Ghost Girl

Eva Benefield, the daughter of the victim of the viral “Black Swan Murder,” tells her story about coming of age amid grief, violence, and a true-crime spectacle, in a poignant memoir brimming with dark humor and wisdom beyond her years.

Eva was still in high school when her mother died suddenly of a heart attack. Within a year, her father marries Ashley Byers, a twenty-four-year-old former bikini model he has only known for a few weeks.

“She looked sharp,” Eva says of her strange new stepmother, “like if you touched her you might bleed.” After a few months, Ashley convinces her new husband to open an international ballet company in Charleston, South Carolina. But soon the money runs out and Ashley shoots and kills Eva’s father. The crime was dubbed in the news media as “The Black Swan Murder.” Eva, now orphaned and in college, is suddenly “awash in tabloid gore” and must figure out how to make rent and survive.

Reeling from the sudden loss of both her parents and the looming criminal trial of her stepmother, Eva begins to navigate the confusing world of adulthood all alone. “You don’t have a choice about a lot of stuff, especially when you’re a girl,” Eva says. “The things that changed my life were not my choices. They were other people’s decisions, people who really should have known better.”

From losing friends who can’t understand the nature of her new reality, to processing her grief and anger as she slowly pulls herself together and begins to chart a new path forward, Eva confronts the triumphs and challenges of a truly incredible situation head on in this unforgettable memoir.