Transcript of True Crime Vault: The Pointe of No Return

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Welcome to the True Crime Vault, home to 2020's most chilling stories.

I was living a nightmare. And at home, it was terrifying. It was like 2 different people. And I never knew which Doug I was going to get.

You're 24. He's 54. Were you worried about her connecting with this guy who's so much older?

Things didn't start off well. It was like, oh, yeah, Eva. This is my new wife.

I felt like Ashley was taking my dad away from me.

It was all a masquerade. I mean, can I straight up say that? Doug was not who he portrayed himself to be.

That was sort of like, what's going on? So you're thinking that your husband, the man who loved you and seemed to adore you, would poison you?

I read the allegations and I thought, oh my God, this is crazy. Doug never poisoned Ashley.

Is it possible that Have you ever wondered that maybe you just imagined this?

Maybe it was all in my head.

But you know now that this sounds pretty dysfunctional.

Doug, what are you doing? She tried to ruin your life. I don't think he could have ever guessed what was gonna happen to him.

I've never been so scared in my life.

Growing up, Ashley Benefiet 19-year-old wanted nothing more than to become a world-class ballerina. She'd never dreamed that one day she'd be wearing a court-ordered ankle bracelet along with her pointe shoes.

May County 911, what is your emergency? Okay, it's right next door to me. She came in, she was quite hysterical. She said that he attacked her and she shot him.

Where is the gun?

I have it right here, ma'am. It's sitting on the floor. Where in the house is he?

Deputies are moving as fast as they can. A normally quiet Lakewood Ranch neighborhood turned into a bloody crime scene. Was it murder or self-defense? It's a story with a lot of twists and turns. The 32-year-old former ballerina alleging he attacked her in her home and that she fired back multiple times in self-defense.

Miss Benefield was in great fear of immediate and severe bodily harm.

A woman Out on bond, still awaiting her fate.

So many law enforcement officials said, no, this isn't adding up.

Former ballerina at the center of the so-called Black Swan murder trial. Only 2 people know exactly what happened. One of them is a suspect for second-degree murder.

The other is dead.

Until now, Ashley has remained silent about the night of the shooting, about what happened in that house in this Florida community. But tonight, in her first interview, Ashley Benefield tells her story.

Hey there.

Thank you for coming. Your first time doing this, so here we go. Let's go back to your life in the beginning. You wanted to be a ballet dancer?

Yeah, actually, I started when I was 8. A family member was dancing on Broadway, and I was very inspired by her and what she was doing.

And what was it about ballet that captivated you?

It's complex. It's something that is beautiful and powerful, but at the same time, there's a lot of control, and you have to be reserved. I think it's just the kind of dynamic of all of the things combined.

Ashley grew up in Maryland as an only child. Her mom, Alicia Byers, says they had a special bond. Your marriage dissolved. You split up with her father, and you raised her as a single mom.

Mm-hmm.

What was that like for the two of you? At first, it was an adjustment. But, you know, we did well. We're very— we're very close. She was blessed with a lot of talents. And so it was a real joy raising her. And at some point, she becomes smitten with ballet. Very, very, yes. She got to the point where she did it 7 days a week.

I was training during the day, all day. It was a— an everyday, all-day thing.

She soon learns that it takes more than ability alone to make it as a professional dancer. Ashley's 5'9 and considered by most ballet companies to be too tall. something no amount of training can overcome. There are height ranges in companies. A lot of that is because of partnering and complications that can arise if you're not well-matched height-wise.

The ballet world tends to be kind of cookie-cutter. It was hard finding a good fit for a company.

With her height and then a hamstring injury holding her back, Ashley decides to hang up her pointe shoes in her early 20s. You begin to shift your focus a little bit. In 2016, you became captivated by politics. What led you to the Trump campaign?

Well, I'd actually always been interested in politics. I wasn't looking for it. The opportunity came up, and I was just finishing up with one chapter of my life, and it seemed like the right thing to do, so I jumped in.

Ashley's job for the Trump campaign was to go to rallies And she would rile up the crowd, pray with the crowd. You could actually see videos of her online. She thought she was going to be part of the Trump team.

In her diary entries from this time, Ashleigh says she felt a special bond with candidate Trump. She writes, we got to the plane early and waited for Mr. Trump to arrive. Ashleigh writes about her hopes for her future. She writes kind of a plea to God. I want to be a wife and mother. Please bring me to that special man you've chosen for me.

Ashley wanted children. She wanted a family. She prayed that God would bring her a man to be with her. She made it clear in the diary what her plan was.

In August of 2016, in the thick of the campaign, her prayers seemed to be answered. While attending a fundraiser at Dr. Ben Carson's home in Palm Beach, Florida, at some point you meet a man named Doug Benefield.

Yes.

What did you think of him?

He was charming, very funny, really smart, confident but quiet. We were there for political reasons, but then also he was a man of faith, shared Those common interests included politics, God, and guns.

First night that Doug and Ashley met, Ashley had a gun in her bra. Doug, who has a military background, he thought, wow, look at this girl. Like, she's strong and she's powerful and she's, you know, not afraid of weapons. And she's— everything about her was just great.

He nicknamed you Ashley Oakley.

Yeah, we both had very strong We had very similar opinions about the Second Amendment. That was something we bonded over. I had a concealed carry permit. You wanted to be a responsible gun owner. We talked the whole night. When the evening was over and everyone was leaving, we were texting and up till 3 o'clock in the morning. It just seemed like I had met my soulmate. We were like the perfect match. It swept me off my feet. It was like a whirlwind. I think it was about 4 days in when he first told me he loved me.

4 days? That's pretty quick.

Yeah, it was. It was quick.

Something else Ashley says didn't bother her was the couple's significant age difference. You're 24. He's 54.

Yeah.

You're a young woman. Suddenly you're being romanced by this 54-year-old man. Did anybody in your life say, slow down, Ashley?

No, it just kind of happened.

But the bliss wouldn't last. Ashley learns that the man she's falling for has been married before.

Nothing was adding up. The more I tried to figure things out, the more the story changed.

And she says She begins uncovering secrets, leading her to wonder just who Doug Benefield really is. In the summer of 2016, 24-year-old Ashley Benefield is on the road stumping for Donald Trump when she finds romance at a Palm Beach fundraiser. Did sparks begin to fly between you two?

