Deadly Dance

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Speaker 4 Tonight, on dateline.

Speaker 5 He started coming towards me and then he lunged at me.

Speaker 5 I started pulling the trigger.

Speaker 7 Ashley ran to her neighbor, hysterical. She had shot her husband because he had attacked her and she shot him.

Speaker 8 She's a beautiful ballerina.

Speaker 10 She appears to be a great mom.

Speaker 7 We wanted to find out what happened in that room.

Speaker 9 He's thrown furniture. He would push her into a wall.
I really believed he was going to kill her.

Speaker 7 Her clothing didn't appear to be stained or torn. She didn't look like she had any injuries.

Speaker 12 So you're seeing this case shifting from self-defense to murder?

Speaker 7 Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 13 There were guns placed around this house.

Speaker 14 She ambushed him on that day in that room.

Speaker 15 People are calling Ashley the black swan, this dark ballerina who is a cold-blooded killer.

Speaker 9 There's just nothing about that.

Speaker 10 That's true.

Speaker 5 I was scared to death.

Speaker 17 How can you not believe her?

Speaker 4 Did the dancer choreograph a killing inside the notorious Black Swan murder case? I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dadline.

Speaker 4 Here's Andrea Canning with Deadly Dance.

Speaker 15 It takes grace,

Speaker 15 strength,

Speaker 15 and passion to make it as a ballerina.

Speaker 15 One beautiful dancer and model had all that.

Speaker 15 Plus, the perfect partner to share her dreams.

Speaker 9 She thought he was very charming. He was smart.
He was fun to talk to. It was just a click.

Speaker 19 He started describing it. This is beautiful lady that loves me in 13 days we got married.

Speaker 15 13.

Speaker 19 Yep.

Speaker 15 But one warm autumn night, it ended just as fast as it began.

Speaker 15 Left behind, four bullet casings and a love story that had spiraled out of control.

Speaker 15 September 27th, 2020, as the sun was setting, a frantic 911 call came in from Lakewood Ranch, a community near Sarasota, Florida.

Speaker 21 He's saying the neighbor came over, female neighbor. It was a domestic.

Speaker 15 The neighbor was 29-year-old Ashley Benefield, and she had a dramatic story to tell.

Speaker 21 She came in.

Speaker 14 She was quite hysterical.

Speaker 21 I didn't know who was banging on my door.

Speaker 23 She said that he attacked her and she shot him.

Speaker 15 He was Ashley's husband, 59-year-old Doug Benafield. Detective Dan Dickerman with the Manatee County Sheriff's Office raced to the scene.

Speaker 24 When the deputies first got here, when they arrived on scene, Douglas Benafield was still inside the house.

Speaker 24 In order to get to him, the first thing they had to do was make the scene safe, which they knew from the 911 call that Ashley was next door and was claiming to be the shooter.

Speaker 23 Where in the house is she?

Speaker 22 Her bedroom.

Speaker 15 Once they secured the scene, first responders found Doug bleeding on a bedroom floor and pulled him into the living room to perform CPR.

Speaker 15 Barely alive, he was rushed to the hospital.

Speaker 12 How many times was Doug shot?

Speaker 24 At this point, I believe we knew of two.

Speaker 21 We just calmed down and

Speaker 21 okay.

Speaker 17 Now the deputies want her to to go outside with her hands up, nothing in them.

Speaker 12 Put your hands where you can see them, okay?

Speaker 22 All right.

Speaker 17 Just start walking out front. They're outside.

Speaker 15 Ashley walked out of her neighbor's house and into a sheriff's vehicle.

Speaker 24 Ashley Benafield is in the back of a patrol car.

Speaker 23 Do you go talk to her before you go in the house?

Speaker 24 Yes. After I instructed the deputy to see if she would be willing to go up to our office, and we try not to do the interviews on the scene.
There's just too much going on.

Speaker 24 I was told that she was willing to go to the office, but she wanted to see her daughter.

Speaker 15 At the time of the shooting, her three-year-old daughter Emerson was at a local park with her grandmother.

Speaker 10 The two returned to a chaotic scene.

Speaker 24 Allowed them to walk up to the car where Ashley could see her daughter, but her daughter couldn't see Ashley in the back of the car.

Speaker 24 It's dark-tinted windows, and the window is up, and that was acceptable to her.

Speaker 9 Did she talk to her mom at all?

Speaker 24 She did not at the scene at that point.

Speaker 15 Then someone surprising showed up: Ashley's therapist.

Speaker 12 28 years in law enforcement, unusual to see a therapist show up at a crime scene like this?

