The wife of a Kentucky sheriff accused of murdering a local judge has poured water on one of the most sordid rumors related to the case that is roiling their small town, court documents show.
Last year, former Letcher County Sheriff Shawn Stines was accused of murdering his close friend, District Judge Kevin Mullins. Surveillance camera video released by local police shows Stines shooting Mullins, 54, eight times in his own chambers after an intense confrontation on the afternoon of September 19.
Residents of Whitesburg, the small Eastern Kentucky town where the murder took place, speculated that Stines, 44, could have been motivated to kill Mullins because the judge was engaged in an illicit relationship with Stines’ teenage daughter.
The video of the shooting showed that Stines used Mullins’ phone to call someone shortly before he unloaded on the judge. That fact, combined with a state police detective’s testimony that Mullins’ phone had Stines’ daughter’s phone number in it, fueled the unseemly allegations against Mullins.
However, grand jury transcripts obtained by the Lexington Herald-Leader show that Stines’ wife, Caroline, and his daughter both denied that any relationship existed between either of them and the slain judge.
Per the transcripts, a state police detective told the grand jury that Caroline Stines and her daughter denied any contact via phone, text, or social media with Mullins.
That detective, Cole Stamper, also clarified his testimony from a previous hearing in which he said that Stines’ daughter’s number appeared on Mullins’ phone. He told the grand jury that Stines used Mullins’ phone to call his daughter moments before the fatal shooting
The grand jury documents, which were released as part of a motion by Stines’ attorneys to dismiss the indictment, still left major questions unanswered as to why the sheriff walked into the judge’s chambers and killed his close friend.
Video from the chambers show that Stines and Mullins were meeting with several other court employees, who left a few minutes before the shooting. Stines shut and locked the door and spoke with Mullins normally, before standing up and drawing his weapon. Mullins crouched on the ground and held his hand up, but Stines fired anyway.
Hours before the fatal encounter, Stines and Mullins lunched together at Streetside Grill & Bar, just a few hundred yards from the courthouse. They were regulars there and both ordered their usual chicken wings and salad.
Stines and Mullins’ friendship stretched back years: before Stines became sheriff of Letcher County in 2018, he was Mullins’ bailiff in District Court, where Judge Mullins heard cases ranging from traffic offenses to domestic violence.
Stines’ was believed to have been under intense stress in the days leading up to the shooting, due to his involvement in a case that implicated both him and Mullins in an alleged sex-for-favors ring involving the county jail.
Sabrina Adkins, a defendant in Letcher County Court, filed a lawsuit in 2022 alleging that she was forced to have sex with a deputy sheriff in Mullins’ chambers for six months in exchange for staying out of jail and not having to pay for an ankle monitor.
Stines was named as a defendant in Adkins’ federal civil rights lawsuit and accused of not properly training and supervising the deputy sheriff, Ben Fields, who ultimately pleaded guilty to rape and was sentenced to six months in jail.
Adkins also made explosive allegations against Mullins in her interviews with police, which were obtained by NewsNation.
“I seen Judge Mullins having sex with a girl… in his office, in the judge’s chambers,” Adkins told investigators.
During a deposition that he gave days before the killing, Stines denied that he had any knowledge of Fields’ scheme to extort sexual favors from inmates.
It is not known definitively whether Judge Mullins had any knowledge of Adkins being coerced to have sex in his chambers, or of the broader sexual abuse that is alleged in Adkins’ lawsuit.
Adkins’ attorney, Ned Pillersdorf, has said that Mullins and Fields were “running a brothel out of that courtroom,” per a NewsNation reporter who spoke to Pillersdorf.
Stines turned himself over to the authorities minutes after the shooting, after initially leaving the courthouse and then returning. His attorney has said that they will likely pursue an insanity defense, as the defendant was reportedly in an active state of psychosis for days following his arrest.
Stines likely won’t stand trial until next year, when he could face the death penalty if convicted.
An attorney for Stines did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
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