The killing of a woman on a pond in Union last week has rattled people across the midcoast, including in her home village of Tenants Harbor, where she had previously spent years working in the fishing industry and was a well-known and beloved presence for decades.
Sunshine “Sunny” Stewart, 48, was a familiar face at the Tenants Harbor General Store and on the local lobster wharves she worked from for years. She was a helpful, funny, skilled and upbeat person who had also worked in sailing, plumbing, carpentry and other trades, people who knew her said Friday.
“She was amazing,” said Patty St. Clair, the municipal clerk in St. George, the town the village of Tenants Harbor belongs to.
St. Clair, who lives up the hill from a home that Stewart owned on River Road, enjoyed talking to her in the town office when she was registering cars or boats. She recalled Stewart was also a skilled handyperson.
“She was just full of spirit and just seemed very kind to everybody,” St. Clair said.
Stewart had planned to spend the summer about 25 miles north in Union at the Mic Mac Cove Family Campground, where she went out paddleboarding on Crawford Pond last Wednesday and never returned, according to Maine State Police. Her body was found early the next morning.
The death has been ruled a homicide. Police have released little other information, fueling speculation and fear across Union, St. George and surrounding communities.
Most homicides in Maine are related to domestic violence, drug deals gone bad or altercations that escalate, but there has been no information released about the circumstances of this killing. Police typically add a statement that there’s no danger to the general public following major crimes, but they have not in this case, as the Midcoast Villager has reported.
“The whole thing is just really hard to wrap your head around,” said an employee at the Tenants Harbor General Store who declined to give her name. “…Everybody’s shocked. A lot of people knew her, and you know, it’s devastating when something like that happens.”
Locals aren’t expecting answers anytime soon, she said, but want to know what happened. Some wonder if a dangerous person is still at large.
Stewart grew up around Union and graduated from Medomak Valley High School in nearby Waldoboro, then attended Bradford College in Massachusetts, according to the Villager.
Attempts to reach Stewart’s relatives have been unsuccessful. Her sister, Kim Ware, told the television station WMTW this week that Stewart was a strong, selfless person who helped raise her nephews.
“Now we have to rally and give her justice,” she said.
Several lobstermen at the Tenants Harbor Fishermens Co-op said Friday that they were familiar with her, though they didn’t know her well, and that the crime hit close to home.
Stewart worked from the next wharf down, run by Art’s Lobsters, as a sternman for three different captains over the years. One job for a female captain made them an all-woman team, something that’s unusual in the male-dominated industry, according to the manager at Art’s, who identified himself as Steve.
“She was a good person, a hardworking person,” he said.
He knew her for at least 25 years. While much time has passed since she worked there — he believes she went on to lobster out of other neighboring towns — they’d catch up when she left from the wharf for other jobs in carpentry or plumbing on neighboring islands.
The mysterious nature of Stewart’s killing is especially frightening in this quiet area, said St. Clair, the town clerk.
“We’re going to miss her,” St. Clair said. “But she’ll live on.”
