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“Black Swan” defendant Ashley Benefield had a gun in her bra the night she met her husband
The stormy relationship between Doug and Ashley Benefield, the star-crossed couple at the heart of the notorious “Black Swan” murder case, began and ended with a .45 caliber gun, according to what was revealed publicly over the years.
During testimony at Ashley Benefield’s murder trial in July 2024, she said that the evening she met Doug Benefield at an upscale political dinner, she was carrying a .45 caliber gun in her bra.
Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O’Donnell, who prosecuted the homicide case for Manatee County, Florida, put this question to Ashley during the trial: “You actually bragged … about having guns, correct?”
“Yes,” Ashley Benefield replied.
“During the time that you met Doug at a political event, you had one of the guns in your bra?” O’Donnell asked.
“Yes. That’s where I conceal it, carry it,” Ashley Benefield testified.
The story of Ashley and Doug Benefield will be featured in a two-hour broadcast, “The Case of the Black Swan, Part 1 and Part 2,” airing on “48 Hours” Saturday, Sept. 7, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET/PT, and will also stream on Paramount+. The special broadcast, reported by “48 Hours” contributor Jim Axelrod, will give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the couple’s seesaw relationship from the time they met in 2016 until the night in September 2020 when Ashley killed Doug, allegedly in self-defense.
At her murder trial in July 2024, Ashley Benefield testified for the first time about what she says happened the night she shot and killed Doug Benefield. In emotionally charged testimony, she claimed the shooting was in self-defense after Doug hit her and cornered her in a bedroom. She said that’s when she reached for her nearby .45 caliber gun that was on top of a storage bin.
“I just held the gun like in front of me and I said, stop, and he like turned and he got into this like almost like a fighting stance. He started like moving his arms and his hands around…he started coming towards me and he lunged at me, and I just pulled the trigger,” Ashley Benefield testified at her trial.
Ashley Benefield’s lawyer Neil Taylor then said, “Tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury why you shot Doug.”
“I was scared to death,” she said. “I thought he was gonna kill me.”
State prosecutors called Ashley Benefield a “manipulator” and claimed she killed Doug Benefield as part of her plot to gain sole custody of their now-6-year-old daughter, Emerson.
When investigators and crime scene technicians searched the house after the shooting, they found two other loaded guns. One of Ashley Benefield’s guns was found in her backpack hanging in the closet of the bedroom where the shooting took place. A third gun belonging to Ashley’s mother was found in a kitchen pantry, according to the testimony of a crime scene technician for the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.
At the time, Doug Benefield was helping Ashley and her mother pack for a move to Maryland.
“Why does anyone need three loaded guns, unsecured, in a house with a 2-and-a-half-year-old?” asked Stephanie Murphy, Doug Benefield’s family lawyer. “There’s no answer to me other than the obvious, which is that she planned to kill Doug that night.”
But Ashley’s lawyer Neil Taylor had a different take, as he told Axelrod when Axelrod asked Taylor, “What caused her to have three loaded guns in the house, the night she shot and killed Doug?”
According to Taylor, it was all part and parcel of the fear Ashley Benefield felt around Doug Benefield as an abused woman. “What might you think would precipitate such a circumstance?” Taylor responded. “Do you think fear, anticipation?”
Ashley Benefield admitted on the stand that Doug Benefield had never struck her before she alleges he did so on the night of the shooting. But in earlier court hearings when Doug Benefield was still alive, he did admit to an episode early in their marriage when he fired a gun into their kitchen ceiling in order to stop Ashley Benefield from arguing with him. He also admitted striking their family dog, named Sully. Ashley Benefield claimed Doug Benefield punched the dog and knocked him out but Doug said he only had pushed the dog when it climbed into his lap while he was having an argument with Ashley.
Ashley Benefield, a former ballerina, was found guilty of manslaughter in July 2024 for shooting her estranged husband Doug Benefield twice with her .45 caliber gun inside her Florida home in September 2020. She faces up to 30 years in prison. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 22.
Ashley Benefield’s lawyers are claiming there was prosecutorial and juror misconduct during the trial and have asked for a new trial. The prosecution denies that any misconduct took place. A hearing on those motions will be held Sept. 16 in Manatee County.
The mother of the embattled hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs released a statement Sunday defending her son against the criminal charges and multiple allegations of sexual misconduct he is currently facing while in federal custody in New York.
Combs, 54, has been detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since pleading not guilty on Sept. 17 to federal charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
In a statement released through her lawyers, Janice Smalls Combs says it has been “unbearable” to witness “what seems to be like a public lynching of my son before he has had the opportunity to prove his innocence.”
She then mentions that her son “has made mistakes in his past” and refers to an episode caught on security video that appeared to show Combs attacking singer Cassie, his former girlfriend, in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016. In May, Combs apologized for the incident, saying his behavior was “inexcusable” and that he took “full responsibility” for his actions.
In November, Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit accusing Combs of rape and abuse during their relationship; he denied the accusations. They reached a settlement the following day.
The indictment against Combs refers to the incident caught by the hotel security cameras. According to the indictment, Combs attempted to bribe a hotel security staff member who intervened in the incident to keep them quiet.
