Why would a Kentucky sheriff shoot a judge? The town is haunted by questions.

Letcher County Sheriff Mickey Stines has been charged with murder following the shooting at the courthouse of District Judge Kevin Mullins.
The high-profile shooting in the small town of Whitesburg, Kentucky, has left more questions than answers with no publicly identified motive.
Mickey Stines is expected to appear in court next week but has not made any public statements since the shooting.

WHITESBURG, Ky. — They had been friends for years and had once worked side by side in the county courthouse. They were two high-ranking elected officials in a town where everyone seemed to know each other.

So why, while facing charges in court, did Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines enter a private room inside the courthouse, pull out a gun and kill District Judge Kevin Mullins?

It was an unprecedented crime in a city that can go years without a homicide. And Thursday afternoon’s shooting left a gaping hole in the justice system: Mullins was the county’s only judge, and its sheriff is behind bars in Leslie County, charged with first-degree murder after he visited the scene.

With a population of just under 1,800 as of 2020, Whitesburg is a close-knit town. Letcher County Prosecutor Matt Butler recused himself from the case largely because of family ties to the judge. The two men were once married to two sisters, and Butler said his two daughters called Mullins “unkie.”

And in this tight-knit community, Butler knows that rumors spread like wildfire. In a video he posted to social media Friday morning, he told viewers he would “not be a source of gossip” and asked area residents, many of whom have his cellphone number, to do the same.

“If you’re just looking to gossip, create trouble or stir up rumors, leave me out of this conversation and don’t have this conversation,” Butler said. “Be more respectful.”

No motive has been publicly identified. Kentucky State Police did not immediately provide one after the shooting, which happened shortly before 3 p.m. Thursday. Police also did not hold a news conference Friday. Stines’ first court appearance is likely next week, and the three-sentence summons provided few details. As of Saturday morning, Stines had not named an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

Meanwhile, Whitesburg, Letcher County and the rest of the region could only speculate.

Mullins had no public disciplinary record with the Kentucky Bar and had a reputation in the community for working with drug offenders to get them into treatment centers rather than prisons.

Stines, meanwhile, had friends all over town. He had been a fixture in the community for decades, working for years as a bailiff at Mullins Court before winning the sheriff’s race in 2018. He had no plans to run for another term, he said earlier this year.

Patty Wood, a paralegal at a law firm just steps from the courthouse, said her husband, former District Judge James Wood, “took Stines under his wing” when the sheriff was still a bailiff in his courtroom more than 15 years ago. While she saw Stines 10 times a day, “there was always a hug,” she said.

“He would always say to me, ‘Do you need anything? If you need anything, call me,’” Wood said. “Literally, no matter how many times I saw him throughout the day, it was always a hug, it was always those exact words that he would say to me.”

She was at the law office when she heard about a shooting at the courthouse Thursday. She walked with attorney Jennifer Taylor to the scene, she said, where a crowd of stunned witnesses and onlookers had gathered.

“They said Kevin had been shot and Mickey had shot him, and at that point my heart stopped,” Wood said. “That was the last thing on my mind.”

In Wood’s mind, it all makes no sense. And she’s not the only one wondering.

Bill and Josephine Richardson have lived in Whitesburg since they helped found the famed Appalshop arts center in 1969. The Richardsons met both men but were closer to Stines. He was well-liked, Richardson said, and this year pushed for a petition to allow countywide alcohol sales to boost his coffers, assuring residents he would not benefit financially because he was not running for reelection.

The Richardsons said two people they spoke to said Stines “wasn’t himself” earlier this week.

They’ve seen a lot of things, but they’ve never seen a scene like what unfolded Thursday. Their son, who lives in Somerset, called Josephine Richardson minutes after the shooting, she said, and warned his parents not to go into town.

The neighborhood was packed with police, ambulances and onlookers, and the nearby high school was on lockdown. A contingent of media descended on the city, including reporters from LEX-18 and the New York Times.

Laci Wright, who works at nearby Coal City Coffee, watched the scene unfold.

“Three ambulances went by, then we saw fire trucks, police cars, cop cars and all that. There was traffic all the way down the street,” she said.

The sheriff is accused in another ongoing federal lawsuit that was deposed for several hours Monday. He was accused of failing to train and supervise a deputy sheriff who traded preferential treatment for a woman under house arrest who would not return to the Letcher County Jail for sexual favors in Mullins’ office, where there were no cameras at the time.

The deputy, Ben Fields, was fired and later convicted on multiple charges. He spent less than a year in prison before being released this summer on probation. Stines was not charged with exchanging sexual favors, and Mullins was not charged with any wrongdoing.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case told The Courier Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, that they were surprised by the shooting and do not know whether the case played a role in Thursday’s chaos.

“Everyone has different perspectives,” Josephine Richardson said.

Jackie Steele, the commonwealth’s attorney for neighboring Perry County and several other eastern Kentucky jurisdictions, will take the case alongside Attorney General Russell Coleman in place of the Letcher County commonwealth’s attorney. Butler praised Steele in his social media post, calling him “perhaps the most capable prosecutor in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”

Wood remains close to Stines’ family and saw his wife and daughter Friday. They are a “good family,” she said, but right now, “they are not doing well.”

Wood is among many people in Letcher County and beyond waiting for clarity.

In the meantime, Butler said, the rumors can only complicate a situation that is growing more frantic by the minute.

“This is not the time to gossip. This is not the time to criticize people,” he told viewers. “We’re going to do everything we can to help each other. We’re going to respect each other as we grieve and we’re going to do things to make our county safer and make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Contact Lucas Aulbach at [email protected].