Speaker 24 Yeah, I've never seen a therapist or a doctor that has shown at a crime scene, an active crime scene that has just occurred.

Speaker 12 It's like she was on speed dial.

Speaker 24 Yeah, she was obviously close and available.

Speaker 15 Meanwhile, at the sheriff's office, Deputy Justin Warren was waiting for Ashley to arrive, but someone else got there first.

Speaker 7 Her attorney approached me out in front of the Sheriff's Office Operations Center and advised me she was her attorney and the other two attorneys were on the way as well.

Speaker 12 The attorney is there before Ashley even gets to the sheriff's office? Yes.

Speaker 16 And two more on the way.

Speaker 7 Two more on the way.

Speaker 10 Did that surprise you?

Speaker 7 Yeah, it did strike me as odd.

Speaker 15 Three attorneys and a therapist. It was clear this was going to be an unusual investigation, especially after Deputy Warren started checking police records.

Speaker 4 So we start looking into these things.

Speaker 7 I'm like, oh, that's kind of interesting.

Speaker 15 Turns out there was a long and twisted history between Doug and Ashley.

Speaker 12 This reads like a lifetime movie. You have allegations of poison tea, stalking, murder.
It goes on and on.

Speaker 27 Every time I thought, this is the craziest thing I've ever heard, then I would hear something else.

Speaker 15 In fact, there was a tidal wave of accusations.

Speaker 7 She was making some allegations at some point that Doug had possibly poisoned his deceased wife.

Speaker 15 In the hours after shooting her husband Doug, Ashley Benefield was at the Manatee County Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 15 Investigators hoped she would fill in the gaps leading up to the moment she pulled the trigger.

Speaker 24 We know that this is a self-defense claim. We know from the initial 911 call.
So we need to find out exactly, to the best we can, what happened inside that house.

Speaker 15 But Ashley, sitting next to her attorney, exercised her right not to say anything.

Speaker 25 I know that we haven't talked yet, and we're not going to be taking a statement from you. That's fine.

Speaker 12 No one knows Ashley's story but Ashley.

Speaker 7 But Ashley, yes, ma'am.

Speaker 15 She wasn't under arrest, so Ashley was free to go.

Speaker 15 A few miles away at the hospital, doctors were trying to save Doug's life, but his injuries were too severe, and he died.

Speaker 15 His family was stunned.

Speaker 19 I'm just,

Speaker 14 I'm overcome with grief.

Speaker 19 I can't think straight.

Speaker 15 Doug's brother David and cousin Tommy called Eva, Doug's 19-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, to break the news.

Speaker 12 This is such a devastating phone call.

Speaker 19 Horrible. She begins wailing, and

Speaker 28 it was just one of the worst moments of my life.

Speaker 14 She goes from anger into grief, crushing grief so quickly.

Speaker 16 Grief she knew all too well.

Speaker 12 Eva not only has lost her mom, but now she's lost her dad too.

Speaker 15 Eva's mom, Renee, died from a heart attack when Eva was only 15. Her dad was her whole world.

Speaker 29 Eva talks about how wonderful he was.

Speaker 19 She said, he was my best friend. I could bring all my girl problems too.

Speaker 19 And I loved hearing that about it because that's the Doug that I knew.

Speaker 15 Eva had struggled to accept her stepmom, and now detectives were diving into Ashley and Doug's May-December romance.

Speaker 7 So we start to kind of try to develop a little bit more background as far as what they were like together and what the relationship really was.

Speaker 15 They learned that Doug met Ashley in the summer of 2016, less than nine months after his wife died. The former Navy pilot was 54, deeply religious, and worked in the defense industry.

Speaker 15 Ashley, 30 years younger, was a retired ballerina who modeled and taught dancing. The two instantly clicked at a dinner party hosted by former presidential candidate Dr.
Ben Carson.

Speaker 14 The stunning part is they go outside the house and she shows him a gun that she's carrying in the bra, her concealed carry in front of two Secret Service teams.

Speaker 12 These two really bonded over guns, God, and politics.

Speaker 9 That was part of their bonding for short.

Speaker 15 Dr. Barbara Russell is Ashley's therapist, the same therapist who showed up at the scene the night of the shooting.
She's known Ashley for years.

Speaker 9 He texted her, I believe, that very night and pursued her after that. And that was the beginning of their whirlwind relationship that ended in marriage 13 days later.

Speaker 12 That is the definition of whirlwind.

Speaker 9 It certainly is.

Speaker 15 Ashley moved from Florida to Doug's home in Charleston, South Carolina, where the newlyweds became business partners as well. They formed a ballet company.
It was Ashley's dream come true.

