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Ashley Benefield Black Swan: wikipedia,Documentary,48 Hours,Dancing,Podcast
Nearly four years after a former ballerina was arrested in the late 2020 shooting death of her estranged husband in Manatee County, she appeared in court Tuesday for the first day of her trial.
Ashley Benefield, 32, was arrested in November 2020 for the shooting that killed her husband, Doug Benefield, according to a probable cause affidavit. He was charged with second-degree murder with a firearm.
Last July, Ashley Benefield appeared in court and asked a Manatee County Circuit Judge to dismiss the case against her based on Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law, arguing that she fired the gun in self-defense. Judge Matt White denied Benefield’s motion, and an appellate court rejected a motion from Benefield’s attorney asking the court to find that Ashley Benefield was entitled to immunity from prosecution by either or set aside the order of the trial court relating to the immunity claim.
As the trial began, people slowly filed into the gallery, including members of the media, Doug Benefield’s family and friends, members of Ashley Benefield’s legal team, supporters supporting Ashley Benefield, and members of the community who slowly walked past 10 wooden The benches were being filled. The trial is expected to last two weeks.
Manatee County Circuit Court Judge White formally began the trial just after 9 a.m. by summoning the nine-member jury, which will decide whether the shooting on Sept. 27, 2020, was an act of self-defense by a domestic violence survivor or an act of willfulness. Got it, that was the plan. A single mother who did not want the father of her child to be involved in her life.
‘The price was Doug Benfield’s life’
“This case is about a woman who decided early in her pregnancy that she wanted to be a single mother,” Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell said during her opening remarks. “And she didn’t want the father of this child to have any contact with her. Her husband. And everything she did from that point on was to achieve that goal.
wikipedia
O’Donnell made it clear to the jury during his opening statements that Ashley Benefield had no intention of reconciling with her estranged husband before she was shot to death in that home on September 27, 2020. Do it, in which she lived with her mother.
The two met at a political event in 2016 and got married after a whirlwind 13-day romance. According to previous reporting, at the time, Ashley Benefield was 24 years old, and Doug Benefield was 30 years older than her. During the first year of their marriage, the Benefields started a ballet company, which collapsed before it could take off. Ashley Benefield also became pregnant after convincing her husband to have a reverse vasectomy, O’Donnell said.
Ashley Benefield Black Swan: wikipedia,Documentary,48 Hours,Dancing,Podcast
Then, Ashley Benefield moved to Florida, where she lived with her mother while Doug Benefield lived separately. The two never lived together again and she also stopped talking to her husband.
O’Donnell said, in an attempt to contact his wife, Doug Benefield contacted a family attorney to write a letter to Ashley Benefield, after which he learned that their daughter had been born when Ashley Benefield.
Restraining order was filed against him. The judge in the case ruled against the order and ruled that Doug had the right to visit his daughter.
For the next year, the two appeared to be sorting out their marriage, going out to dinner and visiting Selby Gardens together, but O’Donnell said this was not what Ashley Benefield wanted.
At the time of the shooting, the couple were packing to move to Maryland, where they would live separately. O’Donnell said Ashley Benefield had also filed five complaints against her husband, who had filed for divorce. It was decided that the two would see a psychologist who noticed that Ashley Benefield behaved differently than when she was alone with her husband.
The psychologist included those comments about Ashley Benefield’s desire not to reconcile with her husband in a report to be released on September 30. On publishing, Doug Benefield would say.
Documentary
State witnesses continued testifying Wednesday morning, including law enforcement, attorneys for Doug Benefield’s family and people close to Ashley Benefield, such as her mother and a mental health professional with whom she lived after the fatal shooting.
In 2017, Ashley Benefield moved to Bradenton, Florida to live with her mother, Alicia Byers. At the time she was pregnant with Doug’s child.
Doug hired family attorney Stephanie Murphy in March 2018. On Wednesday, she testified about some of the couple’s legal battles leading up to the shooting.
“Initially, the purpose of hiring me was to draft a letter to Ashley, who was pregnant with their child at the time. I did so and was sent the day after I was retained. The purpose of the letter was to open the door to discussion about Doug’s involvement in the upcoming birth of their child, but also to advise that if she did not feel comfortable in Doug’s presence at the birth, she could express her need for space. Is respecting. Murphy said.
Murphy said Ashley never responded to the emailed letter, adding that Ashley was prompted the day after the letter was sent. According to Murphy’s testimony, the baby was born a few days – weeks before the due date. Doug had no idea his daughter was born until five to six weeks later.
Ashley Benefield Black Swan: wikipedia,Documentary,48 Hours,Dancing,Podcast
Murphy said Benefield began filing complaints against her husband, claiming domestic violence and that he was poisoning her. No injunction was granted against him. He was able to visit his daughter as part of a court-ordered parenting plan when she was 6 months old.
During their first meeting, Murphy said that Ashley decided to accompany Doug on the date, which was a surprise to Murphy.
