Prophet of Death_The Mormon Blood Atonement Killings

by Pete Earley

The frigate left Singapore on March 13, 1974, and eventually returned to San Diego on June 5. Alice was waiting with Damon. They had flown to California a few weeks earlier and found an apartment. She was nine months pregnant. A few days later, Kevin asked Jeffrey at work one day about the Book of Mormon. Jeffrey invited Kevin to come to his apartment for dinner. Alice was appalled. All she could think of was the cucumber story. But Jeffrey insisted. When Kevin arrived, Alice began to relax. He was nicely dressed, polite, rail thin, and spoke with a quiet voice. He was nothing like she had imagined. As Kevin walked into the Lundgren apartment that night, he suddenly felt a “warmth” and he decided to tell Jeffrey and Alice about his past. As a child, he had been shuffled between relatives. “I attended fourteen different schools before I graduated.” At age five, he had also been sexually molested. He had joined the navy to start a new life, but had begun using drugs. Nothing in life seemed to matter, he explained. Jeffrey began telling Kevin about Mormonism. He explained that the Book of Mormon was the history of a group of ancient Hebrews who had crossed the Atlantic Ocean before Christ was born and had settled in the New World where they split into two groups, called the Lamanites and Nephites. The Lamanites were wicked and they eventually waged war and destroyed the good Nephites during a great battle at the Hill Cumorah. Mormon was a prophet and historian and he recorded the history of the two tribes on golden plates. His son, Moroni, finished the last portion of the record and hid the plates on the Hill Cumorah before he was killed. Centuries later Moroni returned to earth as an angel and directed Joseph Smith, Jr., to where the plates were hidden. The saints were different from other religions, Jeffrey said, because they believed that God intervened in their lives and still sent them prophets. God had also given the saints a purpose in their lives. They were to build Zion and prepare for the second coming of Christ.

  Kevin was impressed. He began stopping by the Lundgrens’ apartment every night. Some weekends, he would sleep on the couch after he and Jeffrey ended their marathon late-night debates about various scriptures.

  One night Jeffrey told Kevin about an event that had happened aboard the USS Schofield when the frigate was in the Indian Ocean. Jeffrey had gone up onto the deck to lift weights and exercise. He was all by himself. “The sea was like glass and a brilliant full moon made it possible for me to see in the darkness,” he said. “It was clear except for one peculiar cloud. Rather than being white, this cloud was inky black, darker even than the rest of the sky.

  “As I began working out, I noticed this cloud seemed to be following the ship,” Jeffrey explained. “We were moving along, probably at twenty knots, cruising speed, and the cloud seemed to be trailing us, following behind us as we moved across the water.

  “I decided to investigate. So I walked over to the rail that ran along the deck. As I looked at the cloud, it suddenly zoomed down. It took the shape of a human hand and it came directly toward me and attacked me. It began pushing me back against the guide wire and railing. I grabbed onto it because the cloud was literally pushing me off the deck, but I couldn’t hold on very long because the cloud kept pushing and it was stronger than me. It was pushing against my chest and I suddenly realized that I was going to be pushed overboard, that I was going to be pushed into the ocean and drowned by this cloud. So I cried out, ‘My God, save me! Deliver me!’ and as soon as those words left my lips, I was released and within seconds the cloud had disappeared, completely vanished, and I was safe.”

  Why had the cloud attacked him? Kevin asked. What did it mean?

  “I believe the cloud was Satan and the forces of evil, and he was trying to kill me to keep me from doing something that God has chosen me to do.”

  What? Kevin asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jeffrey replied. “But there is no other interpretation. There has to be a reason why God is saving me and why Satan wants me dead.”

  On June 24, Alice gave birth to another boy, whom she and Jeffrey named Jason. When she came home from the hospital, she jokingly said that the family had really gained two “new” children. Kevin was spending so much time with them that he was their other son.

