by Pete Earley
If nothing else, Alvord and Yarborough agreed that their plan would show Jeffrey that he was being watched. He’d been scared off before. Maybe he’d be scared off again.
“So when do we do it?” asked Yarborough.
Alvord wanted to wait until the last possible moment. “April eighteenth,” he said. It was a Tuesday. That would be good because he and the chief could brief their men on Monday.
Yarborough agreed.
Neither knew that Alvord had picked a date that was exactly one day too late.
Chapter 39
DIGGING the pit in the barn was much harder than Jeffrey had expected. Although the floor in the room frequently flooded, the ground had been packed down after years of use. When Ron and Keith took a break to eat lunch on April 10, a Monday, they told Jeffrey that it would take them at least five days to dig the pit. That was okay with Jeffrey. He had plenty of other tasks to complete.
“It was time for me to inquire of the Lord to see if He had changed His mind,” Jeffrey recalled. He went to the mountain near the farm and knelt down.
“I said to God, ‘What is thy will? Give me a sign. Tell me what to do.’ And then I opened my scriptures and began looking. I quickly realized that all I was getting were ‘go’ statements.”
On Tuesday, April 11, Keith took a break from digging the pit and went with his wife, Kathy, to buy two horses. Jeffrey said he needed to take horses into the wilderness because he was, after all, the rider of the four horses in Revelation. He bought an ATV [all- terrain vehicle] too because, as he put it, “the scriptures told me that I was to have a chariot in the wilderness.”
On Wednesday, April 12, Jeffrey bought a .44-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. There wasn’t any particular verse that told him to buy the gun. He simply wanted another one.
Later that night, he and Alice went to the Averys’ to eat dinner. After the meal, Alice helped Cheryl sort through the family’s possessions and decide what could go to the wilderness and what was being left behind. Jeffrey played with Karen. As she giggled, he bounced her up and down on his leg. When they got home, Alice told the group that the Averys had a microwave and some Corelle dishes that they could take with them.
On Thursday, April 13, Jeffrey told officials at Kirtland Elementary School that he was taking Kristen and Caleb out of their classes for one week because the family was going to Disneyland.
By Friday, April 14, all of the group members had quit their jobs, and Ron and Susie and their two children had moved from their apartment into the laundry room at the farmhouse. Jeffrey wanted his second in command at the farm to help plan the executions. That same day, Richard and Dennis Patrick drove to the Averys’ house and started moving the family’s belongings into the barn at the farm, where they were quickly picked over by group members. At one point, Cheryl showed up and asked Jeffrey why she and Dennis and their girls hadn’t been invited to stay at the farm like the Luffs. “I told her we didn’t have room,” Jeffrey said, “but the truth was I didn’t want them in my house because they were evil.” Instead, Jeffrey issued the Averys five sleeping bags and told them to stay in their now-empty house until he sent someone for them.
On Saturday, April 15, the pit was nearly ready, but Jeffrey wasn’t. “My intelligence told me that what I was doing was right,” he later said, “but my flesh was weak. I was still struggling with the thought of killing ten people. These were not strangers. I wanted to wait at least one more day to make certain that I was absolutely right in what I was doing.”
That morning, Dennis Patrick came to the farm to see if he could help pack supplies. Jeffrey sent him to the barn to help Ron and Keith. Dennis didn’t know that he was digging his own grave.
Later that night, Dennis Avery called Jeffrey. He had forgotten to mention it earlier, but he had been issued a credit card with a $1,500 limit that hadn’t been used. Jeffrey told Dennis that they would go shopping the next day.
On Sunday, April 16, Jeffrey decided to check his scriptures one last time. “I was looking to see if there was some way to extend mercy to any of the ten,” he later said, “and as I looked, I suddenly said, ‘Ah-ha! I can extend mercy.”’
The verse that Jeffrey found was in the New Testament book of First Corinthians, chapter 7, verse 14, which read: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife . . .”
“Tonya and Sharon were doing the best they could and God was telling me that because of the women, their husbands had been ransomed from the pit.”