“My son may not have been entirely truthful about certain things, such as denying he has ever gotten violent with an ex-girlfriend when the hotel’s surveillance showed otherwise,” Janice Smalls Combs says in the statement. “Sometimes, the truth and a lie become so closely intertwined that it becomes terrifying to admit one part of the story, especially when that truth is outside the norm or is too complicated to be believed. This is why I believe my son’s civil legal team opted to settle the ex-girlfriend’s lawsuit instead of contesting it until the end, resulting in a ricochet effect as the federal government used this decision against my son by interpreting it as an admission of guilt.”
She adds that it has been “agonizing” to see people joke about her son’s situation “over lies and misconceptions.”
At the end of the statement, she asks fans and the public “to not judge him before you’ve had the chance to hear his side.”
“My son is not the monster they have painted him to be,” she says. “I can only pray that I am alive to see him speak his truth and be vindicated.”
In the indictment, prosecutors allege that since 2008 Combs has been part of a criminal organization that engaged in or attempted to engage in sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, obstruction of justice and other offenses.
Prosecutors accused Combs of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women at events Combs referred to as “Freak Offs.”
“The ‘Freak Offs’ sometimes lasted days at a time, involved multiple commercial sex workers and often involved a variety of narcotics, such as ketamine, ecstasy and GHB, which Combs distributed to the victims to keep them obedient and compliant,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, of the Southern District of New York, told reporters when the indictment was unsealed.
On Oct. 1, Texas attorney Tony Buzbee said he was representing 120 accusers who have come forward with new sexual misconduct allegations against Combs. Buzbee said he expects lawsuits to be filed within the next month. Buzbee described the victims as 60 males and 60 females, and that 25 were minors at the time of the alleged misconduct.
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After days of uncertainty, the Federal Aviation Administration announced Sunday that SpaceX had been cleared to press ahead with the planned Monday launch of the European Space Agency’s $398 million Hera asteroid probe, stormy weather permitting.
With forecasters calling for an 85% chance of thick clouds and showers that would trigger a delay, Hera’s launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is targeted for 10:52 a.m. EDT Monday. The forecast is 75% “no-go” if launch is delayed to Tuesday.
“The last hurdle is the weather. So, please, please, I need you to do something about it!” Hera project manager Ian Carnelli joked with reporters Sunday. “It’s the only thing I really cannot control. … It looks like we have some opening around the time of launch, but it’s really impossible to say at the moment.”
ESA
Hurricane Milton, meanwhile, poses threats throughout the week as the cyclone is expected to cross the Florida peninsula Wednesday and move out over the Atlantic Ocean near Florida’s Space Coast.
Launch of NASA’s $5.2 billion Europa Clipper mission, which had been planned for Thursday from the Kennedy Space Center, has been put on hold pending passage of the storm.
“The safety of launch team personnel is our highest priority, and all precautions will be taken to protect the Europa Clipper spacecraft,” said Tim Dunn, a senior launch director with NASA’s Launch Services Program.
“Once we have the ‘all-clear’ followed by facility assessment and any recovery actions, we will determine the next launch opportunity.”
Likewise, the return to Earth of three astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon ferry ship has been delayed by predicted bad weather.
Crew 8 commander Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, launched to the International Space Station last March. They had planned to undock Monday, returning to Earth to close out a 217-day mission.
National Weather Service
But NASA announced Sunday their departure would be delayed to at least Thursday because of expected bad weather. Crew Dragon ferry ships require calm winds and seas in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean to permit a safe splashdown.
As for the Falcon 9, the FAA clearance only applied to the Hera launch while the agency continues overseeing an investigation into what caused a Falcon 9 second stage to malfunction Sept. 28 and miss its targeted re-entry point into Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.
SpaceX routinely sends spent second stages into the atmosphere for destructive breakups at the end of their missions to prevent possible collisions or other problems that might add to the space debris already in low-Earth orbit.
The FAA wants to make sure the problem is understood and corrected so future re-entries are carried out as planned, ensuring any debris that survives re-entry heating will splash down harmlessly in targeted ocean impact “footprints,” well away from shipping lanes and populated areas.
The second stage being used for the Hera mission will boost the space probe into deep space, using all of its propellant in the process. It will not return to Earth, so a malfunction, should one occur, would pose no safety threat.
“The FAA has determined that the absence of a second stage reentry for this mission adequately mitigates the primary risk to the public in the event of a reoccurrance of the mishap experienced with the Crew-9 mission,” the agency said in a statement, referring to the most recent Falcon 9 flight.
NASA
“Safety will drive the timeline for the FAA to complete its review of SpaceX’s Crew-9 mishap investigation report and when the agency will authorize Falcon 9 to return to regular operations,” the statement concluded.
The FAA did not address plans to launch the Europa Clipper atop a Falcon Heavy rocket Thursday for its long-awaited mission to Jupiter and its ice-covered moon Europa.
Like the Hera mission, the Clipper’s upper stage, the same one used for all Falcon-family rockets, will not return to Earth. Instead, it will burn all of its propellants to accelerate the probe to an Earth-escape velocity of 25,000 mph.
But FAA clearance to proceed, assuming it comes in time, likely will be a moot point, at least in the near term. It is unlikely the Clipper and its Falcon Heavy rocket will be moved to the Kennedy Space Center launch pad until after Milton has passed through the area.
