Court records unsealed this week name a 17-year-old as the suspect charged with the double murder of a man and the man’s adopted son in Chelsea last year. The teen faces a hearing next month to decide if he’ll be tried as a juvenile or adult.

The teen was arrested and charged with murder June 11, 2025, at a Windsor Road home in Chelsea. However, authorities at the time declined to release his identity, because he is a juvenile, and his case files in court have been sealed since.

The Kennebec Journal is not naming the suspect because he is a juvenile.

Documents obtained Thursday by the Kennebec Journal indicate the teen is accused of killing his foster father, Christopher Hunnewell, 43, and Christopher’s adopted son, Ty Carter Hunnewell, 22.

He faces a bind-over hearing, scheduled for April 22-24, a juvenile court process used to determine whether to “bind over” the defendant and charge him as an adult.

That decision follows a two-part process. First, the judge has to determine whether prosecutors demonstrated enough evidence that the juvenile likely committed a serious crime, instead of a lesser offense.

Then the judge has to decide whether the juvenile should be tried as an adult.

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

The teen is at Long Creek in South Portland now, according to Walter McKee, one of his attorneys.

McKee said evaluations of the teen’s mental competency ultimately found him competent for his case to move forward.

An initial competency evaluation by experts indicated he was not competent to proceed but also found there was a substantial probability he could become competent to stand trial in the foreseeable future. A September court order directed the state Department of Health and Human Services to treat him for mental health and behavioral needs to restore his mental health competency.

That has apparently happened as, McKee said, “he was ultimately found competent and now we can proceed with the bind-over hearing.”

Court papers do not contain an affidavit or other documents that might indicate what happened in the incident that resulted in the two men’s deaths.

Family members of the victims said Christopher Hunnewell took in the teen — a relative — as a foster child after he had cycled through other foster homes. The teen was in state custody at the time of the killings. Relatives say he had previously threatened to kill both victims.

Jessie Carter, Christopher Hunnewell’s wife, said previously she and her husband had raised concerns about the boy’s mental health with the Department of Health and Human Services. She said the teen was violent. She said she and her husband had sought another foster home for him, but officials didn’t listen to them.

McKee declined to comment on whether the role of the state DHHS would be a factor in the case or his defense.

A cousin of Christopher Hunnewell, Danica Zirkle, 40, of Burlington, Vermont, told the Morning Sentinel after the incident that Christopher Hunnewell and his adopted son were killed in a knife attack after a caseworker had come to the house and told the teen he was being placed in a new foster home. Zirkle said Ty Carter Hunnewell’s fiancée was seriously injured in the attack inside the home but was able to escape and call 911.

Among the documents in the boy’s case file were requests to the state DHHS for confidential records about him.