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Novelist begins trial for her husband's murder

2022-04-07T19:02:57.748Z


Nancy Crampton-Brophy faces a six-week trial for her husband's murder, in a twist straight out of her novels.


(CNN) --

Nancy Crampton-Brophy wrote erotic romance novels with muscular, often shirtless men on their covers and titles like "The Wrong Husband."

Some carried a slogan that read, "A mistake never felt so good."


But for Crampton-Brophy, life with her husband of nearly two decades seemed anything but wrong.

She and Daniel Brophy lived in a quiet suburb of Portland, Oregon, where he was a chef at culinary school.

Crampton-Brophy said her husband raised turkeys and chickens in her backyard, gardened and liked to cook meals for her.

The day she realized he was the right man, she wrote on her author website that he made her snacks while she took a bath.

"Can you imagine spending the rest of your life without such a man?"

Author Nancy Brophy in a photograph from her arrest in 2018.

Then came a twist that could have come from one of his books.

On the morning of June 2, 2018, someone shot Daniel Brophy in the kitchen of the Oregon Culinary Institute, where he was teaching cooking classes.

Three months later, Portland police arrested Crampton-Brophy and charged her with the murder of her husband.

And now, the woman who once published an infamous blog titled "How to Murder Your Husband" is on trial in an Oregon court.

Crampton-Brophy, 71, is charged with a single count of murder to which she has pleaded not guilty.

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The trial is expected to last six weeks.

Her husband was shot twice at the cooking school where he worked.

The morning Daniel Brophy was murdered, students came to class to find him bleeding on the kitchen floor.

In court documents, prosecutors said the 63-year-old had been shot twice: once in the back as he stood by a sink filling buckets of ice and water for students, and then a second time in the chest. short distance

The bullets penetrated his spine and pierced his heart.

Brophy had his wallet with him with cash and credit cards, and there was no sign of theft or forced entry.

The next day, Crampton-Brophy posted a message on Facebook.

"My husband and best friend, chef Dan Brophy, was murdered yesterday morning," it read.

"For those who are close to me and feel this was worth a call, you're right, but I'm struggling to make sense of it all right now."

The murder remained a public mystery for months.

Then came Crampton-Brophy's arrest in September 2018, and suddenly the image of the couple's happy marriage came crashing down.

Prosecutors contend in court documents that the Brophys were facing financial difficulties and had emptied their retirement account two years before the shooting.

Crampton-Brophy, whose books were not financially lucrative, devised the plan to kill her husband to collect more than $1.5 million from multiple life insurance policies and other assets, prosecutors said.

Chef Daniel Brophy in a screenshot from a culinary institute video posted in 2010.

"Dan Brophy was content in his simple lifestyle, but Nancy Brophy wanted something more," prosecutors said in court documents.

"As Nancy Brophy became more financially desperate and her writing career faltered, she was left with few options....

"To Nancy Brophy, Dan Brophy was worth nearly $1.5 million dead and worth a lifetime of financial hardship if he were still alive. Nancy Brophy planned and carried out what she believed was the perfect murder. A murder that she believed would kill her." free me from the clutches of financial despair.

Prosecutors said a search of the couple's computers revealed they had a joint iTunes account in which they had saved an article titled "10 Ways to Cover Up a Murder."

But Crampton-Brophy's lawyer argued at trial this week that she loved her husband and had nothing to do with the murder.

"The state will present a circumstantial case that begs them to ignore the most important circumstance ... love," defense attorney Lisa Maxfield said in her opening statement Monday.

"Nancy Crampton-Brophy has always been completely, madly in love with Daniel Brophy, and still is to this day. To Nancy Brophy, he was perfect."

The couple had made several romantic getaways in the months before Brophy's death and were planning a summer trip to Mount Rushmore, the attorney said.

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The murder brought attention to Crampton-Brophy's writings.

News of the murder stunned the Portland community and made headlines around the world, in part because of something Crampton-Brophy wrote seven years before her husband's death.

In 2011, he published a blog entry titled "How to Murder Your Husband."

