17-year-old charged with murder in death of paddleboarder in Maine

A 17-year-old has been charged with homicide within the dying of a paddleboarder who went lacking in Maine, authorities mentioned on Friday.

Maine State Police mentioned on Thursday {that a} teenage boy, who has not been publicly named, was taken into custody the evening earlier than in Union. 

The teenager was charged with one rely of homicide, the state lawyer common’s workplace mentioned on Friday. 

Sunshine Stewart, 48, was discovered useless throughout a search of Crawford Pond on July 3 within the city of Union, Maine State Police mentioned final week in a assertion. The Workplace of Chief Medical Examiner in Augusta mentioned the reason for dying was strangulation and blunt drive trauma.

The arrest was the “results of relentless investigative work” and the teenager was taken to Lengthy Creek Youth Improvement Heart in South Portland, police mentioned.  

Kathy Lunt, the proprietor of Mic Mac campground close to Crawford Pond, instructed CBS affiliate WGME that Stewart was a seasonal resident there. Stewart had gone on a solo paddleboarding journey and by no means returned, in response to WGME. Police mentioned her physique was discovered below “uncommon circumstances.”

Stewart lived about 21 miles from the pond, which is a well-liked summer season vacation spot about 15 miles from the scenic coastal areas of the state’s midcoast area.

The killing shocked and scared the neighborhood. Associates of Stewart have posted on-line testimonials remembering her as fiercely unbiased and at all times up for a problem, together with out of doors adventures and constructing initiatives. Through the years, she labored in lots of roles, together with as a fisherman and bartender, buddies mentioned.

Stewart renovated her dwelling in Tenants Harbor, a neighborhood in St. George, mentioned Bruce Twyon, a good friend who knew Stewart from her time residing within the Virgin Islands. That spoke to her self-motivation and spirit of “getting issues achieved and having fun with life day by day,” he mentioned.

“She was such a candy individual and really sturdy and unbiased, and took care of lots of people,” Twyon mentioned.

The pond, within the 2,400-resident city of Union, is about 600 acres and doesn’t have public entry. It’s obtainable for quite a lot of makes use of, together with boating and fishing. The 100 Acre Island protect within the middle of the pond is a wooded island reachable by canoe, kayak or paddleboard from a close-by campground.

 The pond has quite a few nooks and slim areas, so it is doable there have been different boaters on the water on the time of the killing who have been unaware somebody was in peril.

Police mentioned Thursday that the investigation was nonetheless energetic and so they have been in search of data from anybody who could have seen Stewart paddleboarding on July 2 on Crawford Pond.