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Former ballerina Ashley Benefield found guilty of death of husband

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Former ballerina Ashley Benefield found guilty of death of husband

The sound of handcuffs clicking shut reverberated by way of a Manatee County courtroom late Tuesday evening on the conclusion of the Ashley Benefield trial. 

For the household of Doug Benefield, a naval pilot officer who was shot and killed by his estranged spouse in Lakewood Ranch in September 2020, the sound was of ringing justice.

“The sound was pretty much as good because the sight,” Tommie Benefield, Doug Benefield’s cousin and a witness within the trial, mentioned about watching Ashley Benefield be handcuffed, taken into the custody of the Manatee County Sheriff’s Workplace and led out of the courtroom. 

After virtually seven hours of deliberations, a six-person jury returned with a verdict of responsible of manslaughter, a lesser offense than the second-degree homicide cost for Ashley Benefield, 32. They discovered that the previous ballerina possessed and discharged a gun and consequently killed Doug Benefield.

The decision was learn out in a principally empty courtroom — with Doug Benefield’s household filling half the gallery — in comparison with how full the benches had been simply hours earlier than and all through the trial.

After 5 days of testimony, sidebars and objections the prosecution and protection gave closing arguments early Tuesday afternoon. 

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