By Shukri Osman,
Nancy Crampton Brophy, a romance author who allegedly predicted her crime in an essay titled “How to Murder Your Husband,” has been sentenced to life in prison for the shooting death of her late husband by an Oregon judge.
Last month, 71-year-old Crampton Brophy was convicted of second-degree murder. She shot her 26-year-old husband in 2018 for a $1.5 million (£1.2 million) life insurance payout, according to the jury.
Crampton Brophy was a self-published novelist who wrote spicy romance and suspense novels like “The Wrong Husband” and “The Wrong Lover” before she committed her crime.
Daniel Brophy, her late husband, was a well-known chef and professor at the Oregon Culinary Institute.
In June 2018, he was discovered in the Institute’s kitchen, having been shot twice. Last month, his widow was found guilty of murder.
The case gained notoriety because of an essay titled “How to Murder Your Husband” written by Crampton Brophy years before the crime.
“The thing I know about murder is that when pushed far enough, every single one of us has it in us,” she wrote in the now-deleted post.
Before noting that “it is simpler to wish people dead than to actually kill them,” she outlined a number of ways to execute mariticide, ranging from guns and knives to poison and hitmen.
“I certainly don’t want to spend any time in jail if the murder is going to set me free,” she added.
Because the essay was written years ago as part of a writing program, a judge refused to allow it to be used as evidence in her prosecution.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, did not require the text.
They were successful in demonstrating that Crampton Brophy had the motivation and means to murder her partner, demonstrating that the couple had fallen on hard times financially and that she stood to profit handsomely from his death insurance payout.
In security footage revealed in court, Crampton Brophy was seen driving to and from the Institute at the time of the crime. Despite the fact that the murder weapon was never located, she was found to have acquired a gun of the same make and type.
The author claimed she had a “memory hole” from the morning of Brophy’s death when she testified in her own defense. She couldn’t deny, though, that it was she who was driving about the Institute.
After less than two days of deliberation, a jury of 12 found her guilty of second-degree murder.
Her life sentence, which was handed down on Monday, includes a 25-year prospect of parole.
Her attorneys have stated that they want to file an appeal. Friends and family members of the late chef made statements ahead of his sentence.
Brophy’s son from a previous marriage, Nathaniel Stillwater, stated, “You chose to lie, deceive, steal, defraud, and finally kill the man who was your biggest fan.” “You were the incorrect wife, to steal a phrase from your catalog.”
