A small Kentucky town is still reeling from the accusation that a longtime sheriff shot and killed a judge in the county courthouse on Sept. 19, in a shocking act of violence that leaves many questions unanswered.
State police said sheriff’s deputy Shawn Stines, 43, shot and killed District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, after an argument in the judge’s chambers. Stines turned himself in, was arrested at the scene and is now charged with first-degree murder.
The motive for the shooting remains unclear. In the town of Whiteburg, population 1,711, people are wondering what happened between the two elected officials.
“It’s a small community and we’re all shocked,” Kentucky State Trooper Matt Gayheart said at a news conference on the evening of Sept. 19, after the shooting. “We know it was an altercation between the two that led to [to it] – but what exactly happened before the shots were fired, we are still trying to get an answer to that.”
Several residents told news outlets that Stines was a beloved member of the community and wondered what led to the outburst. Stines and Mullins were friends and had worked together at the county courthouse for more than a decade.
Stines was recently ousted in a federal investigation into a former sheriff’s deputy who pleaded guilty to raping and forcing a woman into court. Ben Fields, the former sheriff’s deputy, was sentenced to six months in jail and nearly seven years of probation as part of a plea agreement. Fields was fired in 2022 as the allegations proceeded through the courts.
The woman at the center of the case, as well as the estate of a second woman who made similar allegations against Field while she was alive but has since died, are suing Stines for failing to properly investigate the allegations.
According to CNN, an attorney for Stines said in the lawsuit that he “has at all times acted in good faith and exercised reasonable care and skill in performing his duties as required by law.”
On September 16, three days before the shooting, Stines was questioned in the case, sources told CNN.
Mike Watts, a clerk at the court, told local TV station WKYT that the sheriff and the judge had been having lunch together shortly before the shooting. However, police have not yet released what the argument was about that led to the shooting.
People close to Stines said the alleged shooting was out of character for him and were shocked to hear he killed Mullins.
“You couldn’t find a better person on earth than Mickey Stines. I don’t know what happened,” Patty Wood, a widow of the district judge who preceded Mullins and a friend of Stines, told ABC News. “I know [Stines’s] character. And I know there must have been something that did that… I just can’t believe he just went in there and shot him for no reason.”
Bill and Josephine Richardson, a couple who have lived in the city for more than 50 years, told the Louisville Courier-Journal that Stines was well-liked in the community, and two people they spoke with said Stines “wasn’t himself” earlier in the week before the shooting.
