AMESBURY, Mass. (AP) – Maine State Police searched a house Sunday where the sister of a man believed responsible for the church arsenic poisonings in Maine has lived for more than a decade, according to neighbors.
Norma Bondeson, 61, was so distraught and teary-eyed after meeting with police that she uncharacteristically walked into a neighbor’s kitchen without knocking first, the neighbor told The Boston Globe.
Bondeson is the sister of Daniel Bondeson, who police say was involved in last month’s arsenic poisonings at the Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church in New Sweden, Maine. One man died and 15 others were hospitalized after drinking arsenic-laced coffee following the April 27 worship service.
Five days later, Daniel Bondeson, a longtime worshipper, shot himself in the chest and left a suicide note that convinced investigators he was involved in the poisonings but may not have acted alone.
Another neighbor in Amesbury, Nancy Knapp, 79, described Norma Bondeson as a particularly generous neighbor, offering hot meals and free yard work to an elderly woman down the block during an illness.
Investigators also interviewed Sanford Carlisle, a 66-year-old businessman who has been Bondeson’s companion and owns the house, hoping to tap his “insight into…Norma,” said Maine State Police Lt. Dennis Appleton, the lead investigator in the case.
During the week after the poisoning, Carlisle and Bondeson “did at least touch bases, but didn’t have any great communication,” Appleton said.
Outside the house Tuesday, Carlisle said Norma Bondeson “lived here from time to time.” He said he thought she was in Massachusetts at the time of the poisonings, although he was out of state at the time.
Norma Bondeson has lived most of her adult life outside of New Sweden, but had recently taken an increasingly active role in the church.
With the house in Amesbury on the market, she had spent long stretches of the winter living with Daniel in New Sweden.
AP-ES-05-21-03 2201EDT
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