Inset left: Sunshine Stewart (Stewart family). Inset right: Deven Young (Facebook/Law&Crime/YouTube) Background: Crawford Pond in Union, Maine, is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025 (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty).
New details have emerged about the teenage suspect accused of killing a Maine paddleboarder in a case that has gripped the nation”s attention.
On July 16, 17-year-old Deven Young was detained in relation to the homicide investigation of 48-year-old Sunshine Stewart, with his identity disclosed shortly thereafter. He faces charges of murder.
Prosecutors intend to prosecute Young as an adult. Approaching his 18th birthday in a few months, as Law&Crime On the Case with Chris Stewart detailed, should he be charged as a minor, he could be released from custody by 21.
Ultimately, the decision will be the presiding judge’s – and more elements of the case are expected to be taken into consideration.
These additional elements have proved shocking to investigators.
Young was on a family vacation at Mic Mac Cove Campground in Union, Maine – where Sunshine Stewart was also staying, authorities say. When the victim didn’t return from paddleboarding on the nearby Crawford Pond on July 2, law enforcement were called. And in the ensuing days of thorough investigation, Young allegedly inserted himself into the case.
According to the owner of the campground, Katharine Lunt, the suspect “volunteered” to help investigators.
“He said he had some information — and he took them in the opposite direction of where Sunny was found,” Lunt told Portland, Maine-based ABC outlet, WMTW.
Lunt is credited with helping mightily in the investigation. As the homicide occurred in a secluded location, authorities knew their pool of suspects was limited.
“I looked at the surveillance — went back to the cameras to see where he was at the time,” Lunt said of Young. “And those videos indicated he was on the lake at the time.”
Young had reportedly taken his small fishing boat out onto Crawford Pond less than an hour before Sunshine Stewart went paddleboarding.
But even after the victim’s death, as investigators searched for clues and Young allegedly feigned ignorance and innocence, the defendant stuck close by.
“The fact that this individual was in this campground for two weeks is haunting,” she said. “He was not on anyone’s radar. That whole week, he was offering campers help with different tasks they were doing. He acted like nothing ever happened.”
“Nobody was looking for a child,” Lunt added earlier. “We were looking for an adult.”
The manner of the murder should also determine the judge’s decision on how Young is tried. Sunshine Stewart’s cause of death was strangulation and blunt force trauma, Maine State Police said. Her body was found on an island at the center of the pond in “unusual circumstances.”
Tom Smith, a retired NYPD detective, told Law&Crime On the Case with Chris Stewart that Young’s behavior was immediately suspicious.
“Right from the front, that would get my radar up,” Smith said of the suspect’s communications with law enforcement. “When someone just jumps out of nowhere and says, ‘I have information on this’ – when … there wasn’t a lot of information that was out there. So for someone to come up with something like that is alarming and something that would, again, put my radar up.”
Smith also dismissed any idea that the killing was a sudden act.
“When you have someone like that that is lurking and out there… And there’s no way this was the first time this popped into this kid’s head. This is not a impulsive thing. It was planned. It was targeted,” Smith told Law&Crime. “You know, he saw someone vulnerable and took advantage of it. So to go into the background of this individual is going to be important to see what other motives he had, what other thoughts he had leading up to this.”
Friends of Sunshine Stewart described her as an adventurer and a “wonderful friend.”
“She was just so fun and funny and you couldn’t help but have a good time around her,” Bethany Leach Parmley told Boston-based NBC affiliate WBTS.
“She was a go-getter, working and everything since she was a teenager. I mean, this woman was ambitious from the word go,” Tennie Komar added in comments to WMTW. “She was just this friendly, outgoing, energetic person. You couldn’t be around her and not be uplifted.”
Komar was shocked by what happened, comparing it to a scene out of a book of fiction.
“This is stunning. This is just beyond belief,” she said. “Honestly, she was an athlete, and she would have been able to fight off a man a lot bigger than her.”
“I feel like we’re living in a Stephen King novel at this point with everything that’s going on,” Komar added.
Young remains at the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland, Maine. His next date in court is Aug. 22.