Speaker 31 She said, I don't want to pick dancers in a room based on their height or their weight or their age, anything. I want to pick them based on their talent and their work ethic.

Speaker 15 Sarah Murowski was hired as a principal dancer. The nearly six-foot-tall ballerina says her height hindered her career.

Speaker 15 She bonded with Ashley, who was also tall, and was touched by Ashley and Doug's relationship.

Speaker 31 They're the most in-love couple I think I've ever met in person in my life. They're very touchy-feely, but not so much that it was obnoxious.

Speaker 15 By the summer of 2017, Ashley was pregnant. Doug embraced the idea of being an older dad.

Speaker 19 He was genuinely excited about

Speaker 29 the path forward.

Speaker 15 But investigators discovered their bright smiles didn't tell the whole story.

Speaker 12 There was darkness beneath the surface of this relationship.

Speaker 9 Very much so. There was a lot of darkness.

Speaker 15 Ashley gave Dr. Russell permission to speak with us.
She says Ashley told her Doug turned violent and abusive within weeks of their wedding.

Speaker 9 He's thrown furniture. He would push her into a wall, scream in her face, and punch the wall.

Speaker 15 Then Ashley said the abuse turned sinister.

Speaker 16 Ashley believed that Doug

Speaker 12 was poisoning her while she was pregnant, her and the unborn child.

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 15 Ashley claimed Doug would make her tea and was adamant she drink it even though she felt it made her sick.

Speaker 10 She began to suspect it was laced with something.

Speaker 15 Ashley also made this jaw-dropping accusation.

Speaker 9 Doug told her that he killed his wife, Frene.

Speaker 10 This is what she told you.

Speaker 15 Yes. Did he say how he killed his wife?

Speaker 9 He said he poisoned her and the police will always believe him and he will kill her too.

Speaker 15 About eight weeks into her pregnancy, Ashley said she felt she had no choice but to flee to her mom's place in Florida. The ballet company folded soon after.

Speaker 15 Ashley got a restraining order against Doug and didn't tell him when their daughter was born in the spring of 2018.

Speaker 15 She left his name off the birth certificate and asked a family court judge to terminate his parental rights. But even then, she said she couldn't escape him.
She believed Doug was stalking her.

Speaker 9 He crossed three state lines, even with a restraining order to follow her to Florida.

Speaker 15 The details of the shooting took Dr. Russell by surprise, given everything she'd heard about Doug and Ashley's relationship.

Speaker 9 I I was so shocked that it wasn't Ashley that was dead. I really believed he was going to kill her.

Speaker 15 Dr. Russell shared all this and more with detectives.
Was she giving you insight

Speaker 12 into Doug and Ashley's relationship, about how volatile it was?

Speaker 7 I was hearing a lot of complaints that Ashley had with Doug.

Speaker 15 In addition to Dr. Russell's statement, police reports documented the couple's tumultuous relationship.

Speaker 7 I started searching in our computer records database and noticed that there were several reports going back, I think, to 2017,

Speaker 7 reference to domestic violence, different complaints, and things like that.

Speaker 15 Given their history, investigators wondered if Doug's shooting was, in fact, a case of self-defense. But there was another side to this story, and it was a, he said, she said, for the ages.

Speaker 19 Ashley was severely abusing him emotionally and through the control of the child.

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Speaker 15 Detective Justin Warren had a growing stack of evidence suggesting Doug Benafield was a violent and abusive husband. But when he spoke with Doug's family, they painted a different picture.

Speaker 29 Growing up, he was a star athlete. He was a friend to everybody, just super kind.

Speaker 12 To anyone anyone who hears about the negative side of Doug, in your eyes, this is just a snapshot, a small snapshot of a man who was so much more than that.

Speaker 35 Absolutely.

Speaker 19 I don't want to make excuses for bad behavior, and I do not want to come across like I'm trying to say, you know, Doug was perfect and all this stuff. But no, but he owned his mistakes and he grew.

Speaker 15 David and Tommy acknowledge that Doug had a few angry outbursts, but say he regretted them and sought counseling.

Speaker 10 And David believes if anyone was a victim in the relationship, it was Doug.

Speaker 19 Ashley was severely abusing him emotionally and through the control of the child. Doug was not doing any of that.

Speaker 12 Ashley's therapist says that Doug told Ashley that he killed Renee.

Speaker 15 Is there any truth to that as far as you know?

Speaker 19 That is absolutely absurd.

Speaker 12 This reads like a lifetime movie.

Speaker 15 You have allegations of poison tea, stalking, murder.

Speaker 12 It goes on and on.

