LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — A Kentucky family is hugging their son a little tighter tonight after he got home from Asheville, North Carolina, following the deadly flooding that pushed through the mountain city.

Once the Sajadi family’s son, Will Sajadi, was back in their arms, safe, it was like a breath of relief.

Will attends Asheville School as a junior. He explains how storms began Wednesday night, picking up speed on Thursday. “When you started to see the trees kind of swaying. Then branches started flying off and then as I saw yesterday. A solar panel flew off the roof of one of the buildings.”

As winds picked up speed and flash floods set in, Will lost all contact with his parents as cell towers and power lines were downed. This was all from the remnants of Hurricane Helene, which forced floodwaters into the mountain city.

Will says there was no power, little food, two 16-oz water bottles, and no cell service for three days. Will says the toilets stopped working, and nobody could shower. The only way to make a toilet flush was to dump a bucket of water down it.

The only building on campus with a generator is the student service center. The student center offered food and activities for the students as well as the only building with cell service to contact loved ones. Will explains how the school was not flooded as badly as other areas because it sits on a hilltop. However, nobody had a way in or out of the city, and access to food and clean water was hard to find.

A majority of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee remain flood-striken. Trapping dozens of people within its cities and providing supplies by helicopter. As of Sunday, nearly 30 people have been killed in Asheville from the storm.

“It bothered me that I couldn’t tell them what was going on and that I was okay, but I knew that I was gonna be okay,” said Will.

“Saturday morning when we woke up and we hadn’t heard from him since two and we saw I-40 had collapsed,” recalls Kristin. “I was very nervous. I was ready to just start walking. I was like I don’t care if our car won’t get there, I want to get there.”

By a miracle, a random woman reached out to Kristin to let her know she will attempt to drive to Asheville to pickup her kid and would bring Will home too.

Cell service didn’t return for Will until he was two hours outside of Asheville when he could text his mom, “I’m okay.”

“Sense of relief. Just confirmation we knew he was safe. I don’t want to cry but it was a lot of relief. And stress for the people who aren’t able to get to safety like we were fortunate,” explains Kaveh, Will’s dad, and Kristin.

Both parents thank the school for keeping their son safe and going above and beyond.

Another Kentucky mom, Allison Tucker, whose daughter is still at the University of Asheville, also thanks her daughter’s school for keeping her safe. She says her daughter was able to hunker down with food and water before the storm wiped out everything. Now, one of the biggest issues is a low amount of fuel in the area.

“Having that no communication over that time period. Not knowing, I know she was fine, but not knowing where are you, stay put just trying to get that message to them of stay put do not leave,” explains Tucker.

It’s unclear when the roads and areas will be safe again, but agencies ask that people stay off roads so they can clear them faster.

Asheville School is set to resume classes Sunday, Oct. 6.

There was a feeling of impending dread that swept across Big Blue Nation Friday night when Kentucky revealed that Maxwell Hairston was out against Ole Miss.

Kentucky fans were hopeful Chip Trayanum could add some juice to the Kentucky offense, particularly in the red zone. He was ruled out on Thursday. A day later we learned the Cats would be without their Preseason All-SEC First Team cornerback against the best passing offense in college football.

How were they going to slow down Ole Miss without Hairston? His teammates were ready to rise to the occasion.

“Next man up. We were prepared for this moment,” J.Q. Hardaway said after the game. “We’re confident in everybody in our corner room.”

College football fans have heard “next man up” countless times. This time it wasn’t just lip service.

Hardaway played the best game of his career. The Kentucky defense put Ole Miss in a pretzel. They relied on Tre Harris to move the ball, targeting the nation’s top receiver 15 times. He made his fair share of big plays, taking a fourth-down pass 48 yards for a touchdown, but Hardaway and the Kentucky defense did an excellent job containing the future NFL star.

He had 11 receptions for 176 yards, half of Ole Miss’ total offensive output. A lot of those plays were short hitches on RPOs. Hardaway made a career-high 11 tackles, many of which were in open space, preventing 7-yard gains from turning into 27-yard gains. He also forced a fumble in the red zone, taking points off the board for the Rebels. Hardaway credited Hairston for motivating the secondary to slow down Ole Miss.

“He texted us from the hospital telling us, ‘Man, just continue to work, continue to do what we put in the work for.’ So we really played for Max today. We played for Max and had him in the back of our head,” said Hardaway. “He was our motivation, for sure.”