Jeffrey looked for a scripture that would save the Averys. Instead, he found the opposite in Isaiah, chapter 30, verse 17. The crucial part read: “at the rebuke of five, shall ye flee.”
“God was telling me to get on with it,” he said. “The verse clearly said that I was to rebuke [kill] the Averys and go into the wilderness.”
After Jeffrey finished his studies, he picked up Dennis Avery and drove to Chagrin International Arms Company where they used Dennis’s MasterCard to buy a .30-caliber M-1 carbine, another .45- caliber automatic pistol, and a .380-caliber Colt pistol for a total of $1,349.
While Jeffrey was buying guns, Alice was driving Greg to a local auto-repair shop to retrieve his car. “Alice asked me how I felt about people such as the Averys having to die for my sin. My response was that I would that no one would have to die for my sin: I would that all men would repent and come unto Christ.”
Later that night while several of the men at the farm were playing basketball, Jeffrey turned to Richard and said, “Tomorrow is D day.”
On Monday, April 17, Jeffrey was confident that he was supposed to execute the Avery family, but he claimed that he once again asked God if they could be spared.
“I said ‘Lord, show me, show me, speak to me in your word. Don’t let me be blind. Let me see.”’
Prosecutors would later argue that Jeffrey really didn’t have much of a choice on April 17. If he didn’t kill the Averys, his followers would stop believing in him. He had ordered them to quit their jobs. He had told them that the Averys had to be sacrificed. He had already lost face because he had backed down from taking over the Kirtland temple. That was the pragmatic view.
Jeffrey later offered a different one. “I was being asked to cross a line. . . . I could lose everything precious to me in this world: my wife, my children, my life. But if what I was teaching was real, if the pattern existed and if there was a God and there was a Bible and there were golden tablets, then I was being offered something no other man on earth was being offered.
“I was going to set into action events that would make the world as we know it come to an end—events that would bring about the return of Jesus Christ.
“What it all came down to was, did I really believe I was teaching the truth or was I going to shrink away? . . . Either I was teaching a lie and I was a false prophet and none of it was true or I was teaching the truth, in which case, my path was clear. Those were the two choices. God was saying, ‘Okay, Jeffrey, do you really believe? Are you willing to step across the line?’ And at that instant, I understood. I knew what I had to do.”
On the morning of April 17, Jeffrey told Alice that the Patricks and Richard and Sharon had been spared. Jeff and Alice drove into Kirtland to the Patricks’ apartment. Dennis was gone. Because Keith and Kathy Johnson were still living there, Jeffrey and Alice hurried Tonya to an upstairs bedroom to talk in private.
“Jeff told me that Dennis was not getting his act together,” Tonya later recalled. “That he was sinful but that I was doing all right and he had no problems with me and because of that, Dennis wasn’t going to be killed. He told me that he had planned to kill Dennis, Molly, and me that night but not now. I was in shock.” Once Jeffrey finished talking, Alice jumped in. “Alice told me how worried she’d been about it and how happy she was that I was saved,” Tonya said. Jeffrey told Tonya not to tell Dennis about their talk. He would tell him personally that night.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, Greg was making a reservation at the Red R
oof Inn in Kirtland for the Averys. If the police, for some reason, ever went looking for them, Jeffrey wanted the Averys’ last known address to be a motel, not the farmhouse.
After Greg made the motel reservation, he drove into Cleveland and bought a stun gun for $59.99.
At 11:30 A.M., the Averys were picked up at their house and brought to the farm for lunch. Jeffrey and Alice, as well as Debbie and Ron and Susie, ate sandwiches and leftovers with them and then Ron drove the Averys to the motel.
There are conflicting stories about what happened next. Sharon Bluntschly later testified under oath that she and Alice went on an errand to a nearby bank, and while en route, Alice told her that she and Richard were not going to be sacrificed that night because of Sharon’s efforts and subservience. When they returned to the farm, Alice told Jeffrey what she had done and he got angry because she had upstaged him. Alice claimed that Jeffrey had told Sharon that she and Richard had been saved. Regardless, by late afternoon on Monday word had spread through the farmhouse that only the Averys were to be killed.
