by Pete Earley
When they got to the barn, Jeffrey told Alice to stay in the truck. He went inside and called everyone together. He told them that Alice had suffered a nervous breakdown and had tried to kill herself. Ron and Greg went outside to help bring Alice in. Everyone watched.
“Alice was shuffling her feet and she looked helpless,” Debbie later recalled, “but I thought it was theatrics. Her eyes were bright and sharp. I asked Dennis what he thought because he had worked in a mental-health unit and we both decided that Alice was playing it for all she could. I really doubted whether she had even tried to kill herself.”
When Alice got inside the tent, she noticed the bed was draped with a red-and-white quilt with lambs on it. It was Kathy’s. “Get that rag off my bed!” she said. Ron grabbed it. Alice got undressed and crawled under the covers.
At dinnertime, Kathy made a cup of soup for her and went into the tent. Alice stared up at Kathy. She acted as if she didn’t recognize her. Kathy couldn’t tell whether Alice was playacting or had actually suffered a breakdown.
“Hello,” Alice said. “These are from my husband.” She was clutching a poem that Jeffrey had written her and other love notes from the past. “Do you know Jeffrey?”
Later that night, Kathy and Jeffrey put a pad on the floor in the section of the tent next to where Alice was sleeping. Although it was dark, Alice could see them through the slit in the partition that divided the tent into sections. They had turned on a portable heater and it cast a red glow on their bodies. Jeffrey and Kathy would later claim that they had simply gone to sleep that night. Alice insisted that they had sexual intercourse while she watched.
“They thought I was asleep, but I could see them,” she said later. “They began making love. I turned away but I could hear the sound of his body going in and out of her body. I felt like I could feel the entire floor vibrating and I could hear everything that they were saying to each other. I felt sick so I decided to interrupt them and Jeffrey got angry. I kept calling to him every few minutes—‘Jeffrey’—‘Oh, Jeffrey—‘Jeffrey, I need you.’ Kathy had an orgasm but he couldn’t and he got off her and he began to cry because he couldn’t do it because I was calling to him. She was saying, ‘It’s okay. I understand.’ But he was crying because he wanted to come and he couldn’t come and I was glad that he couldn’t come. I was glad that I kept him from coming.”
When it was morning, Jeffrey came into the portion of the tent where Alice was lying in bed. Jeffrey was angry about her antics during the night. He began to scold her and Alice immediately became submissive. “I said, ‘What is my lord’s bidding?”’ Within a few minutes, she was performing oral sex on him. When she finished, Alice announced that she was going back to Macks Creek. He was welcome to come with her, but he had to choose between her and Kathy.
“Don’t do this, Alice,” he said. “I’m not leaving Kathy.”
Jeffrey figured Alice was bluffing. He stepped out of the tent and told everyone that Alice was leaving. She got dressed. By the time she walked out of the tent, everyone was waiting to tell her goodbye. Jeffrey told Alice that Ron was going to drive her back to Macks Creek. He walked into another part of the barn to be with Kathy. Tonya and Susie both gave Alice a hug and said goodbye. Danny refused to speak to her. Greg told her that he loved her. Sharon came over and hugged her. “Mom,” Sharon said, trying to cheer Alice up, “you look so pretty.”
“It didn’t keep my husband in my bed, did it?” Alice replied.
Everyone followed Alice out of the barn to the truck. When she got to it, she stopped and said she wanted to talk to Jeffrey. He and Kathy came out of the barn.
“You win, Kathy,” Alice announced, and then she turned and looked directly at Jeffrey.
“I told him that I had always loved him and always would love him. I said I was sorry that I didn’t make him happy and had disappointed him. And then I said, ‘Some day, Jeff, when it’s too late, you will realize that I am the only person who has ever truly loved you.’”
After Alice finished her speech, she got down on her knees in front of the group and kissed Jeffrey’s feet. A few seconds later, she was gone.
Chapter 49
RICHARD and Greg wanted out. They had been plotting an escape for more than three weeks. Richard had first mentioned leaving back in West Virginia when Jeffrey had been on one of his trips to Macks Creek.
“I think it’s time for me to get out of here,” Richard had said offhandedly to Greg one morning when they were away from the others.
