FRANKFORT — “Get in your car, and leave, and don’t come back.”
The woman who came to the door of the Frankfort home could not have been clearer. She didn’t identify herself, but the man next to her confirmed they were the family of the 17-year-old boy who has entered the national spotlight after being accused of killing Sunshine Stewart, 48, in Union this month.
The pair were not the only Frankfort residents to turn away reporters Tuesday. At several stops around the tiny Waldo County town, including More in Guns LLC and Mandy’s Country Store, residents politely but firmly declined to discuss specifics of the case or the teenage suspect, whom the Press Herald has decided for now not to name unless the state succeeds in its motion to try him as an adult.
They warned that others around the community would also be reluctant to gossip about their neighbors, even as rumors about the case and the teen continued to metastasize online and in the media.
But minutes after the woman at the address listed on the teenager’s court paperwork told reporters to leave, the man she was with pulled up beside their car and asked them to follow him.
In an interview from the cab of his truck, the man, who identified himself as the teen’s grandfather, held back tears as he spoke publicly for the first time about a legal process and media circus that he says have stunned and frustrated his family.
“I know they’re painting him as a monster, but he’s not,” said the grandfather, whom the Press Herald is not naming in order to protect the teenager’s identity. “He’s a 12-year-old in a 17-year-old’s body.”
Stewart’s disappearance and death have drawn widespread attention from media outlets and online true crime sleuths since police announced that the avid outdoorswoman had been killed sometime after setting off from her site at Mic Mac Cove Family Campground on July 2 to paddleboard on Crawford Pond.
The grisly details of the case — the Office of Chief Medical Examiner determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma and strangulation — and the shocking arrest of the teenage suspect have since prompted widespread speculation about the boy’s background and the family who raised him.
On Tuesday, the grandfather and a woman who joined the interview and described herself as the boy’s aunt, said the online chatter has missed the mark.
They said the teen has been treated for a mental illness, which included regular visits to a doctor and medication.
“As long as he’s medicated, life is wonderful, and he hasn’t been off of it,” said the grandfather, who did not provide specifics about the teen’s diagnosis.
Some media outlets have reported that some of the suspect’s school classmates knew him as a bully. Both the aunt and the grandfather disputed that characterization.
“They’re blowing little kid stuff up,” said the aunt, who said her nephew has always gone out of his way to be helpful — shoveling the deck, keeping on top of the weeds outside her home. She said she does not believe the teen killed Stewart, and she won’t until she sees irrefutable evidence. “It’s just not true. If you know (him), it’s just not true.”
Neither family member has been able to speak with the teenager since his detention in Long Creek Youth Development Center, the grandfather said. He said police have not shared any information about the case, including specifics about what happened and what they believe to have been the teen’s motive.
It’s unclear when that information will be made public. Juvenile court records are usually tightly sealed under Maine law, though some facts could emerge in open court during a “bind-over” hearing, when the state will attempt to move the case to the adult system.
The absence of official information has made the hounding from local and national reporters — and the speculation on social media — even more frustrating, the family members said. They say they’ve been hurt by others in the community, including members of the family, spreading rumors without knowing the full story.
“There are some family members that are going to give you some really good, juicy gossip,” the grandfather said. “Those people live in glass houses and shouldn’t be spreading that baloney.”
Mostly, they said, they want everyone to leave their “devastated” family alone. But they fear it’s already too late for the teenager, whose name will forever be associated with the case, regardless of what comes out in court.
“A woman did lose her life, but so did a young child,” the aunt said. “The damage is already done.”
