Rhode Island Woman Serves Lifetime Imprisonment After Plotting to Kill Ex-Boyfriend's Mom With Her New Fiancé

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A 20-year-old Rhode Island woman pled guilty to the murder of her ex-boyfriend's mom and was sentenced to life in prison on the scene.

Shaylyn Moran of Pawtucket was sentenced to life in prison for the murder charge, as well as ten-year terms for the other counts. Investigators believe Moran was an accomplice to Cheryl Smith's murder, which was carried out by her fiancé, 25-year-old Jack Doherty.

Man's ex-girlfriend made a revenge plot

Moran pled guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, first-degree murder, and carrying a firearm without a license in the shooting death of 54-year-old Cheryl Smith, according to the office of Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.

On New Year's Eve 2019, a woman was visited for the first time by a long-distance lover, who later that night at a party proposed to her, as per Law and Crime. Shaylyn Moran's new fiancé Jack Doherty traveled to a residence the next day after planning in a hotel room, when Doherty reportedly shot and murdered Cheryl Smith, the mother of Moran's ex-boyfriend, as part of a twisted revenge plot.

While Doherty is still awaiting trial, Moran has acknowledged her part in the murder and will serve the rest of her life in jail. The Pawtucket woman pled guilty to first-degree murder, carrying a handgun without a license, and conspiracy to murder in Smith's killing, per Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.

Moran, who was 18 at the time of the shooting, was sentenced to life in prison with an additional 20 years to be served concurrently at the age of 20. The attorney general's office said the shooting was the conclusion of a months-long, long-distance affair in which violent ideation was at the forefront of the couple's minds.

In the months preceding up the murder, Moran and Doherty formed a long-distance relationship and plotted to kill Moran's ex-boyfriend, Leonard Troufield III. They had started dating on the internet and had been communicating for weeks before he came from New York to Rhode Island.

Fiancé went from NY to Rhode Island

Doherty flew to Rhode Island from New York on Dec. 31, 2019, to see Moran and carried a 9mm handgun with him. After attending a New Year's Eve party, where Doherty proposed, the pair decided to travel to her ex-boyfriend's house and kill whoever opened the door after returning to their Pawtucket hotel room. Doherty shot Smith four times in the chest at her Baxter Street home and she died on January 1, 2020, at a local hospital, according to investigators.

When officers arrested them on January 2 as they exited their hotel room, Doherty owned the weapon. Doherty is still being detained without bail until his trial for murder and a slew of other charges, KIRO7 reported.

After the incident, Doherty called Lyft to take him away from the site. He contacted Moran, who was staying at the Hampton Inn, to inform her that Smith had been killed.

When Moran and Troufield started dating in the fall of 2019, only a few months before the murder, they had only been together for four days. Her relationship ended after she reported him to the police for assaulting her after an altercation at his house. Troufield said Moran had physically attacked him, as per Daily Mail.