was it a joyful experience? you become desperate. desperate. you become desperate to bring these things about because this is what it has to be, it s the only access to life that there is. to control his followers, lundgren also uses guilt as a manipulation tactic. luff is told the sins of the world rests on his shoulders. it is a burden that is almost too much for luff to bear. the whole ethiopian famine was personally attributed to me as being failure on my part, so these people died. i remember tears coming out of my eyes, coming out of class at night, thinking my god, all these people are dead and it s my fault, you know? so i felt these things. they were real to me then. so a terrible burden to bear, this entire famine rests on your shoulders? and the fate of the world. a state of dread. you become completely dependent
sentences. by my hand they were to be killed. more than a year after the discovery of the avery s bodies, a dozen cult members plead guilty or are found guilty of sentences ranging from conspiracy to commit murder to aggravated murder. jeffrey lundgren is handed the death penalty. he is executed by lethal injection on october 24th, 2006. suzy luff is given a sentence of 7 to 25 years for conspiracy to commit murder. she is eligible for parole in 2010. ron luff s role in the murder, his second in command position within the group, pushed the prosecution to seek the death penalty. his attorney fights it. my job, as i viewed it, was to keep him out of the electric chair. i wasn t going to walk him out of there.
the avery s bodies. the statement that you gave us previously regarding your association with mr. jeff lundgren and others, was that statement done voluntarily without any threat or intimidation? completely voluntarily. he provides authorities with a detailed account of the murders as well as the motive behind their deaths. the whole reason for the avery homicides was that they had to what they call quench the fire of god, to make him refine his fire. and basically, jeff determined through his interpretation five had to be killed. lundgren convinced his followers the second coming of christ would only be possible through human sacrifice. earlier, you mentioned about feeding the fire. to put it into a simple explanation was that god s wrath must go out. when there s wickedness and there s always wickedness, and his wrath goes out. what produces the fire is that
lundgren is able to control all of his followers. he dictates their every move. for some, even their thoughts. no one around you ever had secret discussions? no, in fact, that kind of communication control is a huge part of the setting. without the setting, you don t have the effects that this kind of thing can bring about. how was that imposed? how did he impose the control over 20 people? well, there s the subtleness of eventually keeping certain conversations restricted. in other words, there are certain things you don t need to talk about and there are certain things you shouldn t talk about. and there s a lot of reprisals for any time someone would do something. a form of nonphysical punishment. lundgren convinces luff and the other followers that their sins will delay the second
coming of christ. there s threats of eternal damnation going here. it s not just your own, it s your wife, it s your children, but it s also the whole world because if this thing doesn t happen, people will die. lundgren manipulates the group to convince them there are consequences, mandated by god, if they do not follow his every word. we had a rabbitry, a couple pets like this, well, they would end up dead. of course, it s pretty obvious, i think now, that lungren was killing these creatures. and so every time that happened, he said that s because they re sin in the midst. that meant that there would be a cost. at this point, it was a cost to some animal. but it also meant that it would postpone this fulfillment that we were supposed to be seeking, which meant that more people would die. were you afraid, living in this context?