Neil Taylor Is Defending Ashley Benefield in the Black Swan Murder Trial — Let's Meet Him

Former ballerina Ashley Benefield stands accused of killing her husband during an alleged argument. Doug Benefield has been painted by the defense as a man who was both abusive and controlling towards his wife, who was 30 years his junior. The incident occurred after Ashley and Doug had been estranged for several months after Ashley had given birth to their daughter.

Neil Taylor, Ashley Benefield's attorney, believes that his client is also a victim in this story and hopes to get the jury on their side. He has a pretty good chance considering the fact that he's a seasoned criminal defense attorney in the state of Florida. Let's get to know the man who aims to keep the ballerina out from behind bars.

Taylor is employed at the Grimes, Hawkins, Gladfelter & Galvano law firm as senior criminal counsel. According to his bio, he works exclusively as a criminal defense lawyer and is a "veteran of well over 400 felony jury trials." Someone like this is necessary in a case as complicated as Ashley's.

The kinds of accused criminals Taylor works for vary. Beyond capital murder, he has also represented people in cases involving driving under the influence, narcotics, health care fraud, and money laundering in federal courts. Like many criminal defense attorneys, Taylor's opening statements had a touch of the dramatic.

Taylor said that Doug was obsessed with Ashley and worked hard to make himself look as good as possible in her eyes. "Despite promoting himself as a religious, honorable, and decent human being, Benefield was a manipulative, cunning, and abusive man who insisted, absolutely insisted on control," he said. He then referenced a time when Doug shot a hole in the ceiling of their home during an argument and punched their dog until he was unconscious.

Prosecutor Suzanne O’Donnell told a much different story about Ashely when it was her turn to speak to the jury. Law&Crime reported that O'Donnell told them, "This is a case about a woman who, early on in her pregnancy, decided she wanted to be a single mother. She did not want the father of this child to have any visitation."

Ashley desperately tried to go through the proper channels in order to gain full custody of her daughter and that didn't work, O'Donnell believes she killed her husband because she felt there were no other options.

On the outside, it looked like things were getting better but O'Donnell posits that's not what Ashley wanted at all: "You’ll see that this was a custody battle that this mother was going to win at all costs. And the cost was the life of Doug Benefield. And that is murder."