A former ballerina accused of fatally shooting her estranged husband has been convicted in the case that has been dubbed the “Black Swan” murder trial.
Ashley Benefield, 33, had been charged with second-degree murder for the shooting death of her husband, Doug Benefield.
The pair met at a Republican Party fundraiser in 2016 when Ashley was a 24-year-old ballet dancer and Doug was a 54-year-old Navy veteran and technology consultant, according to People magazine. The couple got married just 13 days later.
In a Florida courtroom Tuesday night, a Manatee County jury convicted Benefield of the lesser crime of manslaughter. In Florida, manslaughter carries a 15-year-maximum prison sentence.
After the verdict was announced, the judge revoked Benefield’s $100,000 bond and remanded her to the custody of the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.
Her sentencing date has yet to be set.
Benefield fired a gun at her 58-year-old estranged husband in 2020 at her mother’s home in Bradenton, Florida.
Benefield’s lawyer Neil Taylor argued that the fatal shooting was in self-defense after a history of the husband’s abusive behavior.
In his closing argument Tuesday, Taylor said his client filed “complaint after complaint after complaint calling Doug Benefield’s behavior to the attention of authorities with no results. Over and over again with no relief,” according to NBC News.
In his opening statements, Taylor described the estranged husband as “a manipulative, cunning, and abusive man.”
“Thirty years older than Ashley, he was obsessed with her, and he successfully portrayed himself as he was not in an effort to win her hand in marriage,” Taylor said. “Despite promoting himself as a religious, honorable, and decent human being, Benefield was a manipulative, cunning, and abusive man who insisted, absolutely insisted on control.”
Taylor told the courtroom that Doug once fired a handgun into a kitchen ceiling in an attempt to get Ashley to stop talking, threw a loaded gun at her, punched their dog unconscious, and regularly carried a concealed firearm that was always “ready to fire,” WFLA-TV reported.
“The only thing that is going to have been established here beyond a reasonable doubt is that Douglas Benefield was a violent abuser, Ashley Benefield’s efforts to placate him [were] absolutely consistent with what abused women do, especially when a child is involved, and that Ashley’s result and resource to deadly force was justified under the circumstances,” Taylor said.
The pair met at a Republican Party fundraiser in 2016 when Ashley was a 24-year-old ballet dancer and Doug was a 54-year-old Navy veteran and technology consultant, according to People magazine. The couple got married just 13 days later.
Eva Benefield — Doug’s 23-year-old daughter from a previous marriage — said during the “Black Swan” murder trial, “They were just with each other all the time. It was very lovey-dovey. They were very touchy-feely PDAs. Any event with school or extracurricular that I was in, they were together. They never left each other’s side.”
Less than a year later, Ashley became pregnant with Doug’s child.
About a year into their marriage, the couple started a ballet company — which was said to be Ashely’s “dream.”
Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell told the jury, “All within a year of being married, they have done a vasectomy reversal, gotten pregnant, started a ballet, and the ballet has crumbled.”
The marriage also reportedly deteriorated.
In 2017, the couple obtained a court order that barred them from contacting each other, O’Donnell said.
During her pregnancy, the ex-ballerina moved from the pair’s South Carolina residence to her mother’s home outside of Sarasota, Florida.
Taylor said Ashley attempted to obtain a domestic violence injunction in Florida, which would have barred her estranged husband from seeing their child.
O’Donnell argued, “This was a custody battle that this mother was going to win at all costs. The cost was the life of Doug Benefield, and that is murder.”
A judge denied Ashley’s request for a domestic injunction.
WTVT-TV reported that Doug was not aware that their child was born until a restraining order was filed against him.
On Sept. 27, 2020, Doug allegedly was helping Ashley pack her things for a move from her mother’s Florida home to Maryland.
Ashley claimed that an argument erupted, Doug slapped her in the face, and she fled to the bedroom to retrieve a handgun.
She then testified that Doug blocked her from leaving the house and lunged at her. She claimed that at that moment she shot Doug.
“I thought he was going to kill me,” Ashley testified, according to the New York Post.
Ashely fired four rounds from her .45-caliber handgun.
Benefield’s next-door neighbor, John Sant, said Ashley ran to his house immediately after the shootings.
“As soon as I opened the door, before I could say anything, she said, ‘He attacked me,’” Sant told the court. “At that point, I said, ‘Who?’ She said, ‘Doug. … He attacked me, and I shot him.”
During the “Black Swan” murder trial, Sant’s 911 call was played for the jury. Throughout the call, you can hear Sant attempting to calm Benefield.
“She just came over, her estranged husband attacked her, and she said she shot him,” Sant said in the 911 call, according to WTVT.
O’Donnell said there was no evidence that Ashley had been physically assaulted.
O’Donnell also said the fatal bullet that struck Doug entered through the side of his body, which she argued contradicts Ashley’s testimony.
Detectives noted — in regard to where the victim was struck — it “does not appear that he was facing Ashley when she began shooting.”
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