The mother of a 30-year-old Buffalo woman who was killed by her estranged husband told The Post that Gov. Kathy Hochul was just as responsible for the brutal slaying as the man who pulled the trigger.
The mother of Keaira Bennefield spoke about her daughter’s execution-style death on Oct. 5 when Adam Bennefield allegedly crashed into her car, pulled out a shotgun and killed her.
Adam Bennefield had been released from jail less than 24 hours before the killing for savagely beating Keaira in an on-camera attack.
As far as Keaira’s mother Tammy Hudson is concerned, Hochul’s support for New York’s no-cash-bail law has directly led to her daughter’s barbaric death.
“She should be charged for the crime. She’s also responsible for the crime,” Hudson told The Post from her home in Buffalo Tuesday.
Hochul has repeatedly doubled down on her support for no-cash-bail, claiming it will close racial and class disparities within the justice system, but has admitted the laws could use some tweaking.
In March, the governor pitched a 10-point plan to fix aspects of the legislation, but said she won’t consider significantly altering it until January — well after the midterms next week — so that “we’ll be able to assess the real impact of our changes.”
Hudson believes Hochul’s few fixes are just a “distraction” to please those who are against the laws.
“It’s not real, it’s just something that you think will shut us people up,” Husdon said.
“But we need to be heard as people who are going through it. Steps need to be taken. I’m sick of the, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, is there anything I can do?’ when there’s nothing you can do, because that person won’t ever come back again.
“She failed me. She let me down and my daughter down, and she needs to make a change with the bail reform.”
Keaira had begged police for help from her abusive husband, who has a prior conviction for kidnapping another ex at gunpoint, in the weeks before she was murdered.
She posted a horrendous eight-minute video to Facebook in which Adam allegedly punched, kicked and slapped her relentlessly.
Adam was arrested a week after the late September assault and charged with only a string of misdemeanor charges, including third-degree assault, fourth-degree criminal mischief, second-degree menacing, and second-degree unlawful imprisonment.
The low-level charges prevented the judge from setting bail. Adam was released the day before Keaira’s murder.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Keaira wore a bulletproof vest to drop her three kids, ages 6 months to 9 years, off at school the next morning when Adam ambushed her, police said.
The preventative measures did little to help the doomed mother. Keaira died at the scene.
“The kids had blood all over their clothes and he walked away and knew to hide,” Hudson said.
“You planned it, you plotted it, you were upset, and you said, ‘I’m going to go do this to her.’” Hudson said of her ex-son-in-law. “She was planning to leave him, and he was going to stop her.”
The cold-blooded crime is even more tragic for Hudson and her family because Keaira was able to foresee what Hochul and other politicians couldn’t: that their good faith in no-cash-bail wouldn’t protect victims.
“There needs to be real consequences for domestic violence, because she was screaming for help on Facebook, and to friends and family,” said Hudson.
A spokesperson for Hochul said the governor stands with Keaira’s family as they mourn, but did not acknowledge that bail laws could have played a role.
“Governor Hochul’s top priority is to keep New Yorkers safe, which is why she worked with the legislature to crack down on gun crimes and repeat offenders and further expand the types of cases where judges have the discretion to set bail, and strengthened Red Flag Laws to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals, including domestic abusers,” Hazel Crampton-Hays told The Post.
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