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Interview With Maine Spokesman Steve McCausland

Aired May 01, 2003 - 14:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Police in the tiny town of New Sweden, Maine have a mystery on their hands. They wonder who might want to poison members of the village's old Lutheran church. One man is dead, 12 other people are being treated for arsenic poisoning.
Christine Young of our affiliate station WMTW has more on the investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE YOUNG, WMTW CORRESPONDENT: New Sweden, Maine, rolling hills, potato farms, and a lovely old church dating back to 1871, about the time the town the settled by Swedes. Their descendants still live in New Sweden, about 600 of them, and they all know and trust one another like family.

SARA ANDERSON, STORE OWNER: If you don't know one of the people that is sick in the hospital, you know their parents or their children or their brother or sister or grandparents. It's a community where, in one way or another, it affects everybody.

YOUNG: The idea that someone within this tight knit community would deliberately poison their neighbors is unthinkable here.

ANDERSON: No one -- no one local anyway, has even brought up the thought that they think this could be done intentionally. That is by far probably the furthest thing from anybody's mind at this point.

YOUNG: But somehow, after Sunday services, 13 members of Gustaf Adolph congregation took in so much arsenic that they had to be hospitalized.

Walter Reid Morrill, a golf lover with recent heart problems, died 12 hours later. Two others remain in critical condition. Some locals are spooked.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You'll never know. If they will do that in God's house, what would they do outside?

YOUNG: The town's wells and ground water have been ruled out as possible sources of the toxins. But something in the church -- police won't say what -- tested positive for arsenic.

LT. DENNIS APPLETON, MAINE STATE POLICE: We have not identified how the arsenic arrived in this building.

YOUNG: There are eight state police detectives, two supervisors, and a lieutenant trying to find that out. There are theories suggesting an accident.

ANDERSON: And many people use different chemicals to clean their sinks or toilets or coffee pots. Anything at all because of such high contents of rust and other minerals in the water.

YOUNG: Police are also investigating the possibility of something much more sinister.

APPLETON: Hopefully, if there is a conflict, we will find the person who is willing to step forward and tell us that if there happens to be one.

YOUNG: And while police haven't called this a crime, the church is looking an awful lot like a crime scene.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: All right. We're going to call it arsenic and Amazing Grace, I guess. Thanks to Christine Young of our affiliate station WMTW for that report, and to Sonya Houston (ph) for that line. It's a good line, "arsenic and Amazing Grace."

An expert in environmental medicine says it takes a lot of arsenic to kill someone, and so far police say there is no evidence the poisonings occurred accidentally through the use of cleaning supplies.

Joining us now to talk about this a little more is Steve McCausland. He is the spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety. Mr. McCausland, good to have you with us.

STEVE MCCAUSLAND, SPOKESMAN, MAINE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: Good afternoon, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. What's your best guess? Is there a crime there, or is it a tragic mistake?

MCCAUSLAND: I can tell you that there are new developments literally as we are speaking. The Maine Attorney General's Office is crafting a statement which is most likely going to be released within the next hour. Our investigators have made some significant progress here today, and I'm anticipating new information, probably, within the next hour.

O'BRIEN: Oh, my gosh. I hate that when you do it. You say you're going to release it in an hour. Can you give us a sense as to which direction this might be heading with full wink and nod capability here?

MCCAUSLAND: Without getting into specifics, this is no accident.

O'BRIEN: OK. Thank you very much. That gives us a sense of where things are going. Now, when you -- it almost has the feel of an Agatha Christy novel, but I suspect that somewhat trivializes what we are talking about here. Certainly, I would think in your long tenure there in Maine, you haven't run across one quite like this? MCCAUSLAND: We have had some cases in the past, within the last 30 years, but nothing of this magnitude. We have one person dead, 15 people in the hospital, and a tiny community that's obviously been torn apart in anxiety as to what happened to their local Lutheran church.

State police, the Maine health lab, the Maine Attorney General's Office, and the Maine State Medical Examiner's Office have been working overtime all week to come up with the source of the arsenic that affected and made sick so many people.

We think we've made some progress today, and most likely before the day is out, the rest of the state will know what we're talking about.

O'BRIEN: You know, listening to the people there, as they talk about it, and just reading about this town, most people are hard pressed to come up with a motive, or for that matter, anybody who doesn't like anybody in that town.

MCCAUSLAND: This is a very small community in northern Maine, Miles. The population is only 621 people. Everyone knows each other. This is a tight knit community, and everyone in Maine, from the governor on down, has been concerned about what has happened this week, and has been working overtime to try to get some answers. And before the day is out, we may have some of those answers, at least, to tell the public about.

