Tracking An Alleged Killer In Maine - 2025 Style

Try as they might, Maine State Police were unable to keep the wraps on the name of their suspect in the killing of a Union paddleboarder.

The identity of the teen suspect arrested July 16 in Sunshine Stewart's killing came via social media - where real detective work occurs, 24/7.

Public suspicion identifying the suspect first broke on social media - the 2025 version of civilian detectives - late on July 17.

A number of Reddit posters said they believed the suspect was Deven Young, 17, whose family has been camping for years at Mic Mac Cove Campground.

The Reddit audience began chatting up Young's identity on a subReddit page devoted to Stewart's strangulation and blunt-force killing.

A second website source speculating on the suspect's identity that began gaining popularity was X, formerly known as Twitter.

A Twitter poster was apparently the first to raise the possibility that the arrested suspect was a guy named Deven Young.

Young has a widespread, very public presence on Facebook, claiming hundreds of "friends" on his feed.

Meanwhile, as social-media influencers were speculating on Young, some of them noticed that a June 30 post on Mic Mac's Facebook page thanked someone identified as "Devan" for helping install the campground's floating docks late last month.

Just days after the killing, meanwhile, one of Young's Facebook "friends" posted on his feed the question, "How are you doing?"

"I'm doing good," Young replied. "How are you doing?"

By the time Young posted that response, Stewart had already been dead more than a week.

Young was first officially identified when he made his first court appearance July 18th in Rockland, as prosecutors began outlining their case.

He appeared via Zoom from the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland, a juvenile prison where he was being detained.

Judge Eric Walker ordered Young to be continued to be held on the charge that he intentionally, knowingly, or with depraved indifference caused Stewart's death July 2 at Crawford Lake in Union.

The suspect's lawyer argued the hearing should be closed to the public but Walker kept it open.

The judge agreed, however, to keep the police affidavits sealed until a status conference is held Aug. 22.

Young acknowledged he understood the charge against him and that he had talked with his attorney.

The body of Stewart, a Tenants Harbor resident, was located during a search of Crawford Pond in Union on July 3. The Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Augusta determined her cause of death.

Stewart had been planning to spend the summer in a camper at Mic Mac and had been there for only a few days before she died.

A campground surveillance camera showed her setting out on the pond on her paddleboard around 6 p.m., July 2.

Stewart was reported missing shortly before 12:30 a.m., July 3, when the Union Fire Department and Knox County Sheriff's Office responded.

Police have not said who made the call. The Rockland Fire Department was asked to respond with its aerial drone.

That aerial search began at about 1:30 a.m. July 3.

The drone detected her paddleboard, and wardens were directed to the southeast corner of 100-Acre Island, where her body was found near the shore near the paddleboard.