HEADLINE: DOCTOR SAYS JAMESTOWN SETTLERS DIED FROM ARSENIC PBS SPECIAL SUGGESTS MILITANT CATHOLICS' PLOT Published: Monday, July 9, 2001 Section: A-SECTION Page: A1 By The Associated Press TEXT: A documentary airing on public broadcasting stations this week contends international intrigue and a steady dose of arsenic led to the high death rate at America's first permanent English settlement."Death at Jamestown," an episode of the "Secrets of the Dead" series, follows Dr. Frank Hancock's attempts to help solve the nearly 400- year-old mystery of why so many of the original settlers died. The program airs Tuesday. The series is described by PBS as showing "scientific sleuths piece together clues in an attempt to solve the greatest mysteries of the past."Hancock is convinced foul play was the reason 440 of the first 500 Jamestown colonists died within three years of the colony's founding in 1607. He said he believes the Virginia colonists were the victims of a 17th-century plot by Spain and militant Catholics in England to sabotage Protestant colonization of the New World."I feel that my case is almost all circumstantial, but I feel the more that I examine the politics between England and Spain, and the internal politics in England, the case becomes stronger and stronger," said Hancock, a former pathologist and the medical director for Laboratory Corp. of America in Burlington. The company conducts clinical tests for hospitals and clinics.Hancock and a LabCorp colleague, Dr. Richard Earley, conducted tests for arsenic using bone samples provided by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. Those tests have not been conclusive, he said."We'll probably never know 100 percent for sure," he said. "But I feel we're about 80 percent certain."According to historians, rats destroyed much of the colony's corn stores in the spring of 1609.Many settlers died from starvation, disease and Indian attacks during the winter of 1609-1610, according to written accounts. By that spring, only 60 of the 215 people at the Jamestown fort were still alive.There also are theories that early settlers died from civil unrest, saltwater poisoning or famine brought on by drought. Excavations of an unmarked burial ground under way since last summer are expected to provide more information about how they died.Bill Kelso, director of archaeology for the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, which is excavating the Jamestown site, said last year he didn't think it was probable that a conspiracy led to the deaths.Earley argues the fact that deadly outbreaks of a mysterious disease seemed to take place just after English supply ships left the Jamestown colony for home could be more than just coincidence.Hancock's prime suspect is Thomas Arundell, a Catholic baron involved in the failed 1605 Gunpowder Plot, an anti-Protestant conspiracy to blow up British Parliament and King James I.Arundell had funded an exploration of the Maine and Maryland coastlines hoping to establish a Catholic colony along North America's Atlantic coast. Spanish Catholics had already established colonies from South America to Florida."His name comes up again and again in the correspondence between the Spanish ambassador to England and King Phillip III of Spain," Hancock said. "There is mention in the letters that Arundell has told the ambassador that he can take out the colony without recourse to arms. I believe that he's an excellent suspect."Hancock said his conclusions have also been drawn from the diaries and correspondence of prominent Jamestown leaders and colonists such as Capt. John Smith, George Percy and Lord Delaware.LOCAL VIEWING TIMES* "Secrets of the Dead II: Death at Jamestown" airs at 8 p.m. Tuesday on WHRO-TV Channel 15 and WCVE-TV Channel 23. The one-hour program repeats at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday on WHRO. Copyright 2001, Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.