In September 2024, former Letcher County, Kentucky Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines shot District Judge Kevin Mullins in his offices, killing him without warning. Stines had known Mullins for decades.
CCTV video caught the shooting, which shook the small town of Whitesburg in eastern Kentucky and has since captivated the true crime world.
A civil suit against a former Letcher County Sheriff’s deputy for reportedly raping a female defendant who was out on bond started the events that led to the shooting, according to Stines’ lawyer.
Here is a complete list of events that set the scene for the shooting:
Stines was also named as a defendant in that case.
A woman named Sabrina Adkins sued former Letcher County Sheriff’s Deputy Ben Fields in civil court, saying that he had abused her for sexual favours while she was being held in jail at home.
The suit says Adkins was having a hard time getting a place to live and paying for her GPS collar monitor when Fields told her he was sure they could “work something out.” She said Fields forced her to have sexual relations six times in Mullins’ rooms in exchange for taking off her ankle monitor while she was living in jail at home and not charging her for it.
The claim says that she was arrested when she stopped doing the sexual favours.
Fields’ boss, Stines, was named as a defendant in that case, which said that he didn’t train and watch over Fields well enough.
Ned Pillersdorf is her lawyer in the legal suit, which is still going on. He said that Fields had told Adkins to do sexual favours for a third party one time, and that Fields had abused other women in the same way.
“As a criminal defence lawyer, that was just my general worry,” Pillersdorf told Fox News Digital. “They were running a brothel out of that courthouse.” “I mean, the pimping – at least three women we know of, though I think it’s higher.”
“[Fields] pimped Adkins out to this other guy,” he stated. “He pimped her out to some connection Fields had, this guy.”
“If you’re a woman caught up in an ankle bracelet or a drug court, you know, a simple phone call to the judge, you might be in jail,” he added. “So they’re so easy to extort, these women think they won’t be believed.”
A camera was put on the wall of Mullins’ rooms after the accusations were made.
In the Adkins case, Fields was charged with two counts of third-degree rape, two counts of third-degree sodomy, three counts of tampering with a prisoner tracking device, and one count of second-degree perjury. This happened months after the civil suit was filed.
In a deposition with Investigator Matthew Easter for the criminal case, Adkins said that it was common for women to be offered sex in return for better treatment in the criminal justice system in Letcher County. She also said that many other women had been exploited in the same way.
Fields admitted to all of the charges against him and was given a seven-year prison term.
Stines was called as a witness in Adkins’ civil claim months after Fields had gone to jail.
Jeremy Bartley, Stines’ lawyer, said that in the days before the interview, Stines had become very paranoid, couldn’t sleep, and was worried about the safety of his family.
“This civil suit had drawn a lot of attention to things that were happening in the courthouse,” he said. “And in fact, if you look at it, it was because of this lawsuit – the reason that there had been a camera placed in the judge’s chambers, which is highly unusual, highly unusual to have such concern that the administrative office of courts puts a security camera in a judge’s chambers.”
Bartley said that Stines lost it because he thought his family was in danger.