Uh, it was like an instant connection. Yeah, we both had that evangelical background, so we spent a lot of time talking about that.

Doug Benefield grew up in a Baptist family, the middle of 3 sons, with a stay-at-home mom and a father who worked as a scientist at NASA.

Doug graduated from high school in Huntsville, Alabama. He was a top wrestler in the state. He decided to follow his father and our family to Texas A&M.

After graduating from college, Doug joins the U.S. Navy in Pensacola. He rises through the ranks quickly, and the Navy assigns Doug to a position in Charleston, South Carolina.

While he's working for the Defense Intelligence Agency, he gets involved in renovations of old historic buildings. with people that he meets in Charleston. Doug started up some businesses here, a restaurant, some other things. He had a group of friends and colleagues. He loved it there, and one of those locations that he most loved was out on Sullivan's Island. Doug found a small hole-in-the-wall Irish pub called Dunleavy's Pub. That same Irish pub is where he meets his wife Renee.

If someone were to ask me to sum up Renee in a few sentences, it'd be very difficult. She's stunningly beautiful but doesn't know it and loves to make people laugh.

Doug has a pretty quick courtship with a woman named Renee Couser. They marry, and in 2001, their daughter Eva is born.

My mom was the sweetest, happiest, woman you would ever meet. She was an angel walking on earth. She was never, ever, ever in a bad mood. She loved everybody.

Doug's marriage to Renee, by all accounts, was a happy marriage. Of course, ups and downs, but generally a happy marriage.

Doug and Renee and Eva together are just this triad. They're just 3 together all the time. You never saw them apart. Happy, beautiful family.

But when Eva is just 14, the happy family suffers a devastating loss.

I was waiting in the pickup line outside of my school, and she wasn't there. And I went home, and nobody was answering the doorbell, and I didn't have my key, and my mom wasn't answering her texts.

Eva called And said, I can't get a hold of my mom, and Dad's in Dallas.

And so I get on the phone with Doug.

Doug asks Melody for help. Her husband goes next door and breaks into the house to find Renee unresponsive, face down on her bed.

I just remember going back out on the porch and seeing my neighbor's face, and he shook his head, and I knew that she just wasn't there anymore. She passed of an underlying heart condition. It was shocking.

An autopsy reveals that Renee died of natural causes.

He tried to stay really strong for me, and I never really saw him break down from it.

He—

it was different. It was quiet in the house. It was just different.

Then, just 9 short months after her mother's passing, Eva meets a new woman in her father's life, Ashley Benefield.

I heard about her on a Friday. I met her the following Saturday. And then Sunday, I was up in my room, and my dad came upstairs, and he said, Eva, we need to have a conversation, all 3 of us. And I said, no, I— I think the only thing that I would be interested in hearing is if you told me that you proposed to her. And as soon as those words came out of my mouth, he said, we're married. Yeah, it was a lot.

Eva's not the only one blindsided by the quick marriage, which happened at a secret ceremony just 13 days after Doug and Ashley met.

First time I hear anything about Ashley is they're married and she's already moved in to Doug's home in Mount Pleasant.

How did he propose? Was this a formal get on his knee and propose to you? How did that happen?

Uh, it was more of like, hey, you know, we should just do this. Like, let's, let's get married. And I was like, oh yeah, okay.

They moved very quickly, and before you know it, they're engaged and married. Yeah, it was like, whoa. What was your wedding like?

Uh, it was small. It was just me and Doug and 2 of his friends.

So suddenly you're Mrs. Benefield.

Yep.

Were you happy?

I was thrilled. Yeah, I felt like I had finally met my soulmate. Uh, I think a lot of it had to do with Eva. He really sold me on the fact that she needed a mommy person to be there, and I guess I felt needed and wanted.

But Eva, still grieving the loss of her mom, says she neither wanted nor needed a stepmom, especially one so close to her in age.

The age difference between me and Ashley is 8 years. Anytime I hung out with her and we were shopping downtown, we would get mistaken as sisters.

How did you get along with Eva?

I think things didn't start off well because she didn't really find out until after we were married. It was like, oh yeah, Eva, this is my new wife. And it didn't go over well. I will just say this.

He messed up.

He messed up by jumping into a relationship and not inviting his daughter into it. That was, I think, a huge mistake.

My dad seemed very excited and happy, and I also understood that he was grieving differently than me.

Ashley and Doug are moving full steam ahead. They don't just want a romantic partnership, they want to be business partners.

It seemed like we found something once again that we were both equally passionate about, so we just hit the ground running.

But what Ashley and Dog don't realize is that both the romance and the business will soon self-destruct.

You can't make promises and not live up to them.

Like, what's going on? People were mad.

I found out that it was all a masquerade.

My name is Sarah Murawski. When I was a young girl, I, I saw a performance of The Nutcracker. And I fell in love with it right away. I knew right in that moment that's what I wanted to do with my life.

After years of sacrifice and dedication, Sara finally gets her big break. She's cast in the Pennsylvania Ballet's production of The Nutcracker in the lead role, the Sugar Plum Fairy.

It was like it was a fairy tale in a way. In that moment in my life, it was everything I could have dreamed up.

But Sarah says one night backstage, her dream is unexpectedly shattered. She's told that the company is going in another direction.

The director took me aside and said, you're too tall. For me to even think that it was done was unimaginable after sacrificing my whole life for this moment, for this career. It was a few months after that that I received a message online from Ashley Benefield.

Ashley says she and Doug were talking one night when they had the idea to start a ballet company that would include all kinds of dancers.

I was a tall dancer. I'm just a tall person, I guess. I just been talking about how there were things in the ballet world that I didn't think were right, and that, well, you know, if it was up to me, I would do it differently. And he was like, well, why don't we do it?

Ashley Called me. We spoke. I remember her saying things like, I want to make a change for ballet. I want ballet to be able to show its beauty in the best way with all different kinds of dancers.

The concept was diversity. I trained with beautiful dancers of all shapes, sizes, colors, backgrounds, you name it, and I watched them have a hard time getting a job. I was frustrated by that.

You came up with the name for it, American National Ballet.

Yep.

So he was going to handle the business part, and you would be more creative.

Yep. Doug had done a lot of, like, fundraising for different companies, for a lot of these kind of up-and-coming tech companies. And I remember him being like, oh, you know, tech companies and ballet, like, I'm sure we can, you know, fundraise for both.

