Where is Shaylyn Moran Now? We explain where she is now and what she and her fiancé did to earn long prison sentences.
Cheryl Smith was a 54-year-old woman and the mother of Shaylyn Moran’s ex-boyfriend Leonard Troufield III. She was murdered on January 1, 2020, after she opened the door to Shaylyn’s fiancé Jack Doherty.
Doherty committed this crime following a plan that he and Moran had developed, and both were arrested shortly after.
This murder shocked the local community and drew attention from state and nationwide media. But at the heart of it is Smith’s family, who have lost a kind and loving person from their lives, a hole they have to live with now.
Who is Shaylyn Moran, and what did she do?
In 2019, Shaylyn Moran, a 20-year-old woman who lived in Rhode Island, met Jack Doherty online, who was aged 26, from New York. The two started a long-distance relationship and began to develop a plan over social media and the phone to attack Moran’s ex-boyfriend and his family. On December 31, 2019, Doherty visited Moran and brought with him a 9mm ghost pistol.
They rented a hotel room together in the town of Pawtucket and attended a New Year’s Eve party, where Doherty proposed to Moran. Once the pair had returned to their hotel, they devised a plan for Doherty to visit the home of Moran’s ex-boyfriend and shoot and kill anyone who answered the door.
On the evening of January 1, 2020, Doherty traveled to Baxter Street, the home of Moran’s ex-boyfriend, where he surveyed the house and knocked on the door. Cheryl Smith, 54, the mother of Moran’s ex-boyfriend, answered.
Doherty shot her four times with the 9mm ghost pistol. Smith was rushed to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
In the hours that followed, police from the Pawtucket Police Department tracked down and arrested the co-conspirators as they were leaving their Pawtucket hotel on January 2. At the time of the arrest, Doherty was still in possession of the 9mm ghost gun pistol.
Both were later found guilty of murder.
Where is Shaylyn Moran Now?
In August 2021, Shaylyn Moran pled guilty to several charges, including first-degree murder, and was sentenced to serve life in prison plus 20 years.
This means she will spend the rest of her life in prison. She may become eligible for parole, which means she could be let out of prison but supervised by parole officers and forced to abide by certain conditions. But this won’t happen for a long time.
Jack Doherty was found guilty of murdering Cheryl Smith in November 2022. He was also found guilty of discharging a firearm during a violent crime, murder conspiracy, and carrying a pistol without a permit.
Doherty had attempted to plea for insanity, citing mental health problems, but this was rejected.
In 2023, a judge sentenced him to two life prison terms plus an additional five years for conspiracy to commit murder and a suspended 10-year sentence for possession of a gun without a permit.
Doherty will get mental health support while he’s in prison.
Is Shaylyn Moran still in prison?
Moran is still in prison, where she will remain for several years. Doherty will also remain in prison for several decades and will have to wait longer than Moran for parole because he is serving two life sentences.
