A former ballerina has been sentenced to decades in prison after being found guilty of manslaughter in ‘Black Swan’ case.
Ashley Benefield, 33, was seen staring at the ground as her sentence was read out to her.
The ballerina was given a 20-year prison sentence and 10 years of probation on Tuesday following her manslaughter conviction in July. She has a 30-day window to appeal the sentence.
She shot and killed her husband, Doug Benefield, 58, in her Florida home on September 27, 2020.
His daughter, Eva Benefield, wore a black blazer with two red hearts on it to show where he father got shot by his wife.
‘You have managed to orphan not one, but two young girls,’ Eva said in court.
During the trial, Ashley testified and shared her perspective, emotional recounting her troubled relationship with Doug. She mentioned instances of abuse that preceded the fatal shooting.
Benefield stated that her husband exhibited violent behavior during their four-year marriage but that they separated after she became pregnant with his child in 2017.
The dancer said Doug attacked her in her home and she was forced to shoot him in self-defense.
‘I was scared to death. I thought he was going to kill me. I didn’t know where to go. I was trapped,’ she said during her trial.
‘I just held the gun like in front of me and I said, stop, and he like turned and he got into this like almost like a fighting stance. He started like moving his arms and his hands around…he started coming towards me and he lunged at me, and I just pulled the trigger.’
However, prosecutors said the altercation happened after she tried to win a custody battle and wanted to win at all costs.
Prosecutors also pointed out that Doug was not armed the night of his death.
‘Because after she killed him, what does she get? Sole custody of the child, and that is murder,’ Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell said.
Benefield previously sought injunctions that would have barred her husband from seeing their child and accused him of violating a no-contact order in 2018, according to NBC News.
She accused Doug of child abuse in 2020, but he was not charged with any crimes.
Her married her husband at the young age of 24 after just knowing him for two weeks. His wife had died nine months earlier when he was 54.
Their rocky marriage included Benefield accused him of poisoning his first wife before leaving him while pregnant, attempting to start a ballerina company, and ultimately ending in his death.
Former members of their dance studio said Doug had an ‘angry side’ to him.
Two former members of American National Ballet – the Charleston, South Carolina-based dance company the couple opened up in 2017 – have revealed Doug had a ‘very angry side.’
Hanna Manka and Sarah Walborn spoke about their experience at the then-pioneering dance school in a recent Law & Crime podcast ‘Black Swan Murder’ episode and revealed that Doug, the father of Ashely’s daughter, would often raise his voice.
‘Doug came out with a very angry side to him – this was the first time I had seen him angry,’ Walborn said as he recalled a past interaction with him.
‘And at the time, that was odd to me that he was so passionate about this conversation that was being had. And it painted a picture of the future encounters that I had with him along the way.’
Manka said she sensed things were off when she arrived at the theater the company was supposed to use for its planned gala performance and saw no advertising for the debut event.
‘Absolutely nothing on the program. That’s a bit odd,’ Manka said.
Walborn agreed with that notion, saying the studio was full of ‘a bunch of charades’ with ‘no ultimate goal.’
She added that Doug often tried to paint a different picture, and even drew up a video full of ‘a bunch of inspirational quotes from people’ to show the dancers.
‘He sat us all down in the room … to watch it and … had tears in his eyes … saying: “See, this is what we’re working towards”,’ Walborn explained.
Other former employees said they were suspicious of the couple’s business from the start.
Sophie Williams, who was 20 years old at the time, told the DailyMail.com she was suspicious of the venture early on, especially when it came to getting paid.
She recalled a time waiting outside a small hallway alongside other dancers at American National Ballet in alphabetical order for their names to be called.
Nobody was told why they had to gather there, just that there was a chance of finally receiving a paycheck.
When Williams, now 27, was called into the small office in Charleston, South Carolina, she found herself face-to-face with a strange sight.
Doug was sitting behind a briefcase stacked high with hundred-dollar bills.
She sat down at his command.
Williams said: ‘He just started counting off wads of hundreds.’
Doug told Williams that the money was for all the things the company had promised to the dancers but never delivered: health insurance, pointe shoes, the stipend for travel and her overall pay.
She walked out of the office almost $5,000 richer. But the exchange left her feeling even more uncomfortable about what was going on within the dance company.
