Man Charged In Deadly River Stabbing Sentenced, Says ‘My Soul Is Broken’ Sooner than Learning Future

“The sound was almost pretty much as good as a result of the sight,” Doug’s cousin Tommie Benefield suggested the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, of seeing Ashley taken into custody. After seven hours, the jury returned a accountable verdict.

Ashley was found accountable of manslaughter, a lesser price than the second-degree murder price the prosecution was looking for. Her safety was that she was showing in self-defense, nevertheless the jury clearly didn’t buy it.

Whereas her authorized skilled tried to have her out on bond until her sentencing, the state argued she has incentive to flee going by as a lot as 30 years in jail. The resolve ordered her held in custody until sentencing.

Doug’s 23-year-old daughter Eva didn’t buy Ashley’s story of being a sufferer of dwelling abuse, each, telling the media, “I apologize to all the women who’ve gone by way of dwelling violence situations. I imagine what Ashley was doing was unfair to them. They deserve justice and I’m very joyful that my dad acquired the justice he deserves.”

Assistant State Lawyer Suzanne O’Donnell, who tried the case in opposition to Ashley, talked about, “Dwelling violence is completely an precise downside. There are quite a lot of, many girls which may be in horrendous situations.”

“Girls, and usually males, which may be in situations which may be being abused and overwhelmed recurrently,” she continued. “People who actually really feel like they will’t get out, no method to get out. This isn’t this defendant, and it under no circumstances was.”

All by the week-long trial, the prosecution painted 32-year-old Ashley as an opportunistic killer who murdered her husband so she may be a single guardian after attempting to deny him shared custody, nevertheless her safety launched a definite picture.

All by this earlier week, Ashley’s authorized skilled Neil Taylor shared the story of a partner scared of her husband after allegedly enduring many circumstances of emotional abuse. Ashley shot and killed Douglas on September 27, 2020.

Ashley herself took the stand on Friday and tearfully testified that whereas she had killed her husband, it was executed in self-defense after he turned bodily abusive.

One witness, Bruce Ferris, a psychological properly being expert specializing in dwelling and family traumas, testified that Ashley’s displayed behaviors match the pattern of anyone who’s a sufferer of dwelling abuse. He known as them “strategies of compliance, not desirous to poke the bear.”

Dr. Jason Quintal, who’d labored with the couple beforehand, described Doug as “somebody who was domineering” and “super-controlling.” A realtor, Vincent Vizzaccaro, testified that Doug had wanted to buy a house straight behind the one Ashley was dwelling in all through their separation.

Lastly, a forensics educated, Michael Haag, took the stand and talked about bullet trajectories from the crime scene. He testified that Ashley wanted to have been transferring by the taking footage, which sits in stark distinction to the prosecution saying she shot her husband from behind.

In accordance with the prosecution, Ashley murdered her husband so she may be a single mother.

“This case is a few girl who very early on in her being pregnant decided she wanted to be a single mother,” argued Assistant State Lawyer Suzanne O’Donnell. “She would stop at nothing to amass that goal.”

They launched their very personal proof regarding the taking footage, as properly. “Based totally on entry wounds on Douglas it doesn’t appear that he was going by Ashley when she began taking footage,” the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office talked about in an affidavit obtained by The New York Submit.

“It moreover doesn’t appear that Douglas had taken any sort of defensive or combative stance. He was not found to have any weapons on his explicit individual or near him,” the affidavit continued.

It’s conclusion: “Detectives found no proof that she was showing in self-defense when she fired various footage at her husband.”

Ashley and Douglas first met in 2016 at a GOP fundraiser in Palm Seaside when she was 24 years earlier. A talented dancer, Ashley shared her aspirations to open her private ballet agency. Two weeks after they met, the couple was married and he was funding her studio.

In accordance with the prosecution, points took a flip when the money started to run out and Ashley’s ballet agency faltered. An ensuing divorce battle turned ugly with allegations of infidelity on either side and abuse.

Whereas they’ve been solely married for 4 years, Ashley filed allegations of abuse in opposition to Douglas various cases, along with a story that he’d shot a gun on the ceiling to “shut her up,” that he’d kicked their canine unconscious, and that he’d even tried to poison her whereas she was pregnant.

All by the trial, it was revealed that the couple was estranged when their daughter, now six, was born with Doug solely uncover out Ashley had given starting when she filed a restraining order in opposition to him, per WTVT.

A resolve beforehand found no proof of abuse by Douglas in relation to these allegations, the NY Submit reported. The prosecution argued that all of this was part of a calculated method by the defendant to attain sole custody of their infant. And when that didn’t work, she took far more extreme measures.

They cherished a interval of reconciliation after that, per the outlet, until Ashley shot and killed her husband in September 2020.