AUGUSTA, Maine — The court-appointed guardian for a Maine teenager accused of killing two men called for his removal from the home months before the killings, testifying Wednesday that the boy wasn’t in school and was sleeping on a mattress on the dining room floor.
Steven Carey, Jason Hunnewell’s guardian ad litem, was one of four witnesses to testify Wednesday at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta, where a judge is weighing whether Hunnewell will be tried as an adult. He faces two counts of murder in the June 11 deaths of cousin Christopher Hunnewell and 22-year-old Ty Carter, both of Chelsea.
Testimony on Wednesday, the first day of the three-day set of hearings, painted a troubling portrait of a child who cycled through foster placements for 16 years, with a history of hospitalizations and behavioral crises that his family says the Maine Department of Health and Human Services never fully disclosed before placing him in their home.
Carey said that after his fall 2024 visit to the Chelsea home, he called DHHS to say Hunnewell needed to be removed. No foster family stepped up. Despite the rocky stretch, Carey said a visit in April 2025 went well. Two months later, he was woken by a phone call telling him what Hunnewell is accused of doing. He visited the child later that day.
“He was emotionless,” Carey said. “He was kind of like a blank person. … He said, ‘I feel like plastic.’”
Carey was one of four witnesses to testify Wednesday in a bindover hearing at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta. In the court-appointed position, he represents a child’s best interests. He held that position with Hunnewell 2013 to 2015, when the protective case was dismissed. Carey was reappointed in 2020 and is still in that role.
After Carey visited the family’s home in Chelsea in fall 2024, he said he called DHHS to say Hunnewell needed to be removed in large part because he wasn’t in school and his bedroom had been moved from a bedroom to a mattress on the floor in the dining room, Carey said. The move was because of behavioral issues, Assistant Attorney General Katie Sibley said.
DHHS tried to get Hunnewell placed with a foster family but no one stepped up, Carey said. In another visit months later, the home life was “better but still rocky,” Carey said.
But he said Christopher Hunnewell was “really committed” to keeping Hunnewell so he didn’t go back to foster care. Carey had a “great” visit with Hunnewell in April 2025, saying he thought the family was doing “everything it could to keep him there.”
Jessie Hunnewell, Christopher’s widow, said she learned a lot about Hunnewell’s history while sitting in court on Wednesday. She said that DHHS did not disclose details — including issues with kids and animals — or provide the full picture before the family took him in.
Christopher Hunnewell had wanted to take in the teenager for a few years and then one day in spring 2023, he called Jessie Hunnewell and said he was bringing him home. It moved fast, which was concerning, but the family tried to make it work, she said.
“He didn’t want to give up on [Hunnewell] and because of that, he was murdered,” Jessie Hunnewell said.
Around 4-years-old, Jason Hunnewell made a body out of Play-Doh and cut it up, Assistant Attorney General Katie Sibley said in court. Carey said he didn’t remember that but he didn’t doubt it. He was first hospitalized at 5 for being aggressive toward people, Sibley said. He has since been diagnosed with a mood disorder, Carey said.
Judge Charles Dow is deciding whether or not Hunnewell will be tried as an adult. If tried as a juvenile and convicted, his sentence cannot exceed his 21st birthday. If tried as an adult and convicted, he faces a minimum of 25 years in prison for each charge under Maine law.
It’s important that Hunnewell is tried as an adult, cousin Danica Zirkle said. Rehabilitating 17 years of behavior will require more than the four years Long Creek Youth Development Center can provide until he turns 21, she said.
“This case is so important, not just for our family but the large picture of how something like this could happen,” Zirkle said.
