This the story you're talking about? It has a lot of details I had not seen before.
Friends and coworkers say Stines had been acting erratically since around Labor Day. He was quieter than usual and had stopped regular communications with the community and the press. In mid-August he deleted his office’s Facebook page, and told The Mountain Eagle that people had been criticizing him and he was afraid someone might use the page in a court case. Then, the week of September 9, he couldn’t be reached because his office said he was at a Sheriff’s Association meeting. September 16, he sat for a deposition in a lawsuit filed against him for allegedly not properly training and supervising former deputy Ben Fields. Fields pleaded guilty in January to using his position overseeing persons on home incarceration to coerce women prisoners into sex. No allegations of sexual improprieties by Stines were made in the suit, but the deposition had been delayed numerous times.
The following day, Tuesday, a deputy declined to give any information about a fatal accident, and Stines, who normally returned calls to the newspaper within a few minutes, called reporter Sam Adams at 10 p.m., eight hours after the message was left and three hours past press deadline. He said he had told everyone at the sheriff’s office not to say anything to anyone until he returned to the office. Asked when that would be, he said he wasn’t sure. He was having “some issues.” When pressed, Stines, who is 6’4” and weighed well over 300 pounds, said he had lost 40 pounds in two weeks and didn’t know why.
Friends reported similar experiences, saying Stines had lost a lot of weight in the past two weeks and didn’t seem himself.
The next time the newspaper heard anything about Stines was on Thursday when he was arrested for killing his friend.
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