He came to me and directly asked me, I want you to work with Ashley. You know what you're doing to help get the basics of the company started.

He said they were doing a ballet company, and I'd come home from school and Ashley was in the dining room with headshots laid out, sticky notes everywhere.

When I was originally brought in, Ashley had already hired— there were 50 dancers in the company, which surprised me because when you're first starting out, that's an awful lot of money that's going out, and you don't have any money coming in yet.

That was sort of like, what's going on? It just seemed like a lot for a company that was starting out, and that maybe they were biting off more than they could chew. Even though he doesn't have the backing yet, Doug is convinced that he can raise the money. So dozens of dancers from all over the world flock to American National Ballet with the promise of year-long contracts state-of-the-art studio facilities, even a housing stipend for apartments in the heart of Charleston.

The idea was remarkable. The execution was a little less.

It became somewhat apparent fairly quickly that Doug was, um, overpromising and not going to be able to deliver on all of this.

In the fall of 2017, The dancers begin arriving, only to find that the promised housing stipend isn't available, and the original rehearsal space promised doesn't exist. And then, I think in, like, mid-October, word started to get, get out that the dancers weren't quite getting paid in a traditional way, that they were being paid in cash.

Doug was then pulling money from every source that he could of his own, money that he didn't have, to try to just fund this ballet.

It just got worse and worse each day. I didn't know where the company was going.

Adding to the chaos, Ashley is nowhere to be found. Not at rehearsals, not working with the dancers. She seems to have just vanished. And meantime, Doug is so financially strapped that American National Ballet ends up laying off nearly half of the recently hired dancers.

It's all fine and well to conceive of an amazing, ambitious dance company.

It's great.

But if you can't deliver it, somebody's gonna get hurt. And the dancers, certainly in this case, are the ones who got hurt the most.

The very next day, after half the company's dancers are let go, Ashley suddenly reappears, not in person, but in a post on social media, writing in part, I publicly disavow my support for American National Ballet, and adding, I'm no longer associated with this organization in any way.

I was horrified. Um, I didn't know all of the things that were falling apart behind the scenes. I didn't see it coming. I no longer wanted to be part of it.

Ashley left the scene, and then Doug abandoned this. He's like, one day he just wasn't there anymore. The organization evaporated.

People were mad. People were very angry because losing your job in ballet is not like, okay, I'm gonna go on Indeed and see what's, you know, who's hiring. You're kind of locked out for the year. until the next audition season.

American National Ballet has hurt everyone. You can't make promises and not live up to them because there are people's livelihoods that are involved. There are people's dreams that are involved.

Some fault Doug for mismanaging the ballet, and others blame Ashley for disappearing.

Ashley's absence from the ballet company was a very significant basis for the failure. She was the face of this company. When she left, the dancers, they didn't have anything.

But Ashley says there's a reason she left Charleston and the ballet behind. She claims she had to, that her very life depended on it.

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In less than a year, Doug and Ashley Benefield's American National Ballet goes bust. What very few people knew, though, was that behind the scenes, the same was happening to the couple's marriage.

Doug always explained to me that the biggest factor of growing tensions at home was the conflict between Ashley and Eva.

I felt like Ashley would try and act like my mom and tell me what to do. do. And I was like, you were less than 10 years older than me.

Ashley says while American National Ballet is getting up and running, Doug and her arguments over Eva and the ballet become more frequent, aggressive, even scary.

He would yell and scream and cuss. It was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Things would be happy and okay one moment, and then the next he was out of control.

I never really saw a shift in their relationship, but that's also because I was trying to stay out of it as much as possible. I, I said, okay, if my dad's happy, I'm happy.

On June 15th, 2017, Eva is out of the house when a heated argument between Doug and Ashley quickly escalates.

He pulled the gun out. And I started waving it around. He threw the gun at me. He said that if I left, that he was going to kill himself. I begged him not to. And then he pulled the trigger. And the bullet went into the ceiling.

At a legal hearing the couple will later attend, you can hear Doug's own voice as he describes this incident. While he doesn't deny the argument or firing his 9mm, he disputes Ashley's characterization of the fight.

You did discharge the gun into the ceiling, correct?

Yeah, I did. It was a horrible decision.

She says, he then threw the gun at me.

That didn't happen, did it?

No, I did not throw the gun at her. I just kind of spun in the chair and threw it against the wall.

She says Doug then grabbed the gun again and held it to his own head, threatening to kill myself. Did you do that?

No, I did not.

Ashley says at another point during that same argument, Doug physically abuses the family dog.

He hit Sully.

Your dog?

Sully got between us and he punched him.

At that same 2018 hearing, Doug tells a different version of this story to Ashley's attorney.

You also punched the dog the day that you discharged the firearm? He jumped up in my lap very— he's a big dog. I admit I hit him. I didn't hit him like you would, you know, hit a punching bag or anything, but I hit him. But yes, I was probably too physical with him.

Were you beginning to rethink the marriage?

After he shot the gun in the house, that's when I really realized that I had a problem. I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know what was coming next.

What comes next for the couple is a bit surprising— a celebration of marriage 9 months after their initial hasty I dos.

They had a wedding ceremony Right after that, everyone's smiling. She's smiling.

People had already booked their tickets, and everyone was coming, and I didn't want them to see that part of my life. I felt like a failure. I didn't know what else to do.

Even with their turbulent marriage, Doug and Ashley decide they want to have a child together. In August, you find out you're pregnant. What do you think initially?

I was scared. It was supposed to be like a happy thing, but my heart dropped. Like, what am I supposed to do?

Here again, Doug's story differs from Ashley's.

It wasn't an accident, of course, that she got pregnant. It was planned. Doug had had a vasectomy years ago. Ashley paid with her own credit card for Doug to have a vasectomy removed. And they then started to try to get pregnant.

One thing both sides do agree on— Ashley had a difficult pregnancy.

It was rough.

Morning sickness?

Yeah, and it wasn't even morning sickness. It was, like, around-the-clock sickness. I couldn't eat. He couldn't take care of me. And he drove me down to Florida and dropped me off at my mom's house.

Doug's life is a whirlwind. He's got his hands full in Charleston with the ballet company and raising his teen daughter, Eva. And he's spending his free time driving to Florida to be with Ashley. The two are in constant communication.

