Kentucky sheriff who was accused of fatally shooting judge in his chambers indicted for murder



A Kentucky sheriff who was accused of fatally shooting a district judge in his chambers two months ago was indicted for murder Thursday.

Prosecuting attorney Jackie Steele said after a grand jury returned the indictment that he couldn't comment on an alleged motive, although police previously said Shawn “Mickey” Stines — then-sheriff of Letcher County — and Judge Kevin Mullins had argued just before the Sept. 19 shooting, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

'Everything seemed fine between them. There was no clue that anything was wrong at all. You wouldn't have guessed there was the slightest problem.'

Judge Julia H. Adams received the indictment and set Stines’ arraignment for next Monday, the paper said.

Stines turned himself in after the shooting and was charged with first-degree murder, the New York Times reported, citing police. He retired as sheriff less than two weeks after the shooting.

Stines — who's accused of shooting Mullins eight times — pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.

The shooting was captured on surveillance video. You can view the surveillance clip here; it omits the actual shots being fired, and it's included in a larger video report about the shooting. Spectators cried out in the Morgan County courtroom as the video played during a hearing last month, WDKY-TV reported.

Kentucky State Police Detective Clayton Stamper testified that the full video of the shooting shows Stines using his own phone to make multiple calls, then using the judge’s phone to make a call, the Louisville Courier Journal reported, adding that the shooting followed.

Stamper testified that the calls were to Stines’ daughter, the Courier Journal noted, and he said the phone number of Stines' daughter had been saved in the judge's phone and was called before the shooting. Stamper also said Stines stood up from his chair in the judge’s office after looking at Mullins’ phone and shot him seconds later, the Herald-Leader said.

The shooting is particularly curious since Stines and Mullins reportedly had been decades-long friends.

Image source: Letcher County Sheriff's Office Facebook page (left); letchercounty.ky.gov (right)

What's more, the pair went to lunch at the Streetside Grill & Bar on Main Street just hours before the shooting, the Daily Mail reported. A restaurant employee told the outlet that Stines and Mullins ordered their usual lunch — both having chicken wings with salad.

"Everything seemed fine between them. There was no clue that anything was wrong at all," an employee said. "You wouldn't have guessed there was the slightest problem."

A woman who reportedly works for the Letcher County Sheriff’s Office also gave her phone to investigators for examination, WDKY said, adding that Stamper testified that she was one of Stines’ employees and believed she’d received text messages from Stines that noted what occurred at lunch and led to the shooting.

Under cross-examination, Stamper said that when Stines "was taken into custody, I was told by one of the other officers that were there that he made the comment, ‘They’re trying to kidnap my wife and kid,'" WDKY added.

More from the Herald-Leader:

The crime could be eligible for the death penalty if Stines is convicted because Mullins was a public official. Steele, who is prosecuting the case with Attorney General Russell Coleman’s office, said there had been no decision yet on whether to seek the death penalty against Stines if he is convicted. However, Stines’ attorney, Jeremy Bartley, has said that he does not think the murder is the appropriate charge in the case.

Bartley said at the Oct. 1 hearing that the evidence offered there pointed to the shooting as being an act of “extreme emotional disturbance” in reaction to something Stines had seen on Mullins’ phone.

There was no information at the hearing about what was on the phone. If a jury decided Stines acted out of extreme emotional disturbance, he couldn’t be convicted of murder, but rather first-degree manslaughter or a lesser crime. The death penalty would not be an option in that case.

You can view a video report here about Thursday's murder indictment.

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By Massive Margins, Voters In Eight States Say Only Citizens Can Vote In Their Elections

The ballot issues amend the state constitutions, barring foreign nationals from voting in state and local elections.

FACT CHECK: Are Voters In Kentucky Having Their Votes Switched From Trump To Harris?

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FACT CHECK: Are Voters in Kentucky Receiving Ballots Pre-Marked For Kamala Harris?

The Kentucky State Board of Elections and local officials deny the existence of pre-marked ballots, and has no record of any complaints made

Left-Wing Groups Are Fighting To Kill Wisconsin’s Citizen-Only Voting Amendment

Voters in eight states will decide on constitutional language aimed at blocking foreign nationals from voting in state and local elections.

Why You Should Always Double-Check Your Ballot: Kentucky Voting Machine Showed Trump Vote As Vote For Harris

“I tried to pick Trump 10 times, it would not work.” That’s part of the caption for a now-viral video on X showing a voter trying to cast a vote for former President Donald Trump. After several attempts, the video shows, the electronic voting machine captured a vote — but it was for Vice President […]

Voting malfunction highlights Harris' name with Trump selection, Kentucky county clerk confirms



Footage showing a Kentuckian attempting to vote for President Donald Trump but having her selection switched to a vote for Kamala Harris went viral this week, prompting concerns about possible vote rigging as well as about potentially deceptive video edits — with some partisans prematurely concluding, "This never happened."

