Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin announced that a Providence County Superior Court jury found Nigel Nichols (age 29), from Brockton, MA, guilty of the December 6, 2009 shooting on Dorrance Street in Providence that killed David Thomas (age 22) and Domingo Ortiz (age 21) and injured Dwaynne Thomas, who was 18 years of age at the time. Nichols was found guilty of two counts of murder, two counts of discharging a firearm resulting in death, one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, and one count of discharging a firearm resulting in injury. The jury returned the verdict in just two and one half hours after a trial that began on February 3, 2015 and was presided over by Superior Court Justice Robert D. Krause.
During the course of the trial, the State proved that in the early morning hours of December 6, 2009, Nigel Nichols fired a .40 caliber Glock into the motor vehicle operated by David Thomas and occupied by passengers Domingo Ortiz and Dwaynne Thomas.
The three victims had travelled from their homes in Boston to attend an area nightclub. After a pleasant and uneventful evening, the three men got into their vehicle and proceeded to head back to Boston. While stopped in traffic on Dorrance Street in front of the Garrahy Judicial complex, Nichols, without provocation, opened fire on the unsuspecting and innocent young men, executing David Thomas and Domingo Ortiz and seriously wounding Dwaynne Thomas.
According to witnesses who testified at the trial, Nichols was upset over an earlier unrelated altercation and being teased by some of his friends that he was not as tough as an individual from Boston known as "Snags," who at the time was charged with three murders in Boston. "Snags," a friend of the defendant, was recently convicted of those murders.
Nichols and his friends fled the scene. Providence Police developed a break in the investigation in 2011 when a witness came forward.
"Despite little initial evidence or eyewitnesses willing to come forward, the Providence Police continued to follow up with every lead and every bit of evidence to identify Nigel Nichols as the shooter. That perseverance and persistence led to getting a violent individual off the streets, giving the surviving victim as well as the families of all three families some sense of peace of mind that this killer has been found responsible for the senseless attack."
Providence Police Detective Angelo A'vant led the investigation, having taken it over from Detective John Muriel. Assistant Attorney General and Chief of the Criminal Division Stacey P. Veroni and Special Assistant Attorney General Roger Demers prosecuted the case on behalf of the Office of Attorney General.