A Massachusetts man who killed three children and their mother by setting fire to an apartment building was denied parole again.
On March 11, 1980, 20-year-old James Boone set fire to an 11-unit apartment building in Haverhill. At the time, The Boston Globe reported that authorities believed the fire was connected to an attempt to harm himself.
While Boone survived, the fire killed 23-year-old Shirley Jennings and her three children, Michael Gonyers, 9, Sherry, 6, and Mickey L. Jennings, 18 months, according to the Boston Globe. It also left 27 people homeless.
Officials said Boone knew other people were inside the building.
He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Sept. 5, 1980. He was sentenced to four concurrent sentences of life in prison with the possibility of parole. His first parole hearing was in 1999 with review hearings in 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018 and 2022.
He went in front of the parole board for the seventh time on July 22, 2025.
He has continued to have disciplinary reports for substance use, including K2. One report came less than a month before the hearing. He got another substance use disciplinary report in August 2025. The Massachusetts Parole Board also noted Boone had to be revived with Narcan in March 2025.
“Mr. Boone is encouraged to engage in rehabilitative programming, attend AA, and remain (disciplinary report) free,” the parole board wrote in its denial.
Also known as “spice,” K2 is a psychoactive substance that impacts a person’s mental state, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Reported effects can vary widely, including altered mood and perception, hallucinations, relaxation, anxiety and paranoia, suicidal tendencies and increased heart rate.
Since K2 is mostly a prison-only drug, the DOC has been left to learn its own way through detection and treatment, said Shawn Jenkins, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC). However, advocates argue the department still isn’t transparent about the health toll behind the walls.
“We feel like we have a very successful blueprint for treating other types of drugs,” Jenkins said. “But again, the novelty associated with K2 is something that we’re constantly kind of reevaluating and engaging with others on from a public health perspective,” he said.
For Boone, his use of K2 shows the parole board that he has continued exhibiting many of the same concerning characteristics that were present at the time of the fire. The parole board found that Boone posed a high risk of recidivism.
He was denied parole on Jan. 22 with another hearing allowed in two years.