O'BRIEN: Steve McCausland, who is a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety, joining us from Augusta. Thanks very much for your insights, and we will of course, keep our viewers posted as that announcement comes forward in the next hour.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired May 1, 2003 - 14:37   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Police in the tiny town of New Sweden, Maine have a mystery on their hands. They wonder who might want to poison members of the village's old Lutheran church. One man is dead, 12 other people are being treated for arsenic poisoning.
Christine Young of our affiliate station WMTW has more on the investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE YOUNG, WMTW CORRESPONDENT: New Sweden, Maine, rolling hills, potato farms, and a lovely old church dating back to 1871, about the time the town the settled by Swedes. Their descendants still live in New Sweden, about 600 of them, and they all know and trust one another like family.

SARA ANDERSON, STORE OWNER: If you don't know one of the people that is sick in the hospital, you know their parents or their children or their brother or sister or grandparents. It's a community where, in one way or another, it affects everybody.

YOUNG: The idea that someone within this tight knit community would deliberately poison their neighbors is unthinkable here.

ANDERSON: No one -- no one local anyway, has even brought up the thought that they think this could be done intentionally. That is by far probably the furthest thing from anybody's mind at this point.

YOUNG: But somehow, after Sunday services, 13 members of Gustaf Adolph congregation took in so much arsenic that they had to be hospitalized.

Walter Reid Morrill, a golf lover with recent heart problems, died 12 hours later. Two others remain in critical condition. Some locals are spooked.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You'll never know. If they will do that in God's house, what would they do outside?

YOUNG: The town's wells and ground water have been ruled out as possible sources of the toxins. But something in the church -- police won't say what -- tested positive for arsenic.

LT. DENNIS APPLETON, MAINE STATE POLICE: We have not identified how the arsenic arrived in this building.

YOUNG: There are eight state police detectives, two supervisors, and a lieutenant trying to find that out. There are theories suggesting an accident.

ANDERSON: And many people use different chemicals to clean their sinks or toilets or coffee pots. Anything at all because of such high contents of rust and other minerals in the water.

YOUNG: Police are also investigating the possibility of something much more sinister.

APPLETON: Hopefully, if there is a conflict, we will find the person who is willing to step forward and tell us that if there happens to be one.

YOUNG: And while police haven't called this a crime, the church is looking an awful lot like a crime scene.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: All right. We're going to call it arsenic and Amazing Grace, I guess. Thanks to Christine Young of our affiliate station WMTW for that report, and to Sonya Houston (ph) for that line. It's a good line, "arsenic and Amazing Grace."

An expert in environmental medicine says it takes a lot of arsenic to kill someone, and so far police say there is no evidence the poisonings occurred accidentally through the use of cleaning supplies.

Joining us now to talk about this a little more is Steve McCausland. He is the spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety. Mr. McCausland, good to have you with us.

STEVE MCCAUSLAND, SPOKESMAN, MAINE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: Good afternoon, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. What's your best guess? Is there a crime there, or is it a tragic mistake?

MCCAUSLAND: I can tell you that there are new developments literally as we are speaking. The Maine Attorney General's Office is crafting a statement which is most likely going to be released within the next hour. Our investigators have made some significant progress here today, and I'm anticipating new information, probably, within the next hour.

O'BRIEN: Oh, my gosh. I hate that when you do it. You say you're going to release it in an hour. Can you give us a sense as to which direction this might be heading with full wink and nod capability here?

MCCAUSLAND: Without getting into specifics, this is no accident.

O'BRIEN: OK. Thank you very much. That gives us a sense of where things are going. Now, when you -- it almost has the feel of an Agatha Christy novel, but I suspect that somewhat trivializes what we are talking about here. Certainly, I would think in your long tenure there in Maine, you haven't run across one quite like this? MCCAUSLAND: We have had some cases in the past, within the last 30 years, but nothing of this magnitude. We have one person dead, 15 people in the hospital, and a tiny community that's obviously been torn apart in anxiety as to what happened to their local Lutheran church.

State police, the Maine health lab, the Maine Attorney General's Office, and the Maine State Medical Examiner's Office have been working overtime all week to come up with the source of the arsenic that affected and made sick so many people.

We think we've made some progress today, and most likely before the day is out, the rest of the state will know what we're talking about.

O'BRIEN: You know, listening to the people there, as they talk about it, and just reading about this town, most people are hard pressed to come up with a motive, or for that matter, anybody who doesn't like anybody in that town.

MCCAUSLAND: This is a very small community in northern Maine, Miles. The population is only 621 people. Everyone knows each other. This is a tight knit community, and everyone in Maine, from the governor on down, has been concerned about what has happened this week, and has been working overtime to try to get some answers. And before the day is out, we may have some of those answers, at least, to tell the public about.

O'BRIEN: Steve McCausland, who is a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety, joining us from Augusta. Thanks very much for your insights, and we will of course, keep our viewers posted as that announcement comes forward in the next hour.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com