“Well, if you’re leaving,” Greg had replied with a chuckle, “take me with you.”
Both men had intentionally made their comments sound like jokes because neither fully trusted the other. It was Richard who decided to risk telling the truth.
“You serious?” he asked Greg.
“Are you?” Greg had replied.
“Yes,” Richard had said. “I want out.”
Richard and Greg had been best friends most of their lives, but after they joined the group that had changed. Jeffrey had made certain of it. He had told Richard that he was going to eventually be asked by God to kill Greg with a shotgun. Jeffrey said he had seen Richard shoot Greg in a vision. Meanwhile, Jeffrey had told Greg that he shouldn’t trust Richard because he was rebellious and most likely would end up being killed like the Averys.
On the day that Richard and Greg admitted that they both wanted to quit, they once again began to feel like friends.
On October 29, Greg’s father drove to the dairy barn in Chilhowee and asked his son to leave with him. Greg refused. He figured he had a better chance of hiding from Jeffrey if he left on his own, rather than going directly to his father’s house. The next day, Greg and Richard decided that they would escape on Halloween night. They weren’t going to tell anyone, not even their “wives.” Neither of them felt their marriages were legally binding. Not only were they rejecting Jeffrey as a prophet, they were divorcing themselves from Sharon and Debbie too.
Debbie was fixing chicken for dinner on October 31 when Greg and the other men returned to the dairy barn from work. The men had all found minimum-wage jobs as laborers at a nearby company that manufactured mail-order Christmas supplies. Greg had promised to help Debbie pluck and clean the chickens, and when he didn’t come to the kitchen, she decided to look for him. When she went into their tent, Debbie noticed that Greg’s suitcase was gone. Suspicious, she hurried to the barn’s front door just as Greg and Richard ducked through it. She caught them as they were walking toward Greg’s car.
“Where’s your suitcase?” she demanded.
Greg told her that he was “airing it out.”
Debbie looked over at Greg’s car and saw the suitcase next to it. “I started screaming at him,” said Debbie. “I knew he and Richard were going to sneak away.”
Greg hustled Debbie into a field where they could talk without being overheard. “I love you,” she said. Debbie reminded Greg that Jeffrey had promised them that they were going to have a baby. How could he leave her?
“I’ve just got to get away for a while,” Greg said.
Debbie knew he was lying. Once he left, he would never come back. She started toward the barn to tell Jeffrey. Richard stepped in front of her. “I was going to hit Richard and I’m sure he would have hit me right back,” Debbie said. “But Greg jumped in the way. He said, ‘Debbie, get yourself under control. If you’re going to hit someone, hit me.’ So I decked him right in the jaw and he couldn’t believe I had hit him and I couldn’t believe it either.”
Debbie ran between the two men.
“Richard and Greg are leaving,” she yelled. “They’re leaving. You’ve got to stop them!”
Richard and Greg didn’t want Jeffrey running after them, so they walked back into the barn. “We told Jeff that we’d like some time alone away from the group to get our heads on straight,” Richard recalled. Jeffrey asked them what they were going to do. They said they didn’t know. Then Greg asked if it would be okay for them to lea
ve.
“Richard,” Jeffrey said, ignoring Greg, “there is nothing out there for you. I need you here with me.”
“You don’t need me,” Richard said. “You can do this without me.”
Jeffrey grabbed Richard by his shirt and pinned him against the barn wall. Jeffrey’s face was bright red. He was angry.
“Don’t you ever tell me what I need and don’t need,” Jeffrey yelled. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Richard replied.
Jeffrey released him.
“I wanted Richard to know, I wanted all of them to know, that no one counsels their lord,” Jeffrey later explained. “A prophet never tolerates people telling him what to do. Only God has that right.”
“Get out of here,” Jeffrey said.
Debbie couldn’t believe he was going to let them leave. She grabbed Greg’s arm. “Don’t leave me,” she shrieked. He jerked loose and hurried to his car. Debbie burst into tears. As soon as Richard was inside, Greg hit the accelerator. He checked the rearview mirror as the car sped away from the barn. He wanted to make certain Jeffrey wasn’t going to shoot them or follow them.
