jack and rhonda lunsford are gone.
we were just getting to know this couple. we met him at the tulsa flea market, and purchased quite a few items from him. he did mostly mosaics made from hand cut images, painstakingly etched out with a blade knife, and then glued to a backboard. he did beautiful work. rhonda did glass work, stained glass and objects as well. i only met her once, but she seemed nice. they didnt live far from us.
last valentines day they left for europe for a two month tour. they sold everything, including the house, saying they were getting a loft downtown when they came back. didnt want to have the responsibility of a house, and were retiring from the professional side of the art world. they were both well known in both the art and the entertainment world, i believe. i thought it odd they gave away their beloved chihuahuas, but i figured they just didnt want to take care of anything anymore.
no one knew they only bought one way tickets to italy.
so he had diabetes and arthritis, and she had arthritis. yet both were still mobile and independent. she was very into ghost hunting and past lives, and he was some kind of fatalist buddhist. his answer to me when i mentioned to him my grief over the haitian tragedy was ‘i dont feel any compassion or sympathy for them. they chose to live there’. that made me sick. i really didnt expect something like that from someone i thought was such a caring person. he also didnt really take care of his diabetes, and was very overweight. im sure he had high blood pressure, and likely clogged arteries. their diets were really bad. she was equally overweight. you cant eat like they did all the time and expect to be healthy, or overcome problems, or even manage them well.
yet this was why, according to their letter, they ended their lives in a hotel room in italy. that and stating they had no one, so they were going to ‘step over to the other side’.
never mind the trauma to the person who had to discover their dead bodies. never mind the mess that people make when they die, and lose their bowels and their urine all over. never mind the people here who were close to them, who were devastated by this.
never mind the people – including the young children right here in oklahoma who have had multiple amputations due to the recent meningitis infections lately – who have it much worse and still fight to live.
as long as jack and rhonda are comfortable, thats all that really matters.
i hope they like where they are.
another room 
Sad tale of hopeless people. No one greater than self is a lonely, miserable life. It has to be for in the moments I fight that demon my misery cup runs over. I turn and run. Father receive me again into your loving arms. That is the only escape. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
ya me too. everything i have faced in the years since i made Jesus my Lord and Savior, i have always had His Presence with me. i have gone though some very trying ordeals with no one else to help me. it can all sound very nobel when you describe it to someone. but when youre in the midst of a season like that, living it, with no idea how long it will last or how deliverence will come, its a very different thing. you have to know Whom you have believed, and why you put your trust in Him, to stand and sustain your stance. its has to be more than just a world view or a belief system then. it has to be more than just a ‘personal truth’. it better be true if its going to work.k☼
Suicide is inherantly horribly selfish no matter how you look at it. I will never forget when suicide came and knocked on my door. It left me with a friend who put a bullet through his head and a heart broken family. The bible talks about knowing trees by their fruit…the suicide tree has no good fruit whatsoever.
a sad tale if ever i heard one.You have to ask what dark corner they felt they had been backed in to so that suicide was the answere
Suicide is so senseless… I’ll never understand it… the people that are left behind have to pick up the pieces…I do truly hope that they are in a good place and are ok… And they will be remembered through you and the pieces you have purchased…
Jack Lunsford was a wonderful man, I knew and worked with him for years. Rhonda is alive, she had a pulse when they found them and was rushed to a Rome hospital her stomach as pumped and she’s still in Rome. I feel terrible for them both. Obviously they didn’t feel like they had another way out. Please pray for her, pray for Jack, he deserves our prayer and good memories.
Please, I am a dear friend and colleague of Rhonda’s. The person who wrote with "no name", could you contact me: Linda@RavenHeartCenter.com
omg!! im just getting back to this post ;( im so sorry whoever you are ;'(k☼
just a note – i hope you werent offended by my post – i was really angry. i cant really cope with suicide.k☼
Linda, I found out later in the day that I was misinformed, Rhonda passed away later in the hospital. I do feel terrible that no one will be able to claim them, fly them home and bury them here. What happens to them in Italy if nobody claims them? They deserve better. Jack and Rhonda were two of the kindest souls I have ever known.