Laurel County Clerk Tony Brown (R) initially suggested Thursday that the apparent malfunction reported at the Laurel County courthouse annex in London could not be recreated but later confirmed the video was in fact genuine and that the glitch was replicable.

"The Attorney General's office has been to the vote center to check the device that has been shown across social media today," Brown noted on Facebook. "In full disclosure, after several minutes of attempting to recreate the scenario, it did occur."

'It went back into service.'

Brown indicated that the glitch took place when "some area in between the boxes" was touched. Although officials observed the issue reoccur on one occasion, Brown noted that "after that we tried for several minutes to do it again and could not."

The county clerk clarified that the ballot marking device seen in the video shows voters their selections for every race and issue, then confirms that they are satisfied before printing the ballot. If the printed ballot contains an error, voters can spoil it and receive a new one. However, Brown indicated Kentucky law permits only two spoiled ballots.

Brown shared a video where the same machine allegedly functioned "with no issues," indicating that while it was temporarily taken out of service until a representative from the state attorney general's office arrived to investigate, there have been no issues "since it went back into service."

'I hate that this has occurred here in Laurel County.'

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman stated, "The Kentucky Attorney General’s Department of Criminal Investigations (DCI) quickly responded to the complaint from Laurel County. Detectives have been in touch with the county clerk and recommended they change out the voting machine."

"All Kentucky voters can have confidence that our elections are secure and any potential issues will be addressed quickly," added Coleman.

Brown added that the voter whose selection was ostensibly switched from Trump to Harris ultimately "did cast her ballot which she said was correct."

"I hate that this has occurred here in Laurel County," continued Brown. "We strive to have accurate, secure and safe elections that we are proud to provide to our citizens."

Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams stressed shortly after Brown confirmed the glitch was replicated at least once that "there is no 'vote-switching,'" reiterating that the voter who took the video ended up with a ballot correctly printed "as marked for the candidate of her choice."

"Get your voting information from legitimate sources, not TikTok or cat turds," added Adams.

Adams appears to have been referencing a viral post of the malfunction video on TikTok, which has over 241,000 likes, as well as a post by Phillip Buchanan, the individual behind the popular Catturd account on X, that had netted over 2.3 million impressions by Friday morning.

Michon Lindstrom, Adams' spokeswoman, indicated the secretary's office "has received no complaints about 'vote switching' or other long-ago debunked rumors," reported the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Laurel County overwhelmingly voted for Trump over then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020, 23,237 to 4,475. Trump won the state by over 25 points that year.

Coleman implored Kentuckians to report suspected election law violations to his office's election fraud hotline at (800) 328-VOTE, noting, "Our dedicated team of investigators, prosecutors and support staff is working tirelessly to protect every vote."

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McConnell reveals what he really thinks of Trump, 'MAGA movement' in new biography



Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) appears willing to kneecap his party before stepping down as Republican leader at year's end.

The 82-year-old, who figures he has a shot at re-election in 2026, reportedly lashed out against the increasingly diverse, populist, and anti-war GOP in an upcoming biography, claiming the "MAGA movement is completely wrong."

In an excerpt from the biography obtained by CNN, McConnell told the Associated Press' Michael Tackett, "I think Trump was the biggest factor in changing the Republican Party from what Ronald Reagan viewed and he wouldn't recognize today."

'We are all on the same team now.'

The book, which reportedly draws on an "oral history" that McConnell has been recording for the past 30 years, is apparently replete with anti-Trump barbs that Democrats will likely liberate from context and utilize in the final stretch before Election Day.

McConnell told CNN in a statement that despite the anti-Trump venom that lines the pages of the book, things between him and Trump are now copacetic.

"Whatever I may have said about President Trump pales in comparison to what JD Vance, Lindsey Graham, and others have said about him, but we are all on the same team now," said McConnell.

Prior to endorsing Trump in June, the nominal Republican clearly had plenty to get off his chest.

"Unfortunately, about half the Republicans in the country believe whatever [Trump] says," McConnell complained sometime before the end of Trump's first term. "I think I'm pretty safe in saying it's not just the Democrats who are counting the days until he leaves on January 20, but the Republicans as well."

In addition to suggesting that Trump should have been impeached, McConnell called the 45th president a "sleazeball" and a "narcissist" and accused him of being "stupid as well as being ill-tempered."

