Letcher County Sheriff Shawn "Mickey" Stines allegedly walked into the chambers of Judge Kevin Mullins, closed the door and started shooting, witnesses said.
A tiny Kentucky town was reeling Friday trying to understand how their sheriff ended up in jail and charged with murdering local judge Kevin Mullins, who was shot to death in his chambers, authorities said.
Letcher County Sheriff Shawn "Mickey" Stines, 43, has been charged with first-degree murder after he allegedly walked into Mullins' outer office, and said he needed to speak with the judge, witnesses said, according to police.
Stines stepped into Mullins' chambers and closed the door, according to authorities. After a few moments, multiple shots were heard, police said.
Stines then walked out of the chambers with his hands up and surrendered without incident, authorities said. The two had argued, investigators said, but the cause of the dispute was not publicly released.
“It’s just so sad. I just hate it,” Letcher County Circuit Court Clerk Mike Watts told The Associated Press. "Both of them are friends of mine. I’ve worked with both of them for years.”
Stines had been a bailiff in Mullins' courtroom for years before he was elected sheriff, Watts said.
The sheriff had given a deposition on Monday in a federal civil lawsuit filed by two women, one of whom said a deputy had forced her to have sex inside Mullins’ chambers for six months in exchange for not going back to jail.
The lawsuit accused Stines of "deliberate indifference in failing to adequately train and supervise” then-deputy Ben Fields.
Fields was sentenced in January to six months in jail, followed by six and a half years of probation, after he pleaded guilty to sodomy, perjury and tampering with a prisoner monitoring device, according to local reports.
Charges involving the second woman were dismissed because she has since died, authorities said.
In answer to the 2022 federal lawsuit, Stines' attorneys wrote, “Mickey Stines, at all times acted in good faith and exercised reasonable care and skill in effectuating his duties as required by law.”
The dead woman's relatives family remain plainffs in the federal civil lawsuit. Stines fired Fields in February 2022, citing "conduct unbecoming," the Louisville Courier Journal reported.
"This community is small in nature, and we’re all shook," Kentucky State Trooper Matt Gayheart said at a Thursday night news conference. Investigators said they are working to establish a motive for the killing.
The Letcher County Courthouse is in Whitesburg, population 1,700, some 150 miles southeast of Lexington. Letcher County is rural and has struggled for decades after coal mining stripped the land and left it barren, community workers say.
Rampant drug trafficking of prescription medications including oxycodone and fentanyl have not helped the area, law enforcement officials say.
“We will fully investigate and pursue justice,” Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said on social media.
Stines had been credited for working to get fentanyl and methamphetamine out of the comunnity, and for helping users to get treament.
He was appointed sheriff in 2009 by the governor, and has been elected the county's top law enforcement officer since then. Earlier, he had been a local prosecutor.
It was not clear Friday whether Stines had retained an attorney.
“There is far too much violence in this world, and I pray there is a path to a better tomorrow,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said in a social media post.
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