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Former ballerina Ashley Benafield was in the middle of a child custody battle with her estranged husband when she fatally shot him.

She claims that she was in fear for her life but prosecutors say it was murder.

I'm Vinny Politan and welcome to the court TV podcast.

This week we have opening statements from the Black Swan Murder Trial.

Here both sides lay out their cases for the jury that is tasked with determining if this shooting was in self-defense or in cold blood.

This is the Court TV Podcast with Vinny Polytant.

The attorneys will now have the opportunity to make an opening statement to you. Please remember that what the attorneys say is not evidence and should not be considered

by you as evidence.

However, it is important to listen as this is their chance to tell you what they believe the evidence will be in this case.

State. This case is about a woman who very early on in her pregnancy decided she wanted to be a single mother and she did not want the father

of this child to have any visitation, her husband.

And everything she did from that point on was to attain that goal.

And she would stop at nothing to attain that goal.

She tried several things in the system that you'll hear the courts law enforcement

department of children and families no one got on her side.

And at the end, when there was no other option,

she shoots him and kills him and claims self-defense. Now this couple, Doug Benifield and Ashley Benifield, were married. They had

moved to Florida from South Carolina. They lived together in South Carolina. Now when they lived down here in

Florida and Bradenton, they did not live together. Obviously there were issues. Doug Benafield lived in his own apartment. Ashley

Benafield lived with her mother, Alicia Byers, in a home with their daughter

once she had when she gave birth. She had this daughter who at the time was a

...