Speaker 27 Every time I thought this is the craziest thing I've ever heard, then I would hear something else.

Speaker 15 Attorney Stephanie Murphy represented Doug during his legal battles with Ashley.

Speaker 27 She tried to get Charleston law enforcement to exhume Renee's body to try to say that he had killed her. She was going to newspapers around the country talking about the poisoning.

Speaker 27 She made every allegation that she possibly could to multiple law enforcement agencies.

Speaker 15 Detectives learned that Doug fought to see his daughter after Ashley filed to terminate his parental rights. The couple faced off in family court in the summer of 2018.

Speaker 15 Baby Emerson was six months old, and Doug had never met her.

Speaker 36 Okay, let's go ahead and go on the record of Benefield vs. Benefield.
Case number two.

Speaker 15 This is a recording of the hearing. Ashley took the stand.

Speaker 37 When you lived with Douglas Benefield,

Speaker 37 was there domestic violence?

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 39 He hurt our pets in order to hurt me. He was verbally abusive.
He would yell and scream at me and he would

Speaker 37 threaten me.

Speaker 20 How many times did he punch holes in the drywall in the house?

Speaker 39 Several times.

Speaker 15 Ashley also presented lab reports and expert testimony as proof Doug had poisoned her while she was pregnant. Ashley made it clear what she thought was at stake for her daughter.

Speaker 38 I believe that if he were to have access to her now, that he very well could cause her serious harm

Speaker 38 or kill her.

Speaker 15 Doug testified, too.

Speaker 40 Never

Speaker 19 since we were together did I ever believe she was scared.

Speaker 15 He said he never stalked Ashley, but admitted to yelling at her, punching a few walls, and mistreating the pets on occasion.

Speaker 40 He's a big dog, and he jumped up in my lap. And yeah, I mean, 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.

Speaker 15 But Doug denied poisoning Ashley and used his own expert to debunk the lab reports. And he was adamant he played no role in his late wife's death.

Speaker 41 Ashley, Benifield has accused you of murdering your wife, Renee. Did you do that?

Speaker 40 No, I did not. She died of natural causes.

Speaker 15 Authorities confirmed Renee's death was not suspicious.

Speaker 27 The allegations against Doug were... at worst blown out of proportion, but at best just completely untrue.

Speaker 15 The judge seemed seemed to agree when she issued this scathing ruling.

Speaker 36 There is absolutely not a single scintilla of credibility that I'm attaching to anything that was testified to, at least in this hearing, of Miss Benefield. It starts from basically the absurd.

Speaker 36 We then move forward to

Speaker 36 the actual presentation that she's had in this courtroom, the turning on of tears when she thinks it's appropriate.

Speaker 36 There is not a single scintilla of credible evidence that Miss Benefield has ever been poisoned or suffered from any illness of any poison.

Speaker 15 The judge gave Doug immediate access to his daughter and granted him sole responsibility over her medical care. That's a turning point in all of this.

Speaker 27 It was a huge turning point. This was the court finding that the decisions that Ashley had made up to that point for her daughter were detrimental.

Speaker 27 So she took that away from Ashley and gave it to Doug.

Speaker 15 Four days after the ruling, Stephanie Murphy was there when Doug met Emerson. Was there a tender moment when he lays eyes on his daughter for the first time?

Speaker 27 She was a cute, plump little baby. And so there he was, just holding this little girl.
The look on his face was pure love.

Speaker 15 She was stunned by what happened next.

Speaker 27 Doug said, we're all gonna go together. Me and Ashley and our daughter.
I said, Doug, this is not a good idea. And he was so trusting, blindly trusting of her.

Speaker 15 The strange ballet between the two entered its next act. Doug got a place in Florida and saw Emerson regularly over the next two years.
He and Ashley also spent time together as a couple.

Speaker 15 But detectives discovered the relationship was still unpredictable. Ashley continued to confide in people that she was afraid of Doug and accused him of abusing their daughter.

Speaker 15 Doug told his attorney he thought Ashley might be mentally unstable. Yet they decided they would all move to Maryland where Ashley grew up, but still live separately.

Speaker 15 The night of the shooting, they were together packing Ashley's stuff.

Speaker 7 Obviously, with domestic violence, there are times that women or men will go back to the person that's abusing them. That does happen.

Speaker 15 But the detective was becoming convinced that this wasn't the case with Ashley. Because despite her making over a dozen complaints against Doug, something jumped out.
He had no criminal record.

Speaker 7 It's kind of a red flag that kind of goes up that says, huh, that's something we should pay attention to.

Speaker 16 Meaning that you're seeing these complaints against Doug, but no arrests of Doug. Correct.

