WHITESBURG, Ky. — They had been friends for years, once working side by side in the county courthouse. They were two prominent elected officials in a town where it seemed like everyone knew each other.
Why did Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines, as he was accused in court, walk into a private room in the courthouse, pull a gun and kill District Judge Kevin Mullins?
It’s an unprecedented crime in a city that has gone years without a murder. And Thursday afternoon’s shooting left a gaping hole in the justice system — Mullins was the county’s only judge, and the sheriff is in custody in Leslie County, where he faces a charge of first-degree murder after surrendering at the scene.
With a population of just under 1,800 as of 2020, Whitesburg is a close-knit community. Letcher County Commonwealth’s Attorney Matt Butler recused himself from the case, largely because of family ties to the judge. The two were once married with two sisters, and Butler said his two daughters called Mullins “unkie.”
And in that 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 people in the area, many of whom have his cell phone number, to do the same.
“If you’re just going to gossip or be a nuisance or a gossip monger, then leave me out of that conversation and just don’t have that conversation,” Butler said. “Be more respectful.”
No motive has been made public. Kentucky State Police did not provide one immediately after the shooting, which occurred just before 3 p.m. Thursday. Nor did police hold a news conference Friday. His first court appearance is expected next week, and the three-count indictment offered few details. As of Saturday morning, Stines had not named an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
In the meantime, Whitesburg, Letcher County and the rest of the region can only speculate.
Mullins had no history of public disciplinary matters with the Kentucky Bar Association and was known in the community for working with drug offenders to get them into treatment centers instead of prison.
Stines, meanwhile, had friends across town. He had been a fixture in the community for decades, serving as a bailiff in Mullins’ courthouse for years before winning the race for sheriff in 2018. He had no plans to seek another term, he had said earlier this year.
Patty Wood, a paralegal at a law firm across the street from the courthouse, said her husband, former U.S. District Judge James Wood, “took (Stines) under his wing” when the sheriff was still a bailiff in his courtroom more than 15 years ago. If she saw Stines 10 times a day, she said, “there was always a hug.”
“He would always say, ‘Do you need anything? If you need anything, call me,'” Wood said. “Literally, no matter how many times I saw him in a day, it was always a hug, it was always those specific words he said.”
She was at her law office when she heard about a shooting at the courthouse on Thursday. She walked with attorney Jennifer Taylor to the scene, she said, where a crowd of stunned witnesses and bystanders had gathered.
“They said Kevin had been shot and Mickey had shot him, and at that moment my heart dropped,” Wood said. “That was the last thing you could imagine.”
According to Wood, it just doesn’t add up. And she’s not the only one with questions.
Bill and Josephine Richardson have lived in Whitesburg since they helped found the famed Appalachian arts center in 1969. The Richardsons had met both men but were closer to Stines. He was well-liked, Josephine said, and had pushed for a petition this year to allow alcohol sales throughout the county to boost the county’s coffers, assuring residents that he would not benefit financially because he was not running for re-election.
The Richardsons said two people they spoke to earlier in the week said Stines “wasn’t himself.”
They’ve seen a lot, but they’ve never seen a scene like the one that unfolded Thursday. Their son, who lives in Somerset, called Josephine minutes after the shooting, she said, and warned his parents not to go downtown.
The area was packed with police, ambulances and onlookers, and the nearby high school was on lockdown. A contingent of media swarmed the city, including reporters from LEX-18 and the New York Times.
Laci Wright, who works at nearby Coal City Coffee, witnessed the scene.
“Three ambulances went by, and then you saw fire trucks, and the police cars, police cars and all that stuff. It backed all the way up (to the end of the street),” she said.
The sheriff, a defendant in an ongoing federal lawsuit, was questioned for several hours Monday. He is accused of failing to train and supervise a deputy who gave favorable treatment to a woman under house arrest who did not want to return to the Letcher County Jail in exchange for sexual favors in Mullins’ chambers, which were not on camera at the time.
That deputy sheriff, Ben Fields, was fired and later convicted of multiple state charges, and spent less than a year in prison before being released on probation this summer. Stines was not accused of trading sex for favors, and Mullins was never charged.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs in that case told The Courier Journal they were surprised by the shooting and are unsure whether it played a role in Thursday’s chaos.
“Everyone has a different perspective,” Josephine said.
Jackie Steele, Commonwealth’s Attorney for nearby Perry County and several other jurisdictions in Eastern Kentucky, will take on the case alongside Attorney General Russell Coleman instead of the Letcher County Commonwealth’s Attorney. Butler praised Steele in his social media post, calling him “arguably the most competent 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’re not well.”
Wood is one of many in Letcher County and beyond waiting for clarity.
Meanwhile, Butler said, rumors can only complicate the situation, which is growing more dire by the minute.
“This is not the time to gossip. This is not the time to tear people down,” he told viewers. “… We’re going to do everything we can to help each other. We’re going to be respectful to each other as we grieve, and we’re going to do things to make our region safer and to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Contact Lucas Aulbach at laulbach@courier-journal.com.
This article originally appeared in the Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky judge shooting by sheriff raises more questions than answers
