The public has now been shut out – literally – from updates on the status of a teenaged suspected campground killer.
Deven Young, 17, of Frankfort, was to appear Friday before a Knox County judge to argue why he shouldn’t be tried as an adult.
But Judge Eric Walker actually taped the courtroom door shut so no one from the public could witness the proceeding.
Outside Friday’s sealed courtroom, two dozen longtime friends of murder victim Sunshine Stewart were wearing yellow and carrying signs saying “#JusticeForSunny.”
“We want to make sure that the judge knows that the community wants him tried as an adult,” Annie Haven, a longtime friend of Stewart, told WGME-TV’s Brad Rogers.
“This wasn’t a quick, ‘Oh my God, I accidentally killed her.’ He throttled and choked the life out of her,” Seth Gambino, another longtime friend, said.
Even the suspect’s family, and the family of the victim, were only allowed to watch Friday’s court proceedings on an internet feed.
An online petition drive to get Young prosecuted as an adult in Stewart’s killing has now garnered roughly 6,000 signatures.
Stewart, 48, of Tenants Harbor, was found dead July 3 on an island at Mic Mac Cove Campground in Union, the victim of a brutal fatal beating, just a few miles from the county seat in Rockland.
Young, arrested July 16, has been charged as a juvenile with murder in the popular paddleborder’s death.
But investigative Boston reporter Phillip Brunelle, who started the petition drive, is lobbying to get the court system to charge Young as an adult.
If Young is allowed to face the charge as a juvenile, he would be held in custody only until he turns 21 if convicted.
Young marks his 18th birthday – legal adulthood – Sept. 23.
A murder conviction as an adult brings a term of up to life in prison.
