CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : EL CAJON : Cult Leader Admitted Killing Ohio Family, Agent Tells Court

The leader of a religious cult admitted to his followers that he killed five members of an Ohio family and had members of his group help bury the victims, according to a court affidavit. Self-proclaimed prophet Jeffery Lundgren, 39; his wife, Alice Elizabeth, 38; their eldest son, Damon, 19, and 10 others have been charged in the shooting deaths of Dennis Avery, 49; his wife Cheryl, 42, and their daughters, Trina, 15, Rebecca, 13, and Karen, 6. At least one of the defendants admitted seeing Lundgren shoot a member of the Avery family, and other followers said Lundgren “had an affinity” for the Colt .45, believed to be the murder weapon, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent said in the affidavit. The Averys were allegedly killed execution-style on a Kirtland farm last April. In a search warrant affidavit, filed Sunday in El Cajon Municipal Court, ATF Agent Richard Van Haelst of the bureau’s Kansas City office said he interviewed cult members who gave him “detailed descriptions of the murders in question and Jeffrey Paul Lundgren’s admissions to those homicides.” One member interviewed said he saw Lundgren shoot one person and that “the one murder that he actually observed was committed with the particular handgun . . . the Colt .45,” Van Haelst’s affidavit said.