The stormy relationship between Doug and Ashley BenefieldThe buttock couple in the stars in the heart of the famous case of “Black Swan” murder, began and ended with a caliber pistol .45, according to what has been publicly revealed over the years.
During the testimony of the murder trial of Ashley Benefield in July 2024, she said that the evening she had met Doug Benefield during a high-end political dinner, she wore a caliber pistol .45 in her bra.
The assistant prosecutor of the State, Suzanne O’Donnell, who continued the homicide affair for the county of Manatee, in Florida, asked this question to Ashley during the trial: “You were actually boasted … to have firearms, right?”
“Yes,” replied Ashley Benefield.
“During the period you met Doug during a political event, you had one of the weapons in your bra?” Asked O’Donnell.
“Yes. This is where I hide it, the door,” said Ashley Benefield.
The story of Ashley and Doug Benefield is presented in a two -hour broadcast “,”The case of the black swanPart 1 and Part 2, “now in streaming on Paramount +. Reported by the contributor of” 48 hours “Jim Axelrod, the special broadcast will give viewers a look behind the scenes of the couple’s car relationship from the moment when they met in 2016 until the night of September 2020, when Ashley killed Doug, allegedly in the self -defense.
During her trial for murder in July 2024, Ashley Benefield testified for the first time on what she said happened the night she shot Doug Benefield. In an emotionally loaded testimony, she said that the shooting was in a state of self -defense after Doug struck her and trapped her in a room. She said it was When she reached her pistol near caliber .45 which was above a storage tank.
“I just kept the pistol as in front of me and I said, stops, and he likes turned and he entered it like almost like a combat position. He started to move his arms and his hands … He started to come to me and he rushed to me, and I just pressed the trigger,” said Ashley Benefield during his trial.
Ashley Benefield’s lawyer Neil Taylor then said: “Tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury why you fired on Doug.”
“I was afraid of death,” she said. “I thought he was going to kill me.”
State prosecutors qualified Ashley Benefield as “manipulator” and said that she had killed Doug Benefield as part of her plot to take the exclusive custody of their daughter now aged 6, Emerson.
When investigators and crime stage technicians searched the house after the shooting, they found two other loaded firearms. One of Ashley Benefield’s cannons was found in his backpack hanging in the cupboard of the room where the shooting took place. A third pistol belonging to Ashley’s mother was found in a kitchen pantry, according to the testimony of a crime technician for the sheriff’s office in Manatee.
At the time, Doug Benefield helped Ashley and his mother for a move to Maryland.
“Why does anyone need three, unsecured, in a house with a house with a 2 and a half year old child?” Stephanie Murphy asked, lawyer for the family of Doug Benefield. “There is no answer apart from the evidence, it was planning to kill Doug that night.”
But Ashley’s lawyer Neil Taylor, had a different catch, because he said to Axelrod when Axelrod asked Taylor: “What made him have three cannons loaded in the house, the night when she killed and killed Doug?”
According to Taylor, all of this was an integral part of the fear that Ashley Benefield felt around Doug Benefield as an abused woman. “What do you think of rushing such a circumstance?” Taylor replied. “Do you think fear, anticipation?”
Ashley Benefield admitted to the stand that Doug Benefield had never struck her before she made it do it in the shooting night. But during previous hearings, when Doug Benefield was still alive, he admitted an episode at the start of their marriage when he pulled a weapon in the ceiling of their kitchen to prevent Ashley Benefield from arguing with him. He also admitted by hitting their family dog, named Sully. Ashley Benefield said that Doug Benefield had hit the dog and knocked him out, but Doug said he had pushed the dog until he rose on his lap when he was arguing with Ashley.
Ashley Benefield, an old ballerina, was found guilty of manslaughter In July 2024 for having shot her distant husband Doug Benefield twice with her .45 caliber pistol inside her Florida house in September 2020.
On December 3, 2024, Ashley Benefield was sentenced to 20 years in prison, followed by 10 years of probation.
Ashley Benefield’s lawyers said there had been prosecution and a juror fault during the trial and had asked for a new trial. The accusation denied that all fault had taken place. The judge rejected the defense request.