Updated October 08, 2024 at 14:21 PM ET
A Kentucky sheriff shot and killed a local judge last month after dialing his teenage daughter’s number on the judge’s phone, according to testimony in a preliminary hearing on Tuesday.
Police say Letcher County Sheriff Mickey Stines dialed his daughter’s number from District Judge Kevin Mullins’ phone, then pulled his gun and shot Mullins repeatedly inside his own chambers in the city of Whitesburg on Sept. 19.
Kentucky State Police later clarified that they have no evidence the daughter’s phone number was on the judge’s phone before the sheriff dialed it, despite court testimony that suggested that. Trooper Matt Gayheart, a state police spokesman, attributed the confusion to what he called a “misleading” exchange during the preliminary hearing.
“It was very confusing,” Gayheart said. “I was even confused watching it.”
It’s not clear why the sheriff called his daughter from the judge’s phone. Gayheart says Stines’ daughter did not answer.
Graphic video played at the hearing appears to show Stines, a hulking man who stands 6’4” and weighs more than 300 pounds, firing on Mullins as he sits at his desk with his left hand up. After Mullins collapses to the floor, Stines is seen leaning over the desk to fire again. As Stines prepares to leave, the video shows him closing in from another angle, firing his final shots from about two feet away.
Inside the courtroom, members of the audience wailed and wept as they watched the brief clip. There was no audio. Stines, wearing handcuffs and a blue tunic, stared down at the defense table while his daughter, who sat behind him, looked at one of the walls.
Stines resigned as sheriff and has pleaded not guilty to murder.
Tuesday’s testimony and video are the latest turn in an extraordinary case in which a law officer has allegedly killed a judge. Killings of this sort are extremely rare.
In 1988, a judge in Grand Rapids, Mich., was killed by her estranged husband, a veteran police officer. The same year, a retired New York City police officer shot and killed a judge in Westchester County, after the judge dismissed a suit filed by the officer’s daughter.
The killing in Kentucky has gripped and baffled the people of Letcher, a county of about 21,000 in the state’s southeastern coalfields, about 150 miles from Lexington.
Stines, 43, and Mullins, 54, were well known throughout the community. Police said they had shared lunch together with others at a restaurant near the courthouse hours before the shooting.
Kentucky State Police are investigating the case but have not disclosed a possible motive.
Det. Clayton Stamper, the chief investigator, said the full video showed Stines trying to call his daughter from his phone and then from the judge’s phone. After that, the sheriff opened fire.
Stamper also testified that as he was taken into custody, Stines told officers, “They are trying to kidnap my wife and kid.”
Stamper didn’t elaborate on just what the sheriff might have meant. He did say, though, that he had heard the judge and sheriff were at odds over a recent lawsuit.
Several days before Stines allegedly killed the judge, he was interviewed for hours in a deposition in a suit that names Stines in his capacity as sheriff. The lawsuit claimed that Stines knew or should’ve known that a now-former deputy had coerced a female drug defendant into having sex in exchange for freeing her from house arrest. The defendant said Deputy Ben Fields had forced her to have sex with him in Judge Mullins’ chambers after hours in exchange for Fields taking off her ankle monitor.
Fields, who also served as the judge’s bailiff, pleaded guilty to rape charges last year. Both Mullins and Stines denied knowing anything about Fields' crimes.
In the wake of the shooting, some in Letcher County have focused on the sheriff’s state of mind.
The plaintiff and her two attorneys said Stines seemed agitated during the deposition, often turning to his attorney for guidance and asking for frequent breaks. The day after the deposition, Stines — who usually returned press calls promptly — took many hours to get back to a reporter about a fatal accident, according to The Mountain Eagle, Letcher’s weekly newspaper. Stines told the newspaper that he’d “told everyone at the sheriff’s office not to say anything to anyone until he returned.”
Stines also told the newspaper that he had lost 40 pounds in the past two weeks and did not know why.
The first-degree murder case against Stines now heads to a grand jury.
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