The teenager accused of murdering a paddleboarder in Union last summer had been waiting for behavioral health services from the state, according to an audio recording from the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office.

Deven Young was 17 when he was charged with the murder of Sunshine “Sunny” Stewart, 48. She was reported missing after she did not return from paddleboarding on Crawford Pond on July 2. Police ruled her cause of death as strangulation and blunt force trauma.

An audio interview obtained by the Portland Press Herald chronicles Young’s violent behavior and failed attempts to get him in-home behavioral health services over several years. The recording is of a January 2023 visit to his home in Frankfort by Detective Sgt. Merl Reed, who was referred there after the teenager told a teacher he had been hit in the eye at home.

Reed spoke with two adults, likely Young’s mother and father, although their names are redacted in the recording.

The man in the recording told the detective he had to “backhand” Young to snap him out of a rage and accidentally poked his eye. He said Young was swearing in his face and throwing things at him because he didn’t want to help move a trailer.

“That quickly, he goes from fine to just boiling over,” the man said.

The pair said their walls are riddled with holes from Young’s episodes. Outside, he took to hitting the family’s vehicles with a pickaxe, and the man said Young once “beat the s*** out of her,” referring to the woman in the recording, until her face was bloody.

When he was in a good mood, the woman described him as “the sweetest nicest kid you’ll ever meet in your f****** life.”

Young had been diagnosed with 14 conditions, including bipolar disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, intermittent explosive disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, the woman said. He received daily counseling at school and spent multiple stints at Northern Light Acadia Hospital in Bangor, a psychiatric facility offering dozens of therapy groups, treatment programs and counseling services for teenagers.

His behavior improved after each visit to Acadia, the woman told Reed.

However, she said Young had been on a waitlist for three years for in-home services, which would have provided around-the-clock assistance and helped him adjust to various social settings. She had spoken with an official at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services about setting up an appointment with Young but said they never followed up.

“They haven’t called back or anything,” the woman said.

Waitlists for behavioral health services are not unusual in Maine. The state encourages adults 18 years and older with developmental disabilities to call its crisis intervention hotline or take advantage of prevention services, but many calls for in-home support staff go unfilled due to an ongoing direct care shortage.

Frankfort, a town of 1,231 people, is a 25-minute drive from Belfast, where MaineHealth operates a behavioral health clinic, and another 30 minutes from Bangor, where Acadia, Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Hospital and several outpatient mental health providers are located.

Rural residents have a unique set of challenges, said Justin Chenette, spokesperson for Sweetser, a Maine community mental health provider that operates mobile crisis teams.

“Particularly in rural communities, isolation is a huge issue,” Chenette said. “It exacerbates both existing mental health challenges and creates new ones, and so we find a big reliance on our peer support line to try to prevent somebody from getting into a crisis-level situation.”

According to the interview, Young’s episodes came on suddenly and tended to be more severe if he hadn’t taken his medication. He would apologize as soon as the episode was over, the man in the recording said, which is why they rarely involved police.

“I don’t know how we can reprimand him when he’s already in a terror,” the man said. “It don’t do us no good to make a phone call and have the cops here, because we’ve done that before, and he comes down from his little high and he’s fine, he mellows right out, he’s all apologetic.”

“Now you’ve got a pile of paperwork, he’s still got the same problem.”

As Reed steered the conversation to an end, the pair assured him that Young was doing better. The man wondered if there was a different program that could help the teenager, especially before he turned 18 and got in real trouble for “beating the hell out of someone.”

To the sound of a swinging front door and barking dogs, Reed encouraged the pair to reach out to a caseworker and said he was sorry he couldn’t do more to help.

“I wish I had some answers for you,” Reed said. “But I don’t.”