‘How To Murder Your Husband’ Author Convicted Of Killing Spouse

Portland, OR – A Multnomah County jury found the author of “How to Murder Your Husband” guilty of murdering her husband on Wednesday.

Nancy Crampton Brophy, then 68 years old, was arrested for the murder of her husband on Sept. 5, 2018, The Washington Post reported.

The arrest came three months after 63-year-old Daniel Brophy was found shot to death on June 2, 2018 at his job at the Oregon Culinary Institute.

Crampton Brophy and Brophy had been married for more than 25 years when he was killed, The Washington Post reported.

The mystery romance novelist had written a lot about the topics of wrong relationships and killing husbands.

In “The Wrong Cop,” the author wrote about a woman who “spent every day of her marriage fantasizing about killing” her spouse, The Washington Post reported.

She wrote about a woman running away from an abusive husband and faking her death in “The Wrong Husband.”

Crampton Brophy also wrote an essay entitled “How to Murder Your Husband” that was posted on the blog “See Jane Publish” in November of 2011, The Washington Post reported.

In that post, she described the type of murder weapons she would choose if her character were to kill her spouse in a romance novel and what she considered the five main motives for killing a spouse.

Crampton Brophy advised in her essay that it was not a good idea to hire a hit man to do the killing, The Washington Post reported.

She wrote in the post that “an amazing number of hit men rat you out to the police.”

The novelists also advised readers that it wasn’t a good idea to hire a lover to do the killing and that using poison was a bad idea, too, according to The Washington Post.

“Never a good idea,” Crampton Brophy wrote, adding that poison was traceable. “Who wants to hang out with a sick husband?”

“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.

That post was made private by the site administrators after inquiries from The Washington Post.

Investigators determined that Crampton Brophy had shot her own husband multiple times as he prepped for a class at the cooking school where he worked, NBC News reported.

During her trial, detectives testified that the author owned the same make and model of gun that was used to shoot her husband although the murder weapon itself was never found.

Prosecutors have alleged that Crampton Brophy switched out the barrel of her own gun and discarded the one she used to kill her husband after the murder, NBC News reported.

Investigators found video of the writer’s car in the area of the culinary school on the day her husband was killed, but she testified that it was a coincidence because she had been in the area for work that day.

Prosecutors claimed that Crampton Brophy was motivated to kill her husband because the two had serious financial problems, NBC News reported.

But at trial, she testified that their financial woes had been fixed by cashing in a chunk of her husband’s retirement plan not long before he was killed.

Defense attorneys told the jury that gun parts found at Crampton Brophy’s home were inspiration for something she was writing and suggested her husband had been killed during an attempted robbery, NBC News reported.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Christopher Ramras excluded Crampton Brophy’s “How to Murder Your Husband” essay from the trial because it had been published in 2011.

But prosecutors alluded to the essay’s themes when the famous novelist took the stand, according to NBC News.

The jury deliberated for two days before finding the now-71-year-old Crampton Brophy guilty of the second-degree murder of her husband on May 25.

Crampton Brophy, who has been in custody since her arrest almost four years ago, will be sentenced on June 13, NBC News reported.