A small Kentucky town is rocked by the imprisonment of its sheriff for the murder of a prominent judge.

WHITESBURG, Kentucky – Residents of a small Appalachian town were dealing with a shooting Friday involving two of its most prominent citizens: a judge gunned down in his courthouse and a local sheriff accused of his murder.

“It’s so sad. I hate it,” said Mike Watts, Letcher County Circuit Court Clerk. “They’re both friends of mine. I’ve worked with them for years.”

A preliminary investigation indicates Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines shot District Judge Kevin Mullins multiple times following an argument inside the courthouse, according to Kentucky State Police.

Mullins, 54, who served as judge for 15 years, died at the scene, and Stines, 43, surrendered without incident. He has been charged with one count of first-degree murder.

The fatal shooting stunned the close-knit town of Whitesburg, the county seat, with a population of about 1,700 people, 146 miles (235 kilometers) southeast of Lexington.

Watts said he saw Mullins and Stines together shortly before noon Thursday, about three hours before the shooting, when he went to the judge’s chambers to ask him to sign papers. Mullins and Stines were preparing to go to lunch together, Watts said.

It seemed like a normal interaction, except Stines seemed calmer than usual. He thought the two men had a good working relationship and had no idea what might have provoked the violent encounter.

Watts, who was on another floor of the courthouse, never heard any gunshots and was only informed of the shooting when his son called to say there was an “active shooter” in the courthouse.

The key question is what could have led to the shooting.

Stines was dismissed Monday in a lawsuit filed by two women, one of whom said a deputy sheriff forced her to have sex in Mullins’ office for six months in exchange for her escaping from jail. The lawsuit accuses the sheriff of “deliberate indifference in failing to properly train and supervise” the deputy.

Former deputy sheriff Ben Fields pleaded guilty to raping the prisoner while she was under house arrest. Fields was sentenced this year to six months in prison and then six and a half years of probation for rape, sodomy, perjury and tampering with a prisoner monitoring device, The Mountain Eagle reported. Three charges related to a second woman were dropped because she is now deceased.

Stines fired Fields, who succeeded him as Mullins’ bailiff, for “conduct unbecoming” after the lawsuit was filed in 2022, the Courier Journal reported at the time.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said his office would work with a regional commonwealth’s attorney as special prosecutors in the criminal case, since the county’s top prosecutor, Matt Butler, recused himself and his office. Butler said he and the judge married two sisters and their children acted like siblings.

“We will fully investigate and seek justice,” Coleman said on social media.

Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Laurance B. VanMeter said he was “shocked by this act of violence” and that the justice system was “shaken by this news.”

Jessica Slone, a distant relative of Stines and a longtime Letcher County resident, said she was shocked when she heard the news. She was at the dollar store with her nephew when he told her Mullins had been shot.

“I seriously wondered if he was OK. He said, ‘No, he’s dead,’” she said. “But at the time, I didn’t know Mickey had done that. When I found out, I was out shopping and I got really emotional and started praying.”

She described Stines as a family man who was close to his children and worked hard to get fentanyl and methamphetamine off the streets of the community and help people struggling with substance use disorders recover.

Patty Wood, the widow of District Judge Jim Wood, Mullins’ predecessor, said she had been a close friend of Stines and his family for years. She said she was shocked by the shooting and Stines’ arrest.

“You can’t find a better person on earth than Mickey Stines. I don’t know what happened,” she said.

“I know Mickey’s temper. And I know there must have been something that caused this,” she said. “I can’t believe he just came in and shot her for no reason.”

Wood said Stines had worked as a bailiff in her late husband’s courtroom and had held the same position when Mullins took over after her husband’s death. She never saw the sheriff display anger, she said.

Letcher County Judge-Executive closed the county courthouse Friday.

It’s unclear whether Stines had an attorney — state police referred inquiries to a spokesman who did not immediately respond by email.

Mullins has served as a district judge in Letcher County since he was appointed by former Gov. Steve Beshear in 2009 and elected the following year.

___

Researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed from New York.