundgren masses were going for, who knows. So the bodies were too decayed to be identified by sight alone, and duct tape remained on the heads and wrists of the corpses. So the police department would have to wait several days to find out that the bodies in the pit belonged to the Avery family. Their bodies all displayed multiple gunshot wounds, and with the help of Keith Johnson, Ron and the police department managed to piece together how the poor Avery family had ended up buried under the barn. It had happened on the 17th of April, the same day that Dennis and Cheryl Avery pulled their daughters out of school in anticipation of their trip into the wilderness and their eventual reunion with God.

The 17th was an extremely foggy night. Geoffrey Lundgren had called all of his followers, including the Averys, who remember didn't actually live on the farm, to a dinner. Everyone was there, men, women and children. Lundgren announced that he had decided who the blood sacrifice was going to be and that there would be five of them. And what he does here is actually really clever because nobody knows who he means. Everyone assumes that they are on the list and they're thinking, how am I going to protect my family? How am I going to get out of this? And it actually turns people against each other because they're trying to protect themselves.

After the meal, some of the men were dismissed. The women started the washing up, and the children went off to play video games. Six men, Ronald Luff, Daniel Craft, Richard Brand, Greg Winship, and Dennis Avery, were led by the Lundgrens' 19-year-old son, Damon, out to the barn, where they were instructed to dig a hole. Dennis Avery had no idea that he was digging his own grave. When the hole was dug, the men returned to the farmhouse. Dennis Avery was called to speak with Lundgren alone.

Afterwards, Lundgren told Dennis to go out to the barn, as he had a task for him waiting in there. This bit really got to me. Apparently, before walking out into the foggy night to go and do this task that Lundgren set him, Dennis Avery asked if he needed to take his glasses because it was so foggy. And he had this sort of dithering confusion with himself. Oh, well, should I take them? They might fog up.

It's like this. Will I be able to see? And it just, oh God, it really just. That is so sad. Hit me in the wrong place. Yeah, he's completely vulnerable. He doesn't need his glasses, as we know. Yes, he doesn't need his glasses.

Because as soon as he stepped out into the night, the men who helped him dig his own grave were waiting for him. The five jumped on Dennis and brought him to the ground. His wrists were bound with duct tape and so was his mouth. The five men dragged Dennis Avery into the barn, where Lundgren was waiting with a.45 caliber handgun that he had just bought using Dennis's credit card. As Jeffrey Lundgren shot Dennis Avery in the barn, where Lundgren was waiting with a.45 caliber handgun that he had just bought using Dennis's credit card. As Jeffrey Lundgren shot Dennis Avery in the back, Greg Winship ran

a chainsaw to cover up the noise of the multiple bullets. Cheryl Avery, Dennis's wife, was next. She too was lured out of the house and jumped on, then shot three times by the leader she loved. Ron Luff was charged with extracting the Avery children from the farmhouse, where they had been quietly playing video games while their parents were murdered by the only other family they had ever known. Fifteen-year-old Trina was tempted out to the barn by a game of hide-and-seek. The first bullet grazed her skull, the second pierced her brain and killed her instantly. Thirteen-year-old Becky was bound with duct tape and lowered into the pit on top of her dead mother. She too was shot twice, once in the thigh and once in the chest.

Later on, members of the group would report listening to her struggle to breathe as Ron Luff returned to the farmhouse to collect the third and final Avery girl. Karen Avery was just seven years old. Ron Luff carried her into the barn on his back. She was shot and put into the hole in the ground. The bodies were covered and Lundgren and his team returned to the farmhouse telling everyone that they had carried out the will of God. And if you've been paying attention to the dates, you'll already know what happens the next day. The police and the FBI showed up, questioned everyone and they left none the wiser. Five murders had happened just the night before and not one of Lundgren's followers gave the game away. Kirtland was shaken. It's such a small town

and according to its police department the only violent crime it had ever seen was the odd bar fight. But Dale Luffman, the president of the Northeastern Ohio chapter of the RLDS, quickly jumped in to explain that the deaths were definitely not to do with anything religious and almost certainly down to a dispute within the commune. We see this every time. Oh, they're not actually with us. We're separate. We're separate from these extremists.

It didn't take long to track down Lundgren either. Even though Keith Johnson had only ever been able to give a rough idea of where he was, 19-year-old Damon Lundgren would be the one to make the mistake. Police tracked him down to a payphone in between San Diego and the Mexican border. He was trying to call his grandma. Police followed him back to a motel, where they also found Jeffrey Lundgren, Alice Lundgren, and the rest of their children, Jason 15, Kristen 10 and Caleb 9. They also found quite a lot of guns, knives and assorted survival gear in the motel. The family were clearly trying to make a break for the border. Jeffrey, Alice and Damon were all arrested

and the rest of the kids were put into protective custody. In August 1990, Jeffrey Lundgren was put on trial for the aggravated murders and kidnappings of Dennis, Cheryl, Trina, Becky and Karen Avery. To everyone's surprise, Lundgren's defence team never entered an insanity plea. He was actually quite adamant on the stand that he was not insane, telling the courtroom, it's not a figment of my imagination that I can in fact talk to God. I am a prophet of God. I am even more than a prophet. Do you think he actually believes that? I don't know. That's a good question because I feel like, you know, not entering in insanity, please. Probably not that important when your client is taking the stand and saying that

he can literally talk to God and he is a prophet of God. Nay, more than a prophet of God. Whether he believed it or not, I don't know. It comes down to how manipulative you really think he is or if he's just actually insane. Yeah. And I don't know. What do you think? Because he's such a horrible bastard, I do kind of want to think he's this master manipulator. There's a part of me that doesn't really want to believe that he's ill because that would diminish his responsibility to a certain extent. But there's also another part of me that thinks, yeah, he does believe that because why would you, apart from the power, obviously, why would you choose to live your life that way? You say aside from the power, but the power is a pretty

