‘Dynamics’

of church part

of investigation

CARIBOU (AP) – Police held out the possibility that more than one person was involved in last week’s arsenic poisonings at a church, and are looking at the church’s inner workings as part of their investigation, officials said Monday.

Maine State Police Lt. Dennis Appleton said the state medical examiner completed an autopsy Monday on Daniel Bondeson, a longtime parishioner who is linked to the poisonings of 16 members of the Gustaf Adolph Evangelical Lutheran Church in New Sweden.

A gunshot wound to the chest was cited as the cause of death, according to the state medical examiner’s office. A determination of the manner of death – accident, suicide or homicide – was pending.

‘Bare our souls’

Arsenic-laced coffee killed 78-year-old Walter Morrill and hospitalized 15 others, at least three of whom remain in critical condition at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

Appleton said church members initially weren’t as candid as they could have been to police, but apparently later decided “we better just bare our souls.” Police are confident, he said, that the poisonings are related to the church community and are looking closely at the “dynamics” of the church.

“In the end we may find that they don’t sound like logical explanations for murder or poisoning…it probably was something that was grinding at some people for some time,” Appleton said.

Rumors continue to spread through New Sweden, a town of 621 in far northern Maine that prides itself on being a wholesome, upstanding community, settled by Swedish immigrants in the 1870s.

Shortly after police deemed Morrill’s death a homicide on Friday, Bondeson was found dead in his farm house in nearby Woodland, just across the town line from New Sweden. Bondeson worked on the family potato farm and at a Caribou nursing home, and at one time was a substitute gym teacher and ski coach at area schools.

Bondeson was at a church bake sale the day before the poisonings, but was not there for Sunday services, police said.

Two relatives said Monday they had seen Bondeson in the days after last Sunday’s poisonings and he was his usual reserved self.

Bondeson’s older brother, Paul, said the two talked Monday or Tuesday while Daniel was jogging near his farm house. “Nothing seemed strange,” Paul Bondeson, 58, said in the yard of his New Sweden home.

Daniel’s nephew, Sven Bondeson, 28, of nearby Westmanland, said his uncle helped him pack potatoes before heading to his job at a nursing home.

Both encounters happened prior to when police announced they were investigating the poisoning case as a homicide.

Police have raised the possibility that the arsenic used in the church poisonings came from a now-banned chemical product that might have been in storage on a local farm.

Paul Bondeson said that his sister Norma, who lived on the farm sporadically, never throws anything away, but added that he was not aware of any chemicals that may contain arsenic on the farm.

Speaking of his father, who died several years ago, Paul Bondeson said, “I can’t remember him ever using a deadly poison for top kill or anything like that.”

He described Daniel as a regular churchgoer, but added, “Lately in the last few years maybe he hasn’t been as active as he used to be.”

Still, Paul Bondeson said, the Bondeson siblings just last month gave a communion table to the church in memory of their late parents and two other relatives who died in recent years.

Bonnie Cyr, director of nursing at Caribou Nursing Home, where Bondeson was a certified nurses aide for a little over a year, said he last worked Thursday night. She said he had been scheduled at 3 p.m. Friday, and did not arrive.

“He came in, he said hello and nothing seemed unusual…nothing was reported to me as unusual by staff members,” she said.

She described him as a polite, quiet, dependable and patient employee.

AP-ES-05-05-03 2027EDT