'Black Swan murder trial' verdict: Ashley Benefield found guilty of manslaughter
Ex-ballerina Ashley Benefield was found guilty of manslaughter Tuesday in a Florida county court, ending the "Black Swan murder trial."
The six-person jury, made up of five women and one man, returned to the Manatee County courtroom with the guilty verdict after seven hours of deliberations. Manslaughter was a lesser offense than the second-degree murder Ashley Benefield, 32, was charged with after she shot her husband, Doug Benefield, on Sept. 27, 2020.
She faces up to 30 years in prison. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
The former ballerina said she shot him in self-defense and argued that the case should be thrown out based on Florida's "Stand your ground" law. But, Manatee County Judicial Center Judge Matt Whyte rejected the argument, and, on July 23, the trial began.
Nearly four years after her husband was shot and killed, and a week after the trial began, the verdict was read out in a mostly empty courtroom where the victim's family filled the gallery. The jury found that Ashley Benefield possessed a firearm and discharged the gun and that firing the gun resulted in Doug Benefield's death.
After she was found guilty, the clicking of handcuffs being placed around her wrists echoed in the mostly silent courtroom.
"The sound was as good as the sight," Doug Benefield's cousin Tommie Benefield said to media following the verdict. He added that the sound and sight were beautiful.
'Black Swan murder trial'Murder trial of former ballerina Ashley Benefield begins in Manatee County
Who is Ashley Benefield? Who was Doug Benefield?
Ashley and Doug Benefield met in 2016 and were married 13 days later following a whirlwind romance. She was 24, and he was 54, according to media reports at the time.
During the early years of their marriage, the two founded the American National Ballet, a company that fell apart before it could get off the ground, according to testimony during the trial. Ashley is a graduate of the Maryland Youth Ballet.
Throughout their marriage, the couple experienced a tumultuous relationship involving domestic abuse allegations against Doug Benefield, marriage counseling and a string of litigation in both South Carolina and Florida, where Ashley Benefield had moved to live with her mother after becoming pregnant in 2017.
In her motion to dismiss the case, Ashley Benefield claimed her husband was abusive and volatile, regularly carrying a loaded weapon and once firing a gun into their kitchen ceiling to intimidate her.
What led up to the shooting?
On the afternoon of Sept. 27, 2020, Doug Benefield arrived at Ashley's Manatee County home with a U-Haul truck to help pack for a move to Maryland. Doug Benefield was under the impression that he, his wife, and his daughter would move there together, although Doug would live separately, according to court documents and previous testimony.
Ashley's defense attorney, Neil Taylor, told jurors that frustrations mounted as the couple packed, and it escalated into an argument.
Doug got physical, body-checking Ashley with a box, blocking her from leaving a room and following her into her bedroom, where she grabbed a gun, said Taylor. Doug advanced toward her, and she fired the gun.
However, the prosecution argued that Ashley Benefield killed her husband to prevent him from learning that she had no intention of reconciling their marriage and that her goal was to be a single mother.
Witnesses outside the home told investigators they heard about six gunshots and, some 30 seconds later, saw Ashley run out of the house toward a neighbor's home with a gun still in her hand, screaming and crying.