‘Black Swan Murderer’ sobs as neighbor’s chilling 911 call is played in court after she shot husband who she married after just 13 days

The so-called ‘Black Swan killer’ was seen sobbing in court on Tuesday as she listened to a 911 call a neighbor made moments after she murdered her estranged husband.

Ashley Benefield, now 32, ran to her neighbor’s house in Bradenton, Florida, on September 27, 2020, after fatally shooting Douglas Benefield, 59, whom she married in 2016 after just 13 days of dating.

“I heard a really loud banging on my door,” neighbor Josh Sant testified Tuesday, as Ashley faces charges of murder in the veteran’s death. according to Fox 13. ‘It did surprise me.’

He said he opened the door and found Ashley. She told him that her husband had attacked her and that she had shot him.

Sant then called 911 and told officers, “She just walked by, her ex-husband attacked her and she said she shot him,” according to an audio recording played in court Tuesday.

During the phone call, jurors could hear Sant trying to calm Benefield down, WFLA reports.

As the audio was played in court, Ashley, a former ballerina, could be seen crying.

She now claims she acted solely in self-defense, as her lawyers portray Doug, her daughter’s father, as a domestic abuser.

The couple met in August 2016 at Ben Carson’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, while she was campaigning for then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Just 13 days later they got married.

In the early days of their relationship, “they were together all the time,” Doug’s 23-year-old daughter Eva from a previous marriage testified.

“They were lovely, always in public. They never left each other’s side,” she said.

Within a year of their marriage, Doug, a retired Navy officer, helped Ashley realize her dream of starting a ballet company, using his own money and contacts.

He served as the company’s CEO, while Ashley took on the role of executive director.

However, shortly after the company was founded, it was sued by dancers and choreographers, claiming breach of contract because they were fired just weeks after being hired.

Doug also reversed his vasectomy and Ashley became pregnant three months later.

That’s when everything changed, according to Assistant District Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell.

She said Ashley moved to Brandenton from South Carolina to live with her mother because she started having morning sickness, and she never lived with Doug again after that.

‘They continued a long-distance relationship when she first moved to Florida and continued to try to stay together and communicate, but around the same time as the ballet [company] “As the man collapses, Ashley Benefield begins to complain to the victim,” O’Donnell told the jury.

She began accusing Doug of poisoning her and committing non-physical domestic violence against her.

But detectives with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office conducted a five-week investigation and could find no evidence to support her claims of abuse.

Prosecutors now allege that Doug’s killing was a last-ditch effort to gain custody of their daughter, who was 2 years old at the time of the shooting.

“This is a case about a woman who decided early in her pregnancy that she wanted to be a single mother,” O’Donnell argued. “She didn’t want the father of this child to have any visitors.

“This is a long story. This was a custody battle that the mother was going to win at all costs, and the prize was Doug Benefield’s life.”

Prosecutors allege that Doug did everything he could to repair their marriage and keep their family together.

On the day Douglas died, Ashley was preparing to move with her daughter to Maryland to live with her mother.

Doug also planned to move to the Old Line State, but he would live there separately from his wife and daughter.

He had arrived at Ashley’s home in Bradenton to help them pack when he was shot four times in Ashley’s bedroom.

In a previously submitted motion obtained by Law & Crime, Defense attorneys allege that Doug was “cheerful, excited and lively” upon arrival, but that he eventually became “agitated, sullen and intimidating.”

After verbally abusing his wife, Doug allegedly hit her with a moving box, causing abrasions, the defense alleges.

“Doug Benefield knew full well that day that this relationship was over,” Ashley’s attorney, Neil Taylor, argued in court.

He further alleged that Doug was manipulative and “considered Ashley Benefield his property.”

“He was 30 years older than Ashley and obsessed with her. He successfully pretended that he wasn’t interested in winning her hand,” Taylor said of their relationship.

‘Despite promoting himself as a religious, honorable, and decent man, Benefield was a manipulative, cunning, and abusive man who desperately wanted to be in control.’

Taylor then told the jury that Doug had once fired a gun into the kitchen ceiling to stop Ashley from talking, that he had thrown a loaded gun at her, that he had hit their dog in the face, knocking it unconscious, and that he regularly carried a concealed firearm “ready to fire.”

He also claimed that after Ashley and Doug separated, he followed her illegally, often without her permission and sometimes even driving from out of state to keep an eye on her.

Doug is said to have stood in the neighbor’s backyard in the middle of the night at least once to see her.

Taylor also noted Doug’s “prior marital history of domestic violence,” Law & Crime reports.

He said previous incidents would be confirmed by law enforcement.

The defense even plans to call O’Donnell as a witness, as she refused to press charges against Doug following Ashley’s previous claims of abuse, Report from Court TV.

“Ashley Benefield was afraid of him,” Taylor claimed of the deceased.

“She left him a letter when she moved three years before the murder, detailing how scared she was of him because of all these actions. She feared for herself and for her unborn child.”

The defense has even filed documents indicating that they will present evidence proving that Ashley suffers from “battered spouse syndrome.”

He added: ‘The only thing that can be established with certainty here is that Douglas Benefield was a violent abuser, that Ashley Benefield’s efforts to appease him were entirely consistent with what battered women do, especially when a child is involved, and that Ashley’s performance and use of deadly force were justified under the circumstances.’

Outside the Florida courthouse on Monday, protesters showed their support for the former ballerina.

“We really stand behind Ashley,” her predecessor, Mike Brown, told Fox 13.

“We have a group of domestic violence survivors standing with us, ready to make justice happen.”

But before jurors were seated Monday, the defense sought to delay Ashley’s trial for 60 days, arguing that recent court rulings had severely hampered their ability to mount an effective defense.

Judge Matt Whyte denied the request, saying the legal team had more than enough time to prepare in the three and a half years since Ashley was charged.

The team had also previously attempted to have the second-degree murder charge against Ashley dropped.

But Whyte refused to dismiss the charges at a hearing last year.

In his ruling, Whyte wrote that the evidence “clearly and convincingly demonstrates that the defendant is not entitled to court-ordered immunity from criminal prosecution because she was not justified in using deadly force against the victim.”

Ashley now faces a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison if she is found guilty of Doug’s murder after the two-week trial.