On this day, April 17, 1989, Jeffrey Lundgren, the leader of a religious cult, ordered the death of a family of five on a farm in Ohio. Lundgren had been a lay minister for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but was defrocked in 1988 for preaching radical doctrines.
He formed his own sect, and moved his followers to a farm about 25 miles east of Cleveland.
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Lundgren told his followers to dig a pit in the barn, then ordered his followers to kill a husband, wife and three daughters to fulfill his prophecy that members of the commune had to be sacrificed if they wanted to see God.
The bodies were discovered by police nine months later. Lundgren was sentenced to death and executed in 2006.
— Scott McCabe