  Jeffrey asked a group of elders at a local RLDS congregation to conduct “cottage meetings” for Kevin. During the sessions, the elders explained the official history of the church and its doctrines. Since Jeffrey wasn’t a member of the RLDS priesthood, he couldn’t officially conduct a “cottage meeting” although he knew his scriptures better than the elders who spoke to Kevin. In October, Kevin was baptized into the RLDS. On November 4, 1974, Jeffrey was discharged. He had decided to return to Missouri. Jeffrey wasn’t the sort of man who hugged another man, but when he and Kevin shook hands and said goodbye, he thought that he saw tears in Kevin’s eyes.

  Although the elders had officially prepared Kevin for membership, Jeffrey knew that he was really responsible for bringing him into the church. Jeffrey felt good about that. He had never thought of himself as being terribly persuasive, but he was learning.

  Chapter 6

  ONCE Jeffrey was discharged, he and his family returned to Missouri and moved in with Ralph and Donna. Jeffrey didn’t know what he wanted to do, so he decided to enroll in classes at Central Missouri State University. The GI Bill would pay his tuition and give him a bit more for living expenses. James Postlethwait, the assistant dean for admissions and records, agreed to give Jeffrey another chance at college despite his terrible academic record. As soon as Jeffrey was accepted, he went to the RLDS student union. His old pal Keith Johnson was playing Ping-Pong in the recreation room. It was as if time had stopped while Jeffrey had been gone. Keith explained that he had graduated, married, divorced, and returned to school to earn an advanced degree. While the two men were talking, a younger student interrupted.

  “We need some help, Keith,” he said, nodding toward the next room. “It’s the liberals.”

  “C’mon, Jeff,” Keith said. “You’ll enjoy this.”

  A crowd of students were arguing about scriptures. Without waiting to be asked, Jeffrey jumped into the fray. Keith was surprised. The Jeffrey he’d known hadn’t been much of a Bible student. “I’ve been doing quit a bit of studying,” Jeffrey beamed afterward.

  Jeffrey and Alice found an apartment not far from the campus, and when the first semester ended in late spring of 1975, Jeffrey had earned straight A’s—much to the delight of Assistant Dean Postlethwait. One of Jeffrey’s professors, Hal Sappington, offered him a lab-technician job. It paid only $120 per month, but he took it. “I really liked working in the lab. I liked the interaction with students and I enjoyed the way the professors treated me. I decided that I wanted to be part of that world.” That summer, Jeffrey told Alice that he planned to become a college professor. Dr. Jeffrey Lundgren. He liked how it sounded.

  Besides doing well academically, Jeffrey quickly became a spokesman for “fundamentalists” at the RLDS student union. They were conservative RLDS students who were unhappy with changes taking place in the church. The students who favored the changes were the “liberals.” The daily arguments that took place between the two factions mirrored a bitter debate that was going on within the RLDS church. During the late 1950s, the church had started to modernize under the leadership of the church’s new “prophet,” W. Wallace Smith, a grandson of Joseph Smith, Jr. By 1975, most RLDS churches were split between members who favored the old ways and those pushing for change.

  Jeffrey loved arguing about religion. He spent all of his free moments at the student union. The most heated arguments were about the role of women in the church. The liberals favored letting them become priests. Jeffrey and the other conservatives claimed that only men could be ordained. During one bitter argument, tempers flared, and someone said the student union wasn’t big enough for the liberals and Jeffrey Lundgren. Jeffrey reacted by inviting all of the conservatives at the union to walk out and come to his apartment.

  Assistant Dean Postlethwait, who was an RLDS Church member and helped run the student union, eventually soo
thed the hurt feelings. But not before Jeffrey held a few meetings of his own at his apartment. Dennis Patrick and Tonya McLaughlin were two fundamentalists who attended.

  Dennis and Jeffrey had first become allies during debates at the student union. Jeffrey had a photographic memory and was excellent at spouting scripture. No one could match him when it came to reciting verses. But Jeffrey had a high-pitched, almost whiny voice, and he was a bully. Dennis, on the other hand, had a booming, well-trained voice, and a salesman’s knack for swaying people.

  Slim, athletic, and personable, Dennis was the son of a career air force officer who had moved his family from base to base when Dennis was growing up. Whenever anyone asked Dennis where he was from, he would say Oregon because that was where he had gone to high school, but his real home had always been the church. The RLDS had been the common thread that had given Dennis continuity and stability. “My father was a district RLDS president and a high priest in the church,” Dennis told Jeffrey shortly after they first met. “I used to go with my dad on his calls and I fully intend to carry on as I have been raised and taught. The church to me is not just a way of life, it is my life.”

