Details emerge in alleged domestic homicide in Buffalo as defense seeks to exclude evidence

Officer Hernandez Sotero recalled seeing a woman hanging out of her SUV, the aftermath of its collision with a silver Ford F150 pickup truck.

But as Sotero approached the intersection of Richlawn and Shawnee avenues at about 8:30 a.m. Oct. 5, he saw the driver of the pickup revving the engine trying to "get unstuck" from the SUV, Sotero recalled Thursday during a court hearing. The pickup driver broke free and sped away, with Sotero in pursuit.

It turned out Keaira Bennefield, 30, was fatally shot during the incident in the Fillmore-Leroy neighborhood. Adam R. Bennefield, the pickup truck driver and Keaira Bennefield's estranged husband, has been charged in her death. Adam Bennefield has pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges in connection with the slaying.

Sotero was among five police officers to take the stand Thursday, and their testimony revealed more about what Adam Bennefield, 45, allegedly did in the days before the slaying, as well as the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

His defense attorneys have asked a judge to suppress physical evidence, an identification made of Bennefield and statements he made to police. Justice M. William Boller, who presided at the hearing, has scheduled the hearing to continue April 6 with the testimony of more police officers.

As police pursued the pickup driver who fled the scene, Officer Will Folckemer heard radio communications about the fleeing vehicle.

Folckemer was driving on the Kensington Expressway at the time. He reached the vicinity of Kensington Avenue and Humboldt Parkway when he saw the pickup coming directly toward him the wrong way on Humboldt. Multiple police vehicles with lights and sirens activated followed the pickup.

"I tried to get out of the way," Folckemer testified.

But the pickup struck his police vehicle, drove across some lawns and kept going.

About 20 minutes after the pursuit began, police found the pickup off to the side of Humboldt Parkway, just south of Northland Avenue, parked underneath a foot bridge that extends over the Kensington Expressway.

No one was inside the vehicle or around it when police discovered it, said Officer Michael Lehner, who also had been involved in the pursuit.

His partner recovered a 12-gauge shotgun from the front of the pickup truck, Lehner said.

Police also recovered a license plate, as well as two spent 12-gauge shotgun shells, at the scene at Richlawn and Shawnee, said Detective Sgt. Carl Lundin of the Buffalo Police Department's Crime Scene Unit.

A regionwide manhunt for Adam Bennefield ended Oct. 12, when he was taken into custody near Walden and Bissell avenues.

During the hearing, prosecutors showed a video taken from a porch of a home near the intersection of the crash that captured both the collision and the slaying.

In her SUV were three children, including the couple's 6-month-old son.

Questions arose after the killing about whether more could have been done to protect Keaira Bennefield, who was wearing a bulletproof vest when she was killed.

The day before Keaira Bennefield was killed, Adam Bennefield was charged in Cheektowaga Town Court in connection with a Sept. 28 domestic incident for which he was charged with misdemeanor assault. He was released from custody because the judge was not permitted under state law to set bail on any of the charges.

Officer James Hynes testified at the hearing about an encounter with Adam Bennefield late on Oct. 3, two days before Keaira Bennefield was killed.

Hynes and his partner were walking out of a house on Fillmore Avenue, a few blocks from Main Street, at about 11 p.m. when a man called them over.

The man told Hynes he was in the process of separating from his wife and he saw Facebook posts she made – one about body armor and the other in which she wrote she planned to buy a gun.

"He expressed concern that she planned to kill him," Hynes said.

The man also told him she hadn't made any specific threats or mentioned him personally, he testified.

After Hynes heard about the fatal shooting on the morning of Oct. 5, he looked up Adam Bennefield's mug shot in police records and realized he was the man he spoke to two days earlier. He identified Bennefield in court as the man he spoke to on Fillmore.