“Can you imagine spending the rest of your life without such a man?” asked. Then came a plot twist that could have come off one of her books. On the morning of June 2, 2018, someone shot Daniel Brophy in the kitchen of the Oregon Cooking Institute, where he was teaching cooking. Three months later, Portland police arrested Crampton-Brophy and charged her with killing her husband. And now, the woman who once posted a notorious blog post titled “How to Murder Your Husband” is on trial in an Oregon courtroom. Crampton-Brophy, 71, has been charged with just one count of murder and has pleaded not guilty. 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 killed, the students arrived for class and found him bleeding on the kitchen floor. In court documents, prosecutors said the 63-year-old man had been shot twice – once in the back as he stood in a sink filling buckets of ice and water for students and then a second time in the chest at close range. The bullets pierced his spine and pierced his heart. Brophy’s wallet with cash and credit cards was found with him and there were no signs of robbery or forced entry. The next day, Crampton-Brophy posted a message on Facebook. “My husband and best friend, Chef Dan Brophy, was killed yesterday morning,” she said. “For those of you who are close to me and feel that a phone call was worth it, you are right, but I am struggling to understand everything right now.” The murder remained a public mystery for months. Then came the arrest of Crampton-Brophy in September 2018 – and suddenly the image of the happy marriage of the couple collapsed. Prosecutors allege in court documents that the Brophys were in financial difficulty and had exhausted their retirement account two years before the shooting. Crampton-Brophy, whose books were not financially lucrative, plotted to kill her husband to collect more than $ 1.5 million in multiple life insurance policies and other assets, prosecutors said. “Dan Brophy was satisfied with his simplistic lifestyle, but Nancy Brophy wanted something more,” prosecutors said in court documents. “As Nancy Brophy became more financially desperate and her writing career declined, she was left with few options.” “Dan Brophy was worth almost $ 1.5 million to Nancy Brophy if he was dead and worth a life of financial hardship if he were alive. Nancy Brophy planned and carried out what she thought was the perfect murder. A murder she thought would it was freeing it from the grips of financial despair. “ Prosecutors said a search of the couple’s computers revealed they shared a iTunes account with a bookmarked article titled “10 Ways to Cover a Murder.” But Crampton-Brophy’s lawyer claimed at this week’s trial that she loved her husband and had nothing to do with the murder. “The state will present an occasional case that asks you to turn a blind eye to the most important occasion – love,” defense attorney Lisa Maxfield said in an opening statement Monday. “Nancy Crampton-Brophy has always been crazy, crazy, crazy in love with Daniel Brophy, and she still is today. For 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 defense attorney said.
The assassination caught the eye of Crampton-Brophy’s writings
The news of the murder shocked the Portland community and made headlines everywhere – in part because of something Crampton-Brophy wrote seven years before her husband died. In 2011, he published a blog post entitled, “How to Murder Your Husband”. “As a romantic suspense writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about murder and, consequently, the police process,” the 700-word post began. It was published in a blog called “See Jane Publish” which has since become private. The essay is divided into sections that describe in detail the pros and cons of killing a bad spouse. “If the murder is supposed to set me free, I certainly do not want to spend any time in prison,” Crampton-Brophy wrote. “And let me be clear about the story, I do not like overalls and orange is not my color.” But the judge ruled Monday that the essay would not be allowed as evidence because it was written years ago as part of a writing seminar and could unfairly prejudge the jury. Crampton-Brophy novels do not seem to have brought her wealth or literary recognition. But they were consistent in their packaging and theme. Her books were stories of attempted murder, infidelity, crime, lust, and general depravity – all common themes for romance romance novels. In “The Wrong Husband”, a woman tries to escape from her husband hiding in Spain during their anniversary trip. “My stories are about handsome men and strong women, about families who do not always work, 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 discover parts of your life that you have long forgotten or deliberately buried deep. Agreed, sometimes it is smarter to change the ending.” The author’s biography also provided glimpses of how Crampton-Brophy viewed life with her husband. “Like all weddings, we had our ups and downs, more good times than bad,” he wrote.
Prosecutors say he investigated “ghost weapons”
Brophy’s body was found by his students in cooking. At the time of his death, he was alone at the school, prosecutors said.
The school did not have security cameras, but nearby traffic cameras showed Crampton-Brophy’s Toyota minivan on the city streets near the institute at the time of the shooting, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said they believe Crampton-Brophy followed her husband to work and shot him with a 9mm Glock pistol he bought at a gun show in Portland. Investigators found two 9-millimeter calyxes at the site.
He had also bought a “ghost weapon” assembly kit that the researchers later found in a storage facility. “Ghost weapons” are unregistered and detectable firearms.
Crampton-Brophy’s lawyer told jurors Monday she was looking for a “ghost gun” kit for a book she was working on and bought the pistol knowingly from her husband because mass shootings in the United States made her feel insecure.
Prosecutors allege that to cover her tracks, Crampton-Brophy exchanged the Glock 9mm slide and barrel for an identical device she bought on eBay and used it to shoot her husband. He then allegedly took out the new slide and barrel and replaced them with the original, “thus being able to present a new, fully intact gun to the police that would not fit the caliber,” prosecutors said in court documents.
Detectives have not recovered the slide and barrel purchased on eBay, meaning medical examiners were unable to match the bullets used with the weapon, prosecutors said.
She was the sole beneficiary of many life insurance policies
Investigators found that Crampton-Brophy was the beneficiary of “several” life insurance policies concluded for her husband, prosecutors said in court documents. Despite the couple’s financial woes, 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 chief detective in the case and asked for a letter stating that she was not a suspect so that she could give it to insurance companies, prosecutors said. Detectives refused to give the letter. Explaining why she had taken out life insurance policies for her husband, the defense argued that Crampton-Brophy was a seller at several insurance companies and had bought the contracts to show her loyalty to the product and earn a commission. Her husband was also younger than her and was entitled to some life insurance policies for which he did not qualify, Maxfield said. Maxfield told jurors that the Brophys were in a decent financial position in June 2018 and that prosecutors’ characterization of them as in desperate financial straits is exaggerated. Crampton-Brophy did not receive any unexpected insurance proceeds after the murder, Maxfield said. “Nancy Brophy and Dan Brophy had an unusually healthy and vibrant marriage and marriage, to the end,” he told the jury. “After hearing all the facts in this case, we are sure you will understand that Nancy Brophy did not kill her husband.” Crampton-Brophy is expected to take a position during the trial.
