A key question is what may have led to the shooting.
Stines was deposed on Monday in a lawsuit filed by two women, one of whom alleged that a deputy forced her to have sex inside Mullins’ chambers for six months in exchange for staying out of jail. The lawsuit accuses the sheriff of “deliberate indifference in failing to adequately train and supervise” the deputy.
The now-former deputy sheriff, Ben Fields, pleaded guilty to raping the female prisoner while she was on home incarceration. Fields was sentenced this year to six months in jail and then six and a half years on probation for rape, sodomy, perjury and tampering with a prisoner monitoring device, The Mountain Eagle reported. Three charges related to a second woman were dismissed because she is now dead.
Stines fired Fields, who succeeded him as Mullins’ bailiff, for “conduct unbecoming” after the lawsuit was filed in 2022, The Courier Journal reported at the time.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said his office will collaborate with a commonwealth’s attorney in the region as special prosecutors in the criminal case.
“We will fully investigate and pursue justice,” Coleman said on social media.
Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Laurance B. VanMeter said he was “shocked by this act of violence” and that the court system was “shaken by this news.”
Jessica Slone, a distant relative of Stines’ and a lifelong resident of Letcher County, said she was shocked when she heard the news. She was at the dollar store with her nephew when he told her Mullins had been shot.
“I was like seriously? Is he okay? And he said ‘No, he’s dead,’” she said. “But at the time, I didn’t know that Mickey had done it. When I found out I was grocery shopping and I got really emotional and started praying.”
She described Stines as a family man who is close with his children and worked hard to get fentanyl and methamphetamine off the streets of the community and help people dealing with substance use disorder get into recovery.
Letcher County’s judge-executive closed the county courthouse on Friday.
It was unclear whether Stines had an attorney — state police referred inquires to a spokesperson who did not immediately respond by email.
Mullins served as a district judge in Letcher County since he was appointed by former Gov. Steve Beshear in 2009 and elected the following year.
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