It was April 27th, 2003, a quiet Sunday morning and Walter Reed Morrill slid down the

row of his usual dark-stained wooden pew at Gustav Adolf Lutheran Church in New Sweden, Maine.

It was still chilly in northern Maine, but the sunshine peaked between clouds and through the Lancet arch windows of the church casting shadows on the faces of his

fellow parishioners, his neighbors as they all rose from their seats and made their way

to the Fellowship Hall for morning refreshments. Reed heard there were leftovers from the bake

sale the day before. It would be the perfect pairing for the strong Swedish

coffee they always served in the Fellowship Hall.

What they didn't know that morning of April 23rd, 2003 was that their strong Swedish

coffee was tainted, and one of their own was responsible for what would become one of the largest

intentional mass poisonings in modern medical history, using a substance that was

known all too well among the small community of potato farmers.

I'm Kylie Lowe and this is the case of the New Sweden

parishioner poisonings on Dark Down East. In

In 1870, the American Consul to Sweden and the newly appointed Commissioner of Immigration,

Mr. William W Thomas Jr. recruited 51 immigrants to move their lives from their Nordic homes to the northernmost part of Maine.

Thus began Maine's Swedish colony with the first township of New Sweden.

The population of New Sweden, Maine was just over 600 at last count.

It's a small but self-sufficient community.

Everyone knows everyone, as cliche as that might sound,

but it's really hard not to when many of the

residents can trace their lineage back to those original 51 Swedish immigrants.

I found it interesting in my research for this case that New Sweden was the birthplace and home of Einar Gustafsen.

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