  Tonya McLaughlin’s parents had not been as active as Dennis’s family. But like many other saints, when Tonya was growing up all of her friends had been church members. As a teenager, Tonya had lived only a few blocks from Don and Lois Lundgren, but she hadn’t known Jeffrey, although she knew his brother, Corry. Shy and chunky, Tonya had beautiful bright red hair and ivory skin. She had met Dennis at a summer party at the student union. He had fallen in love immediately. Tonya hadn’t. But she liked his company. Three weeks after they met, Dennis proposed and Tonya agreed. She figured she’d learn to love him. They had just gotten engaged when they met Jeffrey and Alice.

  After Jeffrey led his fundamentalist revolt, he and Dennis began spending more and more time together studying the scriptures. Tonya and Alice also became friends. Alice was older, married, the mother of two boys, now ages five and one, and eager to give Tonya advice. One night Dennis asked Jeffrey if he would like to take a break from studying scriptures to play tennis. Jeffrey agreed and Dennis thrashed him on the court. Jeffrey was furious and swore that he’d practice round the clock if necessary, until he finally could beat Dennis.

  Dennis, who was just as competitive, gladly accepted the challenge. They began meeting at the tennis court every day. The games quickly became an obsession. Try as he might, Jeffrey couldn’t defeat Dennis. And then, after more than one hundred matches, Jeffrey finally won.

  Afterward, Dennis noticed that Jeffrey made it a point to bring up his victory whenever he was talking to other students. “Jeffrey would tell everyone about how he had worked and worked and worked and had finally defeated me,” Dennis later recalled. “But what he never mentioned was that after we played that set, we played again and I won. In fact, I don’t think he beat me after that one time. But he made it sound like he had absolutely defeated me and that I was so crushed that I was never able to beat him again. I remember thinking, ‘This is really odd.’ But it was important to Jeff to be seen as a champion. He wanted people to believe that he could do anything he wanted once he put his mind to it. He really wanted to be somebody important.”

  In the fall of 1975, Jeffrey set his mind to something else besides tennis. Dennis was in line to become a priesthood member and Keith Johnson already had been ordained. Jeffrey could recite scripture better than either of them. It was time, he decided, for him to join the priesthood and get on with God’s work.

  In the RLDS, priesthood members ran local congregations. Unlike most denominations, the RLDS didn’t have salaried, professionally trained ministers. Sunday services were conducted by men from each congregation who had been “called” by God to serve as priests. These men, who worked during the week at non-church jobs, divvied up the chores each Sunday. They either took turns preaching or chose one of their own to serve as the regular pastor.

  The first step to joining the priesthood was to “receive the call.” At least two priests had to feel “moved by the spirit” to recommend a saint as a priesthood candidate. Once two priests recommended a candidate, the district or “stake” office conducted a discreet background check to make certain the candidate was worthy. After that was completed, the candidate was asked if he wanted to become a priest, and if he agreed, his name was put before all of the priests in his local congregation for a vote. When he was approved, he served an apprenticeship under other priests and was finally ordained.

  On paper, the process looked tough. In reality, it wasn’t. In most congregations any man who came to church regularly and expressed an interest could become a priest. Jeffrey began dropping hints at the local RLDS congregation that he attended and he soon found two priesthood members willing to submit his name. By late 1975, Jeffrey felt certain that he was on his way.

  Chapter 7

  JEFFREY’S life seemed grand. His college professor, Hal Sappington, had decided to take a sabbatical at the start of 1976 and the university had asked Jeffrey to help fill in by teaching a basic electricity course to freshmen even though he was still an undergraduate. The Farmers Home Administration had loaned $22,500 to Jeffrey and Alice so that they could buy a new three-bedroom, ranch style house in Knob Knoster, a town of 2,040 people about ten miles east of Warrensburg. The months rolled by quickly and, on the surface, happily.