“We were in knockdown, drag-out litigation for several months with just horrible allegations that were baseless and yet she said, ‘I want to go with you’ and he said, ‘Okay,'” Murphy said. “I pulled Doug aside and cautioned him about going with me, so I advised him.
48 Hours
The trial in a murder case that garnered national attention and was featured on the true crime series “48 Hours” has begun.
The six-member jury, including three alternates, was selected Monday evening ahead of Tuesday’s motions and expected opening statements. The victim’s cousin and daughter were called to the stand to testify, as well as the neighbor who called 911 and several detectives.
Dubbed the “Black Swan Murder Trial,” it involves 32-year-old Ashley Benefield, a former ballerina who is accused of shooting and killing her estranged husband.
Benefield has been charged with second-degree murder in the September 2020 death of her husband, Douglas Benefield.
The shooting occurred at his mother’s home in the Central Park area of Manatee County.
He hoped Florida’s Stand Your Ground law would help his self-defense claim.
Ashley Benefield Black Swan: wikipedia,Documentary,48 Hours,Dancing,Podcast
The first testimony came from the victim’s next of kin, who described the relationship between the couple.
“Completely in love, they were both in love with each other. Douglas was always very respectful. Tommy Benefield, the victim’s cousin, said, “Opening night and the following weekend, I believe they honored him in front of me when I spent time with him at the service in Bradenton in May.”
Tommy said, “Every time, he respected her, they were in love. They never showed anything to me other than caring for each other.”
“They were just with each other all the time, it was so full of love. “They were very sensitive, any school or extracurricular activities I went to together, they went together,” said Eva Benefield, the victim’s 23-year-old daughter.
Eva, who was 15 at the time and had lost her mother nine months earlier, told the court that her father had informed her about Ashley only a day after their wedding.
“They were connected to each other,” he said.
She said her relationship with Ashley was sometimes strained as she tried to take on the motherly role and tried to scold
Dancing
The ballerina known as the ‘Black Swan’ on trial for the murder of her allegedly abusive husband has slammed her nickname and claimed she is the victim.
Ashley Benefield, now 32, ran to her neighbor’s house in Bradenton, Florida on September 27, 2020, after she shot and killed Doug Benefield, 59, whom she dated in 2016 after just 13 days of dating. Was married.
Ahead of her trial, Ashley sat down with ABC News and explained why she dislikes her ‘catchy’ nickname ‘Black Swan’ – which is based on the 2010 thriller film starring Natalie Portman.
‘The Black Swan has an exotic ring to it and it sensationalizes my life and my situation. He said, ‘It is sad for me that when people who don’t even know me think of me, they think of me as a monster.’
Ashley, who shares a child with Doug, also insisted she was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of her husband.
Ashley said, ‘All over the country, all over the world, there are women who have gone through or are going through difficult situations behind closed doors.’
Ashley met her recently widowed father Doug at Ben Carson’s home in Palm Beach, Florida in August 2016, when she was 24 and he was 54. She was campaigning for then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
They were married just 13 days later and soon after launched the American National Ballet, a dance company based in Charleston, South Carolina.
In the early days of their relationship, ‘They were with each other all the time,’ testified Eva, Doug’s 23-year-old daughter from a previous marriage.
‘They were cute friends, PDA all the time. “They never gave up on each other,” he said.
After being married for a year, retired Navy flight officer Doug, using his money and contacts, helps Ashley achieve her dream of starting a ballet company.
He served as the company’s CEO, while Ashley took on the role of executive director.
But, soon after the company was established, the dancers and choreographers
Podcast
Doug also had his vasectomy reversed, and Ashley became pregnant three months later with their daughter, Emerson, who is now six.
That’s when everything changed, Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell claimed in court.
She said that Ashley moved from her home in South Carolina to Florida to live with her mother because she began experiencing morning sickness and from that point on, she never lived with Doug again.
‘When she first moved to Florida they continued a long-distance relationship and continued trying to stay together and communicate, but around the same time the ballet [company] collapsed,’ O’Donnell told jurors. Ashley Benefield started complaining against the victim. ,
She began accusing Doug of poisoning her and non-physical domestic violence.
As CBS News reports, Ashley said that Doug constantly brought her tea that she thought was poisoned.
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.
Prosecutors now argue that Doug’s murder was a last-ditch effort to gain custody of his daughter, who was 2 years old at the time of the shooting.
O’Donnell argued, ‘This is a case about a woman who decided early in her pregnancy that she wanted to be a single mother.’ ‘She did not want anyone to meet the father of this child.
‘It’s a long story, it was a custody battle that this mother would win at all costs, and the cost was Doug Benefield’s life.’
Prosecutors argued that Doug was doing everything in his power to repair their marriage and keep their family together.
On the day of his death, Doug arrived at Ashley’s house to help him and his daughter pack their belongings, when he was shot four times in Ashley’s bedroom. She then ran to her neighbor and told him about the shooting.
On Tuesday, Ashley was seen crying as her neighbor’s 911 call from the day of Doug’s murder played.