Doug was driving back and forth to take care of his family spread across these two states. And he had to also be back in Charleston because on September 18th, this was gonna be the big launch of the American National Ballet. Ashley was not going to be able to be present for the launch, supposedly, because she was so sick.

But at that very moment, what Doug doesn't know is that Ashley and her mom are driving from Florida to Charleston, not to attend the ballet launch, but for an entirely different reason. On September 18th, you decided to move your belongings out of Doug's home.

Yeah.

She wrote a note alleging some things were wrong in the house and that there had been some abuse, or at least violence on his part, and that she was therefore leaving him. Ashley writes, do not harass or try to follow me or I will call the police, and then goes on to say, I will talk with you only via text. And, do not call me or my mom. We will not pick up.

He was completely stunned. He had no idea Ashley was leaving him.

Just after learning that his wife is leaving him, Doug is again blindsided by a restraining order barring him from contacting Ashley. The expectant dad then hires family attorney Stephanie Murphy to act as an intermediary.

Doug wanted to be present the birth if Ashley felt comfortable. I sent the letter to Ashley asking, can Doug be part of the birth?

But Murphy says shortly after sending that letter, Ashley gives birth to a baby girl named Emerson 3 weeks before her due date. Did you tell Doug?

No, there was a restraining order, so I couldn't legally have contact with him.

But he's the father of the child.

Yeah.

Yep.

Did you intend for him to find out?

I mean, I knew he would eventually.

Doug didn't know that Ashley had given birth. He learned through the news. an injunction that she filed that the child had been born, and that was several weeks after the child had been born.

Doug's not on the birth certificate. She didn't even give Doug the respect of naming his daughter Benefiel. She gave the baby's last name as her grandfather's name. He was devastated. He was devastated that he missed the birth of his child and that he was not able to see her.

But Ashley says she was only doing what any mother would do. She believed that Doug was a danger not only to her, but to her newborn daughter, too.

At first, I attributed it to morning sickness, but I started to wonder if there was more to it.

Every morning, you would make sure she drank tea.

Why?

Why was that so important that she drank tea? It's April 2018. Ashley Benefield is a new mom, changing diapers, nursing her infant daughter. And at the same time, she's filing court papers seeking custody of her 2-year-old daughter, Seeking a protection order against her husband and the father of her baby, Doug Benefield.

So it would just basically put up a wall between Ashley and Doug.

It's not just that incident with the gun and the dog. Medical records suggest that she was in good health. Still, she says she had a growing suspicion that the terrible morning sickness she had wasn't just a routine part of her pregnancy. She wondered whether she was being poisoned by Doug.

It seemed, like, crazy and far-fetched, but I realized that the tea that he had been giving me, if I didn't drink it, he would get really mad at me. And I started to wonder if he was doing something to the tea.

She started telling me every morning He would make sure she drank the tea. Why? Why was that so important that she drink the tea?

I did some toxicology testing through hair testing.

And what did it reveal?

That I had been poisoned.

The results from the lab Ashley privately hires for her hair test show extremely high levels of heavy metals like aluminum, barium, tin. The tests on baby Emerson also detect So you're thinking that your husband, the man who loved you and seemed to adore you, would poison you?

Yeah.

Why?

I didn't know why.

Ashley says she became so concerned for her health that she resorted to some pretty serious measures, including more than 200 tests. 20 sessions inside a hyperbaric chamber like this one, along with her infant daughter. Ashley says her hope was that this high-pressure environment would help detoxify their blood. She insists that her fear that Doug had tried to poison them was real. Others call it fiction.

Doug never poisoned Ashley.

Never.

I read the allegations and I thought, oh my God, this is crazy.

Doug's family attorney points to those medical records during and after Ashley's pregnancy showing her to be in good health.

The day after the baby was born, she was breastfeeding the baby. So which is it? Are you poisoned to the point that you are full of heavy metals, or are you okay and therefore you're going to breastfeed your baby? There's always been holes in the story.

A judge agrees Siding with Doug and his toxicology expert who challenged Ashley's test results, her request to keep Doug away from her and their child is denied.

There is not a single scintilla of credible evidence that Ms. Benefield has ever been poisoned.

The judge didn't believe you.

Yeah, I started to just feel like maybe I was crazy. Maybe it was all in my head.

So now Doug Benefield has moved into an apartment in Florida as the couple attempts to co-parent Emerson.

But things started to deteriorate. He was becoming very possessive and controlling again.

Doug has a tracking device put on Ashley's car, even hires a private investigator A private investigator. His attorney says it wasn't unreasonable given Ashley's past allegations.

He never tried to hide the fact that he had put the tracker on the car. I think he wanted just to kind of figure out what's going on. Am I being lied to?

And then new concerns from Ashley.

She started coming home hurt. One day came back with her face very badly injured.

And what were you told?

He said that she was playing with bubbles and that she slipped and fell.

It was consistent with what happened. She fell on her face with a pacifier. Ashley, however, made another abuse allegation.

The sheriff's office and Child Protective Services investigate the claims and conclude They conclude that there are no indicators of injury or abuse.

None of these cases led to charges. The child protection team closed them without any findings, and then the sheriff's office closed them as unfounded.

Then, amidst all this tension, the Benefields make a decision that will confound everybody who knows them.

He had gotten a job in Maryland, and so we started talking about All moving.

Moving as a family to Maryland?

Uh, not as a family, but moving, like, together at the same time.

I was just stunned. I mean, and once again, Doug, what are you doing? She tried to ruin your life.

All along, Doug would tell everyone who knew him, I believe I can make this work.

How do you rationalize patching things up with a man who you think has been abusing your daughter?

He was her father. I wanted things to be as good as they could be.

But you know now that this sounds pretty dysfunctional.

Yeah.

There didn't seem to be a good option.

So you're packing up. You're gonna make this move. Doug comes over. Did you two begin arguing?

He was constantly going back to this idea that we had to live together, telling me that wasn't how God intended it. He just flipped out, and it just kept escalating.

Escalating, she says, to the point of no return.

When you take a good man and a woman who's manipulative at her professional level, he's not ever gonna play chess with her and win.

That bedroom was empty other than 2 handguns.

We found that suspicious.

I was extremely concerned about Ashley's safety. Ashley was about to knock down that house of cards.

