A woman who wrote an essay called “How to Murder Your Husband” was convicted Wednesday of murdering her husband.
Nancy Crampton Brophy, now 71, gunned down her husband Daniel Brophy in 2018 at Oregon Culinary Institute. Daniel Brophy was 63 at the time.
Prosecutors showed that Crampton Brophy was driving her van near the institute in Portland shortly before the murder, local NBC affiliate KGW reported. When investigators first interviewed Crampton Brophy, she claimed she was at home when her husband was shot.
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The Brophys were also battling financial trouble, and Crampton Brophy attempted to collect her husband’s life insurance policy shortly after the murder, prosecutors said.
A former cellmate testified against Crampton Brophy as well, according to KGW. The cellmate said Crampton Brophy specified the distance of the shooting and nearly admitted to the killing. Brophy was killed with two bullets to the chest.
Crampton Brophy pleaded not guilty, and her attorneys argued that the prosecution relied on circumstantial evidence. The lawyers promised to appeal the verdict.
The judge banned any mention of Crampton Brophy’s “How to Murder Your Husband” essay, which was published on her personal website in 2011.
“After all, if the murder is supposed to set me free, I certainly don’t want to spend any time in jail,” Crampton Brophy wrote in the ostensibly tongue-in-cheek essay. “And let me say clearly for the record, I don’t like jumpsuits and orange isn’t my color.”
Crampton Brophy certainly failed on that account, since she’s been behind bars since her arrest in September 2018. She went on to discuss various potential methods, writing of guns: “loud, messy, require some skill.”
The judge said “any minimal probative value of an article written that long ago is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice and confusion of the issues.”
Brophy will be sentenced on June 13.