{"id":51760,"date":"2025-07-09T15:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/51760\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:49:08","slug":"missing-paddleboarder-found-dead-during-search-of-maine-pond-was-killed-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/51760\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing paddleboarder found dead during search of Maine pond was killed, police say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The death of a paddleboarder who went missing in Maine last week has been ruled a homicide, police said Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Sunshine Stewart, 48, was found dead during a search last Thursday on Crawford Pond in the town of Union, Maine State Police said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maine.gov\/dps\/msp\/media-center\/public-releases\/victim-identified-msp-homicide-investigation-union\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">statement<\/a>. An autopsy by the state medical examiner&#8217;s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.maine.gov\/ag\/crime\/chief_medical_examiner.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">\u00a0office<\/a> determined her death was a homicide, although the cause of death has not been released. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At first, a lot of people thought it was a boating accident,&#8221; Kate Hamar, who lives in the area, told CBS&#8217; local affiliate\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wgme.com\/news\/local\/its-left-everybody-pretty-shaken-neighbors-shocked-after-paddleboarder-killed-in-union-maine-homicide-investigation-crawford-pond#\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">WGME<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s left everybody pretty shaken,&#8221; Hamar said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kathy Lunt, the owner of Mic Mac campground near Crawford Pond, said Stewart was a seasonal resident there and was last seen going out on her paddleboard on Wednesday evening, WGME reported. Lunt said she called police when Stewart&#8217;s roommate grew worried about her not returning. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Authorities searched a dumpster at Mic Mac campground on Monday, according to WGME.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Maine police said the investigation is ongoing and asked that anyone who may have seen Stewart paddleboarding last Wednesday between 6 and 9 p.m. contact them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As always, members of the public are encouraged to remain aware of their surroundings and report any suspicious behavior to law enforcement,&#8221; police said. &#8220;Additional information will be released when it becomes appropriate to do so based on the progress of the investigation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Meredith Smith, a resident of Union who knew Stewart, described her as &#8220;a great, great person all-around.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To know Sunny, I don&#8217;t think she had a bad bone in her body, and anyone that knew her was just in awe of her,&#8221; Smith said, WGME reported.<\/p>\n<p>A GoFundMe launched for Stewart had raised more than $17,000 as of Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>\n        More from CBS News\n      <\/p>\n<p>      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/team\/sarah-lynch-baldwin\/\" class=\"content-author__name\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sarah  Lynch Baldwin<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"content-author__text\">Sarah Lynch Baldwin is a deputy managing editor of CBSNews.com. She helps lead national and breaking news coverage and shapes editorial workflows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death of a paddleboarder who went missing in Maine last week has been ruled a homicide, police&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":51761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2741,50,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-51760","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-maine","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114824070023526256","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}