UNION, Maine — The owner of the Mic Mac Cove Family Campground offered more details Saturday on the investigation that led to the arrest of 17-year-old Deven Young in the death of Sunshine “Sunny” Stewart.
Owner Katharine Lunt said now that an arrest has been made, she feels comfortable giving out the information to the public. The Young family from Frankfort had first started camping at Mic Mac seasonally in 2024 and returned in 2025. She disputed false online posts that she had once kicked them off the campground and that Deven Young had threatened other people.
“They were never kicked out of the campground. Quite honestly if any of this were true, the day this investigation started, he [Deven] would have obviously been the first suspect in this case and it would not have taken two weeks to solve,” Lunt said.
She said campers staying at the campground were interviewed from day one and not one person mentioned any concerns about Young.
State police were asking and collecting voluntary DNA samples from campers. On July 16, when the Maine State Police were back at the campground, Deven Young approached the investigators and said he had some information and had seen something pertaining to the case. Young went out on Crawford Pond in a boat with the investigators and a game warden, leading them to the opposite end of 100-Acre Island from where Stewart’s body was found. When they returned to the campground, police continued to interview Deven.
The investigators left the campground but returned that night and went directly to the Youngs’ camper. Police interviewed them for two hours before arresting Young. State police acknowledged that they arrested a 17-year-old juvenile at 10:30 p.m. July 16. He was taken to the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland.
Earlier in the investigation, state police had reviewed surveillance videos from the campground. Lunt said she reviewed the videos after the arrest was made. The videos showed Young had gone out in his aluminum boat before Stewart. The boat has a motor and oars. Stewart left at 6 p.m. to go paddleboarding on Crawford Pond. Young later could be seen returning to the campground in his boat.
Lunt said she called to report Stewart missing when she had not returned by midnight. The Union Fire Department, Knox County Sheriff’s Office and Maine Warden Service searched for Stewart. Her body was found before dawn. An autopsy by the Maine medical examiner’s office determined her death to be a homicide.
“During the two weeks after Sunny’s murder, Deven’s actions were never suspicious,” Lunt said. “He would offer to assist other campers with their loose pets, yard work, and made wood crafts which he gave to other campers. We as a campground community are devastated that he continued camp life amongst us as normal and we suspected nothing. It is heart wrenching and terrifying that we had no idea the murderer was amongst us as we were looking for a stranger.”
Lunt said she does not have details on what led to the killing of Stewart. The affidavits have been impounded but may be released in a month at the next court hearing for Young.
State police released the cause of Stewart’s death after Young’s arrest. Stewart, 48, had been strangled and suffered blunt force trauma.
Young is charged with murder as a juvenile, but the Maine attorney general’s office has filed a motion to try him as an adult. No hearing on that request has been scheduled.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.