A family member of Doug Benefield and a prosecutor in the case dubbed “The Black Swan” murder trial slammed Ashley Benefield’s dramatic testimony.
Ashley Benefield, a 33-year-old former ballerina, was charged with second-degree murder in the 2020 fatal shooting of her husband, 58-year-old Doug Benefield. She was convicted on the lesser offense of manslaughter.
Tommie Benefield, Doug Benefield’s cousin, claimed that Ashley Benefield did not actually cry during her testimony.
“She’s like 10, 15 minutes into pretending to cry, and she’s putting on a good show, but there’s no tears,” Tommie Benefield said in a recent podcast interview. “And the judge says to her at some point, ‘Hey, there’s a box of Kleenex if you need it,’ because he can’t see she’s not crying. But everyone in the courtroom and the jury can see she’s not crying.”
Ashley Benefield took the stand in her trial on July 26. She became emotional multiple times during her testimony, visibly …