Jury finds New York man guilty in 2020 murder of Pawtucket woman on New Year's

PROVIDENCE – The visitor from New York plotted a murder with a local woman soon after the couple rang in the New Year together in Rhode Island in 2020.

She would help him find her ex-boyfriend's home in Pawtucket. He would shoot and kill whoever answered the door.

These were the allegations presented to the jury that has found 26-year-old Jack Doherty guilty.

Tuesday's guilty verdicts in the case followed an eight-day trial before Judge Kristen E. Rodgers in Superior Court, Providence.

Doherty was found guilty of murder, discharging a firearm during a violent crime, murder conspiracy and carrying a pistol without a permit, according to a news release from the office of Attorney General Peter Neronha.

Doherty's companion in crime, Shaylyn Moran, was sentenced last year to a life prison term plus 20 years for her role in the murder of Cheryl Smith, the mother of Moran's ex-boyfriend.

Doherty and Moran had developed a long-distance romantic relationship prior to Doherty's first trip to Rhode Island to visit Moran on Dec. 31, 2019.

During this time, in conversations on social media and over the phone, they joined in a conspiracy to target Moran's ex-boyfriend, Leonard Troufield III, with whom she had conducted what the trial judge described as a "toxic relationship."

After celebrating the New Year, prosecutors said, Doherty followed Moran's directions and arrived outside Troufield's home on Baxter Street.

He surveilled the home and knocked on the door. Troufield's mother, Smith, answered and Doherty shot her four times with his 9mm pistol, an untraceable "ghost gun."

Doherty fled. A rescue team tried to save Smith, but she died at the hospital. Investigators tracked the two killers to their Pawtucket hotel and arrested them.

Doherty's lawyer argued that the jury should find him not guilty by reason of insanity. He is at the Adult Correctional Institutions pending his sentencing.