At 3:00 P.M., Jeffrey left the farm by himself and drove to Tom Miller’s house. The police would later speculate that Jeffrey went to recruit Tom. That was wrong. Jeffrey wanted to tell Tom that God had chosen him—not Tom—to be the rider of the horses in Revelation. The two men had once talked about leading a revolt of fundamentalists in the RLDS. That was nothing compared to what Jeffrey was about to do.
“Jeffrey was totally unkempt when he arrived,” Tom Miller said later. “His hair was dirty and he was very rushed and he said, ‘I didn’t come here to convince you to follow me,’ and I interrupted and said, ‘Jeff, that’s great ‘cause I wouldn’t follow you anywhere.’”
Jeffrey stopped speaking. “His face went blank and his mouth fell open and he just sat there for the longest time,” Miller said.
“I decided that there was no point in trying to share the truth with him,” Jeffrey later recalled. “He’d made it clear that he was not interested in knowing who I was.’’
Jeffrey got up to leave.
“Jeff, are you running from something?” Miller asked. “Are you running drugs or in trouble? Maybe I can help you.”
Jeffrey hurried out to his truck and drove away. He was angry. Who did Tom Miller think he was to offer to help him?
When Jeffrey returned to the farm, he went into his bedroom and got one of his .45-caliber pistols. He chose the stainless-steel Combat Elite semi-automatic and took enough bullets for twenty- seven shots. He could smell dinner being cooked. He quickly loaded the gun.
Jeffrey had told Debbie that he wanted roast beef, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, and a salad with bread for dinner. A few minutes after six o’clock, Richard arrived with the Averys. He had driven past the front door of the Kirtland Police Department en route to the Red Roof Inn.
As soon as Karen Avery came into the room, she ran toward Alice and gave her a big hug. The little girl said that she had drawn Alice a picture, but had forgotten and left it at the motel.
“That’s okay, honey,” Alice said reassuringly. “We’ll get it later.”
Karen was wearing a shirt with a rainbow and ponies on it.
Alice recognized it. She had given it to Karen.
Dinner was served at exactly 6:30 P.M., but Debbie didn’t eat. She was too upset. “I couldn’t eat with them, knowing they were going to die.” She went upstairs. The Patricks and the Johnsons were the only ones not at the farm. Jeffrey didn’t want them there. He didn’t believe Keith and Dennis had enough guts to kill anyone. During the meal, Danny, Richard, Sharon, and Greg tried to avoid the Averys. Jeffrey, Alice, and their children, and Ron and Susie Luff and their children, were friendly.
While everyone was eating, Dennis Avery noticed that Karen hadn’t tried everything on her plate. He told her to eat some corn.
“Daddy, I don’t want to,” she replied.
Jeffrey would later cite that exchange as a sign from God. “She was a rebellious and wicked child,” he said.
Ron Luff was amazed, not because of what Karen had said but because the Averys clearly had no idea what was going to happen. He would later tell federal investigators that he had tried to warn the Averys several times during scripture classes. “I would say, look, this is what the wicked do—but that’s exactly what you are doing. And this is what happens to the wicked.” It was clear to Ron, as he watched the Averys eating their “last supper” that they simply didn’t realize how serious Jeffrey was about destroying the “wicked.” They really were like sacrificial lambs. “I believe we could have come out ... and told them exactly what was going to happen and they still wouldn’t have known.”
As soon as Alice finished eating, she popped up from the table and announced that it was time for her and Jason, Kristen, and Caleb to leave. Jeffrey had told her that she was to go buy some picnic tables after dinner for the group to use in the wilderness.
“Call before you come back,” Jeffrey told her.
Alice was about to walk out the front door when Jeffrey stopped her. He needed some paper and envelopes. Jeffrey had told all of his followers that they were supposed to write letters to their parents telling them that they had left Kirtland. Everyone was supposed to give their parents a fictitious forwarding address. He had just learned that Cheryl hadn’t written a letter to her mother, Donna Bailey. Jeffrey handed Cheryl a sheet of paper and dictated the letter.
Dear Mom and Dad—Just a hurried note to let you know that things have happened very fast and Dennis has accepted work in Wyoming and we needed to get there fast. We will let you know address and details when we get settled. . . . Thanks. Love Cheryl.
