Sheriff Mickey Stines: Court Docs Reveal Psychosis Before Shooting Judge

Court documents reveal disturbing details about former Letcher County Sheriff Mickey Stines' mental state before he shot Judge Kevin Mullins in September 2024.

According to defense filings containing testimony from sheriff's office staff and local attorneys, Stines exhibited alarming behavior in the week leading up to the shooting. Witnesses say he lost forty pounds in two weeks. He wasn't sleeping. He told a staffer that someone demanded he kill himself or "they" would murder his wife and daughter. He made her help put a bulletproof vest on his wife. He was calling family members who had been dead for years.

Three days before the shooting, Stines gave a deposition in a civil lawsuit alleging his former deputy sexually exploited women inside Judge Mullins' chambers. Attorneys said Stines seemed agitated, took ten breaks, and said he was "having an episode." His attorney disclosed he had a neurological condition causing "issues" under stress.

The day before the shooting, friends brought him to a doctor. He was diagnosed with acute stress and sent home. The next day, surveillance footage captured Stines shooting Mullins nine times in his chambers.

The defense admits Stines pulled the trigger but claims he was "exhibiting paranoid and psychotic conduct" and "lacked the capacity to intend" what he did. A social worker evaluated him four days later and found him still in "an active state of psychosis." The insanity defense moves forward as the court weighs what everyone saw — and what nobody stopped.

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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.