A 17-year-old has been arrested in connection with the killing of a woman who disappeared this month while paddle boarding near a remote island in Maine, the Maine State Police said on Thursday.
The Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Maine determined that the victim, Sunshine Stewart, 48, had died from strangulation and blunt force trauma, the police said in a news release.
The Maine State Police did not say whether the teenager, who lives in Maine and was arrested on Wednesday, had been charged with a crime and referred questions to the state’s attorney general’s office.
Danna Hayes, a spokeswoman with the Maine Attorney General’s office, in an email declined to say whether the teenager had been charged with a crime or provide any details about his arrest, citing state laws regarding juveniles matters.
He is being held at the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland.
A state game warden found Ms. Stewart’s body around 1 a.m. on July 3 near 100 Acre Island, a nature preserve on Crawford Pond in Union, Maine, that is only accessible by water, the authorities said.
Ms. Stewart was believed to have been paddle boarding between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. the previous evening, according to the authorities. She lived in Tenants Harbor, Maine, which is roughly 20 miles south of the pond, along the Atlantic coast.
The state police said the homicide investigation was continuing.
