Stunning new video reveals what happened just before judge was shot dead by sheriff best friend

Daily Mail​

06-05-2025

Shocking new surveillance footage captured the moments that led a Kentucky sheriff to shoot his longtime friend and local judge Kevin Mullins in his chambers.
The alleged murder unfolded September 19, 2024, when Letcher County Sheriff Shawn 'Mickey' Stines was seen in the footage entering Mullins' office as he sat with several others.
Stines and Mullins had been out for lunch together and several of the people in Mullins' office shortly before the shooting, and the sheriff appears to order the others out of the room at the start of the footage.
The video, first shared by Fox News, showed Stines confronting Mullins as soon as he enters the room, sitting across from him at the desk and bringing up something on his phone.
At one point, Mullins handed his phone across the desk to Stines, before the sheriff takes the phone and attempts to make a call that does not appear to have been answered.
Stines briefly looked through the phone before tossing it back on the desk, with Mullins still appearing to try and calmly talk the sheriff down from a rage.
The footage then showed Stines stand up and lift his shirt to reveal his gun holstered on his hip, which caused the judge to then take notice and lift his hands up.
Prosecutors have charged Stines with first-degree murder, however his attorneys indicated they are preparing to mount an insanity defense in his upcoming trial.
The footage offers the clearest look yet at the shocking shooting last year that stunned the small town of Whitesburg, Kentucky, where the two men played important roles in the community.
They were known as longtime friends who often ate lunch together, including on the day Mullins was killed.
Their familiarity was evident in the footage from inside Mullins' chambers, as the judge sat smoking a cigarette with his legs crossed as Stines grilled him.
Although the footage was released without sound, body language expert Susan Constantine told Fox News that it was clear the sheriff 'was ready to go the minute he walked in.'
By contrast, Mullins 'is very nonchalant, very carefree', she said, as he sat smoking a cigarette and did not appear to understand the imminent danger he was in.
'The sheriff then leans in, he's obviously got something on his mind because he's in an action stance,' Constantine said.
'I think the fact that [Mullins] is shrugging it off, I think that created more angst towards the judge because he wasn't taking it seriously, whatever was being spoken about, and he's kind of playing it off like it wasn't a big deal... And the more he played it out, 'this is not a big deal,' the more angry Stines became.'
'The judge is kind of going, 'what are you doing?' Put the gun down,' Constantine said. 'Using his hand gestures, kind of flinging him out, like, 'what are you doing?' This doesn't make any sense.'
In a sudden move, the judge then puts his hands up by his head, in an apparent reaction to something the sheriff said.
The footage ends as Stines allegedly shot Mullins dead as he sat at his desk.
The motive behind the shooting remains unclear, however Stines' attorneys indicated in court filings in March that they intend to launch an insanity defense.
Defense attorney Jeremy Bartley issued a legal filing saying his client's state of mind at the time of the shooting would be key to his upcoming trial.
He said the case will hinge on testimony that Stines gave at a deposition days before the September 2024 shooting. That saw the sheriff answer questions about one of his deputies allegedly sexually assaulting jail inmates.
An accuser in that case claimed that she was forced by a deputy sheriff to have sex in Mullins' chambers for six months in exchange for staying out of jail.
Bartley said Stines feared that backlash from his deposition testimony caused him to fear that his or his family's lives were in danger.
The attorney said Stines' 'mental health' was affected by the perceived threat.
'Ultimately, he was in fear for the safety of his wife and his daughter, and I think what you see there is the result of that,' the defense attorney said.
Stines' attorney Jeremy Bartlet dismissed rumors that the shooting had anything to do with any relationship between Mullins and his daughter, but said the sheriff was increasingly 'paranoid' about the safety of his family
In an interview with Fox News this week, Bartley added that although Stines tried to call his daughter from Mullins' phone, their phone exchange had nothing to do with any relationship between the judge and the sheriff's daughter.
He added that Stines received a call from his aunt during his interaction with Mullins in his chambers, which was one of the times he brought out his phone.
As he denied rumors of any kind of relationship between Mullins and Stines' daughter, Bartley said his client was experiencing increasing paranoia over the safety of his family at the time, particularly due to the deposition he had just given.
'Specifically, in the approximate two-week period prior to the incident in the judge's chambers, pretty much all the witnesses the investigators talked to support what those close to Mickey had said as well,' Bartley said.
'And that's simply this: Mickey had become extremely paranoid. He'd become sleepless, basically wasn't sleeping. [He] slept little, if at all. He had become sort of withdrawn.
'And you know, it was of such a concern that his co-workers urged him to go to the doctor, and he ultimately did the day prior to the shooting.'