Transcript of Talking Dateline: Deadly Dance

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Hi, everyone. I'm Blaine Alexander, and we are Talking Dateland. Today, I'm here with Andrea Canning. Hi, Andrea. Hey, Blaine. So this episode is called Deadly Dance. If you haven't seen it, it's the episode right below this one on your Dateland podcast feed. So go there, listen to it, or stream it on Peacock, and then come right back here. For this Talking Dateland, we have an extra clip from Andrea's interview with Ashley Benefield's therapist, Dr. Barbara Russell. But just a quick recap. In 2020, former ballerina Ashley Benefield claimed that she acted in self-defense after fatally shooting her husband, Doug Benefield. But when investigators took a closer look into the couple's whirlwind relationship, they learned of abuse allegations, a bitter custody dispute, even an accusation of a previous murder. To investigators, the tumultuous relationship mixed with the physical evidence pointed to one thing, and that's murder. Okay, Andrea, let's talk Dateland. Let's do it. The big question, who is Ashley Benefield? I think That's the question from all angles. She's a former ballerina, a swimsuit model. She enters Doug Benefield's life, and they get married within 13 days of first meeting. What makes someone get married after 13 days?

I don't know. We touched on a little bit of their first encounter where they were at a dinner party. I guess Ashley and Doug, they go outside, and he's into guns, she's into guns, apparently. She has a gun tucked in her bra, a tiny gun. I was like, How did she put that in there? And she was wearing, we don't get into all these crazy details in the show, but she was wearing one of those bandage, apparently, dresses. So it's like, How did that fit in there? And then not only that, which also didn't make the show because for time, I guess she takes them out to her car and she's got a semi-automatic weapon in the trunk of her She's got a big gun in there, too. So a mutual love of firearms right out of the gate with these two. But they definitely seem to have a lot in common from the get-go. He was military, Republicans, the guns, God.

Also, I think that to go from a dinner party where you're talking about whatever you're talking about to like, Hey, come outside and look at my guns. I just wonder how you make that conversation leave.

I write these Hallmark movies, and we call them Meet Cutes, where the couple first meets in the movie. This would not make a Hallmark movie. I'm just saying that.

It's probably one of the most... If it did, it would be one of the most creative Hallmark movies or something like that. Yeah. Okay. Let's say that that was an interesting meeting. But to go from that to I do in 13 days is so interesting, right? So the question is, was this infatuation? Was it just love? Or did Ashley have some a hidden agenda in all of this?

I think Doug's family, his brother and his cousin anyway, felt that she was into this. He's an older man. She's thinking he has money, he has status. So I think that they felt that there was an agenda there. I don't think that anyone questions that she was into him. I think there was also some infatuation there as well, not just what she was getting out of it, but I think that was probably what they feel was driving the infatuation, the power, the money that she thought he had. I should say Dr. Barber Russell the therapist. She says that Ashley was really in love with Doug. So that's coming from the other side, that this was not about necessarily money and status and all that. It was like that she did love him.

One question I had when we heard about her dream to open this ballet studio. I wonder, to your point about money, how much did Doug have to do with giving her the money to open that studio or making it possible?

Doug definitely helped with the studio. Her dream became his dream. So they moved to Charleston. Ashley's dream was to start a ballet company that would be all-inclusive. So it would be all different ethnicities. It would be all different weights, all different sizes, heights, backgrounds. It was a very interesting idea because ballerinas and ballet dancers in general are somewhat cookie cutter, right? I do comment her. I thought it was a really fun idea to have all these different kinds of people come together. And Charleston is such a tourist destination that it would be a fun thing to put on your list when you go to Charleston. You go for the food, you can go watch this interesting ballet. So Doug was apparently all in on that to help her. I mean, your question, did she go after him for money? I don't know. But as we know, it didn't The company never really got off the ground. They made some major inroads with the company, and then it just fell apart.

The other big thing, of course, she got pregnant, and she became a mom. I'm assuming that she really wanted children because she was pregnant relatively soon after they got married, and that became just a central focus when you talk about this poor girl who was really caught in the middle of all of this.

Yeah. I mean, it's exhausting just hearing about the fighting that was going on over their daughter Emerson. It really became the focus of their fighting.

I was so fascinated by this because from the beginning, it wasn't this question of like, Oh, who did it? We knew that she pulled the trigger, but why?

