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A self-published romance novelist who wrote an essay called How To Murder Your Husband has been found guilty of fatally shooting her husband four years ago.
Nancy Crampton Brophy, 71, was convicted of second-degree murder yesterday after a US jury of seven women and five men in Portland deliberated chef Daniel Brophy’s death over a two-day period, according to local news station KOIN-TV.
The 63-year-old was killed on 2 June, 2018, as he prepped for work at the Oregon Culinary Institute in Southwest Portland.
Crampton Brophy showed no visible reaction as she heard the verdict inside the crowded Multnomah County courtroom.
Lisa Maxfield, one of her attorneys, said the defence team plans to appeal.
It comes after prosecutors told jurors that Crampton Brophy was motivated by money problems and a life insurance policy.
She said during the trial that she had no reason to kill her husband and that their financial problems had mostly been solved due to cashing in a portion of Brophy’s retirement savings plan.
But she was found to have owned the same make and model of gun that was used to kill her husband, although police never found the weapon.
She testified that her presence near the culinary school was a coincidence
Daniel Brophy was killed in 2018
Prosecutors claimed Crampton Brophy swapped out the barrel of the gun used in the shooting and then discarded the barrel.
Defence attorneys said the gun parts were actually inspiration for Crampton Brophy’s writing, before adding someone else might have killed Brophy during a robbery that went wrong.
Crampton Brophy was also seen on surveillance camera footage driving to and from the culinary institute, court exhibits and court testimony showed.
She testified during the trial that her presence near the culinary school on the day of her husband’s death was mere coincidence and that she had parked in the area to work on her writing.
Crampton Brophy’s essay on murdering a husband went into detail about several ways for committing an untraceable killing and avoid getting caught.
Circuit Judge Christopher Ramras ultimately excluded the essay from the trial, noting it was published in 2011.
But a prosecutor alluded to the essay’s themes without naming it after Crampton Brophy took the stand.
She has remained in custody since her arrest in September 2018.
She will be sentenced on 13 June.
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