Suspicious deaths in an idyllic seaside community and detective work that points to poison sound like the stuff of a classic crime novel. But the victims in this Maine crime thriller were trees that blocked a wealthy family’s view of the sea. They were allegedly cut down by wealthy murderers who, despite being ostracized and publicly pilloried, are still at large.
Wealth and hubris underlie the story of a politically well-connected Missouri couple who allegedly poisoned their neighbor’s trees to secure their million-dollar view of Camden Harbor. The incident, brought to light by the victim herself – the philanthropic wife of the late president of LL Bean – has sparked outrage among local residents.
To make matters worse, the herbicide used to poison the trees seeped into a neighboring park and the city’s only public beach. The state Attorney General is currently investigating.
“Anyone stupid enough to poison trees right by the sea should, in my opinion, be prosecuted,” said Paul Hodgson, echoing the views of many angry residents of Camden, a community of 5,000 at the foot of mountains that rise from the Atlantic Ocean and overlook a harbor filled with lobster boats, yachts and schooners.
If this were a made-for-television drama, the story, set against the backdrop of this quaint village, would include it all: wealthy out-of-state villains, an investigating member of the venerable LL Bean family, and the same powerful chemical used to avenge Alabama’s loss on the football field to archrival Auburn.
Amelia Bond, former executive director of the St. Louis Foundation, which manages charitable funds with more than $500 million in assets, brought the herbicide from Missouri in 2021 and used it near oak trees on the waterfront property of Lisa Gorman, the wife of the late Leon Gorman, president of LL Bean and grandson of LL himself, according to two consent agreements with the city and the state pesticide board.
Bond’s husband, Arthur Bond III, is an architect and the nephew of former U.S. Senator Kit Bond. Their summer home, owned by a trust, is just behind Gorman’s house, further up the hill.
When the trees and other vegetation began to die, Amelia Bond told Gorman in June 2022 that the trees did not look good and offered to help with the cost of removing them, Gorman’s attorney wrote in a document.
Instead, Gorman had the trees examined. Lawyers were soon called in.
More than $1.7 million in fines and settlements later, the trees are now gone and the view of the harbor from the Bonds’ home is better. But the chemical has leaked into a neighboring park and beach, so the Bonds may have to pay for additional monitoring and remediation. The Maine Attorney General has agreed to continue investigating the incident.
The herbicide tebuthiuron was the same one used in 2010 by an angry Alabama football fan who wanted to kill the Toomer’s Corner oaks at Auburn University, after the Crimson Tide lost to their archrival. The incident resulted in a prison sentence for Harvey Updyke, who admitted to poisoning the trees.
Tebuthiuron contaminates soil and does not decompose, so it continues to kill plants. At Auburn University, about 1,780 tons (1,615 metric tons) of contaminated material had to be removed to reduce the concentration of the chemical in the soil to negligible levels.
Other than removing the soil, the only option is dilution – waiting for nature to reduce the concentration of the herbicide to a level that is safe for plants. It can take six months to two years for the herbicide to be diluted to the point where it no longer poses a threat to plants, says Scott McElroy, an Auburn professor who specializes in weed science and herbicide chemistry.
In Maine, Select Board Chairman Tom Hedstrom said it is usually his job to find consensus on how to proceed on sensitive political issues, but this time it was not necessary because residents were united in their anger.
Hedstrom said he too was appalled by the behavior.
“Wealth and power do not always go hand in hand with intelligence, education and morality,” he said. “This was cruel and disgusting and every other word you want to use to describe heinous behavior.”
The Bonds paid a price for their actions, which they acknowledged in the consent agreements.
They paid $4,500 to settle violations of Maine Board of Pesticides Control Board regulations for the unauthorized use of an herbicide that was improperly applied and not approved for residential use. They paid $180,000 to settle violations with the town and another $30,000 for additional environmental testing, documents show. They also paid Gorman more than $1.5 million as part of a settlement, according to a memo from Jeremy Martin, the town’s planning and development director.
A lawyer for the Bonds said they had no comment, but they “continue to take the allegations against them seriously. They continue to work with the City of Camden, the State of Maine and the Gormans as they have done for the past two years.”
A lawyer for Gorman declined to comment.
Rep. Vicki Doudera (D-Camden) said she wants to address the $4,500 maximum fine that the Maine Board of Pesticide Control Board has the authority to impose. One of her ideas is a sliding scale that takes into account the extent of damage and intent.
“This makes me so angry,” Doudera said. “When I heard about this situation, I thought, ‘Wow! These people are getting a slap on the wrist. This is just not right.'”
On a recent afternoon, no one was home at the Bond family home while people were walking their dogs less than 150 meters away at Laite Memorial Beach, where the herbicide, which is deadly to aquatic plants, was detected.
Camden resident Dwight Johnson called the way Amelia Bond pretended to be a good neighbor by offering to help pay for the removal of the trees she poisoned “sneaky.” Lynn Harrington, another resident of the city, questioned whether the Bonds were allowed to show their faces in the city, where they are members of the Camden Yacht Club.
Some residents say the incident fits the tired stereotype of wealthy summer visitors who are “out-of-towners” – the Maine term for outsiders – trampling on full-time residents.
However, some residents objected to the summer guests being portrayed as troublemakers.
Hodgson said there are some rule breakers in Camden, too, even though it has many year-round residents who are both wealthy and privileged. He said some residents of the community, where the median income is just under $93,000 — high for Maine, New England’s poorest state — have cut down trees despite knowing it is illegal.
“They just pay the fine because they have enough money,” Hodgson said. “This is the city we live in.”