An Ohio judge has delayed the execution of a former cult leader and convicted murderer who claims that obesity and diabetes will put him at a greater risk for suffering during lethal injection.

Jeffrey Lundgren

Jeffrey Lundgren, once a self-styled prophet in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was scheduled to die Oct. 24 for the shooting deaths of his followers, Dennis and Cheryl Avery, and their three daughters, ages 7 to 13, on April 17, 1989.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost granted Lundgren's request for intervention based on his arguments that the current lethal injection protocols are insufficient to ensure that he will not suffer "excruciating and conscious pain."

Moreover, Lundgren's lawyer claims that he suffers from medical conditions that would interfere with the effectiveness of the lethal cocktail and exacerbate his suffering.

"The general expert opinion is that the protocols currently in use in Ohio carry a high probability that the condemned prisoner will suffer extreme and conscious pain," appellate attorney James Jenkins told CourtTVnews.com. "Mr. Lundgren is diabetic and hypertensive and I think those conditions will increase the probability of his suffering."

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The arguments are based on the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment for those in the criminal justice system.

The stay comes less than two weeks after the Ohio Parole Board recommended against clemency for Lundgren, who told the board that God had commanded him to carry out the killings.

The Avery family had moved from Missouri to Ohio in 1987 to join Lundgren's remote RLDS congregation, a group that has its roots in Mormonism. By 1988, the RLDS had excommunicated Lundgren, but he continued his teachings out of a farmhouse that he shared with select members of his flock.

According to several former followers who testified in Lundgren's murder and kidnapping trial, the man they referred to as "Dad" said the murders were part of a plan to recapture their temple, bring forth the return of Jesus and reestablish Zion.

Less than a week before the murders, Lundgren's followers dug a pit in the farmhouse to prepare for the murders, or what Lundgren referred to as a "pruning of the vineyard."

On April 17, Lundgren invited the Avery family to the farmhouse for dinner. After they ate, each member of the family was bound and gagged and placed in the pit, where Lundgren shot them to death.