Eva Benefield (on surviving the Black Swan Murder)
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Who is Eva Benefield and what is the Black Swan murder background introduced here?
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Today we have Eva Benefeld on, and she is a true crime survivor, author, influencer, and founder of Ghost Cowboy Apparel. She has a new memoir out called Ghost Girl Surviving the Black Swan Murder. So Eva is the daughter of the victim of the Black Swan Murder.
This is a wild story.
A wild. The wildness had begun long before the official wildness. Yes, and we get to hear all about it. She's been through everything.
Please enjoy Eva Benefeld.
Thank you.
I'm Dax. How are you? Hi. Nice to meet you. Welcome. Thank you.
Sorry, I know you were early. Sorry we made you wait.
I was. Well, I was like early once today. I was late to the airport this morning. Oh, no. My layover was 10 minutes.
Oh, no.
I don't know how it happened. It said 53 minutes. I was like, okay, I have time.
Ugh.
That's so stressful. I wasn't stressed out until I realized we were boarding when I got there. And then I was like, well, I don't need to be stressed anymore. Yeah, yeah. Oh, jeez. Yeah, I woke up late this morning, and New York wasn't bad. LaGuardia wasn't bad. And then I think I flew into LAX maybe once before.
Oh, really?
Yeah, because I used to go to San Diego a lot, but I haven't really spent a lot of time here.
Are you going to be here for a little bit?
No. I'll go back to Charleston tomorrow. Oh, you don't get to play around? Did you find today? I flew in today from New York. I flew into New York yesterday. Okay, you flew Charleston, New York yesterday. Charleston, New York, here, Charleston. What time did you take off? I took off at, no, we boarded at 5.50. Oh! New York? That's too far. This is miserable. Do you feel terrible? So I woke up at 4.15 yesterday to get the airport to go to New York. Okay. I got to bed at like 10.30 last night, but I woke up at 4.15 and I was like, I have 20 more minutes. I'm just going to sleep until, you know, the driver texts me. Did not. It was 5.15 because I was waking up all night like, oh my God, I have to go. Yeah. I hate that feeling.
Yeah.
Ugh.
And you recently slept in past jury duty, too. That was a couple years ago, so you did your research. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you kind of have a pattern of, yeah, yeah. Actually, no, I don't. I wake up at 5 or 6 every day. You do? My hatch alarm clock, yeah. Oh, and it like rises slightly, you know, gently. What's a hatch alarm clock? Oh, it's life-changing. Tell me about it. Let's do an ad for them, right? Yes, I would love that. It's just an alarm clock and it's a sound machine too because I love my rainstorm. Yeah. And then it lights up over the course of like 10 or 15 minutes and it gets brighter and brighter and the music gets louder and louder and then you wake up. Gently, a gentle wake up. Well, my fear would be it would be the proverbial frog in hot water being brought to a boil.
You know that old adage?
Yeah.
That if you slowly and incrementally raise the loudness, I might just get used to it as I was sleeping. Does that make sense? Yeah. As opposed to being like hit and shaken out of. I know, but it's bad for your system. Yeah, I like it. Oh, I'm scared. You know, wake up with some cortisol. Sometimes now I wake up before it starts really going on. Oh, you do. I'm so used to it. Do you pick a song or is it a sound you wake up to? It's a sound. I have retro alarm clock. Oh, nice. Oh, okay. So it is a little. Yeah. Yeah, it'll get your attention. Eva, right? Yes, Eva. I'm dyslexic. So I'm like, yeah, that's definitely Eva. But then I'm like, also, who knows? Eva. I just don't know. I get all variations. And when I see Eva, I hear Eva.
Did you like that? That was a big elementary school thing. Do people play you on the playground with saying Eva like that? Oh, yeah. They did. Yeah. This is like Monica was trying to hide her Indian-ness and then like Beckham came out, which you're too young to know about, but it was a huge movie about a young Indian girl in England learning to play soccer. Playing soccer.
And it really exposed me because it was like, oh, she looks like that girl, so she must be Indian.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Who is Eva Benefield and what is the Black Swan murder background introduced here?
0:00–19:08
2
How did Eva find her mother and what happened the day she discovered her?
19:08–48:17
3
Why did Eva's father marry Ashley so quickly and how did that change the family dynamic?
48:17–1:05:29
4
How did Eva start Ghost Cowboy and turn viral TikToks into a merch business?
1:05:29–1:06:56
5
What legal and logistical challenges did Eva face running her apparel company?
1:06:56–1:08:39
6
How did the trial affect Eva emotionally and shape her path to healing?
1:08:39–1:11:29
7
What routines, creative outlets, and beach life helped Eva rebuild after the trial?
1:11:29–2:05:40