According to McConnell, President Donald Trump — who recently overtook Kamala Harris in four national polls and beat the odds in 2016 — has "done a lot of damage to our party's image and our ability to compete."

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) recently accused McConnell of adversely impacting his compatriots' ability to compete, telling BlazeTV host Mark Levin, "McConnell runs the largest Republican super PAC in the country and has $400 million, but that super PAC is used to reward the Republican senators who obey him and to punish those who dare to stand up to him."

Cruz, referring to the Senate Leadership Fund, which is run by McConnell's former chief of staff, noted that he had not received a penny from the fund. The McConnell-aligned fundraising group also starved Florida Sen. Rick Scott of funding this cycle.

'The Senate Republican leader is supposed to help Republicans, not undermine them.'

Extra to complaining about Trump, McConnell criticized Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who unsuccessfully challenged him in 2022.

“I don't think Rick makes a very good victim," said the nominal Republican. "I think he did a poor job of running the [Senate campaign] committee. His plan was used by the Democrats against our candidates as late as the last weekend [before the election]. He promoted the fiction that we were in the middle of a big sweep when there was no tangible evidence of it. And I think his campaign against me was some kind of ill-fated effort to turn the attention away from him and on to somebody else."

Scott said earlier this year that McConnell effectively neutralizes Republican voters' representation in the U.S. Senate, lording over one part of a two-person dictatorship.

"In the Senate, there's two dictatorships," said Scott. "There's a McConnell dictatorship on the Republican side, and then there's the [Chuck] Schumer dictatorship."

McConnell's biography reportedly also highlights the trouble he had with Trump calling his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the senator's "China loving wife, Coco Chow," and details how he wept during the Jan. 6, 2021, protests.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) responded to McConnell's quotes, calling his attacks on Trump and Scott "indefensible."

"Those running for Senate GOP leadership posts need to weigh in on this & commit never to sabotage Republican candidates & colleagues — particularly those who are less than two weeks away from a close election," tweeted Lee. "We must have clarity from the candidates running to replace McConnell on where they stand on these attacks. They must be clear on how they plan to lead the conference, and on the role of its members."

Lee added that "the Senate Republican leader is supposed to help Republicans, not undermine them. Sadly, we've had too much of the latter."

Responding to McConnell's indication that he plans on "arguing more with [Republicans] probably than the Democrats" in the months to come, Blaze News senior editor for politics Christopher Bedford wrote, "McConnell has been at odds with Republican voters for years. He doesn't care, and it's becoming increasingly obvious."

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'Unimaginable': Woman 'casting spells' accused of dismembering her mother, cooking her remains in a pot



A Kentucky woman is accused of murdering her own mother, dismembering her body, then cooking the remains in a pot until they were "charred," according to authorities.

Kentucky State Police arrested 32-year-old Torilena May Fields, of Mount Olivet, on Oct. 10.

'Whatever witchcraft is, but I heard she was into it.'

Fields initially was charged with obstructing governmental operations, tampering with physical evidence, and abuse of a corpse. However, a grand jury added charges of murder and animal torture Monday.

The suspect is being detained at the Bourbon County Detention Center. Fields' bond was set at $1.5 million.

WOLF-TV reported Fields shot her mother — Trudy Fields — in the head, then stabbed her multiple times between Oct. 8 and Oct. 9, according to the indictment.

Fields is accused of “decapitating, dismembering, eviscerating her mother’s corpse, and placing her head, feet, and forearms in a pot in the oven and heating them until they were charred,” the indictment reads, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The victim reportedly hired men to do work on her property, but nobody answered when they knocked on the front door.

The contractors then walked around the property in an effort to find the owner, but instead they stumbled upon a gruesome crime scene, according to court documents.

The workers followed drag marks to the back of the house and found a dismembered body, the citation states.

State troopers discovered the dismembered female body near a pile of hair, a “blood-stained mattress,” “blood on the back porch,” and blood on the “threshold of the back door,” according to the citation. A second mattress was reportedly found in the back yard — it was folded in half and contained multiple severed body parts and organs.

Police said the arms, legs, and head had been removed from the body.

Authorities said the suspect refused to come out of the house, and police reportedly had a standoff with the suspect that ended around 11 p.m. after officers used tear gas and a police robot. Fields emerged from the house covered in blood, according to authorities.

The interior of the house was just as ghastly.

According to the indictment, troopers discovered a severed head as well as severed hands, feet, and a forearm that “appeared to have been cooked” in a steel pot inside the oven. The officers noted that the pot was still “warm to the touch.”