After Cheryl finished, Jeffrey took the letter and went into his bedroom. All of the men except for Dennis Avery, who was still eating, followed him there. He shut the door and picked up his .45 pistol. “Everyone had done their part,” he said later. “Now I wanted them to know that I was going to do mine.”
Jeffrey looked at each of them, including his eighteen-year-old son, Damon, who was still a senior in high school.
“Are you in or are you out?” he asked solemnly. One by one, Ron Luff, Greg Winship, Richard Brand, Danny Kraft, Jr., and Damon nodded.
“Okay,” Jeffrey said, “let’s do it.”
Chapter 40
DENNIS Avery had always been a slow eater. Behind his back, the others had cruelly joked that he was so lazy that even chewing was a chore. But now that he was finished eating, Dennis noticed that he was the only man still in the farmhouse. All the other men had followed Jeffrey outside. None of them had said anything to Dennis.
Dennis was about to ask where the men had gone when Ron came into the kitchen from the back door. Jeffrey was in the barn, Ron explained, and he wanted Dennis to come show him what he and Cheryl wished to take with them into the wilderness. Dennis started toward the door but stopped. He couldn’t decide whether or not he should wear his glasses because it was misty and he hated to get water spots on the lenses. He took them off, then put them on, and then asked Cheryl what she thought he should do as Ron waited patiently, the 50,000-volt stun gun hidden in his pocket. Cheryl suggested that Dennis take them off, which he did. It was just before 7:30 P.M.
“When Dennis walked through the door of the barn,” Ron later recalled, “I lifted his shirt and tried to use the stun gun a couple of different places.” Jeffrey had told Ron that the gun would work only if it hit certain nerves on the hip, neck, and chest, so Ron tried all three.
“What are you doing?” Dennis screamed as Ron zapped him. “Goddamn it. This isn’t necessary!”
“All the stun gun was doing,” Ron later said, “was causing a lot of pain.”
Greg, Richard, Danny, and Damon knocked Dennis onto the ground. They quickly taped his hands, feet, and mouth with two- inch-wide gray duct tape. “We were not supposed to apply tape to his eyes,” Richard later testified, “because he was supposed to see Jeff when Jeff shot him.”
Although Jeffrey was waiting
in a room in the back corner of the barn where the pit had been dug, he could hear what was happening and he had heard Dennis yelling.
“Dennis had cursed God,” Jeffrey said later. “He was clearly under Satan’s power.”
Once Dennis was bound, Richard lifted him by the shoulders and Danny raised his feet. They carried him through the barn into the room at the back of the barn and slid him into the muddy pit. Jeffrey would later tell his followers that Dennis had managed to climb onto his knees in the pit. He had looked up from the hole at Jeffrey, who was standing over him with the .45.
“I looked him in the eyes,” Jeffrey said later, “because I wanted him to know who was sending him before God for his wickedness.” The scriptures required him, Jeffrey explained, to look Dennis face-to-face and then “pierce his heart.”
Greg was supposed to run a chain saw outside the barn during the shootings to cover up the sounds, but for some reason he hadn’t started and Jeffrey decided not to wait. As Richard and Danny bolted toward the exit, Jeffrey fired his first shot. Ron, who was standing guard outside the room, slammed the door closed just as Richard and Danny reached it.
“Got to keep this door shut,” he yelled.
He was worried that the noise might be heard by neighbors. Trapped inside, Richard turned his head just in time to see Jeffrey standing at the edge of the pit firing his second round. The noise reverberated inside the barn.
“I fired two shots directly into his heart,” Jeffrey told everyone later.
Ron opened the door. “Is it done?” he asked.
“All right, everybody, come look at this,” Jeffrey said. “Come see what death is.”
Ron, Richard, Greg, Danny, and Damon walked over to the lip of the pit together, as if each were afraid to go by himself. “When I looked in,” Damon later recalled during testimony, “Dennis was laying there on the ground ... you could see blood all over his shirt. I started crying—I couldn’t believe it. I’d never seen anything like that before. It was my own father that had just did that.”