Speaker 7 There was no evidence to suggest that a crime had actually occurred.

Speaker 15 Detective Dickerman thought there were also red flags at the scene. Why would Ashley agree to meet with Doug alone? And inside the house, investigators noticed this.

Speaker 24 There's a gun readily accessible in this bedroom when everything else is packed up.

Speaker 24 And in addition to that, you have another gun that's readily accessible in the pantry sitting by the peanut butter on the shelf.

Speaker 26 Is it loaded?

Speaker 4 It's loaded.

Speaker 15 Then they found a third loaded gun.

Speaker 24 It just kept building up and adding up more and more that

Speaker 24 something was going to happen this night.

Speaker 15 One crucial piece of the puzzle was still missing. Ashley had not given a statement detailing her version of events.
She wasn't telling anyone what happened, not even her therapist, Dr. Russell.

Speaker 15 Ashley actually lived with her for eight months after the shooting.

Speaker 10 Did she make any comments like, I had to do it, or

Speaker 15 he was going to kill me, anything like that?

Speaker 9 She didn't need to say anything like that. That was so evident.
It was so obvious.

Speaker 15 What had become obvious to Detective Warren and his team was that Ashley's claim of self-defense was full of holes.

Speaker 12 You're seeing this case shifting from self-defense to murder.

Speaker 7 Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 7 Absolutely.

Speaker 15 After a two-month investigation, Detective Warren had reached a stark conclusion about Ashley.

Speaker 26 We're looking at all these complaints.

Speaker 7 Everything's unfounded. She just was not believable in anything that she was saying, making these baseless accusations against Doug.

Speaker 15 And investigators were not buying her claim of self-defense. In November 2020, she was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

Speaker 15 Some in the media started calling her the Black Swan after the movie about a diabolical ballerina. People are calling Ashley this dark ballerina who is a manipulative, cold-blooded killer.

Speaker 9 If it wasn't so serious, I would be laughing. There's just nothing about that that's true by anybody who knows her.

Speaker 15 Doug's daughter Eva was convinced Ashley murdered her dad. And as the publicity around the case grew, she decided to let the world know.

Speaker 43 As y'all know, Ashley killed my dad.

Speaker 15 She turned to TikTok. Her videos dripping with sarcasm and dark humor racked up tens of millions of views.

Speaker 43 I just want to say thank you for being so supportive the last few weeks.

Speaker 15 Ashley had supporters too. And when her trial started in July of 2024, they came out in force, marching near the courthouse.

Speaker 15 Her daughter Emerson, now six years old, was front and center.

Speaker 19 Well, I'll tell you the thing that was the most concerning was that the daughter was out being displayed on this picket line or whatever you would call it.

Speaker 12 Well, that's your niece.

Speaker 19 That's my niece. She's holding up a picket sign put out there by adults.

Speaker 15 Assistant state attorneys Suzanne O'Donnell and Rebecca Friel knew some jurors might sympathize with Ashley.

Speaker 12 Would you say it would be your biggest challenge combating Ashley's version that she's a victim of domestic violence and people want to believe victims of domestic violence?

Speaker 23 100%.

Speaker 10 That was the main difficulty.

Speaker 23 I think an average person wants to believe when somebody says they're a victim, that they are, in fact, a victim.

Speaker 24 You ready to go?

Speaker 25 Let's bring the jury.

Speaker 15 The case was almost entirely circumstantial. And in Florida, Ashley's fate would be decided by six jurors.
Would they think she was a domestic abuse victim or a liar?

Speaker 44 There were also other complaints, domestic violence complaints.

Speaker 15 In opening statements, prosecutors said at times Doug had anger issues, but he never physically harmed Ashley.

Speaker 13 Not once did she ever say he choked her, kicked her, anything like that.

Speaker 12 There's things you can't escape, that he's not a saint. Yes, he was definitely not a saint, you are correct.
But did that day when that happened, did he do something that required deadly force?

Speaker 23 And that's what we tried to focus on.

Speaker 15 Prosecutors had to convince jurors Ashley's life was not in danger that night. Their theory? She shot Doug because she was desperate to have Emerson to herself, fearful she might lose her.

Speaker 13 This was a custody battle that this mother was going to win at all costs.

Speaker 10 And the cost was the life of Doug Benefield.

Speaker 12 And that is murder.

Speaker 15 Jurors learned Ashley fired four shots at Doug. Two hit him.

Speaker 15 The county medical examiner testified the fatal bullet entered Doug's side, not his front, as you might expect if he were attacking her.

Speaker 13 It entered here and landed here, so it was basically side to side. So he was not coming at her chest first.

