A Portland, Oregon, jury on Wednesday convicted a romance writer who had written an essay titled
How to Murder Your Husband
of shooting her husband to death .
The jury, made up of seven women and five men, found Nancy Crampton Brophy, 71, guilty of second-degree murder after deliberating for two days over the death of cook Daniel Brophy, the news network's affiliate station reported. NBC News in Portland.
Brophy, 63, was killed on June 2, 2018, while preparing to work at the Oregon Culinary Institute.
Nancy Crampton Brophy, during the trial on April 4, 2022. AP
The woman showed no reaction Wednesday inside the packed Multnomah County courtroom when she learned of her sentence.
Her attorney said she planned to appeal.
The Prosecutor's Office argued that Crampton Brophy acted motivated by money problems, because she wanted to collect a life insurance policy in her husband's name.
During the trial, however, the woman argued that she had no reason to do so and that her financial straits were largely resolved by cashing in a portion of her husband's retirement savings plan.
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The defendant owned the same make and model of gun that was used to kill her husband and was seen on surveillance camera footage driving to and from the culinary institute, court evidence and court testimony showed.
Police never found the gun that killed Brophy.
Prosecutors alleged that Crampton Brophy tampered with the barrel and then it fell apart.
of the gun.
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His defense suggested that someone else might have killed the man during a robbery.
Crampton Brophy testified during the trial that he went to cooking school that day by coincidence, as he had parked in the area to work on a piece of writing, he explained.
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Crampton Brophy's essay on how to kill your husband detailed various options for committing an untraceable murder.
Circuit Judge Christopher Ramras ultimately excluded an analysis of the trial essay, noting that it was published in 2011. However, a prosecutor alluded to the essay's themes without naming him after Crampton Brophy took the stand.
Brophy has been in pretrial detention since his arrest in September 2018. His sentence will be announced on June 13.