I don't think he could have ever I never guessed what was gonna happen to him.

And what happened?

I had my gun. I told him to stop.

Sorry.

What led you to go for the gun? I've never been so scared in my life.

The information that I had was that it was a domestic-related shooting. The husband was dead. The wife did the shooting, and she claimed self-defense.

Benefield's life is taking center stage at what's been dubbed the Black Swan Murder Trial.

Good morning, Ms. Benefield.

There was always this little thought in the back of my head that said Ashley's gonna do something.

She just said, my dad's dead, isn't he? And then she said, she killed him. She killed him, didn't she?

Why would you have a loaded gun in the house and you've got a child?

There was a ticking clock. She was very, very afraid that Doug was going to take this child away from her.

This is all part of Ashley's crazy campaign to just annihilate Doug in every single way.

And starts moving his arms.

Well, show me. What was he doing?

We stand with Ashley! We stand with Ashley!

Even her own little daughter marching for her mom. We stand with Ashley! He told you he had killed his wife?

And he said that he could make me disappear too.

In the ballet world, it's known as the pas de deux, a duet, a step of 2. For Ashley and Doug Benefield, a former ballerina and a businessman, their dance begins with a 13-day whirlwind courtship, plans to build a ballet company, and later, a baby. But the love affair turns dark and disturbing. Court battles, disputed allegations of Poisoning, abuse, and in the finale, Doug and Ashley seemingly about to reconcile and start anew reach a sudden and tragic end. What happened in the moments before the gunshots rang out in this Florida community in September of 2020 will be scrutinized for years by investigators, by lawyers, and the media. Ashley Benefield has kept quiet about what she says happened that night until she sat down with me. How are you doing?

Um, it depends on the moment. Just a lot of emotion, uh, kind of like a roller coaster.

That roller coaster, Ashley says, took a sharp turn in the fall of 2020 when, after 4 years of ups and downs, She and her husband Doug were preparing to move to Maryland. The plan, according to Ashley, was to continue living separately, just as they had in Florida.

He was constantly going back to this idea that we had to live together.

In these text messages from September 27th, the Benefields exchanged jokes, even emojis. Doug arrives at 5:30 with The U-Haul at the gated community where Ashley lives with her mom. Ashley's mom and daughter Emerson are out of the house at a nearby park. Ashley claims it isn't long before things go from friendly to fiery. Sounds like you guys are just agreeing to pack. And did you two begin arguing verbally? Was there yelling?

There was a back and forth.

She goes on to say that Doug becomes physically aggressive, too, at one point bumping into her with a moving box and scraping her side. She then says she tries to defuse the tension and asks him to leave.

He ended up trapping me, and I tried to leave. He hit me.

Where did he hit you? Did he threaten you?

He said I couldn't leave. I almost made it to the front door and he stopped me. I ran to my bedroom and he followed me there. I told him to stop.

Sorry.

What led you to go for the gun?

He had never hit me before. I thought he would stop if he saw it.

What did you think was about to happen?

I thought he was actually gonna kill me this time.

Did he have a gun?

Not that I could see. He told me I was fucking done. Even though I was the one holding the gun, he plunged at me. I'm sorry.

You fired 4 times. You missed him twice. And when you hit him, what did you think?

I ran.

Ashley says she races out of her house over to a neighbor's home. 2 residents who were out walking their dog who heard the shots Describes seeing a woman frantically running from the home.

May County 911, what is the emergency? Okay, it's right next door to me. She just came over. Her estranged husband attacked her, and she says she shot him.

Okay, what's his name?

His name is Doug Benefield.

They said that Doug attacked me. And I shot him. It was all a blur.

Did you think you had killed him?

I didn't know if he was behind me or chasing me or what. I didn't know.

I don't know how— she came in, she was quite hysterical. I didn't know who was banging on my door. Said that he attacked her and she shot him.

And at the end of that call, even though the neighbor had never seen Doug or Ashley fight, he tells the dispatcher something alarming.

Just between you and me, the son of a bitch has been harassing him and threatening him for a long time.

OK.

I probably shouldn't say that.

When law enforcement first arrived at the house following the 911 call and they make it in the house, they find Doug—

he had a gunshot wound to his calf through and through. He had a gunshot wound to his right side chest area that landed in his back across on the left-hand side. Paramedics arrived. They continued CPR and took him to the hospital, but he was pronounced deceased at the hospital.

This is the man that you had loved, the father of your child. What did you make of it when you heard that he was dead?

I was horrified. It's like the worst nightmare.

A nightmare Ashley won't wake up from anytime soon. That bedroom was essentially empty other than 2 handguns.

One of them was in a backpack hanging in the closet. One of them was just in a bin on top of a hamper. And we found that suspicious.

I think that definitely gave the detectives pause.

There was always this little thought in the back of my head that said, Ashley's gonna do something to him. Ashley's gonna sabotage him somehow. There's a look in her eyes where she— she just looks like she finally got her way.

I remember thinking to myself, there's something wrong here.

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Czechoslovakia. Wild Horse 9, in theaters November 6th. Rated R. Under 17, not admitted without parent. Every morning, Doug reached out to Eva, no matter where he was in the world.

He would either text me a good morning or he would send me a Bible verse. So I expected that.

And that morning, he didn't send it.

I texted him like 10 times, and then I said, Dad, this is scaring me.

Monday morning, I was in the office, and I saw an email that Ashley's attorney sent that said, we need to cancel Wednesday's hearing. Doug is dead. I had to call Doug's family. It was just heart-wrenching.

Poor girl.

I mean, she knew. She just said, my dad's dead, isn't he? And then she said, she killed him. She killed him, didn't she?

And I sat— sat my phone down and I said, I don't have parents anymore. I was just shaking violently for like 6 hours.

Doug Benefield's family and friends are grappling with unthinkably tragic In the meantime, investigators are trying to make sense of what happened the night before.

The information that I had was that it was a domestic-related shooting. The husband was dead. The wife did the shooting, and she claimed self-defense.

Ashley is taken to the sheriff's office, where attorneys from her family court case are waiting. You didn't give a statement. Why not?

My attorney is yelling to me in the parking lot, you know, don't say anything, don't say anything. I guess I was just following advice.

