100 Murder Cases

Ellen Barry, Boston bureau chief:

Someone put arsenic in the coffee after a church service in New Sweden, Maine — sickening several congregants and killing one. I was sent up there in 2003 by The Boston Globe, to the far reaches of Aroostook County. It was both quaint and horrific, someone trying to kill their neighbors. Eventually, it emerged that one of the ushers had done it, as revenge for losing a theological battle. As the population in that area drained away, two small Lutheran churches were consolidated into one. Identical to outsiders, the two churches had what was for them a deeply significant doctrinal difference. In one, the priest faced the congregation when blessing the host; in the other, the priest faced the altar. The poisoner had lost that battle. He ultimately killed himself. It was a grim story about the dilemmas of those stretches of our country that are losing population, having to let go of their particular identity.