PORTLAND, Maine (Court TV) — Nearly one year after he was arrested on charges that he killed a missing paddleboarder in Maine, a teen’s case remains in limbo.
Deven Young is charged with murder in the death of Sunshine Stewart. (Zoom)
Deven Young was 17 when he was arrested on July 16, 2025, on a charge of murder in the death of Sunshine Stewart, 45. Prosecutors said within days of his arrest that they wanted to try Young as an adult, but 12 months later, the case hasn’t moved. Young has pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Stewart disappeared one month before her 49th birthday while paddleboarding on Crawford Pond in Union, Maine. She lived approximately a half-hour away from the pond, which is popular with campers and other tourists.
A medical examiner ruled Stewart’s death was a homicide and the result of strangulation and blunt force trauma. Investigators have released few details about the case and have not offered any information about a possible motive. Publicly available court documents say only that on July 2, 2025, Deven Young “did intentionally or knowingly cause the death” of Stewart “or did engage in conduct that manifested a depraved indifference to the value of human life and which in fact caused the death of Sunshine Stewart.”
The distinction of whether Young is tried in juvenile court or adult court is important — if he is tried in juvenile court and convicted, he would only be held in custody until his 21st birthday, Law&Crime previously reported. Under state law, a conviction as an adult would mandate a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
In the days after Stewart’s body was found and before Young was identified as a suspect, he allegedly tried to mislead investigators looking into Stewart’s disappearance. The owner of a local campground, Katharine Lunt, told WMTW that the teen told police that “he had some information — and then he took them in the opposite direction of where Sunny was found.” Lunt told the outlet, “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.”
At a brief hearing on Tuesday, Young appeared virtually from the youth detention center where he has been held for nearly one year. At the hearing, prosecutors said they are continuing to wait for a forensic report that they said should be sent to the parties within the next two weeks. Young’s attorney, Caitlyn Smith, said she couldn’t speak to any next steps that she might request or additional reports that might be necessary, saying, “I think it’s premature, since we don’t know what that [forensic report] is going to say.”
The parties will return to court in three weeks — ideally, having received the needed report — to determine next steps and scheduling.
