Case closed on Lutheran church arsenic poisoning in Maine

by Frank Imhoff, ELCA News Service

Maine State Police concluded April 18 that Daniel Bondeson acted
alone three years earlier, when he put arsenic in the coffee at
Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church, New Sweden, Maine, killing Walter
Reed Morrill and poisoning more than a dozen other church
members.  Later that week in 2003, Bondeson shot himself after
writing a suicide note, police said.  "Based upon the contents of
that note, investigators were satisfied that Mr. Daniel Bondeson
was involved in the poisoning incident at the Gustaf Adolph
Lutheran Church on April 27, 2003," Maine Deputy Attorney General
William R. Stokes told reporters, according to WLBZ-TV News,
Bangor, Maine.  Stokes said grand jury testimony convinced
investigators that Bondeson acted alone, but that testimony
cannot be made public.

"It appears that Mr. Bondeson did not intend to cause anyone's
death," Stokes told the news conference in Bangor, according to
Reuters.  "He expressed a belief that other people had done
something to him to upset his stomach -- whether that was literal
or figurative we're not sure," Stokes said.  "It was his form of
retaliation with the intent or the purpose to upset people's
stomach, make them sick, but he claimed that he did not
appreciate that what he was putting in there was arsenic, nor did
he realize the consequences."

LINKS:

Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church, New Sweden, Maine
http://www.galc.org/

Walter Reed Morrill
http://www.ELCA.org/news/Releases.asp?a=2510

Bondeson shot himself
http://www.ELCA.org/news/Releases.asp?a=2517

WLBZ-TV News, Bangor, Maine
http://www.wlbz2.com/newscenter/article.asp?id=34145

according to Reuters
http://tinyurl.com/zdgns