Young began her career at
WMTW, the
ABC affiliate in
Portland, Maine, where her reporting, profiled on A&E's
Cold Case Files and TruTV's
Forensic Files, led police to the remains of Pearl Bruns, a South Portland grandmother who was found buried in the basement of her home after she was beaten to death by her husband. In 1996, Young led the first television camera crew into the world's largest brown egg production facility, Decoster Eggs, where she documented working conditions for migrant workers that she described as dangerous and inhumane. Later, Young's reporting uncovered allegations of financial irregularities and illegal election practices within
Christian Civic League of Maine, a conservative lobbying group responsible for overturning Maine's gay rights law. Young's 2005 book,
A Bitter Brew: Faith, Power and Poison in a Small New England Town, documented a 2003
arsenic poisoning that took place at a small
Lutheran church in
New Sweden, Maine, killing one church member and making 15 others critically ill. While
Maine State Police and many church members theorized that someone had helped the poisoner, lifelong member Daniel Bondeson, Young's book argued that Bondeson acted alone, countering theories that suggested others were involved. In 2006, the
Maine Attorney General agreed that Bondeson had acted alone and closed the case. In 2006, Young began investigating the facts behind the 1987
Hell's Kitchen murder of a young prostitute from
Buffalo, New York, Michaelanne Hall, and the conviction of an intellectually challenged security guard, Lebrew Jones. Suspecting Jones had been wrongfully convicted, but Jones was released from prison in 2009 after the New York County District Attorney's Office reopened his case after Young raised questions about the state’s case against Jones. In December 2009, Young's series of multimedia stories on the Jones case was highlighted in testimony before the
Federal Trade Commission by Karen Dunlap, president of the journalism think tank
Poynter Institute. Jones, the son of
Count Basie and
Duke Ellington jazz drummer Rufus "Speedy" Jones, served 22 years in prison before winning an early release that legal and media experts attributed to Young's reporting. ==Awards and honors==