big motivator. A jury took just two hours to find Jeffrey Lundgren guilty on all counts. So they didn't think he was insane. They thought he was very much guilty. And he was sentenced to death. Damon and his mum Alice both got life in prison. The five men who delivered the Avery family from the farmhouse into the barn were all found guilty and sentenced to 15 years to life. Daniel Craft, Ronald Luff and Damon Lundgren are the only ones who are still in prison. Greg and Richard have both been paroled. And Alice Lundgren is still

behind bars. A lot of the other cult members went to prison too. Some served a year for perverting the course of justice. Others did as many as 22 years inside for their part in the killings. And one of them dated Officer Ron for a while. I mean, I like him, but I don't know if that's allowed. I don't know. I feel like they live in this tiny little rural part of Ohio. Right, maybe, yeah. And maybe this whole influx of people move into this fucking compound and Officer Ron, you know, he's just like, oh, fuck, there's just no other women here. I've got to meet someone.

Well, maybe. They didn't last, though. I think he said, you know, I can be your friend, but I could never accept what you did. that is that what you imagine Ron said no he said that in an interview I was gonna be like I just love Ron so much I feel like he would have told her we could still be friends but I could just never accept what you did yeah I've been so lonely this week that I've been having pretend conversations with officer Ron oh you've been away I know I'm back now I know know. But just because Lundgren was in prison, it didn't really stop him. He's still up to his old tricks. Lundgren and his legal team exhausted the appeals process. And then they tried to argue that Lundgren being executed by lethal

injection counted as cruel and unusual punishment because Lundgren was overweight. So they argued that there was more chance of the lethal injection process being painful for him at 275 pounds. I think it's kind of like an anaesthetic thing, like you need more anaesthetic for a bigger person. So they're arguing that because he was overweight, that there was more chance of the lethal injection measurer person getting it wrong, I think. But I just feel like surely they would take his weight into account. Yeah, I mean, it's their job. No one wants to get it wrong. But it didn't wash. And this request to stay, Lundgren's execution was denied. After 16 years on death row at 10.26am on the 24th of October 2006, Geoffrey Lundgren was executed. In his final

statement, he said, I profess my love for God, my family, for my children, for Cathy. I am because you are. Cathy is very much not Geoffrey Lundgren's first wife, Alice, but his second one that he took in the wilderness. And a lot of people describe a feeling of relief when Geoffrey Lundgren was executed. They talk about the closing the book, ending a chapter and a new chapter for Kirtland. But I don't know if that's quite the case. I think Lundgren's legacy lives on. On the 10th of March 2010, his youngest son, Caleb, confessed to throwing his three-month-old daughter across the room and breaking her skull.

Exactly like his dad used to do back on the farm in Kirtland, Ohio. It's like all the men in that family are cursed. They're all exactly the same. Right. And obviously, like, I think Caleb, how old was he when he got taken into care? Super young. So he's had a really rough go of it. So I'm not saying that he's this terrible person who was born bad. My point is that the knock-on effects of Lundgren's actions are going to continue for generations. It's not just over because he's dead. No, of course not. Very fucked up story of Geoffrey Lundgren and the Community of Christ cult.

Oh, that's a good one. Community of Christ. We should call it that. There you go. Everyone calls it the Kirtland cult. Oh, that's a good one. Community of Christ. We should call it that. There you go. Everyone calls it the Kirtland cult. Thank you so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed it. And we made all of our notices at the start. So usual stuff now. Come follow us at Red Handed the Pod on Instagram and on Twitter and Red Handed on Facebook. If you would like to come also make lovely pledges to us on Patreon. It makes a huge amount of difference, especially now that Hannah is full time just doing the podcast, living her podcasting dream. All of that.

Breaking hearts in Pret. Oh, yes, exactly. She's working in a Pret now and she's got herself a Pret crush-y. Yes. Oh, I feel bad. I feel like it could be love, Hannah. I feel like it could be love. Are you joking?

Well, you've refused to update. So I feel like it could be are you joking well you've refused to update so I feel like I'm I'm trying not very hard not very hard at all you have to try really hard you have to put out a lot or apparently just go sit and prep so yeah if you would like to help support that endeavor that we are on you can do so and here are some people who have done that this week. We have, I'm going to take half of these because this is a massive list and you can go for the rest because I might have a bright arm. Okay. Right. Ready.

Maureen, Amy King Kirkland, Brandi Cooper, Greta Shaw, Eliza, Sarah Devlin, Julie Hoare, Emma Francis, Jade, Charlotte Grant-Mills, Kimmy Curry. Julie Howe. You called her julie whore did i say i said julie how sorry kimmy curry kayla lauren caitlyn cowger luke green sienna arnold dallas evans sarah sarah lions aunt soft jellybean asmr grace mitch Mitchell, Glyn Jones, Jessica Biedmead, Biedmead, Biedmead. Okay, I've made a mistake. You go now. Carl Search, Valley Dare, Julia Puss, Poussant? I don't know. Ben Hipp, Graham Lee Glasgow, Megan Grubbs, Andrew McNamara, Eric Nilton, Jodie Peterson, Desiree, Joyce Loveless, Kay Bell... Oh, guys, you're kicking my arse today.

Kay Belafonte, great. Angela Stiles, Rosie, Stephen M. Alger, Alex Jacobs, Sam Haber, and Charlotte Hannaford. Thank you so much for your continued support. With that, thank you for listening and we will see you next week. See you next time. I was going to say when we're doing something, but I don't know what we're doing. I can't remember. We won't do anything. We're recording it on Wednesday. So bye.

Bye. Bye. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the

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