(CNN) --
Unlike the antagonists in her erotic romance novels, author Nancy Campton-Brophy didn't get away with it.
A jury convicted her Wednesday of manslaughter in the death of her husband, chef Daniel Brophy, who was shot to death at the culinary school where he taught cooking classes in 2018.
Novelist who wrote 'How to Murder Your Husband' accused of killing her husband
Crampton-Brophy, who once wrote a well-known essay titled "How to Murder Your Husband," showed no emotion as the verdict was read in a Portland, Oregon, court.
Prosecutors argued that the couple had debt problems, Crampton-Brophy's published novels were not best-sellers and that his death could have left her with more than a million dollars in life insurance policies and other expenses. active.
Prosecutors told jurors that Crampton-Brophy followed her husband to work and shot him with a Glock 9mm pistol.
Investigators found two 9mm shell casings at the scene.
She had also purchased a "ghost gun" mounting kit that investigators later found in a warehouse.
"Ghost guns" are unregistered and untraceable firearms.
She was the only person who had a motive to kill her husband, Multnomah County Assistant District Attorney Shawn Overstreet said in closing arguments this week.
"This didn't work for Nancy," Overstreet said.
"It's not just about the money. It's about the lifestyle that Dan couldn't give her."
Crampton-Brophy, 71, took the stand and rejected that claim, saying she was better off financially with her husband alive.
She also stated that she could not remember all the details of the morning her husband was killed and that her car being seen near the culinary school that morning was a mere coincidence.
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As for why he had bought a gun and a "ghost gun" kit, he said it was part of research for a new book.
"What I can say is that it was for writing," he said.
"It was not, as you think, to murder my husband."
The jury didn't buy it.
Crampton-Brophy faces a minimum of 25 years in prison at his sentencing, set for June 13.
She painted a portrait of a perfect life with her husband
Crampton-Brophy's novels 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.
Her husband's murder was a plot twist that could have been ripped from one of her books.
And when she became a suspect, it was a surprising development for a woman who had portrayed her life with her husband of nearly two decades as anything but bad.
Chef Daniel Brophy in a screenshot from a culinary institute video posted in 2010.
The couple lived in a quiet suburb of Portland, where he raised turkeys and chickens, tended a vegetable garden and liked to cook meals for her.
"I'm a flawed person, Dan was a flawed person... we made a good team together," he said.
Then came the morning of June 2, 2018, when someone shot Daniel Brophy to death in the kitchen of the Oregon Culinary Institute.
The students came to class to find him bleeding on the 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 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.
This romance writer is on trial for her husband's murder in what looks like a twist on one of her novels
Financial difficulties
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.
"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..."
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.
Author Nancy Brophy in a photograph from her arrest in 2018.
"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.
But defense attorney Lisa Maxfield called the state's case circumstantial.
She argued that Crampton-Brophy loved her husband and had nothing to do with the murder.
The couple had made several romantic getaways in the months before Brophy's death and were planning a summer trip to Mount Rushmore, the defense said.
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.
Nancy Crampton-Brophy, left, at her trial in Portland, Oregon.
She has been in detention since her arrest in September 2018.
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.
It turned out that the jurors did not need to read it to reach their verdict.
Homicide
