Slain mom of 3 Keaira Bennefield told cops ‘I thought I was going to die,’ just days before she was killed
The tragic mom of three allegedly executed by her estranged husband thought she “was going to die” during a savage caught-on-camera beatdown just days before she was killed, a police report reveals.
Keaira Bennefield, 30, gave Cheektowaga Police the now haunting play-by-play as she sought to press charges against her 45-year-old ex-con husband, Adam Bennefield, over the Sept. 28 attack inside her home.
“I was screaming for help the whole time. Adam told me to ‘shut the f—k up’ and that he was going to kill me,” she said in a harrowing statement to cops.
“I thought I was going to die.”
But the graphic description from the victim and horrifying video she posted on Facebook later that day as a cry for help, were still not enough to get prosecutors to charge Adam Bennefield with anything higher than misdemeanors.
He was subsequently sprung from jail on no bail because of the low-level charges on Oct. 4 — a day before he allegedly ambushed Keaira as she took her kids to school and gunned her down.
Bennefield has been charged with second-degree murder in Keaira’s death.
But a Supreme Court judge in Buffalo and the Erie County District Attorney’s office now appear to be circling the wagons by not handing over court documents related to Bennefield’s murder case.
Following a brief court hearing related to the case against Adam Bennefield on Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice William Boller refused to give The Post a copy of the suspect’s file.
The clerk’s office also wouldn’t hand over a copy because they said the file was still with the judge. And the DA’s office had earlier told The Post any requests for the criminal complaint needed to be filed with the court.
Keaira’s murder has sparked widespread outrage as critics lamented how Bennefield — who has a prior conviction for kidnapping another ex at gunpoint — was only charged with a slew of misdemeanors, which let him walk free on no bail.
In New York, judges also can’t weigh the “dangerousness” of a perp in considering bail — meaning his prior 2000 conviction, for which he served 15 years, couldn’t be taken into account.
In her harrowing Oct. 3 statement to cops, Keaira recalled how the violence erupted after she returned home the morning after a friend’s birthday party. Keaira said she confronted Bennefield after learning that he had “whooped” her daughter and then left her alone outside their home.
What unfolded next was captured in the sick footage Keaira shared on Facebook days before giving her statement to police.
“Adam hit me anywhere he could all over my body,” she told cops. “| was kicking at him to try to get him to stop hitting me and at some point, we ended up on the floor. Adam continued punching me in my arms because | was blocking my face and head.”
Keaira also told police that her estranged husband allegedly ripped off her pants at one point and allegedly “stuck his hand in my vagina.”
The terrified mom said she started screaming for Bennefield’s sister Rachel, who lives in an apartment upstairs.
“Adam answered the door for Rachel and he told her that he was not done with me and that | was not going anywhere. Adam also told Rachel that | wasn’t getting out of there alive,” Keaira told cops.
After her sister-in-law left to alert police, Keaira said Bennefield “picked up a knife and started pacing.”
He then allegedly picked up multiple other knives and a box cutter.
“| was talking to him at that point trying to calm him down because | was fearful for my life. | thought I was going to die,” she recalled to police.
By the time officers arrived, police said Bennefield had barricaded himself in a bathroom and was self-harming with the box cutter.
Cops obtained an arrest warrant for Bennefield for harassment on the day of that incident. The charges weren’t upgraded until Keaira showed them the surveillance video several days later.
An order of protection was granted for Keaira during his arraignment in Cheektowaga Town Court on Oct. 4 — but it did little to protect her.
Keaira donned a bullet-proof vest the next morning to take her kids to school — and that is when, cops say, she was ambushed by Bennefield, who rammed his car into hers and then shot her dead.
In the aftermath, Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn was adamant that no felony charges could have been filed against Bennefield to prevent him from being released without bail.
“We don’t fabricate evidence, we don’t upgrade charges unethically when the evidence is not there,” he insisted to reporters, despite the harrowing video evidence and the woman’s own statements to police.
“The charges originally were misdemeanors, that’s what the evidence was. There was zero evidence for anything higher than that. The charges were correctly charged and the judge, again, had no choice but to release him.”
Asked if the shocking video warranted harsher charges, Flynn responded: “Absolutely not, absolutely not, absolutely not. Emphatically 100% not. Could I be anymore clearer?”
He added: “The injuries and the evidence did not sustain higher charges. We can’t charge on optics. The optics are bad. The optics are awful. But the evidence needs to be there to the victim to elevate the crime. The evidence was not there, she was not injured at all.”
Police noted in their report that Keaira was examined at the scene because she was having pain in her wrist but there was “no obvious injury.”
She also told cops that she was “otherwise unharmed,” according to the police report.
The DA’s office has repeatedly declined to comment on the case to The Post given it is pending prosecution.
