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i started working on a story about a scandal in the ballet world my name is alice robb and i'm a
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contributing writer for vanity fair it was a business story about a ballet company
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that turned into a murder investigation in 2016 ashley married a much older man together they
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made a plan to start a new ballet company ashley's dream was to create a ballet company that would be
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a home for dancers who were unconventional she didn't want a cookie cutter company
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she wanted girls that were tall girls that were short you know i am taller so i thought that
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this would be a great fit for me i don't know that doug could spell ballet before he met ashley
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but you know when you love somebody what do you want to do you want to make her happy
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ashley was 24 and doug was 54. they knew each other for approximately 13 days before they got married
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ashley was sending photographs of herself to doug constantly she was you know a bikini
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model at some point and she knew how to work it she knew how to use it his major concern is
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how's he going to introduce ashley to eva i felt like ashley was taking my dad away from me ashley wants to win total
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affection she wants to be number one she would go through periods where she was just raging at doug she flip-flops
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between he's a great guy who everybody knew him as or he's evil good or evil good or evil good or evil
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she goes to live with her mother and effectively cuts off all communication with doug
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he's begging her to talk about things give him another chance meanwhile she accused him of trying to
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poison her she's accused him publicly of murder attempted murder was doug benefield dangerous
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they both had a lot of guns and there was an incident where during an argument he shot a gun into the
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ceiling after the case with the poisoning allegations i saw a picture of the two of them you know
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arm in arm attending a gala together and looking like a happy couple he was so hopeful and optimistic that everything
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would be all right every time she made allegations she always came back to him and gave him hope
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of reconciling at some point ashley said that she wanted to move to maryland together and start over as a family they
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were packing up her house in florida i heard from somebody screaming outside and
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she shot him she walks next door gun in hand and tells the neighbor i shot doug in
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self-defense it was right next door to me she just came over her strange husband attacked her and she
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says she shot him was she genuinely afraid or just trying to get her way since black swan came out i think that's
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a lot of people's only window into ballet which sucks but this certainly does parlay into that
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narrative to doug ashley's this innocent pure white swan but underneath those white feathers
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she's an evil woman she's the black swan [Music]