Ashley does consent to photos that she says document the swelling on her face where she says Doug hit her. When I saw her that night after she left the police station, the left side of her face was swollen. She had obviously been struck The next morning when she was changing a shirt, I saw the cut on her stomach. But law enforcement contends that Ashley's injuries don't suggest a life-or-death struggle.

There was no swelling. There was no bruising. There was no difference in the way she looked. The entirety of the injuries that they found that were relevant was a scratch on her side. and that was it. They got pictures of every angle, of every place that the attorneys wanted them to take, and there were no injuries except for that scratch.

And investigators are also skeptical of Ashley's claims of being attacked because Doug was unarmed. She had access to 2 weapons. You said that you were Responsible gun owner, but why would you have a loaded gun in the house? And you've got a child.

Well, the purpose of having a gun is for, like, self-defense. The idea is that if something were to happen crazy in the middle of the night, that it would be accessible.

But then you've got a loaded gun that's basically sort of out in a bin. There are those who say that sounds really suspicious.

I mean, I feel like anything can be turned to try to make it look a certain way.

We found that suspicious that someone would have 2 guns readily accessible in an empty room when everything else is in a U-Haul truck.

According to the medical examiner's report, the fatal gunshot entered the right side of Doug Benefiel's chest. To investigators, That doesn't fit with somebody who's lunging toward her.

If someone were coming at you or attacking you, the entrance wound to the fatal shot would not be in the side.

And results from the forensic lab raise even more questions about Ashley's claim of self-defense.

There was no stippling on Doug's shirt, so that told us that the barrel of the gun was at at least 3 to 7 feet away, and that's the barrel of the gun, not even her body. So they were not in a combat life-or-death situation where they were locked together.

Just over a month after Doug Benefield is shot and killed, Ashley is charged with second-degree murder. She pleads not guilty. The Manatee County woman charged with shooting and killing her husband You're arrested, charged with Doug's murder. What did you think?

I was shocked. I was blindsided by it.

In the minds of investigators, Doug Benefiel's demise wasn't about self-defense. To them, it was Ashley's plan all along.

The whole lie, the whole deception is coming to an end.

Doug was going to find out your wife is lying to you.

There was a ticking clock. She was very, very afraid that Doug was going to take this child away from her. Very afraid.

But others insist the real victim here is Ashley.

Doug Benefield was anything but what he portrayed himself to be.

This is someone who is a predator, and this is someone who was not He told me that he killed Renee. He told you he had killed his wife?

And he said that he could make me disappear too.

I always try to go and sit and watch the sunset when I can. There's so many good memories there. We chose to spread my dad's ashes on Station 22 and a half, and that is the same station that my parents met.

We held a celebration. We raised a toast to a life well lived and a terrible ending to a life.

A life Doug's family insists was cut short by a woman they say was driven to destroy him.

No one at the memorial service in any way believed the story of Doug attacking Ashley Doug still loved Ashley in spite of what she did to him, in spite of all the accusations, all the allegations.

I said, why do you keep going back? And he said, you know, I just want to show her that, like, I'm a good man and men can be good. And then he wanted Emerson to have a happy family.

He was willing to do whatever he had to do.

And while it appears to some that the couple were trying for yet another fresh start, their family court case in Florida was still open. Both Ashley and Dog had been evaluated by a psychologist, and that report was completed just before the planned move to Maryland. Prosecutors insist the report about Ashley is crucial. The report was done that once released, Doug was going to learn that she had no intention of reconciling.

Ashley was afraid that Doug was going to take custody away from her. This is a judge that did not believe her theatrics, and if anyone was going to do it, it was going to be this judge.

And prosecutors believe the move to Maryland offers Ashley Another chance and another court to keep Doug away from her and their child.

I believed that she was gonna start everything again in Maryland and hope for a different result.

Were you thinking at all, you've got another state you can try to fight him for custody?

My hope was that if something was going wrong, that maybe in a fresh place...

Ashley's mindset leading up to the shooting, prosecutors say, is critical. Was this a woman who truly feared for her life? Text messages between Doug and Ashley leading up to that day, in the days ahead, and then the day of the homicide were very normal.

To say that someone couldn't have been defending themselves later in a day because of nice text messages that morning is It's absurd. Doug was always like a flip of a switch.

He could turn on a dime. He could be very happy. He could be charming. But then, for no reason at all, he could get very upset. We kept on asking for help. It's been years of absolute hell. And we went from one abuser to a system that is abusing a victim. Were you an abused woman?

Yeah. I didn't think so at first. I remember, like, trying to argue, no, like, it's not like that. You know, I don't have broken bones and black eyes.

Most incidents of domestic violence are subtle, where the offender uses isolation, Financial control, threatening, verbal abuse— things that the general public doesn't necessarily see. But these are also things that the victim doesn't always know is abuse. There was no evidence to indicate that she was truly a victim of abuse in the months leading up to the homicide when they were not even living together. In the months before the shooting, Ashley She reaches out to a domestic violence agency and eventually connects with a therapist, Dr. Barbara Russell, who becomes a trusted friend and advocate. This relationship was very controlling. He was incessantly sending her text messages saying that all of the men that are probably flirting with her need to be exterminated like rats. And then he would shift gears and talk to her very lovingly and sweetly, like most Like most domestic violence situations, it escalated. He would push her. He would lock her in bathrooms. During one of those alleged incidents early in their relationship, Ashley claims Doug admitted something about his late wife that terrified her.

He had always told me that they had this fairy tale marriage, that they never fought. And then I found messages.

Text messages she says reveal a side of Doug that Ashley claims she saw in her own marriage.

She said one time he kicked her really hard. He had secretly videotaped them flirting on their honeymoon. One time we were having an argument and he told me that he killed Renee.

He told you he had killed Renee? killed his wife?

And he said that he could make me disappear too.

An investigation was done. There was no finding of foul play in any way. There was a full autopsy.

The coroner in Renee's death investigation ruled that she died of natural causes due to a heart condition.

Ashley tried to convince me that my dad killed my mom. I said, Dad, this is what she's doing. She was just kind of like, we're going to therapy, we're, you know, things will be okay. Obviously, like, I didn't kill your mom.

This is all part of Ashley's crazy campaign. Ashley wanted to keep Doug away from that kid at the expense of everything and everyone else. She would not stop.

