Investigators are seeking motives for the shocking murder of a Kentucky judge. The suspect is a sheriff — who had been close friends with the judge. The pair even had lunch together just hours before the judge was fatally shot earlier this month, according to reports.

As Blaze News previously reported, Letcher County Sheriff Mickey Stines, 43, is accused of shooting 53-year-old Judge Kevin Mullins on Sept. 19.

'Nobody I know can understand what happened between lunchtime and the judge's death.'

Stines is accused of walking into the judge’s chambers at the Letcher County Circuit Court and shooting Mullins eight times. Mullins was pronounced dead at the crime scene.

The sheriff reportedly exited the courtroom with his hands up after the shooting and was taken into custody without incident.

Stines pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder charge.

Surveillance video from inside the chambers showed the pair exchanging cellphones and looking at something on them before the sheriff walked over and shot the judge dead, sources told the Mountain Eagle.

“Our investigators seized the two cell phones, and they’re being analyzed,” Kentucky State Police Trooper Matt Gayheart said Sunday.

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

What's more, the Daily Mail reported that the pair went to lunch at the Streetside Grill & Bar on Main Street just hours before the shooting.

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."

The employee added that "it's fair to say we had a lot of business from the judge and the sheriff. They'd been coming here together for lunch for years. Nobody I know can understand what happened between lunchtime and the judge's death."

Letcher Circuit Clerk Mike Watts told the Mountain Eagle, “I never knew of there being any kind of friction between them till it came to this. We all got along good, teased each other."

Until he became sheriff in 2018, Stines was the bailiff for Judge Mullins. Ben Fields succeeded Stines as Mullins' bailiff.

Fields, it turns out, coerced a female prisoner to have sex with him inside Judge Mullins' chambers. The woman alleged she was promised "favorable treatment for sexual favors."

Earlier this year, Fields pleaded guilty to raping a female prisoner while she was on home incarceration.

Fields was sentenced to six months in jail and then six and a half years of probation for rape, sodomy, perjury, and tampering with a prisoner monitoring device. Three charges related to a second woman were dismissed because she is now dead.

Stines fired Fields for "conduct unbecoming," the Courier Journal reported.

Days before the shooting, Stines was deposed in a lawsuit filed by two women, one of whom was Fields' victim. The civil lawsuit accuses Stines of “deliberate indifference in failing to adequately train and supervise” Fields, an ex-deputy.

When asked if a "sex scandal" was a possible motive in the fatal shooting of the judge, Trooper Gayheart confirmed: “Absolutely. We are not ruling out anything as a possible motive.”

Gayheart did not elaborate on the sex scandal in question.

The Mountain Eagle noted swirling gossip regarding the motives for the murder, "Rumors, apparently none true, have raced through the community, setting a torch to other relationships. The community is split between those bent on spreading salacious gossip and those determined to protect the families of two men they saw as pillars of the community."

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