Fla. ballerina in 'Black Swan' murder trial convicted of lesser charge for fatally shooting husband

MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. (TCN) -- A 32-year-old ballerina faces decades in prison after she was convicted of killing her husband four years ago in what she claimed was self-defense.

Ashley Benefield had initially been charged with second-degree murder for fatally shooting Douglas Benefield, but Manatee County court records show the jury convicted her of manslaughter, a lesser charge.

According to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the jury began deliberating on Tuesday afternoon and continued for several hours. The jury reportedly told the judge they were deadlocked on a verdict, but they opted to continue rather than come back on Wednesday. They reached their decision after about seven hours.

On Sept. 27, 2020, Benefield’s neighbor called 911 and said Benefield told him she shot her husband after he "attacked" her. Deputies arrived and located Douglas Benefield with gunshot wounds to his right leg, right arm, and chest. Paramedics transported him to a hospital, where he died from his injuries. The criminal complaint says Douglas Benefield was not facing his wife when she shot him and he had not taken any sort of defensive stand beforehand.

According to the criminal complaint, Benefield had "made several allegations" against Douglas Benefield, but none ever resulted in criminal charges. The complaint says it "appears that the main focus of these complaints was to keep the child away from Douglas."

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell argued during opening statements, "This case is about a woman who very early on in her pregnancy decided she wanted to be a single mother. And she did not want the father of this child to have any visitation. Her husband. And everything she did from that point on was to obtain that goal and she would stop at nothing to obtain that goal."

Benefield’s attorney, however, said she was a victim of domestic violence and that Douglas Benefield was "disturbed."

Ashley and Douglas Benefield met in 2016 when she was 24 and he was 54. They wed 13 days later. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports they founded a ballet company, but it never came to fruition. The trial became known as the "Black Swan" murder trial because of that fact.

Ashley Benefield reportedly relocated from Maryland to Florida, and they became estranged. She sought a restraining order against him that would have prevented him from seeing their daughter, but a judge declined it.

They were going to move back to Maryland together but continue to live separately. Tensions reportedly rose on the night of Sept. 27, 2020, when they were packing, which led to the fatal shooting.

Following the conviction, Douglas Benefield’s 23-year-old daughter said, "I apologize to all the women who have gone through domestic violence situations. I think what Ashley was doing was unfair to them. They deserve justice and I’m very happy that my dad got the justice he deserves."

Benefield could spend up to 30 years in prison.

To learn more about the case, be sure to check out Joshua Ritter’s analysis on True Crime News The Sidebar Podcast.

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