In 1987, Kenny Richey was arrested and later convicted of arson and the aggravated murder of two-year-old Cynthia Collins. Despite the fact that new evidence presented to the court in 1997 establishes that Kenny is almost certainly an innocent man, he remains on death row in Ohio. More

Local and national activists fight to kill capital punishment with University of Toledo event
by Rick Claypool, The Toledo City Paper
For many, capital punishment is part of a simple equation: you commit murder, and, in certain circumstances, the state punishes you with death. The calculation goes, by denying an American citizen's right to live, you give up your own right to live. Simple. Just. Moral.

JOHN McCARTHY
Associated Press

LUCASVILLE, Ohio - Ohio executed a religious cult leader Tuesday for the murder of a family of five followers who were taken one at a time to a barn, bound and shot to death. The youngest was a girl just 7 years old.

Jeffrey Lundgren, 56, died by injection at 10:26 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility for the deaths of the Avery family.

"I profess my love for God, my family, for my children, for Kathy (his wife). I am because you are," Lundgren said in his final statement.

The evidence against Lundgren was compelling.

THOMAS J. SHEERAN
Associated Press

KIRTLAND, Ohio - Faith drew Jeffrey Lundgren to this northeast Ohio community important in Mormon history, but his role as a self-styled prophet led to his banishment from the church and eventually to death row for the cult killings of a family of five.

"I cannot say that God was wrong. I cannot say that I am sorry I did what God commanded me to do in the physical act," the husky former janitor, now 56, told a jury in 1990 in a bid to spare his life.

"I am a prophet of God. I am even more than a prophet. I am not a false prophet; therefore, I am not worthy of the (death) penalty."

By: Tracey Read
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Judges make decision late Monday to go forward with execution today
LUCASVILLE - Jeffrey Lundgren arrived Monday morning at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility to prepare for execution, and a three-judge panel overturned an order late Monday that could have kept him alive a little longer.
U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost last week issued an order temporarily stopping the execution to allow Lundgren to join the challenge of five other death row inmates challenging Ohio's use of lethal injection