The former ballerina convicted of killing her well-heeled husband — in a sensational case that came to be known as the “Black Swan murder” — has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Ashley Benefield, 33, remained stony-faced as her fate was read aloud in a Florida court Monday, five months after she was convicted of manslaughter in the 2020 fatal shooting of her 58-year-old husband Doug Benefield.
“I’ve waited so long to speak to her, face to face,” Doug’s daughter Eva said during her victim-impact statement. “I hope prison serves her well.”
Benefield faced up to 30 years behind bars for the killing her attorneys argued was carried out in self-defense.
While Judge Mathew Whyte conceded she may have acted under duress, he said he couldn’t reduce her sentence, NBC News reported.
Prosecutors argued the shooting had been part of an elaborate ploy by Benefield to gain custody of the couple’s child. Evidence from the crime scene indicated her husband had been turned away when she shot him twice during a fight at her mother’s home, according to court testimony.
Jurors acquitted the young mom of second-degree murder in July, agreeing she pulled the trigger in self-defense after her attorneys argued Doug had been an abusive husband who was terrorizing her physically and emotionally.
The couple had been embroiled in a bitter custody battle over their baby, who Benefield had allegedly kept away from her husband for six months after giving birth — with Doug only being given visitation after with a court order.
During her pregnancy, Benefield began complaining to law enforcement that Doug was abusing her — even claiming that he once fired a gun into their ceiling to keep her from speaking, had punched her dog unconscious, and always kept a loaded firearm “pulled back and ready to fire,” according to the defense.
Despite their 30-year age difference — they were 24 and 54 years old when they began dating — the couple was married just 13 days after they met in 2016.
Doug worked in the defense and private equity sectors, and Benefield was a trained ballerina. Together, they went on to start a ballet company to fulfill Benefield’s lifelong dream.
But the business venture quickly fell apart, and Benefield became pregnant soon after.
That was when her defense argued their relationship began to fracture and Doug allegedly became abusive, prompting Benefield to move from their South Carolina home to her mother’s in Florida, and later to lay down plans for resettling in Maryland.
On the night of the shooting, Doug had shown up at her mother’s home to confront her, when she claimed he became violent and began to slap and shove her.
After fleeing to her bedroom and pulling out a gun, she claimed Doug followed her in and she was forced to open fire after he ignored her pleas to “stop.”
“I thought he was going to kill me,” she testified during the trial.
Doug was never charged for any crimes, according to the Guardian, and investigators said Benefield did not show any signs of physical abuse after the shooting.
Prosecutors argued that her claims of abuse and courtroom allegations amounted to little more than a performance — and that it was all a part of a play to win custody of their child.