The daughter of a man shot and killed by his ex-wife celebrated Tuesday the news that her former stepmother had been found guilty of manslaughter.
Ashley Benefield received the verdict after seven hours of jury deliberations in Florida on Tuesday. Fox 13 reports.
The 32-year-old former dancer, whose case became known as the “Black Swan murder trial,” had been charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of her ex-husband, Doug Benefield, 59, in September 2020.
But the jury ruled she was acting in self-defense when she fired the gun at her mother’s Lakewood Ranch home, contradicting the prosecution’s claim that the shooting was premeditated.
Still, Eva Benefield, Doug’s 23-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, seemed elated by the verdict.
A jury found Ashley Benefield guilty of manslaughter on Tuesday
“After four years of waiting, my father got the justice he deserves,” she said in a TikTok video after the verdict.
He added that he would have much more to say about the trial, which is expected to last several weeks, once he has gathered his thoughts.
When the verdict was read in court on Tuesday, Ashley showed no emotion before she was led away.
The judge overseeing her case revoked her $100,000 bond and sent her to the custody of the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.
She now faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison in Florida, but would have faced 25 years to life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder.
A sentencing hearing will be scheduled at a later date.
Eva previously testified that her father and Ashley “were together all the time” in the early days of their relationship.
“They were very affectionate and showed affection in public all the time. They never separated,” she said.
The two had met at Ben Carson’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, in August 2016. She had been campaigning for then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
They were married just 13 days later.
Eva Benefield, Doug’s daughter from a previous marriage, appeared elated by the news in a TikTok video following the verdict.
Within a year of their marriage, Doug, a retired naval flight officer, helped Ashley achieve her dream of founding a ballet company, using his own money and connections.
He acted as CEO of the company, while Ashley took on the role of executive director.
But shortly after its founding, the company was sued by dancers and choreographers who claimed their contracts were breached when they were fired just weeks after being hired.
Doug also had his vasectomy reversed and Ashley became pregnant three months later.
That’s when everything changed, Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell argued in court.
She said Ashley moved from her home in South Carolina to Bradenton to live with her mother when she began experiencing morning sickness and has never lived with Doug since.
“They continued a long-distance relationship when she first moved to Florida and continued to try to stay together and in communication, but around the same time the ballet company collapsed, Ashley Benefield began making complaints against the victim,” O’Donnell told jurors.
She began accusing Doug of poisoning her and non-physical domestic violence.
But Manatee County Sheriff’s Office detectives conducted a five-week investigation and were unable to find any evidence to support her claims of abuse.
Ashley shot and killed Doug Benefield (pictured) at his home in Bradenton, Florida, on September 27, 2020.
The two met at a political event in 2016 and married just 13 days later.
Prosecutors sought to paint the picture that Ashley killed Doug in a last-ditch effort to gain custody of their daughter, who was 2 years old at the time of the shooting.
“This is a case of a woman who, early in her pregnancy, decided that she wanted to be a single mother,” O’Donnell argued in her opening statement. “She did not want the father of her child to have visitation rights.”
‘This is a long story, this was a custody battle that this mother would win at any cost, and the cost was Doug Benefield’s life.’
But defense attorneys argued that Doug was abusive toward Ashley.
Neil Taylor told jurors he once fired a gun at the kitchen ceiling in an attempt to stop Ashley from talking, threw a loaded gun at her, punched her dog in the face, knocking it unconscious, and regularly carried a concealed firearm that was “ready to fire.”
He also claimed that after Ashley and Doug split up, he illegally tracked her, often following her without her consent and even driving from out of state to keep an eye on her.
At least once, Doug allegedly stood in a neighbor’s backyard in the middle of the night so he could see her.
Benefield’s lawyers argued in court that she was a victim of domestic violence.
The couple had even obtained a court order in South Carolina prohibiting them from communicating with each other in 2017.
After Doug appeared to violate the order, Taylor said, Ashley filed for a domestic violence injunction in Florida that would have prohibited her from seeing her daughter.
However, the court order was denied when a judge said he did not find Ashley’s abuse allegations credible.
Then, on the night of the shooting, defense attorneys argued that Doug showed up at Ashley’s mother’s home in Florida unannounced.
They said in court documents that he arrived “happy, hyperactive and lively” but that over time he became “agitated, sullen and intimidating.”
After verbally abusing his wife, the defense claimed, Doug rammed her with a moving box, leaving scrapes.
“Doug Benefield knew full well that day that this relationship was over,” Taylor told the court.
She went on to claim that Doug was manipulative and “viewed Ashley Benefield as his property.”
“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 added.
His neighbor Josh Sant recounted how he ran home after the shooting, claiming Doug had been abusive.
After the shooting, Ashley ran to her neighbor’s house in Bradenton.
“I heard a really loud knock on my door,” neighbor Josh Sant testified last week, as Ashley faces murder charges in the veteran’s death. according to Fox 13. “I was a little surprised.”
He said he opened the door and found Ashley, who told him her husband attacked her and she shot him.
Sant then called 911 and told officers: “She just walked in, her ex-husband attacked her and she said she shot him,” according to an audio recording played in court.
Throughout the phone call, jurors could hear Sant trying to calm Benefield, WFLA reported.
As the audio was played in court, Ashley was seen crying.