As soon as they were gone, Sharon turned to Jeffrey. Did he think that they would tell the police about the Averys, she asked.
“If I thought they would,” Jeffrey said, “I would have slit their throats.”
Debbie had smoked in high school, but had stopped shortly after that. She bummed a cigarette from Ron and within an hour she had gone through an entire pack. “I was devastated.”
Back in the barn, Jeffrey called everyone together and told them to open their Mormon scriptures to the Third Book of Nephi, chapter 13, verses 46 and 47.
And woe be unto him that will not hearken unto the words of Jesus, and also to them whom he hath chosen and sent among them. For whoso receiveth not the words of Jesus, and the words of those whom he hath sent, receiveth not him; and therefore he will not receive them at the last day; and it would be better for them if they had not been born.
“Richard and Greg have rejected me and my teachings,” Jeffrey said. “It would be better for them if they had not been born. They are damned just like the Averys.”
Everyone understood. Leaving the group was the same as denying Jesus Christ. But Debbie didn’t care. She felt abandoned. All she could think about that night was Greg and her children from her previous marriage. She had asked Jeffrey for permission to visit them in Independence and he’d promised to arrange it, but Jeffrey had been preoccupied with Kathy and Alice. As she lay in the tent that night, Debbie decided that she was going to see her children even if it meant being condemned by Jeffrey just as Richard and Greg had been.
Every Wednesday, Jeffrey drove to Macks Creek to visit Alice. Debbie knew he generally left the barn before 6:00 A.M.. The closest pay telephone was four miles away. Debbie had measured it one day on the truck’s odometer when Jeffrey drove her into town to buy groceries. The back injury that she had suffered years ago while working at an Independence hospital still caused her considerable pain and made her limp. But she was determined to see her three children. Debbie began walking around the barn each night after dinner to build up her endurance. No one thought anything of it. By the second Wednesday in November, Debbie was ready. As soon as she heard Jeffrey leave the barn, she pinned a note on her pillow and quietly left the barn. She had already dressed and packed a few of her belongings. Debbie figured it would take her forty-five minutes to walk to the pay phone. Ron usually got up at 6:30 A.M. He would wonder why Debbie wasn’t fixing them breakfast since that was her job. She was afraid that Ron would come after her once he realized she was gone. If he did, he’d intercept her before she made it to the telephone. Debbie quickened her pace and listened for the sound of a car engine.
Back at the barn, Ron had noticed that Debbie wasn’t in the kitchen. He had told Susie to go into Debbie’s tent and check on her. But Susie was scared. She was afraid that Debbie had killed herself. Ron finally decided to check for himself.
“Debbie,” he hollered. “Debbie, are you all right?”
He pulled back the tent flap and spotted the note that she had left. Within minutes, everyone knew that Debbie had fled. “Are you going after her?” someone asked Ron, who was in charge whenever
Jeffrey wasn’t with the group. He paused.
“No,” he said softly. “Let her go.”
When Debbie reached the pay phone, she telephoned a friend.
“Sure I’ll come get you,” the woman said, “but at seven in the morning? What’s the rush!”
“Just come now!” Debbie said. “Right now!”
Alice was spending her days in Macks Creek drinking peppermint schnapps mixed with iced tea and feeling sorry for herself. She had chosen schnapps because she figured Donna wouldn’t be suspicious of the smell of peppermint. Despite repeated pressure from her parents, Alice refused to tell them what was going on. Deep down, she figured that Jeffrey would come back. He had before. The first week after Alice left him, Jeffrey telephoned her every day. The second week, he had come down twice to see her, but he had refused to stay past 2:00 P.M. Even though she was willing to have sex with him, Jeffrey refused to spend the night. In mid-November, Jeffrey told Alice that she was “well” enough to be around her children. He brought Jason, Kristen, and Caleb for a visit. They went to a state park for a picnic even though it was cold. At one point, Jeffrey and Jason ran an errand and Alice grilled Caleb. The eight-year-old innocently mentioned that Kathy had gone with him and Daddy to Wal-Mart.
“So we’re still playing house with Kathy, huh?” Alice asked when Jeffrey returned.
Jeffrey slapped her, she said later. He took her back to Macks Creek and drove with the kids back to the dairy barn.