Ole Miss entered the game averaging 422 passing yards per game and 11.8 yards per attempt. Kentucky held Jaxson Dart to 261 passing yards and 168 of those were on four plays. The Wildcats played for their injured friend and delivered one hell of a performance.

“The defensive staff, the work that they’ve put in, I would really like to single out Chris Collins,” defensive coordinator Brad White said after the top ten win. “To come in this game and be a little bit short-handed out there and to play as well as they did — J.Q. and DJ (Waller) and Terhyon Nichols — all those guys that got in the game. I mean, it was a huge, big group effort.”

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Cops are investigating a ‘sex scandal’ motive among other leads in the sensational death of judge Kevin Mullins who was allegedly murdered by the sheriff of his tiny Appalachian community, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

Sheriff Shawn ‘Mickey’ Stines is accused of pumping eight bullets into his close friend after entering the judge’s chambers at Letcher County Circuit Court in Kentucky for a private word and then shutting and locking the door.

Moments before shots rang out, it is reported that yet-to-be released video footage revealed the two men looked at each other’s cellphones after a short discussion.

Lurid sexual allegations about married district judge Mullins began circulating almost immediately among some folk in and around the small town of Whitesburg, where the killing happened on the afternoon of September 19.

Cops are investigating a ‘sex scandal’ motive among other leads in the sensational death of Judge Kevin Mullins

Kentucky State Police, the lead agency in the investigation, confirmed to DailyMail.com that detectives were including the sex claims among many other lines of inquiry as a possible reason for the baffling killing.

Asked if the allegations were in the mix, Trooper Matt Gayheart said: ‘Absolutely. We are not ruling out anything as a possible motive.

‘The whole thing will be investigated thoroughly. It’s just going to take some time to make sure we can make the right determination. It could be weeks, it could be months.

‘Our investigators seized the two cell phones and they’re being analyzed.’

The claims ignited tensions in the picturesque mountain town while its 1,771 residents still reel from the shock of the shooting involving two of its most prominent officials.

So much so that a front page story this week in The Mountain Eagle, the town’s respected newspaper, included an apparent appeal for calm.

‘Rumors, apparently none true, have raced through the community, setting a torch to other relationships,’ its lead story on the killing said.

‘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.’

Stines told the court he did not have a lawyer and was given a public defender for the preliminary hearing on October 1

Stines and Mullins had worked together on drug policy iin the rural Kentucky county that has been badly hit by the opioid epidemic 

However, one thing is certain, as DailyMail.com discovered when it visited Whitesburg this week that the two men were indeed close friends of some 20 years – making the shooting even more mystifying.

Just hours before it happened, they shared an outside table at the popular Streetside Grill & Bar on Main Street for lunch, only a few hundred yards from the courthouse.

The pair were lunchtime regulars together at the sports bar and on that fateful Thursday ordered their usual – both having the $13.99 wings with salad.

‘Everything seemed fine between them. There was no clue that anything was wrong at all,’ one of the staff attending them that day told DailyMail.com. 

‘You wouldn’t have guessed there was the slightest problem.

‘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.’

One thing undoubtedly preying on the mind of Stines, who was the 54-year-old judge’s bailiff before becoming sheriff in 2018, was a civil lawsuit against one of his deputies who was convicted and sentenced for rape.

The 43-year-old sheriff was accused of not properly training and supervising ex-deputy Ben Fields, who coerced a woman on home incarceration into sex for favors – ironically in Judge Mullins’s chambers. 

Fields got six months jail and six and a half years’ probation.

Just hours before it happened, the  two men shared an outside table at the popular Streetside Grill & Bar on Main Street for lunch, only a few hundred yards from the courthouse

There is no accusation of sexual impropriety by Stines or criticism of father-of-two Mullins in the case.

However, the accused lawman had been acting ‘erratically’ since Labor Day according to friends and co-workers, The Mountain Eagle reported this week. 

‘He was quieter than usual and had stopped regular communications with the community and the press,’ it wrote.

Stines admitted to the paper that he was having ‘some issues’ and revealed he shed 40lbs from his hulking 300lb frame in just two weeks.

He deleted his office’s Facebook page in mid-August, telling the local paper people were criticizing him and he was ‘afraid’ someone might use the page against him in a court case.