Her goal was never to get rid of Doug. Her goal was to keep her daughter safe. That's very different than wanting to kill somebody. 2 starkly different portraits of Ashley Benefield. Is she a murderer? Benefield taking center stage at what has been dubbed the Black Swan Murder Trial. Or a victim who stood her ground?

He's coming at you, and you have nowhere to go.

What do you do?

You shoot to protect yourself. A legal strategy that could keep Ashley free.

This is the one chance at this point that we have to end it all now.

We stand with Ashley, mother, daughter, sister, friend.

All right, here, how about I push you this way? You ready?

Yeah. So what's summer been like for you two?

Emerson does a lot of swimming, right? Yeah, I can do—

I can swim alone pretty much. You're getting to be a strong swimmer.

Great job.

Ashley Benefield has spent several years under house arrest, living with her mom and daughter Emerson, who's now 5, while awaiting trial for second-degree murder.

Here we are climbing trees, catching geckos.

This has been hanging, you know, in the balance really for years now, and in the same time, you know, you're trying to mother.

It definitely wouldn't be what I would pick, but I'm, I'm thankful for all the good things that we have. She's an amazing little girl. I love being her mommy.

Meanwhile, the other daughter caught in the middle, 22-year-old Eva Benefield, found her own way to process her pain.

When I was 15, my mom Mom died of an underlying heart condition. I had been on TikTok for like a few months, and I thought, oh, that'd be funny if I made a joke about my dad being murdered. I made a TikTok and I put my phone down and I went to bed, and I woke up and it was at 700,000 likes, and then it just kept going and going and going. It got like 3 million likes and like 10 million views, and Within 2 weeks, I had 100,000 followers.

Eva has gone from grieving and stuck in trauma to getting help to finding an outlet in her art.

Eva, Doug's daughter, does not support you. Do you want to say anything to her?

My heart's broken for her. She has been through so much. I wouldn't even know where to start.

In February 2023, Ashley's legal team files a motion to dismiss under Florida's Stand Your Ground law. The law allows the use of deadly force if a person believes that that force is necessary to prevent imminent death or to prevent a violent crime without any expectation to retreat.

Doug stopped her from fleeing her home. Well, that would be false imprisonment, and that would qualify as a violent felony, which would give her the right to use deadly force.

Ashley's defense filed a 105-page motion Presenting her version of the night she shot Doug. For his family, it was the first time hearing her side.

The story they've made up is as implausible as everything else she ever made up about Doug and their relationship. It's implausible that any of that occurred the way she and her lawyer have told it.

The court found enough merit in Ashley's motion to grant her a hearing. Now the burden of proof shifts to the state to prove that Ashley did not act in self-defense.

The prosecution has to basically put on a trial, but it's just a hearing in front of a judge.

Well, with this hearing, we have the opportunity to put a stop to the proceedings. Then I get my life back.

Doug's family travels to Florida to attend the hearing.

It feels a little weird just because the last time I was here was, um, when my dad was alive.

All right, good morning everyone. We are on the record in the state of Florida versus Ashley Benefield.

The state calls 8 witnesses, including Doug's family members and law enforcement, who testify that Ashley had no significant injuries to justify self-defense.

Did you have a crime scene technician take photographs of her?

Uh, we did.

And why did you want pictures?

I didn't notice any kind of injuries, things that you would typically see during a physical altercation.

For their part, the defense relied solely on the details laid out in the 105-page motion filed before the hearing, calling no witnesses.

There was no independent evidence that refuted her version of events. I believe this motion compels the court to grant it. Thank you for the court's patience.

Judge didn't rule from the bench. They typically do not. After the hearing ended, we just had to wait for a written order.

It would take 2 months, but ultimately the judge would deny Ashley Benefield's stand-your-ground motion, saying the state had shown the shooting was not in self-defense. Now, out of options, Benefield will have to face a jury of her peers in this courthouse.

And happening right now, potential jurors being questioned in what people are calling the Black Swan trial.

The Black Swan trial.

Black Swan murder trial.

The Black Swan has a catchy ring and it sensationalizes my life. And it's sad to me that people who don't even know me have this idea of a monster.

But not everybody sees her that way.

We stand with Ashley! We stand with Ashley!

Dozens of protesters here at the Manatee County Courthouse marching in defense of Ashley Benefield.

And the littlest supporter marching out there also Happens to be one of Ashley's biggest defenders. She kept on asking, Mommy, can I go?

Can I go?

I want to be part of this. I want to stand up for my mommy. I don't want to be without my mommy.

And I—

sorry.

We stand with Ashley! With Ashley Benefield now facing the possibility of life in prison, the big question is, will the jury believe her?

The entire dynamic of the trial shifting today as Ashley Benefield made her way to the stand. The stakes for Ashley were extremely high.

I was hoping that they would call Ashley.

There was nowhere to go. I was trapped.

I really just wanted them to see Ashley for Ashley.

I thought he was gonna kill me.

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Testimony in the so-called Black Swan murder trial happening in Manatee County. Supporters rallying behind Ashley Benefield. Benefield is the Manatee County woman After nearly 4 years, Ashley Benefield finally gets her day in court, where she's hoping to prove that she shot her husband Doug in self-defense.

This was a custody battle that this mother was going to win at all costs, and the cost was the life of Doug Benefield.

And that is murder.

All right, state, call your first witness.

The prosecution gets to work building its case. State calls Stephanie Murphy, calling Doug Benefield's family attorney to the stand.

At the time the child was born, did you or Doug know that the child was born?

No, gosh, we didn't know for a good 5 or 6 weeks after she was born.

All right, who's your next witness?

Detective Chris Gilmore.

The state also calls the detective who spoke with Ashley back in 2018 when he investigated her claims that Doug had abused their daughter.

She asked for me to arrest Doug when he came inside the courtroom in front of the presiding judge.

And what was your reaction to that?

That, that absolutely would not occur.

And how did she take that?

She was upset.

I think it was very important testimony. It was a snapshot into the real Ashley Benefield.

Her tone turned very aggressive, and she says, you will fucking arrest him in front of the judge, and I will make sure you do it. And she says, I'll do whatever I have to do to keep my baby, you a-hole.

Ashley's side insists she was only trying to protect her child from a man she was terrified of.

Defense would call Dr. Jason Quintel.

They call a mental health counselor who saw both Doug and Ashley.