Why did she do it? This was a conversation that I really had with the prosecutors about when there are abuse allegations, of course, you want to believe the victim. We all want to believe the victim, that this is very serious. This is something that women and men go through in this country, and it's awful, and we know too many times it can end in murder. That was the tricky part for the prosecutors because these prosecutors did not believe that Ashley was being abused. It's a fine line. It was even a fine line for me doing the dateland because I didn't want anyone thinking that I don't believe abuse victims. It is tricky, right? When there are cases Cases sometimes where the person really wasn't abused. Was that the case here? I don't know. I would never wade into that. It was difficult to almost present that and difficult for the prosecutors.

I could imagine that would be tricky. It really was a delicate balance that they had to strike. They had to be delicate with it. I thought that it was so striking that Eva at the end, Doug's daughter from a previous marriage, came out and addressed, almost apologized to women who suffered from domestic violence or really brought that forward, too. When we get back, we've got a bonus clip from Andrea's interview with Ashley Benefield's therapist.

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Let's go to the crime scene because there was something that was very unusual about this. Very soon after Doug Benefield was shot, we saw all of these people start showing up for Ashley, lawyers, her therapist. How unusual is something like that?

Well, the police thought it was unusual. She had three attorneys, and one of the attorneys was at the police station immediately. It did seem like they were on speed dial. Dr. Barbara Russell, she actually showed up at the active crime scene, and the detective was like, Why are you here? She said she was called by Ashley's mother who was there. We have an extra clip with Dr. Russell about arriving at this crime scene. The lead investigator accused you of budding into the investigation at the scene. Yes. What was your logic on getting involved? The investigator was as well as some of the child protective workers. The workers who couldn't care less about this child's safety while Doug was alive were now suddenly so concerned about her safety. They took Ashley's mother into the garage of this home to question her. I did not feel that that was appropriate. The woman was in a state of shock. She was terrified. So I kept popping my nose into the garage. Hi, guys. How are we doing? We're almost done?

I'm really glad that we had the voice of Dr. Russell because I do think that she said so much about Ashley. I wonder if there were questions about to be there on the scene, to be so involved. Was it possible that she was overstepping her bounds as a therapist to be there?

I mean, first of all, we should be clear that the investigator and CPS worker say they were always concerned about Emerson's safety, and police deny doing anything inappropriate at the scene. You could tell when I interviewed the detective, he didn't love the tone of Dr. Russell at the crime scene and thought it was a little odd. Dr. Russell goes on to say how she spent the night taking care of Ashley, making sure that she was okay. She says they did not talk about the shooting. But this is where people also had problems, is that Ashley ends up moving in with Dr. Russell.

And how long did they live together, would you say?

I want to say it was in the months. When I first read the note, Before I interviewed Dr. Russell from Rob Buchana, our producer, I was like, Moved in together? Together?

Yes, exactly.

And then he's like, No, she needed a place to live, and she had no money. And so Dr. Yeah, I think that's what she wanted to do. She wanted to hustle. She defended herself. She said that they were never friends. She said that this was strictly therapist-client relationship, that Ashley was down and out. Ashley needed a place to live. So she opened her house, and she said she never would have opened her house if she thought she was a cold-blooded killer. She just really believes Ashley's story.

In a couple of ways, she played the role, almost of an advocate of Ashley, right? They're on the crime scene, and she joined the protests for her around the trial time, too, right?

Yeah. We struggled to find people from Ashley's world, her family, friends. So Dr. Russell became that voice for Ashley in our report. It was very important that we had Dr. Russell to give us that other side.

Let's talk a little bit more about those protests. Among the people protesting was their six-year-old daughter, Ashley and Doug's six-year-old daughter, Emerson. I mean, that was very striking to just see her little self out there. Who brought her out there and what was that like for her to be out there?

I believe it was Ashley's mom who brought her. Some people did have a problem with that. They felt like she's too young to be dragged into this, that she should not be out there. Others felt like, Hey, this is her mom. We believe that her mom was abused and that she was defending herself and her daughter should know that, that her mom is strong. There were people definitely on both sides on that particular issue of Emerson being out there and being so publicly on display.

Where is Emerson now? I mean, I think the sad thing about this, as you mentioned at the end of the episode, she's still locked in this custody battle, right?

Yeah. Well, I believe Emerson, at least at the time of our report, is with Ashley's mother. But Doug's brother and cousin indicated that this is not over, that they may try to get custody of Emerson, someone on Doug's side.

