By most accounts, the teenager had a rough childhood. His dad would hit him, his half sister recalled, and their mom often smelled of alcohol. Many said the boy displayed violent tendencies from a young age.

He was removed from his parents’ custody by age 6 and put in the care of another family member. It became a familiar routine. For years, he bounced through more than a dozen unstable homes and unsafe family environments. It did little to improve his mental health.

So when another family member, a cousin, finally offered to be his 17th foster home in 2023, the family and state child welfare officials hoped it would provide him much needed stability.

No one expected it would end how it did.

Police were sent to the home in Chelsea on [the night of June 11, 2025](https://www.centralmaine.com/2025/06/13/victims-relatives-say-teen-accused-of-chelsea-slayings-had-mental-and-behavioral-issues/). A woman who called 911 lay injured in the front lawn. Her fiancé, Ty Carter Hunnewell, and his adopted father, Christopher Hunnewell, were dead inside the house. The teenager had killed them, the caller said.

For years, Maine has been plagued by a series of deaths of children whose short lives intersected with the state’s child protective system. In most cases, a high-profile death was followed by internal reviews of practices to see what might have gone wrong and calls for reform to ensure it didn’t happen again.

But the Chelsea case represents an entirely different dynamic. The child who entered the system wasn’t the one killed but the one suspected of doing the killing. Several experts told the Press Herald it’s the first time in Maine this has happened.

[Read the full story by Dylan Tusinski on the Press Herald](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/05/10/16-years-17-homes-chelsea-killings-show-flaws-in-maines-child-welfare-system/)

16 years, 17 homes: What a double homicide in central Maine reveals about the state's child welfare system