Mickey Stines: Video Shows Judge Seated Near Victim Days Before Shooting — FBI Analyzes System Failure
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
True Crime Today
3.3 • 907 Ratings
🗓️ 11 January 2026
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
Our week in review on the Mickey Stines case — a recusal motion that's frozen everything, and the systemic failures that allowed an elected sheriff to spiral unchecked.
Special Judge Christopher Cohron abruptly adjourned court days before a critical hearing. The defense had discovered something: video footage showing Cohron seated inches from Judge Kevin Mullins at a Kentucky Judicial Commission on Mental Health meeting — seven days before Mullins was shot to death in his chambers. Cohron never disclosed this connection. Defense attorneys Jeremy and Kerri Bartley argue that in a case built entirely on Stines' mental state, this undisclosed proximity creates an appearance of bias. They point to Cohron's rulings blocking psychiatric evaluation from the bond hearing as further evidence.
But we also examined what everyone saw coming before December's shooting. Court filings paint a chilling picture: Mickey Stines called dead relatives on his phone. Lost weight rapidly. Stopped sleeping. Displayed paranoia. His own staff pushed him to see a doctor. The diagnosis was acute stress reaction. The response was to send him home — badge, gun, authority intact. Twenty-four hours later, Judge Mullins was shot nine times.
Former FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer broke down the structural failures. Kentucky has no red flag law. An elected sheriff cannot be suspended by subordinates. There was no mechanism to disarm him. The civil lawsuit accuses sheriff's office employees of failing to warn Judge Mullins. Their defense? Kentucky law imposed no duty to act.
Stines has been held without bond for over fifteen months. No trial date. Prosecutors haven't announced whether they'll seek the death penalty. Everything waits.
#MickeyStines #JudgeKevinMullins #ChristopherCohron #JenniferCoffindaffer #FBI #LetcherCounty #KentuckySheriff #SystemFailure #HiddenKillers #WeekInReview
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the big breakdown. |
| 0:02.2 | A long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden |
| 0:05.9 | Killers podcast and True Crime Today. |
| 0:09.2 | This is Hidden Killers with Tony Bruske. |
| 0:12.2 | Here now, Tony Bruske. |
| 0:15.2 | We already kind of knew things were a little off. |
| 0:19.6 | In the courthouse of former judge Kevin Mullins. |
| 0:26.8 | You know, a lot of accusations, lots of stories, lots of stuff that went on in that building before this tragedy took place and after way before, |
| 0:45.3 | I mean, there's just a lot there, a place that one may say may not be an appropriate |
| 0:50.5 | setting to try the very case in. |
| 0:53.9 | And here's another reason for that. |
| 0:57.2 | A week before Kevin Mullins was shot to death in his own chambers, he was sitting |
| 1:01.6 | inches away from the man who would eventually be assigned to judge his killer. |
| 1:08.0 | Yeah. |
| 1:09.6 | Little conflict of interest there. They were at a Kentucky Judicial Commission on Mental Health. |
| 1:17.3 | Yeah. A room full of judges and court officials discussing how the system handles people in psychological crisis. Yeah, the irony is insane. |
| 1:26.2 | Mullins was presenting on his work with women with dignity, bills, talking about recovery courts |
| 1:35.3 | and expungent efforts in Weitzburg laying out his professional schedule for the week ahead. |
| 1:40.4 | According to the defense motion filed last week, special judge Christopher Crone was right there next to him for roughly two hours. And at one point, they claim he appears to nod an approval with Mullins discussing an upcoming event at the district judge's college. Mullen's window was, widow was in the room too. |
| 2:02.7 | The whole thing was recorded. |
| 2:05.2 | One would think that, |
| 2:06.9 | you know, when this case gets sent to you, |
... |
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