The sound of handcuffs clicking shut reverberated through a Manatee County
courtroom late Tuesday night at the conclusion of the Ashley Benefield trial.
For the family of Doug Benefield, a naval pilot officer who was shot and killed by his
estranged wife in Lakewood Ranch in September 2020, the sound was of ringing justice.
"The sound was as good as the sight," Tommie Benefield, Doug Benefield's cousin and a witness in the trial,
said about watching Ashley Benefield be handcuffed,
taken into the custody of the Manatee County Sheriff's Office and led out of the courtroom.
After almost seven hours of deliberations, a six-person jury returned with a verdict of guilty of manslaughter,
a lesser offense than the second-degree murder charge for Ashley Benefield, 32.
They found that the former ballerina possessed and discharged a gun and as a result killed Doug Benefield.