The younger mother admits killing her 59-year-old husband but claims it was in self-defence, with her lawyer telling the jury: “She was worried for her life when she was forced to shoot him.”
A ballerina 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 prosecution’s argument in the case against Ashley Benefield, 32, who admitted to killing her husband, Douglas Benefield, 59, on September 27, 2020.
Benefield’s defense attorney, Neil Taylor, painted a distinctive footage for jurors inside the courtroom earlier this week during opening statements in what has been dubbed the “Black Swan” murder trial. “She was worried for her life when she was forced to shoot him,” Neil argued.
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However, the prosecution says evidence from the crime scene paints a different picture of what occurred — and even more detailed evidence paints a different picture of Ashley Benefield than the defense is presenting.
“This case is about a girl who, very early in her pregnancy, decided that she needed to be a single mother,” Assistant State’s Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell argued. “She would stop at nothing to achieve that goal.”
On September 27, 2020, when police arrived at the scene to search for his body on the bedroom floor, Ashley said he tried to assault her and that’s why she shot him.
However, prosecutors argued with forensic evidence that Douglas was walking away from Ashley when she first shot him on three occasions.
“Based primarily on the entry wounds on Douglas, it does not appear that he was walking past Ashley when she began shooting,” the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office said in an affidavit obtained by The New York Post.
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“Furthermore, it does not appear that Douglas assumed any type of defensive or combative posture. He was not found to have any weapons on or near him,” the affidavit continued.
The conclusion is: “Detectives found no evidence that she was acting in self-defense when she fired a series of shots at her husband.”
On Thursday, the state offered text messages as part of its closing arguments. In preparation for a transfer from Florida to Maryland, the messages showed a couple working peacefully together, discussing how to pack containers and furniture.
Douglas’s last message to his wife was “truck driver on the way,” according to WTVT. This message arrived at 5:32 pm on September 27, 2020. In response to Ashley, it was shortly after this that she claimed she shot her husband to protect herself.
The defense argued that the cooperative nature of the messages was indicative of “an abused girl’s concern.” Taylor argued, “Right here now we have her quiet, private moment. What is she doing 5 months before the shooting? She is trying to figure out how to reunite with an abusive ex-spouse.”
The judge, however, barred those searches from being presented to the jury, saying they were hearsay, according to WTVT. After the prosecution rested its case on Thursday, Ashley’s defense will begin on Friday morning.
Ashley and Douglas met in 2016 at a Republican Party fundraiser in Palm Beachside when she was 24. A skilled dancer, Ashley shared her aspirations of starting her own ballet company. Two weeks after they met, the couple was married and he was funding her studio.
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In response to the accusation, things changed when the money began to run out and Ashley’s ballet company faltered. A subsequent divorce battle turned ugly with allegations of infidelity on both sides and abuse.
Although they had only been married for four years, Ashley had repeatedly come forward with allegations of abuse against Douglas, including a narrative that he had shot at the ceiling to “shut her up,” that he had kicked their dog until she was unconscious, and that he had even tried to poison her while she was pregnant.
Throughout the trial, it was revealed that the couple were estranged when their daughter, now six, was born and Doug only found out she had given birth when she filed a restraining order against him, for WTVT.
In response to a lawyer Douglas had hired to try to attend the birth of his son, the meeting culminated in a meeting between the two when the newborn was six months old and Ashley’s sudden decision to go with Douglas.
A judge found no evidence of abuse by Douglas in relation to these allegations, the NY Post reported. The prosecution argued that it was all part of a calculated strategy by the defendant to gain sole custody of her son. And when that didn’t work, she took much more extreme measures.
They went through a period of reconciliation after that, according to the outlet, until Ashley shot and killed her husband in September 2020.
If you are suffering domestic violence, Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or visit thehotline.org. The hotline is available 24/7 in over 170 languages; calls are confidential and free of charge.
Opposite Dancer allegedly killed wealthy husband and donor so she could be a single mother: prosecutors first appeared on All celebrities.