May 8, 2003

CHICAGO - Public health and law enforcement officials in Maine ruled the death of Daniel Bondeson, 53, to be a suicide and indicated that a note found in Bondeson's Woodland, Maine, home linked him and possibly others to an arsenic poisoning that killed one and sickened more than a dozen other members of Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church, New Sweden, Maine, a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Members of the congregation in northeast Maine became nauseated Sunday afternoon, April 27, shortly after drinking coffee and eating sandwiches and sweets at the church. Walter Reid Morrill, 78, died the next day from what Maine health officials identified as arsenic poisoning.

Medical teams at Cary Medical Center, Caribou, Maine, and Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine, treated Morrill and 15 other adult members of the congregation for arsenic poisoning.

It is common to find traces of arsenic in Maine groundwater, according to state health officials. The poison is available in rural areas of Maine, where it was once used as a pesticide.

On May 1, Maine State Police Lt. Dennis Appleton told reporters that arsenic was found only in a church coffee pot - not in the church's sugar supply or groundwater, that the arsenic was deliberately placed in the coffee pot and that Morrill's death was a homicide.

The next day, Bondeson died of a single gunshot wound to the chest, according to the state medical examiner's office.

In a May 5 news briefing, Appleton said police found a note Bondeson left in his home but did not disclose its contents. He said, based on the note's contents, the poisoning investigation would continue, especially studying the "dynamics" of the congregation. Disputes within the congregation were among several possible motives state police officials are investigating, said Appleton.

A member of Gustaf Adolph, Bondeson worked on his family's potato farm and at a nursing home. Other congregation members told police he attended a bake sale at the church the day before the poisonings but did not return to church on Sunday.

The Rev. Margaret G. Payne, bishop of the ELCA New England Synod, Worcester, Mass., preached May 4, during the first Sunday worship service at Gustaf Adolph after the poisoning. Maine Gov. John Baldacci attended.

"God's choice to become human in Jesus Christ was a choice to come and be with us in all our brokenness and suffering," said Payne. "God has come. God is here," she said.

Payne referred to the Gospel story in which Jesus' disciples were mourning his death. "Jesus himself stood among them and said to them: 'Peace be with you.'"

"Jesus comes to bring the end to the grief and fear and confusion, and to bring peace. Jesus is here now, bringing peace," Payne said.

"You have shared the gift of God's love with many people over the years, and it is that same love that now grieves so deeply with the Morrill family, that suffers with all the people in the congregation who are ill, and that surrounds the Bondeson family as they grieve for Danny and suffer all the agony of the present investigations," she said.

"Seeing the way that you have loved, I know that God is here," said Payne.

The Rev. James P. Morgan, an Episcopal priest and pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Stockholm, Maine, has been serving Gustaf Adolph on a part-time basis while the congregation works with the ELCA New England Synod to find its own pastor. The Rev. Elaine C. Hewes, Redeemer Lutheran Church, Bangor, is assisting Morgan in counseling family members and friends of the congregation.

The Portland (Maine) Press Herald reported that on May 6 seven Gustaf Adolph members were at Eastern Maine Medical Center. Dale Anderson, Ralph Ostlund and Lester Beaupre were in critical condition - having "vital signs that were unstable and not within normal limits" - and Carroll Ruggles, Frances Ruggles, Herman Fisher and Robert Bengson remained in serious condition - having "vital signs that might be unstable and outside normal limits." The paper also said three members were treated and released, while five others remained in fair condition at Cary Medical Center.

Congregations of the ELCA are organized into 65 synods, each headed by a bishop. The New England Synod includes congregations in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Redeemer Lutheran Church has established a fund to assist family members with room and board expenses while visiting those hospitalized at the Eastern Maine Medical Center, which is more than 175 miles from New Sweden. Checks with "for Families of Gustaf Adolph" on the memo line may be sent to Redeemer Lutheran Church, 540 Essex Street, Bangor, Maine 04401.

A "Joint Statement from New Sweden Families" is available at http://emmc.org/News/Joint+Statement+from+New+Sweden+Families.htm on the medical center's Web site. The May 7 statement said "everyone who was listed in critical condition has been upgraded to serious, and everyone who was listed in serious condition has been upgraded to fair."

The June 2003 issue of The Lutheran, the magazine of the ELCA, includes an article by Julie Sevig, "Faith over Fear: After Arsenic Poisoning, Maine Congregation Receives 'An Extra Dose of Consolation.'" The story is available at http://www.thelutheran.org/0306/page35.html on the Web.

ELCA News Service