It's so often in so many of our Dateland stories, child custody disputes can be at the heart of this. It really is just so heartbreaking for the kids who are in the middle of all of this. Emerson has lost both of her parents.

It really is. When they're young enough where they still need their parents, I mean, everyone needs their parents. Then when one is dead and one is accused of killing the other one, it really just throws the child's world into chaos. It's been my experience with the majority of datelines that I've covered that the children, if the father is the accused, that the children stand by the father because it's almost like, they say they believe them. Okay, that's your right. You've decided you believe them. But it's almost to me like they don't want to lose another parent.

I talked with Keith about this recently for his episode, and it's almost like it's a method of self-protection or self-preservation. Almost like maybe you can't allow yourself to believe that your father is capable of this because even if they are found guilty or whatever, just having something in your mind to say, Okay, I admit that maybe he is responsible, then you are really losing both parents. It's a way of holding on.

Yeah, I totally buy that.

Let's talk about Eva Benefield. That's Doug's daughter from his marriage to Renee, his previous wife, who passed away. But when Doug and Ashley married, Eva was Ashley's stepdaughter, even though the two only had nine years of age difference between the two of them. So how was their relationship?

Not good. I mean, you can just imagine your father marries someone after two weeks who's nine years older than you and brings her home, and you're Everything's supposed to be perfect. That would be extremely rare. The family, the kid just says, Great. I'm so excited. Welcome. It's just that's tough for the child. Like, Really tough. So no, they did not have a good relationship, and it only got worse. Eva expressed her feelings on social media, TikTok, and she amassed quite a few followers.

She was very vocal. She was claiming Ashley murdered her dad. You even said she used humor in all of that. But do you think that that helped to draw a lot of attention to this story?

Yeah, I think it definitely helped bring attention to it. The other thing I'm noticing, too, now is we had Karen Reid, where there were just tons and tons of supporters for Karen Reid online outside the courthouse. Then now with this so-called Black Swan trial, as Ashley's case was called by some because Black Swan, the movie, Oh, yeah. With Natalie Portman, where she's like a diabolical ballerina. I think that brought attention to it. But I'm noticing, though, that we're seeing now more supporters show up to these things now. It feels like a trend.

Yeah, it really is. I think that, especially when you see people outside, but also just thinking about, yes, social media and the way that some of these things spread. People are able to follow along and feel like they really know the people or they really know the facts of the case, or even people who show up and try and be investigators on their own or involve themselves. Let's talk about the trial, because as you mentioned, when the murder trial began, a lot of people dubbed it the Black Swan murder trial because of that movie. Have you seen the movie Black Swan?

I did, and I can honestly say I didn't like it. Really? I thought it was a strange movie. I like diabolical systems readers a lot. But there was something very weird about that movie that I didn't like it. There was a lot.

I didn't get into it. I really like Natalie Portman. I do, too. Because I liked her as Padme.

She's great.

So anytime Natalie Portman does anything, I'm like, Oh, wow, let's see. I do remember it was one of those ones I had to watch twice just to digest what was happening.

I mean, Natalie Portman is fantastic. And didn't she win the Oscar?

Yeah, she won best actress for that.

Yes. I mean, it's no reflection on her or her acting skills. I just thought the movie was a bit dark and over the top. It was sorry.

That's a good way to put it. To have this trial likened to Black Swan was interesting. I'm curious, what was Ashley like in the courtroom during this trial?

There, of course, were people who immediately felt that Ashley's tears on the stand were crocodile tears. In fact, and we touched on this very briefly in the show, but the prosecutors noticed that she was crying, but no tears were coming out, according to them. At one point, the prosecutor notices this lack of tears and says, Turn the lights up. She hoped that the jury would see that there weren't really any tears. She'd said that one of the jurors did on her I guess the jury was leaving the courtroom and one of the jurors really leaned over and looked at Ashley in the face, like trying to get a look. The prosecutor felt like it worked for that reason.

It was just bringing it up, letting people notice what they noticed.

The prosecution also had Ashley come down and… Demonstrate? Demonstrate how she killed Doug.

For our viewers or our listeners who maybe are only listening and didn't actually see it, can you describe what she did with her body in that moment?

It's hard to almost explain, but she was moving her hands in front of her body. Her palms were flat. I don't totally get it.

I think that it just felt like such a turning point in there because, at least from the prosecution, it sounded like they said, Okay, this is your one chance to show, Hey, this is what he did. She didn't necessarily seem to have a good reenactment of what she said happened. It seemed like a turning point in there, though.

