(CNN) – A small, tight-knit community in southeastern Kentucky has been shaken after its sheriff was arrested in the death of a prominent district judge in his chambers Thursday, prompting residents to wonder what might have triggered the shooting and to call for Better security at the courthouse.
Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines, 43, a man responsible for the personal safety of judges, gunned down District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, at the Letcher County Courthouse in Whitesburg, according to Kentucky State Police.
Stines surrendered after the shooting and was arrested at the scene without incident, authorities said. He now faces a murder charge, state police said.
The homicide shocked the small town of Whitesburg, with a population of 1,711 people.
“This community is small by nature, and we are all shocked,” Kentucky State Trooper Matt Gayheart said at a news conference Thursday night.
It all happened after an argument between the two men inside the judge’s office on Thursday afternoon, a preliminary investigation revealed.
A quiet day at the courthouse turned chaotic when, shortly before 3 p.m. Thursday, police received a 911 call “in reference to shots fired from inside the building,” Gayheart said.
Hearing reports of an active attacker at the courthouse, court security officer Wallace Kincer and Circuit Court Clerk Mike Watts sprang into action, directing attorneys and court staff away from the unknown danger lurking in the offices, according to Matt Butler, Commonwealth’s Attorney for Letcher County.
Fear shook the county when Letcher County Public Schools students were placed on lockdown shortly before 3:30 p.m.
“After a call from Kentucky State Police, LCC was ordered into a mandatory lockdown due to an active shooting at the facility. “Your children are safe,” said a message to parents.
The court was without its 15-year district judge after Mullins was found with multiple gunshot wounds and pronounced dead, police said.
Letcher County was also left without its sheriff for eight years after Stines was arrested at the courthouse Thursday, and it is unclear who will replace him, officials said. He is jailed in Leslie County and his first court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 25 in Carter County, said Jackie Steele, the Commonwealth’s Attorney assigned to the case. CNN is trying to determine if Stines has an attorney.
While residents wait for details about the argument that led to the shooting, the motive remains under investigation, Gayheart said, adding that the incident was “isolated.” But this is the first time a tragedy “of this magnitude” has afflicted the county, she said.
Ben Gish, editor of the Mountain Eagle, a local weekly, told CNN that “none of us could imagine something like this happening these days.”
“I can’t imagine the scar this will leave on our community,” Gish said.
While the shooting led some residents to search for answers, it also led some to advocate for more adequate security protocols at the Letcher County Courthouse, including installing a metal detector and adding security at the entrance.
“The Letcher County Courthouse is one of the last ones you can enter without a metal detector or security at the front door,” Matt Butler, Commonwealth’s Attorney for Letcher County, said in a video statement on Friday. “This is unacceptable in 2024. It was unacceptable when I started in 2007.”
Many residents knew the two prominent figures in the community, and friends of both the sheriff and the judge said they were stunned by the murder, while trying to understand why it had happened.
“Our community has suffered an act of violence that appears to be between two men I have worked with for seventeen years and loved like brothers,” Butler said.
Butler recused himself and his office from the sheriff’s prosecution because of family ties, saying he and the judge had married two sisters and that their children act more like brothers than cousins. Butler added that he had a “close professional relationship” with both Mullins and Stines, he said in his video deposition.
In Letcher County “we all know each other,” Butler said.
“If you knew Letcher County, you would know that families stay closely connected at all times and become even closer during times of unspeakable tragedy like today,” he said.
The community not only lost its sheriff and district judge, but it also lost two friends with whom it worked daily, Circuit Court Clerk Mike Watts told CNN affiliate WKYT.
“It is simply unimaginable. I don’t know what happened. Or what the reason was,” Watts said. “I know the Kentucky State Police are investigating, and I trust that they will hopefully provide some answers as to why. Maybe that will help us all heal. “The whole community, we are all in shock.”
In Kentucky, sheriffs are responsible for courthouse security, including the personal safety of judges, according to Jerry Wagner, a retired sheriff who is now the executive director of the Kentucky Sheriffs Association.
“We have 120 sheriffs who work daily with our judges. We work more closely with them than with any other elected official,” Wagner told CNN on Friday.
“No one saw this coming,” Wagner added. “I don’t know how you prepare for something like that.”
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear commented Friday morning on speculation on social media about what motivated the deadly shooting.
“I know there is a lot on the internet and elsewhere. “This is an active, ongoing investigation,” she said during a news conference on another matter.
Sheriff testified in lawsuit days before shooting
Earlier this week, Stines testified in an ongoing federal lawsuit involving a former deputy who coerced a woman to have sex with him in Mullins’ office in 2021.
Sabrina Adkins and Jennifer Hill filed the lawsuit against Stines and Deputy Ben Fields in 2022, alleging that the deputy sheriff said he would keep Adkins out of jail and on home release, while avoiding paying fees associated with an ankle monitor, to change of sexual relations.
Fields was charged with multiple felonies and one misdemeanor, including rape and tampering with a monitoring device, and was given a suspended jail sentence as part of a plea deal earlier this year, according to the Mountain Eagle newspaper.
Hill later died and criminal charges against Fields related to her were dropped, but her estate continues the lawsuit against Field and Stines, court records show.
The lawsuit alleges that sexual allegations against Fields “were not adequately investigated by Sheriff Stines.”
Stines fired Fields in 2022, after the lawsuit was filed, for “inappropriate conduct,” according to a disciplinary letter obtained by the Louisville Courier-Journal.
In a response filed to the lawsuit, defense attorneys wrote that “Mickey Stines, at all times, acted in good faith and exercised reasonable care and skill in the performance of his duties as required by law.”
Stines testified in the case on Monday, both plaintiffs’ and defendants’ attorneys confirmed to CNN.
Jonathan Shaw, the attorney representing Stines in his official capacity in the lawsuit, told CNN in an email that he did not have the authority to speak on Stines’ personal behalf in the federal lawsuit or the murder case.
“This is a sad day for our legal community, and I hope that in time we will have a clearer understanding of the circumstances that led to Judge Mullins’ death,” Shaw said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the judge’s family and the families of all those involved.”
An investigation into how the fatal shooting unfolded and what the argument between the two men was about is ongoing, state police said Thursday.
“We know it was an argument between the two that led to this, but what exactly happened before the shots were fired, those are things we’re still trying to get answers to,” Gayheart said.
There are cameras inside the building and all witnesses will be interviewed, he said. Although there were other people in the building when Mullins died, no one else was inside the judge’s office, according to authorities.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman indicated Thursday that his office will work with Commonwealth’s Attorney Steele as special prosecutors in the case.
“We will fully investigate and seek justice,” Coleman said.
Mullins’ body will be sent to the medical examiner’s office in the state capital in Frankfort, according to Gayheart.
In memory of Mullins, flags at all Kentucky Courthouse facilities will be lowered to half-staff through Monday. Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Laurance B. VanMeter said he was “shocked” by Mullins’ murder and that the justice system was “shaken.”
As a result of the shooting, circuit and district courts, as well as the Circuit Court clerk’s office, will be closed until operations can resume, the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts said Thursday. Once the courts reopen, a retired judge will temporarily take over district court cases until a Judicial Nominating Commission selects Mullins’ replacement, spokesman Jim Hannah told CNN on Friday.
The killing occurred less than two weeks after southeastern Kentucky was rocked by a shooting on an interstate that injured five people in Laurel County. And just four days ago, a Russell County deputy was killed in the line of duty, authorities said.
CNN’s Zoe Sottile, Cindy Von Quednow, Artemis Moshtaghian, Andy Rose and Jamiel Lynch contributed to this report.