The contractors told police they had been to the property the day before, during which they encountered the suspect “casting spells on them and being confrontational,” according to the arrest citation.

Family member Todd Brock told WCPO-TV, "Witchcraft, fingernails, and just do different stuff. Whatever witchcraft is, but I heard she was into it. I think somebody lost control of their mind. Had to have something planned out or satanism or had their brain washed."

Olivia Brock, another family member, told WOLF-TV, "You can imagine, it’s one thing to find out your family member’s been murdered, but I mean, it’s a whole other thing for the details and stuff; I mean, it’s literally unimaginable, unimaginable. All of us have been experiencing shock for the first time, I guess you could say. That’s a whole different — grief and shock are two different ballgames."

Fields also is accused of torturing and murdering a dog.

Olivia Brock said the suspect had suffered a severe brain injury in a motorcycle crash a few months ago and as a result couldn't remember her name or even know where she was.

The victim's sister, Diana Brock, said the family is Christian and will "never stop loving" Torilena Fields despite the diabolical accusations.

"We don't disown people, no matter what you've done. We love, and that's what God says," Diana said. "You know you love no matter what, unconditionally, and we just support the family, and that's what we're trying to do."

The Commonwealth claimed that Fields was not acting under the influence of “extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse.” However, the arrest report did note that Fields appeared to be under the influence of drugs at the time of her arrest.

According to the Monday indictment, Fields also is accused of torturing and murdering a dog.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 23.

You can view a video report here about the case.

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Surveillance video of Kentucky judge getting fatally shot in his chambers is shown during accused sheriff's hearing



Surveillance video of a Kentucky judge getting fatally shot in his chambers last month was shown during a hearing in the case of the sheriff accused of killing him.

Spectators cried out in the Morgan County courtroom as the video played last week, WDKY-TV reported.

'Everything seemed fine between them. There was no clue that anything was wrong at all.'

You can view the surveillance clip of the shooting here; it omits the actual shots being fired, and it's included in a larger video report about the shooting.

Former Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines appeared before a judge last Tuesday afternoon for a probable cause hearing, WDKY said. State police said Stines, 43, fatally shot District Judge Kevin Mullins in his courthouse chambers in Whitesburg on Sept. 19.

Image source: Letcher County Sheriff's Office Facebook page (left); letchercounty.ky.gov (right)

Stines turned himself in after the shooting and was charged with first-degree murder, the New York Times reported, citing police.

Stines — who's accused of shooting Mullins eight times — pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.

Kentucky State Police Detective Clayton Stamper testified that the full video of the shooting shows Stines using his own phone to make multiple calls, then using the judge’s phone to make a call, the Louisville Courier Journal reported, adding that the shooting followed.

Stamper testified that the calls were to Stines’ daughter, the Courier Journal said. Stamper added that the phones have been sent to forensic teams for examination, the Courier Journal noted, adding that the daughter’s phone has not been examined. Stamper also said the phone number of Stines' daughter had been saved in the judge's phone and was called before the shooting, the Courier Journal reported.

However, Kentucky State Police Trooper Matt Gayheart told WDKY in a separate story that contrary to how it was stated in court, investigators won’t know if the number of Stines' daughter was saved in Mullins’ phone until forensic reports come back in a few weeks. But the call log reportedly showed her number had been called prior to the shooting, the station noted.

The shooting is particularly curious since Stines and Mullins reportedly had been decades-long friends. What's more, the pair went to lunch at the Streetside Grill & Bar on Main Street just hours before the shooting, the Daily Mail reported.

A restaurant employee told the outlet that Stines and Mullins ordered their usual lunch — both having chicken wings with salad.

"Everything seemed fine between them. There was no clue that anything was wrong at all," an employee said. "You wouldn't have guessed there was the slightest problem."

A woman who reportedly works for the Letcher County Sheriff’s Office also gave her phone to investigators for examination, WDKY said, adding that Stamper testified that she was one of Stines’ employees and believed she’d received text messages from Stines that noted what occurred at lunch and led to the shooting.

Under cross-examination, Stamper said that when Stines "was taken into custody, I was told by one of the other officers that were there that he made the comment, ‘They’re trying to kidnap my wife and kid,'" WDKY added.

Stines' lawyer also argued that the charges against his client should be lowered to manslaughter given Stamper’s testimony claiming the shooting was the result of “extreme emotional disturbance" and there's no evidence showing the shooting was planned.

Court documents indicated that the defense established probable cause in last Tuesday’s hearing, and the case is set to be heard by a grand jury, WDKY reported.

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