Leader of Cult Stashed Arms in December : Crime: A self-storage locker rented last month in Chula Vista contained guns and ammunition belonging to Jeffrey D. Lundgren, who was arrested Sunday in the ritualistic slayings of an Ohio family.

The leader of a religious cult, arrested Sunday at a National City motel in the ritualistic slayings of an Ohio family, had been in Chula Vista in mid-December to cache guns, ammunition and paramilitary gear, authorities learned Monday.

While police combed Southern California on Monday for the two remaining fugitives indicted in the killings, law enforcement authorities nationwide were left to speculate why defrocked minister Jeffrey D. Lundgren--and his entourage--came to the San Diego region, how long they had been in the area and what they intended to do with the weapons.

Preparing for an extradition hearing today, prosecutors’ leading theory was that Lundgren, his wife and family were preparing to flee to Mexico to evade police. But they also were studying the “rumor” that Lundgren experienced a “vision” that told him to go to Mexico, said Steven C. LaTourette, a Lake County, Ohio, prosecutor.

Federal agents coordinating the nationwide search that led to Lundgren’s arrest said they had “no direct ties” linking him to San Diego.

“We have not been able to determine why he came here,” said April Freud, a spokeswoman at the San Diego office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Federal agents confirmed only that Lundgren had rented a self-storage locker Dec. 17 in Chula Vista and had filled it with weapons, ammunition and military-style gear, Freud said. When agents searched the locker late Sunday afternoon, they found a handgun, two rifles, a shotgun, explosive powder, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a fire ax and gas masks, Freud said.

Earlier Sunday, when ATF agents and National City police arrested Lundgren, 39, a defrocked minister of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they found four guns, more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, knives, gas masks and canteens at his Santa Fe Motel room.

At the motel, agents also arrested Lundgren’s wife, Alice; his oldest son, 19-year-old Damon P. Lundgren, and took temporary custody of three of the couple’s younger children.

Lundgren, his wife and oldest son refused extradition Monday and were being held at San Diego County jails, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Hewicker said. Charges for the father and son included five counts of aggravated murder with Ohio’s death-penalty specifications, prosecutor LaTourette said.

The three younger children--Jason, 15; Kristen, 10, and Jason, 9--were in “safe hands” in San Diego, Freud said, but declined to elaborate.

The arrests Sunday left police seeking only two of the 13 cult members indicted in Ohio in the killings of Dennis and Cheryl Avery and their three young daughters, authorities said.

Kathryn Renee Johnson, 36, and Daniel David Kraft, 25, last seen Saturday in San Diego, were believed to be driving a light blue 1986 Nissan pickup truck, Freud said. The vehicle has a silver camper top, a dented front fender and either Ohio or Missouri license plates, she said.

“We still anticipate them to be in the Southern California area,” Freud said. It is “highly probable” that the pair is “armed and dangerous,” she said.

The bodies of the Averys--Dennis, 49; his wife, Cheryl, 42, and their daughters, Trina, 13; Rebecca, 9, and Karen, 5--were found last week buried in a barn near Kirtland, Ohio, which is near Cleveland. The faces, heads and feet of all five were bound with duct tape, and each had been shot at least twice.

The Averys were identified as one-time followers of Lundgren, who had declared himself the “prophet” of his own religion after his 1988 break with the church.

The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is not related to the larger Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints based in Salt Lake City, although both groups base their beliefs on the Book of Mormon and the Bible.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, investigators believe the Averys were killed last April in a sacrifice performed so that the rest of Lundgren’s group could travel to the wilderness, where they could be cleansed and search for a “golden sword.”

The killings were not discovered until an informer mentioned them on New Year’s Eve, officials said.

The Averys were killed with a .45-caliber handgun, and prosecutor LaTourette said he was hoping that the murder weapon would turn up in the Chula Vista storage locker. The locker, however, yielded a 9-millimeter handgun, two semiautomatic rifles and a shotgun, Freud said.

Police recovered a .45-caliber handgun at the motel room. Freud said it, like the other weapons, would be sent to an ATF laboratory in San Francisco for ballistics and fingerprint tests, but authorities could not yet identify it as the murder weapon.

The killings occurred during a one-hour period sometime between April 16 and 18 on a farm owned by the 29-member cult, which lived communally.

Neighbors said the group left the house hurriedly in mid-April, leaving behind chickens and rabbits. They became somewhat nomadic, authorities said, traveling first to West Virginia, then to southwestern Missouri, then to the suburbs of Kansas City and Independence, Mo.

Since Friday, when seven members of the cult were arrested in Kansas City, Mo., law enforcement officials in nine states had been searching for Lundgren and his family.

Lundgren rented a 5-by-4-foot locker at Security First Self Storage in Chula Vista on Dec. 17, paying $56 for two months’ rent at $28 a month, manager Doug Reed said. The contents were moved between 1:55 and 2:45 p.m. the next day, Dec. 18, Reed said.

Records do not indicate any further visits to the locker, Reed said, adding that he would not have allowed weapons to be moved in if he had known about them.

He said he “couldn’t believe it” when agents removed guns and ammunition.

“They just seemed like average, everyday people,” Reed said.

Because of the Dec. 17 rental, police had “reason to believe (Lundgren) has been in the area for approximately a month,” Freud said. That suspicion has not been confirmed, though, she said.

She added, “It’s sheer speculation as to where they came from or how they got here.”

The Lundgren family checked in last Wednesday night at the Santa Fe Motel under a bogus name, motel managers said. The room, at $37.80 a night, had been paid for through today, they said.

Johnson and Kraft may have visited, because “we were told that at one time eight people were in that room,” Freud said. “But we don’t know whether those people were visiting or staying overnight. And we don’t know the identity of those other people for sure.”

Five of the seven members of the cult arrested in Kansas City have waived extradition to Ohio, LaTourette said Monday. He said he is heading to Missouri today to discuss the other two cases.

An eighth member, Sharon Blunchly, waived extradition Monday in Bay City, Mich., LaTourette said.

Because his Ohio county of about 220,000 people averages one murder case a year, the 17 prosecutors on his staff and the county’s defense lawyers were “scrambling” to figure out how to handle the Avery cases, LaTourette said.

“We’re going to have to take a look at how to facilitate these prosecutions,” he said.