Explosive opening statements in the murder trial of a Florida ballerina kicked off on Tuesday, giving a preview of how attorneys will present their sides in the case being dubbed the “Black Swan Murder.”
Ashley Benefield, 32, admitted to fatally shooting her husband, 58-year-old Navy veteran Douglas “Doug” Benefield, in their Lakewood Ranch, Florida, home in September of 2020.
The trial has commonly been called the “Black Swan Murder Trial” in reference to the 2010 psychological thriller film Black Swan.
Prosecutors argued that Ashley Benefield wanted to get her husband out of her and her daughter’s life, and she would “stop at nothing” to achieve that goal.
“This is a case about a woman who, early on in her pregnancy, decided she wanted to be a single mother,” prosecutor Suzanne O’Donnell said. “She did not want the father of this child to have any visitation.”
Ashley Benefield initially tried to go through the courts, law enforcement and the child welfare system, but she was unsuccessful.
“And at the end, when there was no other option, she shoots him and kills him and claims self-defense,” O’Donnell said.
The couple was living separately at the time of the killing. The two planned to move to Maryland but continue living separately.
Doug Benefield was helping Ashley Benefield move when he verbally insulted her and pushed her with a moving box, the defense claimed. The defense alleged she was injured in the incident.
The state argued that Ashley Benefield was not injured. They also pointed out that Ashley Benefield was armed with a gun she had previously bought while her husband was unarmed, and the trajectory of the fatal gunshot disproves any arguments of self-defense.
“You’ll see that this was a custody battle that this mother was going to win at all costs,” O’Donnell said. “And the cost was the life of Doug Benefield. And that is murder.”
The defense team claimed that Doug Benefield was abusive and intimidating.
“I want you to note how he’s built for a 58-year-old man,” defense attorney Neil Taylor said. “I’m going to have some strong words about Douglas Benefield, the alleged victim in this case. I say ‘alleged victim’ because he was anything but that. The evidence is going to show that Douglas Benefield was a very disturbed man.”
Taylor said Doug Benefield was “obsessed” with his wife and “insisted on control.”
“He fired a handgun into the ceiling of their kitchen on an occasion to stop Ashley from talking,” Taylor said. “He threw a loaded gun at Ashley. He punched their dog in the face so hard that he knocked the dog unconscious.”
He also claimed that Doug Benefield punched several holes in the wall, tracked his wife without her knowledge and watched her from a neighbor’s backyard in the middle of the night.
“Ashley Benefield feared him,” Taylor said. “She left him a letter when she moved out three years prior to the homicide detailing how scared she was of him because of all of these acts. She feared for herself and for her unborn child. Three years before the shooting. She left him, he pursued. She rejected him, he would not take no for an answer. She, at times, despised him, he did not care. She moved to get away from him, he followed her.”
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