Kentucky Town Is Shaken After Local Sheriff Is Charged With Killing Judge

U.S.|Kentucky Town Is Shaken After Local Sheriff Is Charged With Killing Judge

When Judge Kevin Mullins and Sheriff Shawn Stines, 2 longtime officials successful a agrarian eastbound Kentucky county, were seen getting acceptable to spell to luncheon connected Thursday, determination was nary evident denotation of sick will.

But by 3 p.m., Judge Mullins was dormant from aggregate gunshot wounds to the chest. Sheriff Stines, known arsenic Mickey to the community, surrendered to the police and is present successful a adjacent region jail, facing a complaint of first-degree murder.

Little is known astir wherefore the 2 men argued oregon what prompted the gunfire successful the territory judge’s chambers successful the Letcher County courthouse, beyond the archetypal details that the authorities gave connected Thursday evening. But the unit has shaken the county, a tight-knit Appalachian assemblage of about 21,000 people that has been battered successful caller years by the demise of the ember manufacture and a bid of devastating floods successful 2022.

“We emotion our neighbors, and we attraction astir each different — we’re each similar family, really,” said Mike Watts, the Letcher County Circuit Court clerk, who saw the 2 men caput to luncheon earlier the shooting. “It’s devastating. Everybody’s successful shock.”

“I’m grieving for some families,” Mr. Watts added, noting that helium was connected a abstracted level astatine the clip of the shooting. There were, helium said, “no words to picture it.”

The courts were indefinitely closed successful the tiny assemblage of Whitesburg, the region spot astir 150 miles southeast of Lexington, and flags were lowered to half-staff. Sheriff Stines, 43, remained successful the Leslie County Detention Center arsenic of Friday greeting arsenic the tribunal strategy worked to sanction a peculiar justice to oversee the case, according to Jackie Steele, 1 of the authorities prosecutors handling the case.