Yeah, and clearly, the jurors struggled with her testimony.

The jury deliberates. At one point, they come back, they say, Hey, we don't have a verdict. The judge says, Okay, keep trying. They ultimately find Ashley Benefield guilty of manslaughter, but not guilty of the higher charge of second-degree murder. Ashley Benefield will be sentenced next month. That's something, of course, that a lot of us are going to be watching. I know that you are going to be discussing it and giving updates as well.

Yeah, we will definitely bring it up on Dateland True Crime Weekly as soon As soon as we get that sentencing, we will definitely include it in my podcast, Dateland True Crime Weekly, that comes out every Thursday morning.

Oh, you know we'll be there. Okay, Andrea, thanks so much for talking Dateland with me today.

Yeah, thanks, Plaine. Up next, what did you make of Ashley on the Stand? I'll be joined by Dateland producer Rob Buchana to answer your questions from social media.

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We're back. Blaine's on the road working on her latest story, so I'm joined by Dateland producer Rob Buchana. Hey, Rob.

Hey, Andrea. How are you? Great to speak with you again.

Yeah, great working with you on this story. I know you were online Friday night. I was on the plane coming back from Salt Lake City for a different story, and we were texting back and forth. I was watching Dateland on the plane. You were on the plane. You said that you were noticing a lot of comments from people. What stuff were you hearing?

Yeah, it's interesting. People at first want to take side, and then you start to see him take another side. But there was quite a bit of comments throughout the show, certainly about Ashley, about her testimony. On Doug, the things were that really turned people a certain way was the dog. When people heard that he hit his dog, that turned a lot of people off.

Yeah, and that thing certainly made people wonder. Where one minute you're on his side, then maybe you're not. Then you're like, Wait, is she telling the truth? It was a tricky one to try to weed through all the mess of this couple.

Well, this is always the real challenge for juries because no one was there. The only one that was still alive was Ashley, who knows really what happened that day. To try to figure out from one person who's still living and them telling your story, and obviously, they don't want to go to jail. It's very difficult.

Tor or Tori Lett on Facebook asked, Why were the lights dimmed during the hearing? I've never seen that. This is, of course, you have to remember, first of all, that the lights were turned back on, as we talked about in the story. Now the question is the reverse. Why were they even dimmed in the first place?

They were turned down because the prosecution was showing some photos, I believe, or graphics inside. They asked that the lights be dimmed so that the jurors could see them more clearly in a darkened room. After they were done with that and they started doing their cross-examination, the lights remained down. Then that's what point that you see on air is when the prosecutor says, Hey, can we bring those lights back up? That's the reason why.

Rob, You spend a lot of days in the courtroom. People wanted to talk about the tears versus no tears. But I'll say this before you answer this question. Yes. When my kids are crying with no tears, the moment it's resolved, it's like a faucet. The crying just stops. I'm wondering as far as with Ashley, talk a little bit about that phenomenon of the crying but without tears. Right.

I want to be totally fair to Ashley. I did see tears at certain points. She was up there for a long time, and there was a lot of crying. I could see it actually better when I watched it on videotape rather than sitting in the courtroom because she was quite a distance from me. Rebecca Field, who was one of the co-prosecutors. In her closing remarks, okay, now she said this, this is not me saying this. She said, I don't know any other way how to say this, but where were her snots?

She said, When you cry so much, you're looking for a Kleenex.

And she said, That never happened.

Yeah. And Debbie Dugas, one on X, said, Great show. I noticed there were no tears, two no red eyes, nose mucus. Ha ha. I thought I maybe saw one tear shining in the light. And also, I lean to Tony Joyce on Facebook. My son said, Where are the tears? Oh, my gosh. So many comments about Ashley on the stand. Yeah.

I mean, there were some comments that I saw about that she was a dancer, but she really should have been an actress.

This is a good question from Sue Meady. She was curious, what did we blur out in the police interrogation room footage?

Sue, wouldn't you like to know? Well, actually- What is it?

I want to know.

Okay, yeah, I know. Okay, we would like to know also. Obviously, we request these videos from the police, and they blurted out. So it was something that they blurted out. Oh, I thought it was us. So we have no idea either. So we'll all be wondering that for perhaps eternity.

Rob, thank you so much for joining us for talking Dateland and for doing such a great job of producing this episode and for working so hard on it. It was definitely- The same goes back to you.

You know that all the time. Thank you.

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