AUGUSTA — The adult sister of a teenager accused of killing his foster father and that man’s son in Chelsea in 2025 testified Thursday that she offered to take her brother into her home about a month before the men were slain, but state officials didn’t take her up on the offer.

The boy, now 17, is charged with murder in the deaths of Christopher Hunnewell, 43, and Hunnewell’s adopted son, Ty Carter Hunnewell, 22, in June 2025. The suspect was 16 at the time.

The sister’s testimony came on the second day of a bind-over hearing at the Capital Judicial Center to determine whether the boy will be tried as an adult. The Kennebec Journal is not yet naming the suspect because he is a juvenile.

Family members of the victims have said they’d had problems with the teenager and could no longer continue to foster him. They sought to have the state Department of Health and Human Services remove him from their home, but the agency was not able to find a new placement for him.

The teen’s 23-year-old sister, who lives in Auburn, sometimes cried when she described her and her brother’s upbringing, including her off-and-on relationship with him. The two had the same mother, but different fathers.

The woman said she made multiple offers to the DHHS that she would take him to live with her and her three children if they needed to find a place for him.

One of those times, she said, was when a state worker called about a month before the Hunnewells were killed to say the teen needed to be removed from their home because things weren’t working out there.

“A state worker called me, and said, ‘It’s imminent,'” the woman testified, and that they would be looking for a new placement for the teen.

“I said bring him here,” she said. “Nobody did.”

The Kennebec Journal is not identifying the woman because she is a victim of sexual assault by the teen’s father, Al Hunnewell, who is currently in prison on sexual assault charges.

The woman said the teen’s father sexually assaulted her and demanded nude photos of her when she was 13 or 14 if she wanted to see her brother. She claimed he also once sexually assaulted the teen and was physically and verbally abusive to him.

Mental health professionals who evaluated the teen said his parents often put him in front of the family’s television while violent horror movies were playing.

Several staff at Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland, where the teen has been held since being charged, testified Thursday about their treatment of the teen and how he has responded.

In general, they said he has been good about attending his treatment sessions, and become a role model for other youths there, although he also has had multiple citations for misbehavior.

One citation came after a March 9 incident during a culinary class. The teen was seen on video discovered the next day playing inappropriately with a knife, pretending to stab himself in the stomach, holding the knife to his throat, and making repeated slicing motions.

Katie Sibley, an assistant attorney general, said those actions are similar to what he is accused of doing to the two victims, as well as Ty Carter Hunnewell’s fiancée, whom the boy allegedly assaulted and seriously injured in the same attack.

Dr. Melissa Jankowski, juvenile program coordinator for the State Forensic Service, who evaluated the teen, said he showed symptoms of psychosis and was previously diagnosed with severe ADHD.

Jankowski said when she first met him she was struck by how child-like he seemed, more like a child than an adult, or even an adolescent.

She said in her initial interview with him, he told her he was hearing the voice of God telling him how to proceed in his case, he reported black shapes were following him, he was slow to respond and couldn’t sit still.

At that time she determined he was not mentally competent to stand trial and recommended he be treated to restore his competency. She said he responded well to antipsychotic and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder medications, and other treatment. In a follow-up evaluation, she found him to be competent for his case to move forward.

Jankowski said the juvenile’s risk factors for recidivism are significant.

She said treatment options to try to address those risk factors would be available either at Long Creek or in the adult correctional system, but that he would likely make quicker progress at Long Creek, where programs are built for juveniles and where the environment would be safer.

If the teen remains in the juvenile system, he could be sentenced to Long Creek and released at age 21. If he’s found guilty of murder as an adult, he could be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Walter McKee, one of the teen’s attorneys, asked about the potential for him to be treated enough at Long Creek for his risk factors to be addressed before he’d depart there at 21, in about four years.

Jankowski said she did not have a crystal ball and thus could not predict that.

“Four years is a significant amount of time to receive treatment,” she said. “And the fact he responded quickly to treatment is a positive prognostic indicator. But what his risk factors may look like four years from now is anybody’s guess. Because that’s up to (the teen).”

Dr. Brooke Sheehan, who works for Wellpath and is contracted to oversee behavioral health within the state Department of Corrections, also said the teen seemed younger emotionally than his stated age.

Sheehan had concerns about the teen being in the adult corrections system, where a young person of small stature could be unsafe and could learn antisocial behaviors from other prisoners. She said if he’s at Long Creek, he would have access to more robust, easily accessible treatment compared to an adult prison.

The hearing is expected to continue Friday.