Bangor, Maine – Nearly three years after parishioners drank arsenic-laced coffee at a church in northern Maine, detectives said they have decided that the only person to be implicated acted alone.
Daniel Bondeson, a church member, committed suicide days after the poisonings on April 27, 2003, that killed one person and sickened 15 others.
State police had believed Bondeson might have had an accomplice when he poisoned the coffee at Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church in New Sweden.
But investigators said Tuesday that they learned during grand jury proceedings late last year that Bondeson told his lawyer the day before he killed himself that he had acted alone.
Lawyer Peter Kelley had long sought to inform police about what Bondeson had told him but was constrained by attorney-client privilege that remained in force even after his 53-year-old client’s death.
Kelley eventually testified before a grand jury, and he broke his silence Tuesday after learning that the investigation was concluded.
