On Wednesday, November 4, 2020, former ballet dancer Ashley Benefield was arrested for shooting and killed her husband. Manatee County (FL) deputies arrested her even though she reportedly ran to a neighbor’s house, reported the homicide, and claimed that it had been done in self-defense. However, investigators and other law enforcement professionals are now calling B.S. on her story.

Deputies also reported that the couple were separated and they were embroiled in an intense custody battle over the couple’s daughter. Naturally, the couple wasn’t living together, with the victim Mr. Benefield living at one residence and the defendant staying at her mother’s house. Benefield went over to see his estranged wife at her mother’s house on September 27th, and that’s when the shooting occurred. No one else besides the couple were at the home at the time these events unfolded.

The T.V. program Law and Crime obtained an affidavit that showed that after the defendant had fled to a male neighbor’s house, police were called to the scene and they eventually found her husband collapsed on the floor of his wife’s bedroom. He would eventually succumb to the two gunshot wounds after he was taken to a hospital.

While it’s all well and good if the defendant wants to claim self-defense, many individuals don’t think that it meshes very well with the evidence at hand. For one thing, the author of the affidavit claimed that he didn’t see any injuries that would be consistent with this story. Additionally, he failed to see any clothes that were “ripped, stretched out, or torn.” Due to a search warrant, investigators were able to get photographs and DNA from the defendant, but all of that extra effort only turned up a “minor scratch.”

Additionally, authorities also said that they didn’t find any weapons either on or near the victim. They also were a bit befuddled by the entry wounds. If this truly was a shooting done in self-defense, then why was it that the entry wounds appeared to be coming in Mr. Benefield’s back? Finally, authorities couldn’t help but notice that they also could not find any evidence of stippling on the victim. “Stippling” is a phenomenon that occurs when an individuals uses a firearm at close range. Because there was no stippling on Mr. Benenfield’s body, it appeared to the authorities that he wasn’t handling a firearm at the time.

“It also doesn’t appear that Douglas [Benefield] was engaged in any type of combative or defensive stance,” an investigator commented further.

Investigators also noted that Mrs. Benefield had been making numerous allegations against her husband since she discovered that she was pregnant. Although these claims were not detailed, reports have came out saying that they were allegations of physical domestic violence. However, none of these claims resulted in criminal charges, and all of the associated cases were closed because they were in an “unfounded” status. Because of this, many of the authorities believed that the defendant was merely presenting these allegations because she was trying to keep her child away from him. Officials also noted that there was a judge who didn’t think very highly of these allegations, saying that he didn’t find “a scintilla of truth” in any of them.

Additionally, the attorney of record for Ashley Benefield did not return any requests for comment.

If you have ever lived in South Carolina, you might recognize these names. Ashley Benefield was originally a dancer, and she and her husband founded the American National Ballet in Charleston. Unfortunately, the existence of this organization was very brief and very rocky.

Douglas Benefield was killed just shy of his 59th birthday on October 2nd. What do you think about this harrowing story?