Trial opens for woman who wrote ‘How to Murder Your Husband’ essay
Nancy Crampton-Brophy accused of fatally shooting chef Daniel Brophy in June 2018
The trial of a romance novelist who once wrote an essay entitled “How to Murder Your husband” is set to begin in Oregon.
Nancy Crampton-Brophy, 71, is accused of fatally shooting her husband, chef Daniel Brophy, in June 2018 to gain more than $1.5m.
Brophy’s body was found by a coworker in a kitchen at the Oregon Culinary Institute with a gunshot wound to his back and another in the chest.
Court papers say that investigators discovered that the suspect was in downtown Portland, where her husband worked, at the time of the murder, but Ms Crampton-Brophy later told authorities that she had been at home the whole time.
She was eventually arrested in September 2018 and has pleaded not guilty to all charges against her.
Ms Crampton-Brophy was once a prolific novelist who published books such as The Wrong Lover and The Wrong Husband, and in 2011 wrote the “How to Murder Your Husband” essay for the See Jane Publish blog.
“As a romantic suspense writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about murder and, consequently, about police procedure. After all, if the murder is supposed to set me free, I certainly don’t want to spend any time in jail,” she wrote.
And she added: “It is easier to wish people dead than to actually kill them. But the thing I know about murder is that every one of us have it in him/her when pushed far enough.”
Court papers unsealed in 2019 state that in the couple’s iTunes account an article entitled “10 ways to cover up a murder” had been bookmarked.
Ms Crampton-Brophy took to Facebook on 3 June to share the news of her husband’s murder.
“For my Facebook friends and family, I have sad news to relate. My husband and best friend, Chef Dan Brophy was killed yesterday morning.
“For those of you who are close to me and feel this deserved a phone call, you are right, but I’m struggling to make sense of everything right now.”
The couple had been married for 26 years at the time of the killing.
Prosecutors say that days after the murder, the suspect asked detectives working on the case for a letter stating that she was not a suspect so she could give it to an insurance company to collect a $40,000 for her husband.
Investigators initially found that she could collect more than $350,000 worth of life insurance policies after her husband’s death.
In 2020, when more documents in the case were unsealed, prosecutors stated that the couple was under financial pressure and that Ms Crampton-Brophy stood to make $1.5m from the death.
In the wake of the shooting, the suspect surrendered a gun to police that matched the style of weapon used in the slaying, but it was originally thought to have been unused.
Authorities claim that before the killing, Ms Crampton-Brophy had bought a replacement slide and barrel on eBay, put those parts on the weapon before shooting her husband and reassembling the gun with its original parts.
Police say they never recovered the parts of the gun they believe were used in the shooting.
“Nancy Brophy planned and carried out what she believed was the perfect murder. A murder that she believed would free her from the grips of financial despair and enter a life of financial security and adventure,” Rod Underhill, the then-district attorney for Multnomah County Underhill stated in the 2020 court filings.
The trial is set to start on Monday 4 April and last four weeks.