The local sheriff has been charged with murder in the killing. The governor says the judge was fatally shot Thursday in his chambers. Police say the sheriff opened fire following an argument.

After word spread that Letcher County Sheriff Shawn Mickey Stines was charged with first-degree murder, and that Kevin Mullins, a district judge, had been shot, Kentucky leaders and community members saw yet another local act of gun violence make national news.

A sheriff charged with murder in the shooting of a rural Kentucky judge in his courthouse chambers is accused in a federal lawsuit of ignoring abuse by one of his deputies, who later pleaded guilty to

Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, was fatally shot in a courthouse at Whitesburg, Kentucky, on Thursday afternoon, according to Kentucky State Police.

Police on Wednesday said they discovered a body believed to be that of a fugitive suspected of shooting and wounding five people in cars traveling along a Kentucky highway on Sept. 7, an outburst that led to a manhunt through rugged,

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.

A small eastern Kentucky community is reeling and searching for answers after a Letcher County sheriff was arrested and charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Judge Kevin Mullins in his district office Thursday afternoon.