Timothy Hearns

Introduction

Timothy Hearns, a 36-year-old Roxbury man known on the street as “King Kill,” pleaded guilty on October 30, 2026, in federal court in Boston to conspiring to smuggle synthetic drugs into a Massachusetts state prison — while he was already serving a nineteen-and-a-half-to-twenty-year manslaughter sentence inside that same system. Hearns is a long-time member of Boston’s H-Block gang, and he is the tenth and final defendant to plead guilty in the August 2024 takedown of the gang. His sentencing is set for February 2, 2027, before U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani.

Background Information

Hearns is serving a 19.5-to-20-year manslaughter sentence in the Massachusetts Department of Correction, imposed in 2014 for a 2010 shooting at the Columbus/Heath Street basketball courts that killed a fourteen-year-old and wounded a fifteen-year-old boy in the chest and arm — a shooting committed when H-Block was locked in a violent rivalry with Heath Street gang associates. The H-Block gang itself traces to the 1980s Humboldt Raiders of Roxbury and re-emerged in the 2000s under its current name; charging documents describe it as one of the most feared and influential city-wide gangs in Boston, with a history of violent confrontation with police — including a 2015 incident in which a member shot a Boston Police officer at point-blank range without warning or provocation.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Pleaded guilty; sentencing pending. Hearns pleaded guilty on October 30, 2026, to conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute PCP, MDMB-4en-PINACA and ADB-4en-PINACA; the conviction is a matter of court record. Sentencing is pending, so no prison term for the conspiracy has been imposed.

Hearns was one of ten H-Block members and associates charged in August 2024 following a multi-year investigation that began in 2021 in response to an uptick in gang-related drug trafficking, shootings, and violence. The investigation seized over 500 grams of cocaine, crack cocaine, and fentanyl, along with more than 20,000 doses of drug-laced paper. Hearns was one of three gang members and associates charged specifically with conspiring to smuggle illegal drugs into a Massachusetts prison, and intercepted jail calls revealed that he and his co-conspirators planned the introductions together.

The smuggling method exploited the Department of Correction’s inmate mail policies, which permit original documents to reach inmates only through legal mail. Sheets of paper are saturated or sprayed with liquid narcotics, dried, printed with fake legal correspondence, and mailed to inmates in envelopes marked as legal mail in the hope of slipping through undetected. It is alleged that several sheets containing PCP and illegal K2 were seized during the investigation, and a single such sheet is estimated to be worth as much as $80,000 inside the prison — economics that make prison mail a target for drug organizations operating from behind walls. The synthetic cannabinoids Hearns admitted conspiring to distribute, MDMB-4en-PINACA and ADB-4en-PINACA, are laboratory-made compounds associated with severe intoxication events in correctional facilities.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The plea announcement was issued by United States Attorney Leah B. Foley alongside the DEA, the U.S. Secret Service Boston Field Office, the FBI Boston Division, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Inspector General, with support from the Massachusetts State Police, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, and four local police departments. The charge Hearns admitted carries up to 20 years in prison, at least three and up to a lifetime of supervised release, and a fine of up to $1 million — a sentence that will stack onto the manslaughter term he is already serving. The case is part of the Homeland Security Task Force initiative established by Executive Order 14159.

Current Status

Hearns has pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced on February 2, 2027, by Judge Indira Talwani in federal court in Boston. As the tenth and final defendant to plead, his plea closes out the guilty phase of the H-Block case; what remains is sentencing. He remains an inmate in the Massachusetts Department of Correction serving his existing manslaughter sentence, and Assistant United States Attorney John T. Dawley of the Organized Crime & Gang Unit is prosecuting the case.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Hearns’s criminal record now runs from a 2010 killing that put him in state prison for two decades to a federal drug conspiracy committed from inside that prison — conduct that added a second, federal sentence to the one he was already serving and extended his time under custody into his late fifties at minimum. A federal conviction on a drug conspiracy carrying a 20-year maximum means the state manslaughter release and the federal sentence will be coordinated at sentencing, and supervised release will follow him after any federal custody.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts, “Gang Member Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Smuggle Synthetic Drugs Into Prison,” November 3, 2026. source