Speaker 15 Doug's daughter Eva testified Ashley was sometimes volatile, blowing up if she didn't get her way.

Speaker 45 Over time, she tried to

Speaker 45 reprimand me a little bit more and kind of step into a motherly role. And I did not like that because it was so short after my mom passed away.

Speaker 13 Whenever she had a disagreement with you, how would she act?

Speaker 45 It was almost temper tantrum-like.

Speaker 15 Detective Chris Gillam worked in the sheriff's domestic violence unit. He'd been assigned Ashley's case.

Speaker 28 She started contacting me on a regular basis beginning.

Speaker 15 He testified that Ashley called him dozens of times over a three-month period.

Speaker 15 On one call, she demanded Doug be arrested at an upcoming family court hearing.

Speaker 28 She asked for me to arrest Doug when he came inside the courtroom in front of the presiding judge.

Speaker 22 Okay.

Speaker 13 And what was your reaction to that?

Speaker 19 That absolutely would not occur.

Speaker 28 She was upset

Speaker 28 and

Speaker 28 at that point

Speaker 28 I would call it a dramatic cry, hysterical cry, started happening. And she made a comment,

Speaker 28 something to the effect of if the judge sees you arrest him, this will help me keep my baby.

Speaker 15 When the detective told Ashley he had no reason to arrest Doug, he said she persisted.

Speaker 28 She let out like a screech or a high-pitched scream and she says, I'll do whatever I have to do to keep my baby you a-hole.

Speaker 15 Did that include shooting Doug Benafield? The defense was ready to fight back with a bold move.

Speaker 35 The defense calls Ashley Benafield.

Speaker 15 Ashley, for the first time, was finally ready to tell her story and share her secrets.

Speaker 8 Doug was standing in the doorway.

Speaker 17 His face was red.

Speaker 5 the veins were bulging in his neck.

Speaker 5 He said, You're

Speaker 5 done.

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Speaker 15 Ashley Benafield's attorney, Neil Taylor, stepped up to the podium to deliver his opening statement. His objective? To turn the trial on its head.

Speaker 35 I'm going to have some strong words about Douglas Benafield, the alleged victim.

Speaker 15 You say he's an alleged victim.

Speaker 35 Correct. I believe he was the instigator.
I believe he was the one who put Ashley in the position that compelled her to resort to self-defense and use deadly force.

Speaker 15 To back up his claim, he called this clinical social worker who counseled Doug and Ashley in 2020.

Speaker 30 Doug occurred as someone who was domineering and super controlling. He would fit the stereotype of an alpha male.

Speaker 15 Taylor then attacked what the state said was Ashley's motive. He challenged Detective Gillum's testimony, specifically that Ashley said she'd do whatever she had to to keep her baby.

Speaker 15 Gillam admitted that wasn't in his original report citing Ashley's complaints. It was only after Doug was killed, more than two years later, that Gillam documented it.

Speaker 35 Two and a half years later, you remember the details of the conversation.

Speaker 19 Absolutely.

Speaker 35 And what, exactly what she said, quotes. You quote her.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 15 The defense knew it would need to explain what went on inside that house the night of the shooting, but the only living eyewitness had barely barely said a word.

Speaker 35 Defense calls Ashley Benefield.

Speaker 15 Until Ashley rose to break her four-year silence and testify in her own defense.

Speaker 15 This is the big moment in the trial.

Speaker 29 I think so.

Speaker 12 Ashley getting up on that stand and raising her right hand.

Speaker 35 Yes, I thought it would be a make or break moment.

Speaker 15 Neil Taylor introduced the jury to a different Ashley from the one the state had just portrayed.

Speaker 48 I believe in the importance of kindness and compassion.

Speaker 15 He then jumped right into her relationship with Doug.

Speaker 35 Describe for us the man you thought you'd married.

Speaker 49 He was very loving and attentive.

Speaker 42 We laughed a lot.

Speaker 42 And

Speaker 48 he made me feel very special and loved.

Speaker 15 Ashley said it wasn't long before Kracks started appearing in Doug's charming sweet veneer.

Speaker 49 He started becoming very controlling and possessive.

Speaker 49 He started criticizing everything about me, like the way I would wear my hair or did my makeup or the way I dressed.

Speaker 15 Ashley told the jurors Doug's abuse continued and escalated.

Speaker 45 He threw a chair at me.

Speaker 42 He

Speaker 48 accused me of having a thing for the pastor.

Speaker 42 and he said I was a slut and all whore.

Speaker 15 She next described a terrifying moment while she and Doug were still living together in Charleston.

