The first man to be charged with murder related to a fentanyl death in Florida’s 2nd Judicial Circuit has been acquitted.
On June 26, a jury returned a not-guilty verdict for Kurstin Hinson on a first-degree murder charge in connection to the 2021 death of Megan Hoffman. He still faces other drug-related charges in connection to the case, however.
“In this case, the evidence suggests they went after the wrong person,” Mike Bauer, Hinson’s attorney and a former Leon County prosecutor, told the Tallahassee Democrat.
Hinson, 31, was arrested in August 2022, more than a year after Hoffman was found dead in a West Tennessee Street apartment by Tallahassee police conducting a welfare check. It was later found she died of a fentanyl overdose, according to court records.
During initial interviews, Hinson admitted to detectives that he had sold drugs to Hoffman before. He was found in possession of pills that were originally identified as prescription oxycodone at the time of his arrest, as previously reported.
The state argued that text messages between Hinson and Hoffman, as well as Uber records and Cash App receipts, tied him to the deadly drug deal. Drug testing also was a large part of the state’s case.
Hinson’s stash of drugs found during the search was originally believed to be Percocet – a brand name for oxycodone – but testing determined they actually contained fentanyl, which matched Hoffman’s cause of death, Assistant State Attorney Jasmine Mattear said.
Bauer maintains that his client never met with Hoffman to sell her drugs the night she died, and that Hoffman attempted to purchase drugs from at least four other people that night.
A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration photo shows confiscated pills containing deadly doses of fentanyl.
And even if Hinson had sold her drugs, his pills wouldn’t have been the cause of her death, Bauer added.
Bauer said Hinson had sold pills to Hoffman on multiple other occasions from the same batch, and she never had any negative side effects. In fact, Hinson had also used some of the pills from that batch “without incident.”
Another key piece of evidence that helped convince jurors of Hinson’s innocence was that white powder was documented at the scene. Hinson’s pills, recovered during the investigation, were blue. Even if they had been crushed, there would’ve been a blue powder – not white, Bauer said.
Furthermore, Bauer said the state’s testing that found fentanyl in Hinson’s pills noted only a minuscule amount of the deadly drug.
Pill blister packages believed to contain fentanyl are displayed at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in New York City on May 7, 2026.
“She died of 5.5 times higher than the therapeutic amount,” Bauer said. “His pills did not contain that much fentanyl.”
Bauer said they expect him to be in trouble for selling drugs, but raising a murder claim against someone should be done with caution: “We have to be very careful to make sure we have the right person because this is a capital felony.”
Hinson’s other charges are still making their way through the courts. He will be before a judge again July 7 for a case management hearing, but neither Bauer nor Mattear could speak to what lies ahead for the pending cases and whether Hinson will go before another jury.
“Ultimately, we ask jurors to do a difficult job and respect the decision they come to,” Mattear said of the acquittal.
“It’s a dangerous drug, and if nothing else, this trial showed how dangerous fentanyl is to people who take it and how it can be in drugs and people not know. I think this is why we have to prosecute these kinds of cases.”
Elena Barrera can be reached at ebarrera@tallahassee.com. Follow her on X: @elenabarreraaa.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Leon County jury clears man in area’s first fentanyl murder trial