The ballet boss killed by his glamorous ballerina wife had an ‘angry side’ to him, former members of their dance studio revealed.
Ashley Benefield, 32, was found guilty of manslaughter in what the media called her ‘Black Swan’ murder trial after she shot and killed her husband Doug Benefield, 59, on September 27, 2020.
Ashley has insisted that she acted in self defense against Doug, who she married in 2016 after dating for 13 days.
Now, 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 that 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 then what they experienced in the studio, Walborn added that performers were not getting paid, and that Ashley would often be absent.
Despite not getting paid, one day Doug showed up to the studio with wads of cash and handed it out to the dancers ‘one-by-one,’ with Walborn adding that he hoped it would ‘fix everything.’
During this odd exchange, Walborn recalled another dancer speaking up and insisting that everyone ‘keep your records and receipts of what’s going on in order to protect yourself because this is odd.’
The dancer’s reaction quickly enraged Doug, as he said: ‘You don’t need to keep receipts – don’t worry about it. I have it taken care of,’ according to Walborn.
Other former ballerinas have also shed light on the dark truth behind the dance company, as they exclusively told DailyMail.com how the entire failed operation ‘felt wrong.’
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 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 Benefield 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 made her feel even more uncomfortable about what was happening within the dance company.
Ashley met Doug- a recently widowed father- at Ben Carson’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, in August 2016 when she was 24 and he was 54. She had been campaigning for then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
They got married just 13 days later and soon after launched the American National Ballet company.
In the early days of their relationship, ‘They were just with each other all the time,’ Doug’s 23-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, Eva, testified.
‘They were lovey dovey, PDA all the time. They never left each other’s side,’ she said.
After being married for one year, Doug, a retired Naval flight officer, helped Ashley achieve her dream of starting a ballet company, using his own money and contacts.
He acted as the company’s CEO, while Ashley took on the role as executive director.
But, shortly after the company’s founding, it was sued by dancers and choreographers who alleged their contracts were breached when they were fired just weeks after their hiring.
Doug also reversed his vasectomy, and Ashley became pregnant three months later with their daughter Emerson, now six years old.
That is when everything changed, Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell claimed in court in July.
She said Ashley moved from their home in South Carolina to Florida to live with her mother as she started to experience morning sickness, and from that point on, she never lived with Doug again.
‘They continued a long-distance relationship when she first moved to Florida and continued trying to keep together and communication, but about the same time as the ballet [company] collapses, Ashley Benefield starts complaining against the victim,’ O’Donnell told jurors.
She began accusing Doug of poisoning her and of non-physical domestic violence.
Ashley said that Doug would constantly bring her teas that she thought contained poison, CBS News reported.
But detectives from the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office conducted a five-week investigation and were unable to find any evidence to support her claims of abuse.
Prosecutors argued that killing Doug was a last-ditch effort to gain custody of their daughter, who was two years old at the time of the shooting.
‘This is a case about a woman who, early on in her pregnancy, decided she wanted to be a single mother,’ O’Donnell argued. ‘She did not want the father of this child to have any visitation.
‘This is a long story, this was a custody battle this mother would win at all costs, and the cost was the life of Doug Benefield.’
The prosecutors argued that Doug was doing everything he could rectify their marriage and keep their family together.
After hearing Ashley’s side of the story in court, where she insisted she was the victim, not her late husband, jurors decided not to convict her of murder, but of manslaughter.
She is currently facing between 11 and 30 years in prison and is expected at a sentencing hearing on October 22.