Late last week the spokeswoman for the Maine State Police broke her silence on the brutal slaying July 2nd of a Tenants Harbor woman in Union – not to inform the public on the status of the now ten day old investigation, but instead to lash out against a national news network for suggesting a serial killer could be one possible explanation.
“Floating unverified claims without facts fuels fear. It’s irresponsible,” Maine Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Shannon Moss told the Bangor Daily News, referencing the appearance of a former New York City police officer on FOX News suggesting the July 2 killing of Sunshine “Sunny” Stewart could be the work of a serial killer.
“Right now the focus for detectives is following where the evidence leads and keeping the integrity of the case intact,” Moss added. “Detectives are still working to piece together the full picture, and releasing partial or premature information risks compromising the case.”
Those remarks represent the first time an individual from the state has spoken directly to Stewart’s homicide. One week ago today and then again last Wednesday, the Maine State Police issues two statements, first announcing an anonymous tip line for anyone with information about the case and then later acknowledging “public fear and discomfort” about the killing and urging residents to be vigilant.
[RELATED: Communities Wait for Answers on Union Murder as Anyone with Information is Urged to Come Forward]
For over a week now, The Maine Wire has been conducting interviews with dozens of residents of Union, friends and family members of Stewart, and residents of the Tenants Harbor community where she lived. The closer to the site of Stewart’s death on Crawford Pond, the edgier people have been while further afield the more frustrated members of the public has seemed about the lack of information.
At Pushaw’s Trading Post in South Hope, which abuts Union, a young woman anxiously scrolled through social media posts on her phone looking for clues.
“They’re looking for a black van with tinted windows,” the woman told The Maine Wire, showing the feed that relayed this speculation. “This one says it’s a black pick-up truck,” she said a moment later after more scrolling.
The store’s proprietor shook his head and said there haven’t been any vehicles like that around he’s seen.
A Facebook group for the Crawford Pond community has allowed various camp owners along the shore to express their frustration with the media.
“Beware, they are trying,” one community member posted in reference to a local reporter’s reasonable and fairly unobtrusive question that he tried to post on the forum Sunday. “He’s now been blocked!” that member triumphantly announced a few minutes later.
The owner of the Mic Mac Cove Campground, where Stewart was planning on spending the summer in her camper, has expressed anger at The Maine Wire for an article last week noting that she had declined comment because, she later said, the police had asked her to avoid media for the time being.
Another camp owner near the closest contiguous point of land to the 100 Acre Island on which Stewart’s body was found told The Maine Wire he’d “told everything to the state police and was leaving matters in their capable hands.”
In the absence of any substantial, official information, rumors — sometimes wild — have swirled on social media, as well as in cafes and gathering places throughout Knox County, and beyond.
The serial killer theory seems the most far-fetched at this point, namely because the pond is not visible to the road and surrounded entirely by private property making it both inaccessible and tough to navigate for an outsider.
Still, a Facebook group dedicated “the New England Serial Killer” has been percolating with posts trying to link Stewart’s death to other unsolved killings in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and elsewhere in the region. Because Stewart was widely liked in the community, the theory that only an outsider could have done this seems somehow plausible and oddly more appealing to many.
The alternative is that the killer is local and had crossed paths with Sunny, as even people who never met her have begun to refer to the victim. Given that the perpetrator, most likely a male, remains at large, this prospect seems even more unsettling.
While it is impossible to know given the relative media blackout from state officials, all indications suggest this is where investigators are currently concentrating their efforts. What were Sunny’s precise movements in the days leading up to June 2 and with whom had she come into contact?
Piecing together this element of the chain of events is likely critical to narrowing down the list of persons of interest who might shed some light on what happened. One hopes many of these have either reached out to state investigators or been otherwise identified and contacted.
While murders have historically been relatively rare in Maine, this one has stood out as especially unsettling. Not all cases get solved, as the podcast Dark Downeast chronicles, and as more time passes, more people begin to fear this might be the case here.
The official silence has, until now, been tolerated out of a sense of hope that it means police are on the verge of an arrest and/or working viable, live leads that will soon result in one. Whether this is reality or wishful thinking still remains unknown. But as the two week period since the slaying approaches this Wednesday, that fragile forbearance with official silence will likely wear thin. The public is not only anxious, but now reasonably expecting some news of progress.
“Not knowing is brutal,” one friend of Sunny’s told The Maine Wire.
Perhaps not quite as brutal as the senseless killing itself, but still palpably upsetting for those who live in the area. This isn’t just grist for yet another mystery writer the likes of whom abound in Maine, but instead an unhealed wound that threatens to shatter not just several inter-connected communities, but also a way of life.
