A former ballerina charged with second-degree murder in the death of her estranged husband is on trial in Florida, with prosecutors alleging that she fatally shot him during a contentious custody battle that she insisted on winning “at all costs.”
But in tearful testimony Friday, Ashley Benefield, 33, described herself as a victim of persistent abuse who acted in self-defense when she fatally shot Doug Benefield, 58, in her home south of Tampa on Sept. 27, 2020.
“I was scared to death,” she testified. “I thought he was going to kill me.”
The prosecution and defense presented closing arguments Tuesday and the jury is now deliberating. Here’s what you need to know about the case.
A quick courtship and a custody fight
The couple met at a political event in August 2016 and married 13 days later, according to the prosecutor in the case, Suzanne O’Donnell, assistant state attorney for Florida’s 12th Judicial District.
He was 54, Benefield testified. She was 24.
Within a year, she’d become pregnant and they’d tried establishing a ballet company together, though it failed, the prosecutor said in court. Benefield soon moved to Bradenton, Florida, O’Donnell said, so that her mother could help care for her during her pregnancy.
O’Donnell said during the trial that Benefield decided early in the pregnancy that she wanted to be a single mother and did nothing to keep Doug Benefield informed of the fetus’ development after the move. But her husband was still trying to make their relationship work, the prosecutor said.
In an emailed letter on March 15, 2018, Doug Benefield said he wanted to be a part of the child’s birth and life, O’Donnell said. Benefield was several weeks from her due date when the email was sent, O’Donnell said, but the next day she was induced and gave birth.
Benefield kept the delivery hidden from her husband, the prosecutor said.
In his opening statement, Benefield’s lawyer, Neil Taylor, portrayed a very different picture of the couple’s troubled relationship.
Benefield had come to fear her husband and moved to Florida to get away from him, he said.
“She left him, he pursued her,” Taylor said. “She rejected him. He would not take no for an answer.”
In her testimony, Benefield described Doug Benefield as volatile, controlling and sometimes terrifying. She alleged that he punched holes in the walls of their home, that he struck their dog in the face so hard that the animal went unconscious, that he threw a loaded handgun at her and that he fired a bullet into the ceiling after threatening to take his own life during an argument.
“I felt like I was living a nightmare,” Benefield testified. “I never knew what I was gonna get.”
Taylor introduced text messages between the couple at trial that he said corroborated his client's account.
The year the child was born, Benefield sought an injunction that would have barred Doug Benefield from seeing their baby. During a July 30, 2018, hearing, she raised the allegations that she later described at trial, according to a partial transcript of the hearing.
A judge denied the order, saying she did not find Benefield’s testimony credible, according to the NBC affiliate WFLA of Tampa. The judge granted immediate visitation rights to Doug Benefield, who had moved to Florida, O’Donnell said.
NBC News filed a records request seeking transcripts of Doug Benefield’s testimony and the judge’s decision that have not yet been provided.
Another move
Benefield testified that in 2020, she planned on moving to Maryland with her mother, who had inherited a home there and that Doug Benefield intended on going, as well.
Taylor described the move as another unwanted pursuit. The prosecutor said the estranged couple had planned on using the move to reconcile — though he called Benefield’s participation in the plan as a “ruse.”
“She didn’t intend to reconcile or make this work,” O’Donnell said.
O’Donnell pointed to a second injunction sought by Benefield at the time that accused Doug Benefield of child abuse. (Benefield testified that she sought the petition when her daughter started coming home with injuries after spending time with Doug Benefield. He was not accused of a crime in connection with the allegations, and the injunction case was ongoing when he was killed.)
As part of those proceedings, the estranged couple was evaluated by a psychologist. While talking with the psychologist together, Doug Benefield said their reconciliation included his wife dropping her petition — a fact that Benefield did not dispute, O’Donnell said. But in private conversations with the psychologist, O’Donnell said, Benefield said that she did not plan to withdraw it.
O’Donnell described this difference as a potential motive in the shooting: The evaluation’s conclusions were to be revealed during a hearing Sept. 30, three days after Doug Benefield was shot.
But under cross-examination, Benefield testified that she didn’t confront Doug Benefield because she didn’t want to make him look bad in front of someone else.
“I wasn’t going to disagree with him in front of anybody,” she said.
A fatal confrontation
On Sept. 27, while preparing for the Maryland move, the estranged couple got into an argument over whether they should continue packing, Taylor said. When Benefield said that she was exhausted, she testified, Doug Benefield became hostile and allegedly “body checked” her — slamming his shoulder into hers and nearly knocking her over.
The confrontation escalated, Benefield testified, when she ran for the front door.
“He stopped me, he grabbed me by the hand and yanked me back,” she recalled. “He said, ‘where the f —- are you going?”
“I said, ‘I’m done and you need to leave now,’” she recalled.
Benefield testified that her husband struck her in the face — something he’d never done before, she said — leaving a swollen eye that she said were documented in photos taken by authorities. She ran to the bedroom, she testified, and grabbed her gun.
Doug Benefield appeared in the room’s doorway, she testified, and told her she was “done.”
Benefield said she raised the gun and told him to stop. He moved into what she described as a “fighting” stance, then lunged at her, she said.
“I started pulling the trigger,” she testified. “He kept coming at me.”
Benefield ran to a neighbor’s house and said she’d shot her husband after he attacked her, according to a complaint in the case. Doug Benefield was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. Benefield was charged with second-degree murder that November.
According to O’Donnell, the only evidence of Benefield’s injuries were “superficial scratches.” And she said the trajectory of Doug Benefield’s fatal bullet wound was side to side.
“Doug Benefield was not coming at her at the time the fatal shot was fired,” she said.
“This was a custody battle that this mother was going to win at all costs,” O’Donnell said. “The cost was the life of Doug Benefield, and that is murder.”