Speaker 49 We were having an argument, and

Speaker 48 it started getting really out of hand.

Speaker 48 He pulled a gun out, and he was like waving it around.

Speaker 8 And he pulled the trigger and he shot a hole in the ceiling in the kitchen.

Speaker 15 Ashley testified she wasn't the only one who had seen Doug's dark side,

Speaker 10 that there was a pattern to his abusive behavior.

Speaker 15 Just a few months into their marriage, she found disturbing text messages on one of Doug's old cell phones. The texts were from his late wife, Renee.

Speaker 35 I loved you, though, finding out you weren't really what you pretended to be. You kicking me so hard on New Year's Eve on our honeymoon.
Doug's prior wife accused him of being violent.

Speaker 35 It mirrored the allegations that Ashley had made about Doug.

Speaker 15 The defense then moved on to the moment everyone had been waiting for. What would Ashley say about the night of the shooting?

Speaker 15 She explained that Doug was with her at her mother's house getting ready for the move to Maryland and that his mood changed when they got into an argument over how to pack the truck.

Speaker 48 And he

Speaker 49 got really offended and upset.

Speaker 15 Ashley told the jury that she tried to get Doug to leave, but it only made matters worse.

Speaker 48 And he started screaming at me.

Speaker 34 He said, Shut the f up.

Speaker 48 He said, I don't have to leave. I can stay.

Speaker 15 So Ashley said she tried to leave, but Doug wouldn't let her.

Speaker 5 He said, where the f do you think you're going?

Speaker 35 Then what happens?

Speaker 5 He hit me in the side of the head.

Speaker 15 She said she fled to her bedroom to escape.

Speaker 35 Why?

Speaker 5 Because I was scared.

Speaker 35 Did you have anything in your room that could protect you?

Speaker 49 I had my gun.

Speaker 35 Did you grab the gun?

Speaker 42 Yes.

Speaker 17 His face was red.

Speaker 5 Like, the veins were bulging in his neck.

Speaker 5 The way he was looking at me, he didn't even look like Doug.

Speaker 22 His eyes were black.

Speaker 5 He said, you're fing done.

Speaker 6 He started coming towards me.

Speaker 5 And then he lunged at me

Speaker 5 and I started pulling the trigger

Speaker 35 Ashley. Tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury why you shot Doug.

Speaker 5 I was scared to death.

Speaker 5 I thought he was gonna kill me.

Speaker 35 As you sit here today, Ashley, how do you feel about what happened? Horrible.

Speaker 35 He's the father of my child.

Speaker 15 How do you think she did?

Speaker 35 I thought she did wonderful.

Speaker 35 Ashley successfully conveyed how volatile he was, how fearful she was.

Speaker 15 Ashley took some time to compose herself, but she wasn't done.

Speaker 15 She was about to face a much more hostile Inquisitor.

Speaker 6 And he started inching for her adorned mate.

Speaker 15 Well, show me. What was he doing?

Speaker 15 Ashley Bettafield had just spent two emotional hours on the stand being questioned by her attorney. Prosecutor Suzanne O'Donnell didn't buy it.

Speaker 13 I didn't believe most of what she said. I thought a lot of it was exaggerated.
She acted emotional about things that I didn't, it just didn't seem genuine to me.

Speaker 15 What was your goal cross-examining her?

Speaker 13 Hopefully get the jury to see

Speaker 13 what I saw. I also wanted them to focus on what happened in that room.

Speaker 15 But first, O'Donnell needed to convince jurors that in the days leading up to the shooting, Ashley had no reason to fear Doug.

Speaker 10 During this time, you're planning to move to Maryland.

Speaker 13 There's no violence going on.

Speaker 49 No.

Speaker 13 He's not hitting you.

Speaker 23 No, ma'am.

Speaker 13 He's not choking you.

Speaker 49 No ma'am.

Speaker 13 He's not shoving you around.

Speaker 22 No ma'am.

Speaker 13 I want to get to the night

Speaker 44 that all this happened.

Speaker 13 You knew Doug was coming over.

Speaker 22 Yes.

Speaker 13 You invited him over.

Speaker 22 Yes.

Speaker 13 You weren't concerned about him coming over.

Speaker 49 No, I knew he was coming.

Speaker 13 You weren't so afraid that you wanted your mother to stay there and watch?

Speaker 42 Um,

Speaker 49 no, we were just packing to move.

Speaker 13 Okay, so you weren't afraid?

Speaker 49 I definitely didn't expect this to happen.

Speaker 15 The prosecutor then moved on to the moments right before Ashley pulled the trigger.

Speaker 10 You say he slapped you?

