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Poisoned Coffee Mystery: Arsenic Death Stuns Maine Church
Police are trying to figure out who laced a Maine church congregation’s coffee with arsenic, as they now consider the poisoning death of an elderly parishioner a homicide.
State police said Thursday they had opened a murder investigation into the death of 78-year-old Walter Reid Morrill, who died the day after falling ill at a church reception Sunday.
Morrill’s death was declared a homicide after the Maine Bureau of Health and a private laboratory in Pennsylvania confirmed that the source of arsenic was in the brewed coffee served at the reception.
At least a dozen other members of the Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church in New Sweden, Maine, reported feeling sick after the reception. Two remained hospitalized in critical condition Thursday, while the condition of a third was upgraded from critical to serious.
Police declined to reveal the details of their investigation. However, they did say tests on the tap water, sugar and unbrewed coffee in the can at the church tested negative for arsenic, suggesting the congregation’s poisoning was not an accident.
“Arsenic has been confirmed in biological samples from the victims,” said Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, in a statement. “This investigation has produced no evidence that supports a conclusion that the arsenic was introduced into the coffee accidentally.”
Arsenic Item Found
Police are still interviewing members of the church. More than two dozen churchgoers said they drank the contaminated coffee at the reception and some said it had a peculiar taste.
Despite initial indications of homicide, state police Lt. Dennis Appleton said detectives were still investigating the possibility that soaps, cleansers and other materials in the church that may have contained arsenic were used to clean coffee containers. Police have found an item containing arsenic, Appleton said, but he declined to describe it.
Morrill was a longtime member of the congregation who lived next door to the church and acted as its caretaker and head usher. A biographical sketch of Morrill on the Web site “Maine’s Historic Swedish Colony” says he was a World War II veteran and is survived by his wife, Eleanor, two children and four granddaughters.
The Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church is in New Sweden, a small town in northern Maine with a population of about 650. The church was organized in August 1871 by 221 men as the First Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church of New Sweden and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
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