The young mother admits to killing her 59-year-old husband, but claims it was in self-defense, with her attorney telling a jury, “She was in fear for her life when she was forced to shoot him.”
A ballet dancer is on trial for the death of her wealthy husband, accused of killing him just so she could be a single mother.
That was the argument of the prosecution in the case against 32-year-old Ashley Benefield, who has admitted that she killed her 59-year-old husband, Douglas Benefield on September 27, 2020.
Benefield’s defense attorney, Neil Taylor, painted a different pictures for jurors in the courtroom earlier this week during opening statements in what’s been dubbed the ‘Black Swan’ murder trial. “She was in fear for her life when she was forced to shoot him,” Neil argued.
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But the prosecution says the evidence of the crime scene paints a different picture of what happened — and evidence going back even further paints a different picture of Ashley Benefield than the defense is presenting.
“This case is about a woman who very early on in her pregnancy decided she wanted to be a single mother,” argued Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell. “She would stop at nothing to obtain that goal.”
On September 27, 2020, when police arrived at the scene to find his body on the bedroom floor, Ashley said that he’d tried to attack her and that’s why she shot him.
But prosecutors argued with forensic evidence that Douglas was facing away from Ashley when she shot him for the first of three times.
“Based on entry wounds on Douglas it does not appear that he was facing Ashley when she began shooting,” the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office said in an affidavit received by The New York Post.
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“It also does not appear that Douglas had taken any kind of defensive or combative stance. He was not found to have any weapons on his person or near him,” the affidavit continued.
It’s conclusion: “Detectives found no evidence that she was acting in self-defense when she fired multiple shots at her husband.”
On Thursday, the state presented text messages as part of the closure of their arguments. In preparation of a move from Florida to Maryland, the messages showed a couple working peacefully together, discussing packing boxes and furniture.
Douglas’ final message to his wife was “trucker on the way,” per WTVT. That message came at 5:32 p.m. on September 27, 2020. According to Ashley, it was shortly after this that she claimed she shot her husband in self defense.
The defense argued that the cooperative nature of the messages was indicative of “an abused woman’s fear.” Taylor argued, “Here we have in her quiet, most private moment. What is she doing five months before the shooting? She is searching for how to get along with an abusive ex-spouse.”
The judge, however, disallowed those searches from being show to the jury, saying they were hearsay, per WTVT. After the prosecution rested its case on Thursday, Ashley’s defense will start on Friday morning.
Ashley and Douglas first met in 2016 at a GOP fundraiser in Palm Beach when she was 24 years old. A trained dancer, Ashley shared her aspirations to open her own ballet company. Two weeks after they met, the couple was married and he was funding her studio.
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According to the prosecution, things took a turn when the money started to run out and Ashley ballet company faltered. An ensuing divorce battle turned ugly with allegations of infidelity on both sides and abuse.
While they were only married for four years, Ashley filed allegations of abuse against Douglas multiple times, including a story that he’d shot a gun at the ceiling to “shut her up,” that he’d kicked their dog unconscious, and that he’d even tried to poison her while she was pregnant.
Throughout the trial, it was revealed that the couple was estranged when their daughter, now six, was born with Doug only find out she’d given birth when she filed a restraining order against him, per WTVT.
According to an attorney Douglas had hired in an effort to be a part of his child’s birth culminated in a meeting between the two when the baby was six months old and Ashley’s abrupt decision to go with Douglas.
A judge previously found no evidence of abuse by Douglas in relation to these allegations, the NY Post reported. The prosecution argued that all of this was part of a calculated strategy by the defendant to gain sole custody of their child. And when that didn’t work, she took even more extreme measures.
They enjoyed a period of reconciliation after that, per the outlet, until Ashley shot and killed her husband in September 2020.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages; Calls are confidential and toll-free.
