Inset, from left: Deven Young (Facebook/Law&Crime/YouTube) and Sunshine Stewart (Stewart family). Background: Crawford Pond in Union, Maine, photographed Wednesday, July 9, 2025 (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty).
The Maine teenager accused of killing a paddleboarder on a secluded pond and later misleading investigators will be prosecuted as an adult, according to reports.
Deven Young, now 19, was 17 when 48-year-old Sunshine “Sunny” Stewart was killed. He faces a murder charge. During a Friday status conference in Knox County Superior Court, a judge confirmed that Young would be tried as an adult after he waived his right to a bind-over hearing. That proceeding would have allowed the court to review evidence and decide whether the case should proceed in adult court, according to regional ABC affiliate WMTW.
The decision is a victory for the Maine Attorney General’s Office, which had sought from the outset to have Young prosecuted as an adult.
On July 2, 2025, Stewart was staying at Mic Mac Cove Campground in Union, Maine. Young was vacationing with his family on the same property, as Law&Crime previously reported.
That evening, Stewart went paddleboarding on nearby Crawford Pond. She never returned.
After she was reported missing, authorities found her body on an island in the middle of the pond. Investigators determined that she had been killed, and Maine State Police said in a press release that her cause of death was strangulation and blunt force trauma.
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Investigators spent nearly two weeks searching for answers after Stewart’s body was discovered. Katharine Lunt, the campground’s owner, said Young inserted himself into the investigation by “volunteering” to assist authorities.
“He said he had some information,” Lunt told the local television station, “and he took them in the opposite direction of where Sunny was found.”
Police believe Young took a small fishing boat onto the pond on the evening Stewart vanished, less than an hour before she went paddleboarding. Authorities suspected the killer was nearby because the area is remote and largely privately owned. Still, as Lunt put it, “[n]obody was looking for a child.”
“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.”
The decision to prosecute Young as an adult is significant because, as Law&Crime’s “On the Case” with Chris Stewart explained, he likely would have been released from custody at age 21 if charged as a juvenile. Under Maine law, however, an adult murder conviction carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
WMTW reported that Young will remain held without bail at the Knox County Jail. The case will be presented to a grand jury, and another status conference is scheduled for January.
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