Did you conclude whether there was an intimidation issue present? Ashley stated that she was scared of Doug. Did you reach any conclusions with respect to Douglas Benefield? Doug occurred as someone who was, um, domineering, uh, and Uh, the terminology that I would use at times would be super controlling.

He would fit the stereotype of an alpha male, in my opinion. The defense also turns to a domestic violence expert to explain why, even though Ashley claimed she was living in fear, it may not have always looked that way from the outside.

How common is it, Mr. Ferris, for a Is it common for a victim of domestic violence to smile and act happy in the company of the abuser? Very much so, because they're afraid. They, they found this least resistance. They're trying to not poke the bear, as we'll say. Doug didn't verbally abuse her, never physically touched her. He would be angry over how she tried to ruin his life, but the anger never came out in inappropriate ways.

Then the defense calls the one person they believe can convince the jury of Ashley's innocence.

The defense calls Ashley Benefield. How are you feeling this morning, Ashley?

Nervous.

The questioning quickly turning to the night of the shooting.

I ran to try to leave the house. He hit me in the side of the head. He'd never actually hit me before.

What did you do?

I ran. Doug was standing in the doorway.

His face was red, like the veins were bulging.

He was punching at his neck. The way he was looking at me, he didn't even look like Doug.

His eyes were black.

I, I held the gun like in front of me and I, I said, stop. And he like turned and he got into this like, like a fighting stance.

I thought he was gonna kill me.

Somehow, Ashley Benefield found the strength to testify on her own behalf. And I thought she did it extremely well. Judge Awunder, could we have a minute?

Ashley used a lot of theatrics, a lot of, in my opinion, acting. Looking her in the face, it did not seem genuine to me.

Ma'am, there's Kleenexes here next to you if you need those.

OK, thank you.

Even though she cried hysterically numerous times, there was not one tear.

In her cross-examination, Prosecutor Suzanne O'Donnell presses Ashley about that moment she says Doug hit her in the head.

You say he slapped you?

I, I wouldn't know how to classify it. He struck me. He hit me.

Was his hand open or closed?

I don't remember.

Okay.

She knew the color of his eyes and the way he was acting. And when I asked her, did he hit you with an open hand or a closed hand, she didn't know. Wouldn't you know if someone hit you with a fist versus an open hand? Judge, if I could have her step down so she can demonstrate.

If you may.

I absolutely wanted to get her down off of the stand because she would have been that much closer to the jury. Okay, so he's standing there. He turns to like this and starts moving his arms around.

He was getting mad at me.

Well, show me.

What was he doing?

He kind of like got really— got like this, and he was like making like fighting motions. I don't know.

I'm not a fighter.

I don't know.

Okay.

This was the time to show the jury exactly what this person was doing. Why were you so scared? And she just couldn't do it.

And I believe that that was because it did And O'Donnell zeroes in on the physical evidence, arguing that it contradicts Ashley's claims of self-defense.

So I want to talk a little bit about this trajectory. The fatal bullet went in the side of the chest and almost came out the other side of the back. Her story was he starts to lunge at her. If she then lifted the gun and shot, it would go It would go in his chest and right out his back. It would not go side to side.

Everybody unanimously agreed that the wound path of that projectile was from front to back, left to right. Well, I don't care how much you would like to move front to back to the side, it is still front to back. What Ashley did on that day was absolutely justified. She had the right to stand her ground and use force, including deadly force. For the last several years, I've walked hand in hand with Ashley. I'm now going to surrender her fate to you.

So all of you may now retire to Any minute now, Ashley Benefield could learn her fate.

I've played out, I guess, both scenarios in my mind.

6 hours into the deliberations, tensions began building in the jury room.

And then at approximately 10 o'clock, the jurors sent out a note.

When they came back, I feel a sinking feeling. We were heavy-hearted at that moment.

Are you envisioning what it might be like to hear guilty?

Yeah, I've played out, I guess, both scenarios in my mind. I mean, part of this just doesn't seem real. I keep thinking maybe one day I'll wake up from the nightmare and realize that none of this happened. Jurors still deliberating after closing arguments.

It's 10 PM. The jury in Ashley Benefiel's case has been deliberating for 6 hours. Then a message from the foreperson.

Yeah, I've received a note from you. It says unable to come to unanimous verdict.

Even worse than a not guilty would be a hung jury, because then the family has to go through this again. We just need some finality.

But the judge encourages the jurors to keep deliberating and try to come to a consensus.

We'll be in recess until we get another question or a verdict.

And less than an hour later—

Breaking news, we have a verdict. When I saw that there was a verdict a half an hour later, my heart was in my throat.

We the jury find the defendant is guilty Guilty of manslaughter, a lesser included offense. The jury does not find Ashley guilty of second-degree murder. Instead, they convict her of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

We were hopeful for a second-degree murder conviction, but we were very, very satisfied with a manslaughter conviction.

Ashley learns she'll be sentenced at a later date.

The sound was as good as the sight. We're very thankful that she was taken off to jail.

If she hadn't had her gun that night, I know without a shadow of a doubt my daughter would be dead. I am sure of it. Why do they not believe women?

Why should women I feel that Ashley was abusing a system that is designed to help people that are victims. Sets everyone back and makes it so much harder for those people that really are victims.

I'll tell you, the hardest part of that verdict was not in the courtroom.

It was when we came back to our office without Ashley. Emerson was there waiting for us. for her mom, but she wouldn't leave right around that elevator. She just stayed there.

This case has always been sad to me because there are children involved that had nothing to do with this. Emerson's without her father and probably going to be without her mother now for a long time. Doug's family got justice. Eva's still without her father.

Today kind of just feels like the first day of the rest of my life. I hope one day me and Emerson will be able to have a relationship where she can come to me with any questions. And I hope that one day I'll be able to explain how great of a father my dad would have been to her and how great he was for the short amount of time that they got to spend together.

Ashley Benefield is scheduled to be sentenced next month. David, she faces up to 30 years in prison.

And as for Doug and Ashley's 6-year-old daughter Emerson, she's currently living with Ashley's mother now. That's our program for tonight. Thanks for watching.

I'm David Muir.

And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 20/20 and ABC News, good night. Crime Vault, Friday nights at 9:00 on ABC. You can also find all new broadcast episodes of 20/20. Thanks for listening.

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