Why did Sheriff Mickey Stines shoot Judge Kevin D. Mullins? That’s the question dominating Letcher County, Kentucky, since September of 2024, when the shocking incident occurred.
Almost immediately rumors began swirling speculating exactly what was behind the crime. We know that Mullins and Stines ate lunch together the day of Mullins’s death. And several other people were in attendance at the business lunch, and one overheard Mullins ask Stines if they needed to meet privately in his chambers. Surveillance video shows Stines, moments before the shooting, using his phone to call someone, then using Mullins’s phone. Both calls were made to Stines’s daughter, and the daughter’s phone number was saved on the judge’s phone.
According to Stines’s attorney Jeremy Bartley, misconduct allegations against former deputy Ben Fields and Mullins are “going to be crucial” in Stines’s defense — he has pleaded not guilty to murder of a public official. Three days before Mullins’s death Stines gave a deposition in a civil case brought by Sabrina Adkins alleging women under house arrest were extorted for sexual favors in exchange for more lenient treatment. According to the complaint in that case, it all happened in Mullins’s chambers. Adkins’s attorney said “It’s like they were running a brothel out of that courtroom.”
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