  So Louise Stone was surprised when she received a telephone call from a tearful Alice.

  “I need to see you,” Alice anxiously explained. “I got to get away from here.”

  “Well, come on out,” Louise said, reassuringly. “Stay as long as you need to.”

  Louise no longer lived in San Diego. She and Sonny had moved to Norfolk, Virginia, home of the Atlantic naval fleet. Sonny had just left on a nine-month cruise, leaving Louise home with their three children.

  Alice brought Damon and Jason with her to Norfolk. After the two women got all of the children settled into bed, they went down to the living room to talk and Alice burst into tears.

  “It’s Jeffrey,” she sobbed. “He’s lying to me. Hiding things from me. My life is a total wreck.”

  Jeffrey had unhooked the bell on the telephone, Alice said. He had gotten a post-office box and had stopped having mail delivered to the house. At first Alice couldn’t figure out what he was trying to hide. But then a bill collector had come by the house while Jeffrey was in school. “We are thousands and thousands of dollars in debt,” she said. “He hasn’t paid anything. I had to get away from it all. It’s so embarrassing.”

  All that week, Louise and Alice talked about Jeffrey. Sometimes they would stay up until dawn. Each night, Alice seemed to grow more irritated at him. “Alice was just miserable,” Louise said later.

  And then Jeffrey arrived.

  He had driven to Norfolk in a brand-new Chevrolet Monte Carlo that he had just bought. When Alice saw him pull into the driveway, she rushed outside and clapped her hands in excitement as Jeffrey proudly showed off their new car, opening the doors, trunk, and hood as if he were a salesman hustling a buyer.

  “I couldn’t believe what I saw happen,” said Louise. “Alice was completely thrilled over this brand-new car.”

  While Jeffrey was outside loading Alice’s luggage, Louise pulled Alice aside in the house.

  “What about all the things that he hid from you? What about the bills? How’d he afford a new car?” she asked.

  Alice brushed off her questions with a shrug.

  “He’s here,” she gushed. “That’s all that matters.”

  “I remember watching them drive away,” Louise recalled later, “and thinking that the bottom line was that Alice had terrible self- esteem. The fact that someone loved her enough to buy her a car and come and get her simply overshadowed everything else.”

  Jeffrey had financed the car through a credit union that was largely owned by RLDS church members. His father was on the board, which is why he got the loan despite his terr
ible credit rating. Within a few months, Jeffrey’s name appeared on the list of delinquent borrowers. Don, who knew nothing about the car loan, was so embarrassed that he resigned from the board.

  In later years, Jeffrey blamed Alice for their financial woes. “Alice became just like my mother. Getting possessions, accumulating things, became extremely important to her. My mistake was in not putting my foot down and just telling her no. But I had trouble doing that because Alice and I were having a difficult time in our personal relationship and she wanted physical manifestations from me that showed that I loved her.”

  Alice’s continuing guilt over being pregnant before they were married had turned her into a frigid spouse, Jeffrey claimed. “Alice would say that if we made love once every three months that was a compromise on her part. And I would tell her, ‘Alice, what you don’t realize is that the eighty-nine days that we didn’t make love was a compromise on my part.’”

  Not surprisingly, Alice would tell psychologists later that Jeffrey was to blame for their financial and sexual problems. “The first five years of our marriage, I never had an orgasm. I didn’t even know what one was until I read about them in a magazine. All he cared about was getting off. He didn’t care about my feelings.”

  There were problems outside the bedroom as well, Jeffrey said. “Alice was angry because she wasn’t getting all the attention that she wanted. I wasn’t spending enough time with her, she’d say. She’d complain about how much I was studying and working. Those were more important than she was. I’d tell her, ‘Well, I have to support you and the family,’ but she wouldn’t accept that. The truth was that she wanted to be the focal point of the world and so she started demanding things.

  “She’d say, ‘Oh, if we just could afford to move into our own house, I’d be happy.’ So I went down and got a loan from the Farmers Home Administration and we bought a house and she would be happy for a while and then she would say, ‘Oh, Jeffrey, if you would just buy me . . .’ It never ended. She wanted me to prove that I loved her, over and over and over again.