On November 15, 1989, Sheriff Hank Thompson telephoned Yarborough. “They’re gone!” Thompson announced. The sheriff had stopped by Jeffrey’s camp in Yellow Creek Hollow and found the site deserted. The group had left behind one tent, a sewing machine, and a Bible that had Keith Johnson’s name in it. Thompson had also found several garbage bags hidden near the camp. They were filled with animal bones. He figured the men had been killing deer illegally. Thompson told Yarborough that Dennis Patrick had mentioned something about returning to Missouri.
Nearly seven months had passed since Jeffrey had fled Kirtland. The FBI had closed its case. People had finally stopped kidding Yarborough about his obsession with Jeffrey. The chief was busy with other investigations. But Yarborough still was curious about Jeffrey. He decided to make a few phone calls. Within a few days, Yarborough had discovered that Alice was living in Macks Creek while Jeffrey and the others were camping in a dairy barn. He’d learned that Jeffrey had taken Kathy as his wife. It sounded as if the group was beginning to disintegrate. “There didn’t seem to be much point in keeping tabs on Jeffrey,” Yarborough recalled. Yet the chief just couldn’t let go. He still wasn’t certain who was in Jeffrey’s group. He was particularly concerned about Keith Johnson. Why had Thompson found Keith’s Bible in West Virginia? Had something happened to Keith?
Yarborough called Kevin Currie’s mother in Buffalo and asked her to have Kevin call him. He was still hiding from Jeffrey. When Kevin called, Yarborough told him that the group was back in Missouri. Kevin would later remember asking Yarborough the names of the group members who had gone into the wilderness. The chief began reciting names but when he said Dennis and Cheryl Avery, Kevin stopped him.
“Are you sure the Averys went with him?” Kevin asked.
“Yeah,” Yarborough said.
“I seriously doubt that, chief,” said Kevin. “Jeffrey would never take the Averys with him. . . . There are certain things that Jeffrey just won’t change. He might change scriptures and change his interpretations, but Jeffrey is convinced that the Averys are vile creatures and Jeffrey never changes his emotional judgments of people.”
After talking to Kevin, Yarborough looked through his notes. No one had interviewed the Averys when the FBI
questioned group members on April 18 at the farm. No one had seen the family since then either. Yarborough called Sheriff Thompson. Were Dennis and Cheryl Avery living at Jeffrey’s camp? he asked. Thompson couldn’t be certain. He knew that the Patricks had been there and that Danny Kraft had been in the group, but that was it.
“Damn!” Yarborough said, when he put down the telephone receiver.
The weather in Missouri turned so frigid just before Thanksgiving that Ron Luff contacted his brother, Rick, who owned a farm outside Warrensburg and asked him if the group could move onto his property. Rick had a loft in his house where the children could sleep at night. He had a barn that was just as big as the one in Chilhowee, but in better condition, and there was a small trailer on the property that Rick usually rented out. Rick said the group was welcome. Like Ron, he was deeply religious and he was curious about Jeffrey and his teachings.
No one missed the significance of the move. It had been Ron—not Jeffrey—who had made the decision. Ron had slowly taken over more and more control of the group. It was more by default than choice. Jeffrey simply wasn’t around, and when he was, he didn’t seem to care.
It took the group only one day to move. Jeffrey claimed the more comfortable trailer for himself, Kathy, and his children. Everyone else pitched their tents in the unheated barn. A rumor soon spread through the group: Jeffrey and Kathy were watching hard-core pornographic movies at night. Jeffrey was also using the group’s money to take Alice shopping at Bannister Mall in Kansas City during the day. One of the Lundgren children had accidentally let slip that Jeffrey had bought his family all new clothes but had made them leave them in Macks Creek so no one in the group would know.
Jeffrey didn’t care about the rumors. “I knew as soon as we left West Virginia that my people would turn against me,” he said later. “The Lord was really telling me that it was time for me to start over. These people were too impatient and soft.”
In mid-November, Jeffrey told Alice during one of his visits that he was making plans to shed his followers. The only one that he wanted to continue following him was Ron, he said. Jeffrey had decided to move to California once Alice was “well” enough to travel and he had collected enough money to finance the trip.