Ashley Benefield trial: Testimony continues for Lakewood Ranch mother accused in husband’s death
MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – State witnesses continued with testimonies Wednesday morning, including law enforcement, Doug Benefield’s family attorney, and those close to Ashley Benefield, such as her mother and a mental health professional who she lived with after the deadly shooting.
In 2017, Ashley Benefield moved to Bradenton, Florida to live with her mother Alicia Byers. She was pregnant with Doug’s child at the time.
Doug hired family attorney Stephanie Murphy in March 2018. On Wednesday, she testified about some of the couple’s legal battles leading up to the shooting.
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“Initially, the purpose of hiring me was to draft a letter to Ashley, who was pregnant with their child at the time. I did and sent it the day after I was retained. The purpose of the letter was to open the door for discussion about Doug’s participation in the upcoming birth of their child, but also to advise that if she did not feel comfortable with him being present at the birth, he was respecting her need for space,” Murphy said.
Murphy said Ashley never responded to the emailed letter, adding that Ashley was induced the day after the letter was sent. The child was born a few days later — weeks earlier than the due date, according to Murphy’s testimony. Doug had no knowledge his daughter was born until five to six weeks later.
Murphy said Benefield started filing complaints against her husband claiming domestic violence and that he was poisoning her. An injunction against him was not granted. He was able to meet his daughter as part of a court-granted parenting plan when she was 6 months old.
During their first meeting, Murphy said Ashley decided to go with Doug for the visitation, which came as a surprise to Murphy.
“We had just been in knockdown, drag-out litigation for months with just horrendous allegations that were unfounded and yet she said, ‘I wanna go with you’ and he said, ‘Okay,'” Murphy said. “I pulled Doug aside and I cautioned him about going with her. I am his attorney, so I advised him. I said, ‘This is not a good idea, she is trying to set you up for something, don’t do this’ and he said, ‘I understand. I am going to go ahead and do it anyway,'” the attorney continued.
After that first meeting, about 11 months of peace were held between the couple, but Murphy said around the time the two were supposed to be moving back in together, they stopped talking.
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Doug officially filed for divorce and Ashley started making more complaints, including another injunction filing.
During that period of legal hearings, the two agreed to do a psychological evaluation. Murphy said the details of the evaluation were supposed to be revealed during a hearing set for Sept. 30, 2020. However, Doug was killed three days before the hearing.
Ashley’s attorney Neil Taylor said the reason his client shot her husband was out of fear for her life. He said on Sept. 27, threats and intimidation turned to physical violence and she was forced to defend her life.
However, prosecutors said Ashley was willing to do whatever it took to keep custody of her daughter.
“This was a custody battle that this mother was going to win at all costs and the cost was the life of Doug Benefield,” Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell said.
During Wednesday’s testimony, the court also heard from Chris Gillum, a domestic violence investigator with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office. He said a statement by Ashley years before the shooting raised concerns only after Doug was killed.
“She let out like a screech or a high-pitched scream and she says, ‘I will do whatever I have to do to keep my baby you [expletive0,'” Gillum said.
The investigator had recently passed along a South Carolina injunction violation case that Ashley reported in Manatee County to the State Attorney’s Office. Gillum said the statement was made after Ashley repeatedly requested that Doug be arrested during an unrelated civil court hearing in front of the presiding judge and Gillum repeatedly told her that was not going to happen.
“I didn’t see anything she said at that time as a direct threat to Doug. It had no relevance to my case. I saw this as her just having this massive meltdown because she was not getting her way with me,” Gillum said. “At that point, it was just not relevant for my case. There was no reason, but circumstances had changed. I thought that was information that needed to be heard,” he continued.
Gillum contacted the detective investigating Doug’s death days after the shooting took place and wrote a report sharing that statement Ashley made two years earlier soon after.
State testimony is slated to pick back up Thursday morning around 9 a.m.
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