Strictly speaking, Stines – who has a teenage child and a stepson with 52-year-old wife Caroline – is still Letcher County Sheriff until he officially resigns the $115,000-a-year position.

Yet as DailyMail.com approached the sheriff’s office building behind the courthouse, a worker was busy removing his name from the glass frontage.

All that could be seen as we walked up were the letters M and I, the first part of Mickey, as he liked to be known.

‘Yeah, they’ve told me to get this off,’ the worker told us as he continued with his scraper.

As DailyMail.com approached the sheriff’s office building behind the courthouse, a worker was busy removing Stines’s name from the glass frontage

The removal came a day before Stines appeared for his arraignment via video link, where he pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

Bespectacled, he stood solemnly in drab prison garb with his hands clasped in front of him, but not cuffed. He appeared from Leslie County Jail, 50 miles from Whitesburg.

Chief Regional Judge Rupert Wilhoit – sitting in Carter County Circuit Court which is 115 miles from Whitesburg and an indication of the complexity of the case – revealed Stines could face the death penalty under Kentucky law.

Stines told the hearing he did not have a lawyer and was given a public defender to help with his next date, a preliminary hearing on October 1. 

But he was warned he might have to pay for a lawyer when his case gets to circuit court. His wife Caroline logged on to the virtual hearing, held on Zoom.

Police released the judge’s office from being a crime scene, but Letcher County Circuit Court has been closed since the horror shooting and will not open until Monday.

It is understood there were initially two shots shortly before 2.55pm inside the chambers of Judge Mullins, who was known to carry a weapon himself for self-defense.

Attorneys and staff, waiting for court to resume, were moments earlier laughing and talking just the other side of the closed door. 

The judge’s office is no longer from a crime scene, say police, but Letcher County Circuit Court has been closed since the horrific shooting and will not open until Monday

They heard the two bangs, after Stines allegedly drew a weapon, then a flurry of shots.

Deputy Wallace Kincer, the security officer for Mullins’ court, charged into his office and found the judge dead. 

Minutes later, Stines surrendered to Whitesburg Police and his own deputies, who by then had entered the building brandishing rifles.

All electronic devices inside the room were taken for analysis ‘as key pieces of evidence’, Trooper Gayheart told DailyMail.com. 

‘At least 50 witnesses who were in and around the court were interviewed for statements that same day,’ he said.

Around bustling Main Street, the heart of the compact town nestling below verdant mountain tops that frequently disappear in and out of thick mist, most folk remained stunned by the shooting.

Many DailyMail.com spoke with knew both men well and still couldn’t fathom what could have happened to suddenly fracture a long friendship in such a violent manner.

‘I’ve known both for years and I’m stunned, simply stunned,’ a woman in the town’s flower shop said.

‘They were pillars of this community. I’ve heard a lot of the speculation over why this happened, but I’m not sure what to believe.’

Mullins appeared in court via videolink from Leslie County Jail, 50 miles from Whitesburg

At the Cut-Away barbers shop, the mood was defensive when the subject of motive for the killing was broached. Some townsfolk, in an area built around coal mining, clearly didn’t welcome the sudden national attention.

At the Parlor Room tattoo parlor, three artists quietly worked on designs on their iPads while offering little direct opinion. 

But one of them said, in an apparent reference to unexpected behavior: ‘We’re hillbillies here, man. You kind of expect this kind of thing.’

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.’

Apart from being friends, Stines and Mullins worked closely together on drug addiction and recovery cases in the face of Kentucky’s devastating opioid epidemic.

Outside one premises on a nearby highway, DailyMail.com saw a large home-made sign advertising Narcan for sale – the drug that instantly resuscitates someone from a fentanyl overdose.

Mullins pioneered a local initiative focusing on linking people to treatment services after their arrest, reportedly helping the lives of 20,000 people. Stines worked with him, trying to get first-time offenders into rehab instead of jail.

The judge, who served for 14 years and was re-elected three times, said in 2018: ‘I suppose some judges want to appear “hard on drugs” by locking everyone up who has committed a drug-related crime.

‘I think there is a balance. If someone is a non-violent offender, but has a drug problem, it doesn’t make sense to lock them up with no treatment.’

Funeral services for Mullins, who had two daughters with 38-year-old wife Kimberly, were held near his home in the former coal company town of Jenkins, 11 miles from Whitesburg, on Sunday.