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NEW SWEDEN, Maine - The police tape is gone and the satellite trucks have decamped, but this once placid farming community remains deeply unsettled four weeks after 16 churchgoers were poisoned by arsenic-laced coffee.
The crime shocked New Sweden's 621 residents, and talk of a conspiracy has confounded a town where many leave their homes unlocked and their car keys in the ignition.
"The one thing we always loved about living here was being able to trust everyone," said Brenda Jepson, who lives nearby and has produced documentary films about the community. "There is a fear that life isn't like it used to be."
The first sign that something was amiss came on April 27 as worshipers munched on baked goods at a church social hour. Some said the coffee tasted odd. Those who drank it became ill. By morning, a 78-year-old man was dead and several others were in critical condition.
The mystery deepened when a member of Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church, where the parishioners were poisoned, committed suicide on his family farm and was implicated in the crime. Investigators quickly said they did not believe Daniel Bondeson spiked the coffee on his own, leading to the chilling conclusion that someone else, still out there, was involved in the plot.
That leaves a community on edge over a case that State Police Lt. Dennis Appleton, who is leading the investigation, said could close next week or next year.
Appleton believes the poisonings emerged from a stew of personal grudges and church politics. Police are considering the possibility the arsenic was meant to harm members of the 12-member church council, at least four of whom ended up hospitalized, according to church members.
One issue under investigation is the Bondeson family's donation of a communion table that sat unused for a few weeks. Another is the possibility that the 132-year-old church was to be consolidated with neighboring congregations.
But worshipers say whatever disputes existed were minor. "Compared to murder, they were just a tempest in a teapot," said church member Raymond Hildebrand.