It’s just so sad. I just hate it,” said Mike Watts, the Letcher County circuit court clerk. “Both of them are friends of mine. I’ve worked with both of them for years.”

WHITESBURG, Ky. — When Judge Kevin Mullins and Sheriff Shawn Stines, two longtime officials in a rural eastern Kentucky county, were seen getting ready to go to lunch Thursday, there was no obvious indication of ill will.

WHITESBURG, Ky. (AP) — The sheriff charged with murder in the shooting of a rural Kentucky judge in his courthouse chambers was accused in a federal lawsuit of failing to investigate allegations that one of his deputies repeatedly sexually abused a woman in the same judge’s chambers.

The death of Kevin Mullins Thursday shocked close-knit Whitesburg, Kentucky. The sheriff charged with murder is accused of ignoring sexual abuse inside the courthouse.

District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, was pronounced dead at the scene. Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines, 43, was arrested and charged with his murder.

Preliminary investigation indicates Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines shot District Judge Kevin Mullins multiple times following an argument inside the courthouse, according to Kentucky State Police.

Whitesburg is a very small, close-knit community in the Eastern Kentucky mountains and to say the community is in shock would be an understatement.

Residents of a tiny Appalachian town struggled Friday to cope with a shooting involving two of its most prominent citizens: a judge who was gunned down

The fatal shooting stunned the tight-knit town of Whitesburg, the county seat, with a population of about 1,700 people, 145 miles southeast of Lexington.

The preliminary investigation indicates Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines shot District Judge Kevin Mullins multiple times following an argument inside the courthouse.