jennifer, im sorry this hurt you so deeply. thats why i hate suicide so much. its the people left in the wake that are wounded.they had this planned and long thought out, and told no one the truth. they told everyone here that they were purchasing a warehouse loft downtown for when they came back. jack discribed it to me in detail. but the tickets they bought to europe were one way. they knew they wouldnt be claimed, and they made no provisions to be.im really sorry for all the people who cared about them who were hurt through this.k☼
a sad tale in so many ways
I do not see suicide as a way out. This is something I do not comprehend. I understand the person(s) must be mentally ill in some way to go to this extreme. It is true…they dont think what it will do to the people that will find them. I cant imagine the scars the people will carry for life having to witness that. It is too bad that some of the people that commit this, are thinking "They will feel bad or sorry when they find my body." I dont believe they are thinking of the innocent people that find them. It is a selfish act. But again…their brains are not functioning properly. It is a sad thing.
what makes this even worse, is the way they deceived some of us into helping them do this thing, as we did by selling some of their stuff for them, or buying some of their stuff. all the while being told it was to simplify their lives for when they returned from europe. we both feel used and taken.k☼
In a way I understand my old elderly neighbour shooting himself rather than face the cancer he had, I understand his healthy but lonely widow taking pills and sitting in the garden shed until she died of hypothermia a year later. I do not understand the young friend of my daughter who was glad for her to talk her out of her suicidal plans then only to be found dead last week having choked on her own vomit in a drunken stupor. Some problems cannot be resolved, some problems would resolve themselves given time. Some of us are lucky to have the strength to persevere and overcome.
life is not fair. but the good news is there is Someone who has overcome the tribulations life throws at us, and is there to put us over if we will let Him. im really sorry for your daughter, losing her friend like that. i hope she is ok ;(k☼
Just heard the very sad news about Jack and Rhonda. I worked with Jack for quite a few years and shared a lot of good times and conversations together at work and enjoyed his and Rhonda’s company at their house on a few occasions and have several beautiful posters Jack got for me that hang prominently in our house and will help us remember two dear people. I’ll also always be grateful to Jack for introducing me to various bands through CD’s he gave me over the years. What a colorful person, including literally. I remember how thrilled he was showing off his first tattoos. Shame I’d lost touch with him the past couple years. I don’t think there was hardly a time when he didn’t have some perfect gift to give me or sell me for way below the price he could have sold it for. Thanks Rhonda for your hospitality and thanks Jack for your friendship. My prayers and thoughts will be with you both.
Also, sorry I forgot. Please read about Flea’s illness. Flea had this horrible condition last year. I have traced back to his vet when Jack had him but it wasn’t as bad as it is now. I’m so afraid to lose him. He even looks like Jack and Cha chi looks like Rhonda. If you have any recommendations after reading my note on facebook, please let me know. You can also reach me at mlcrow88@yahoo.com. thank youMonica
My wife and I lived next door to the Lunsfords for 10 years, 1995-2005. We just found out about this two days ago and were shocked. Even more shocked to read the stories here. Very sad that they thought that no one cared about them when it’s obvious here that many people did.
Jon, I don’t know how you found out but that had to be tough. You probably knew them better than all of us.
im just so sorry, really. they tried to sell everything and all the proceeds went to that raven heart center. had we known that was the intent, we never would have helped them sell their stuff.
k☼
Jack Lunsford was a theif, and he did the whole world a favor by killing himself. Thanks Jack!
I have thought of Rhonda and Jack so many times over the last few years – as I drive past their street, as I work on glass pieces… When I see a rock and roll collage.. The Rhonda and Jack I knew were hospitable, fun and extremely interesting. I grieved for them, and can’t begin to explain why they did what they did. It would not be my way, but I am not them, though I wish I was half as talented as they were. I and other glass workers have missed Rhonda’s sense of humor and her smiling face. I will always remember them fondly.
im sorry 😦 suicide always bothers me. but know this much, it wasnt dispair that led them to this choice. it was the belief in a teaching by a woman rhonda knew, that they would get new bodies and come back for another life on earth. they also gave most of their money to this woman and her foundation before they left. we grieved as well. it hit my husband particularly hard. but we choose to remember them as we knew them, funny, warm, and interesting people.
My husband and I recently moved to Tacoma WA and found a cd-rom Rhonda had given to me after a past life regression session she did for me in 2008. I had completely forgotten about the CD until I came across it this past weekend. I got curious where Rhonda and her husband were at and looked to google.
Thank you for making this post. I knew Rhonda in 2008/2009 but had no idea what happened in 2010. I’m curious to know their true reasons.