{"id":70643,"date":"2025-07-17T19:08:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T19:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/70643\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T19:08:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T19:08:17","slug":"17-year-old-boy-arrested-in-connection-with-paddleboarders-killing-in-maine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/70643\/","title":{"rendered":"17-year-old boy arrested in connection with paddleboarder’s killing in Maine"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 17-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with the killing of Sunshine Stewart<\/a>, a paddleboarder who was found dead in Maine earlier this month, police said Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Police did not identify the suspect or provide details on what charges he is facing. Other details, such as a possible motive or whether the teen knew Stewart, were not provided.<\/p>\n

Stewart, 48, was found dead on July 3 during a search of Crawford Pond in the town of Union, Maine, state police said in a previous\u00a0statement<\/a>. An autopsy by the state medical examiner’s office determined her death was a homicide, and the Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Augusta later said the cause of death was strangulation and blunt force trauma, according to CBS affiliate WGME-TV.<\/p>\n

Stewart had gone on a solo paddleboarding trip a day earlier, but never returned, according WGME. Police said her body was found under “unusual circumstances” around 1 a.m., WGME reported. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Kathy Lunt, the owner of Mic Mac campground near Crawford Pond, told WGME that Stewart was a seasonal resident there.<\/p>\n

Some Union residents expressed a sense of relief over the arrest.<\/p>\n

“There was all kinds of rumors circulating about the New England serial killer. And I’m glad there’s been an arrest. I hope they can make it stick. I hope he’s guilty, because then we know,” Susan Creighton told WGME.<\/p>\n

Peter Exkardt, another Union resident told the station, “You just don’t know. Just taking a walk and all that, not realizing who’s going to be around the corner and all that. I think they did a good job in finding the person.”<\/p>\n

Meredith Smith, a resident of Union who knew Stewart, described her as “a great, great person all-around.”<\/p>\n

“To know Sunny, I don’t think she had a bad bone in her body, and anyone that knew her was just in awe of her,” Smith said, WGME reported.<\/p>\n

A GoFundMe launched for Stewart had raised more than $33,000.<\/p>\n

\n

Sarah Lynch Baldwin<\/a><\/p>\n

contributed to this report.\n <\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

Jordan Freiman<\/a><\/p>\n

Jordan Freiman is a news editor for CBSNews.com. He covers breaking news, trending stories, sports and crime. Jordan has previously worked at Spin and Death and Taxes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 17-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with the killing of Sunshine Stewart, a paddleboarder who was…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":70644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-70643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114870150963198594","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70643","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=70643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}