Speaker 22 He hit me.

Speaker 13 Was his hand open or closed?

Speaker 13 I don't remember.

Speaker 13 And because of those things, you claim that you thought he was going to kill you.

Speaker 42 He had never hit me before.

Speaker 3 He wouldn't let me leave.

Speaker 5 I tried to leave. He stopped me.

Speaker 10 The question is, you thought he was going to kill you.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 15 Okay.

Speaker 10 Prosecutors say there were times when they felt something was missing from Ashley's shaking and sobbing on the stand. I kept asking her, I said, I don't see any tears.
Do you see any tears?

Speaker 15 O'Donnell didn't mention it in court. Instead, she tried tried a more subtle way to bring it to the jury's attention.

Speaker 3 Can we turn the lights up, please?

Speaker 10 You had someone in the courtroom turn the lights up?

Speaker 26 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 13 I did do that.

Speaker 16 I mean, that's, wow, I have never heard that before in any of the cases that I've covered on Dateline.

Speaker 4 And did she have any tears?

Speaker 13 No, not one.

Speaker 15 The prosecutor then asked Ashley to step off the stand and reenact what she said compelled her to use deadly force.

Speaker 6 And you started like inching or towards me.

Speaker 15 Well show me. What was he doing?

Speaker 6 Kind of like I don't even got like this and he was like making like fighting motions. I don't know.
I'm not a fighter. I don't know.

Speaker 5 Okay. It was scary.

Speaker 44 Did he have his hands and fists?

Speaker 6 Not at that point. They were like...

Speaker 44 I don't know. Was he coming at you like this?

Speaker 5 When you lunged at me, he came very quickly.

Speaker 44 Okay, so he lunged.

Speaker 15 Was his fist up when he lunged? I don't remember.

Speaker 13 How do you think she did with the reenactment this was the one time to tell everyone what scared you so badly that you felt like you had to take this man's life and we got hardly any information in her closing suzanne o'donnell asked the jury not to be swayed by ashley's performance did you ever see

Speaker 10 one tear come out of her eyes

Speaker 13 Did you ever see one drop of liquid, one red eye, one swollen eye? That goes to her credibility.

Speaker 35 I've presented to you everything that I possibly could to show you that her action in using deadly force was reasonable.

Speaker 15 Jurors left the courtroom to deliberate. They could find Ashley guilty of second-degree murder, manslaughter.

Speaker 15 or they could set her free.

Speaker 15 Six hours later, a note to the judge, the jury was deadlocked.

Speaker 3 Members of the jury, I've received a note from you.

Speaker 15 It says, unable to come to unanimous verdict. You've put your heart and soul into this case.

Speaker 12 And then

Speaker 8 you hear that. It was heartbreaking, to say the least, if they were in fact going towards being hung.

Speaker 14 One of the biggest fears for us was a mistrial.

Speaker 15 It was 10 p.m.

Speaker 16 The judge asked the jury to keep trying.

Speaker 15 And just one hour later, a verdict.

Speaker 50 We, the jury find the defendant is guilty of manslaughter, a lesser included offense.

Speaker 15 Guilty of manslaughter. Not guilty of second-degree murder.

Speaker 12 What's Ashley's reaction in that moment?

Speaker 19 She feels

Speaker 26 crushed.

Speaker 35 You're talking also about a mother with a six-year-old child.

Speaker 15 Was justice served?

Speaker 26 Absolutely.

Speaker 19 Absolutely. It was.

Speaker 15 David says Doug's daughter Eva feels the same way. After the verdict, she spoke to reporters outside the courthouse.

Speaker 43 I apologize to all the women who have gone through domestic violence situations. I think that what Ashley was doing was unfair to them.

Speaker 43 They deserve justice, and I'm very happy that my dad got the justice that he deserves.

Speaker 16 Ashley Benafield left the courtroom in handcuffs.

Speaker 15 The former ballerina, who once had big dreams, now faces up to 30 years behind bars. She will be sentenced next month.

Speaker 15 As for Emerson, now without either parent, she's being cared for by Ashley's mother.

Speaker 15 The sad irony, the custody battle continues.

Speaker 14 No child can go from their mother and their grandmother to our family in a single step. But we want to be a part of the child's life.

Speaker 15 What would you tell her about her father if she was someday watching this?

Speaker 19 I would tell her that she

Speaker 19 had the greatest dad that she could ever have imagined and that he truly loved her.

Speaker 4 That's all for this edition of Dateline. And check out our Talking Dateline podcast.

Speaker 4 Andrea Canning and Blaine Alexander will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 4 We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 Central. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News.

Speaker 26 Good night.

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