"As a writer of romantic suspense, I spend a lot of time thinking about the murder and consequently the police procedure," the 700-word entry began.

She posted on a blog called "See Jane Publish" which is now private.

The essay was divided into sections detailing the pros and cons of killing an evil husband.

"If murder is supposed to set me free, I certainly don't want to spend time in jail," Crampton-Brophy wrote.

"And let me state plainly for the record, I don't like overalls and orange is not my color."

But the judge ruled Monday that the essay would not be allowed into evidence because it was written years ago as part of a writing seminar and could unfairly bias a jury.

Nancy Crampton-Brophy's book, "The Wrong Husband."

Crampton-Brophy's novels do not seem to have represented great wealth or literary fame.

But they were consistent in their presentation and theme.

His books were stories of attempted murder, infidelity, crime, lust, and general debauchery, all common themes in romantic thrillers.

In "The Wrong Husband", a woman tries to escape her abusive husband by hiding in Spain during her anniversary trip.

"My stories are about handsome men and strong women, about families that don't always work out, and about the joy of finding love and the difficulty of making it last," she wrote on her website.

"In writing fiction, you dig deep and unearth parts of your own life that you've long forgotten or buried on purpose. It's true that sometimes it's smarter to change the ending."

Her author biography also offered glimpses of how Crampton-Brophy viewed life with her husband.

"Like all marriages, we've had our ups and downs, more good times than bad," she wrote.

Prosecutors say she investigated 'ghost weapons'

Brophy's body was found by his cooking students.

At the time of his death, he was alone at school, prosecutors said.

The school did not have security cameras, but nearby traffic cameras showed Crampton-Brophy's Toyota minivan on city streets near the culinary institute around the time of the shooting, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said they believe Crampton-Brophy followed her husband to work and shot him with a Glock 9mm pistol she had purchased at a Portland gun show.

Investigators found two 9mm shell casings at the scene.

He had also purchased a "ghost gun" kit that investigators later found in a warehouse.

"Ghost guns" are unregistered and untraceable firearms.

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Crampton-Brophy's attorney told jurors Monday that she was researching "ghost gun" kits for a book she was working on and that she bought the gun with her husband's knowledge because mass shootings in the United States Together they made her feel insecure.

Nancy Crampton-Brophy, left, at her trial in Portland, Oregon.

She has been in detention since her arrest in September 2018.

Prosecutors say Crampton-Brophy swapped the Glock 9mm slide and barrel with an identical mechanism she bought on eBay to cover her tracks, and used it to shoot her husband.

She then allegedly removed the new slide and barrel and replaced them with the originals, "thus being able to present police with a new, fully intact firearm that would not match the casings," prosecutors say in court documents. .

Detectives have not recovered the slide and barrel purchased on eBay, meaning forensic experts have not been able to match the bullets to the gun, prosecutors said.

She was the sole beneficiary on several life insurance policies.

Investigators found that Crampton-Brophy was the beneficiary of "numerous" life insurance policies in her husband's name, prosecutors said in court documents.

Despite the couple's financial problems, Crampton-Brophy spent more than $1,000 a month on life insurance premiums, prosecutors said.

Three days after her husband's death, she called the lead detective on the case and asked for a letter declaring she was not a suspect so she could give it to insurance companies, prosecutors said.

Detectives declined to provide the letter.

Explaining why she had purchased her husband's life insurance policies, the defense argued that Crampton-Brophy was a salesperson for several insurance companies and that she had purchased the policies to show she believed in the product and earn a commission.

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In addition, her husband was younger than her and eligible for some life insurance policies that she was not entitled to, Maxfield said.

Maxfield told jurors that the Brophys had decent finances as of June 2018 and that prosecutors' characterization that they were in dire financial straits is exaggerated.

Crampton-Brophy didn't get any insurance money from the sky after the murder, Maxfield said.

"Nancy Brophy and Dan Brophy had an unusually healthy and vibrant marriage, right up until the end," he told jurors.

"After you have heard all the evidence in this case we are sure you will understand that Nancy Brophy did not kill her husband."

Crampton-Brophy is expected to testify during the trial.

Murder

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2022-04-07

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