Important Takeaways:
- Investigators are trying to determine what motivated a Kentucky sheriff to allegedly shoot and kill a district judge after the two had an argument inside the judge’s chambers, according to Kentucky State Police.
- District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, was found around 3 p.m. Thursday with multiple gunshot wounds and pronounced dead at the Letcher County courthouse in Whitesburg, Kentucky State Police Trooper Matt Gayheart said at a Thursday evening news conference.
- Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines, 43, shot Mullins after an argument inside the judge’s chambers, a preliminary police investigation revealed.
- Stines is now facing a first-degree murder charge, state police said.
- Stines turned himself in after the shooting and was arrested at the scene without incident on Thursday, authorities said. He is cooperating with authorities, Gayheart said. It is unclear who will take over as the county sheriff following the arrest of Stines, who had been sheriff for about eight years.
- The killing came less than two weeks after southeast Kentucky was rocked by a shooting at an interstate that wounded five people in Laurel County earlier this month. And just three days ago, a Russell County deputy had been killed in the line of duty, officials said.
- “There is far too much violence in this world, and I pray there is a path to a better tomorrow,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said in a social media post.
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