PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU/CNN) — Investigators believe an Oregon woman, who wrote an article titled “How to Murder Your Husband,” planned to kill her husband for years before his 2018 death.
In a 2011 article called “How to Murder Your Husband,” Nancy Crampton-Brophy, now 68, wrote, “Divorce is expensive, and do you really want to split your possessions?”
The article also told readers, “If the murder is supposed to set me free, I certainly don’t want to spend any time in jail.”
Seven years later, the writer’s 63-year-old husband Daniel Brophy was found dead inside the Oregon Culinary Institute, where he worked. Crampton-Brophy has pleaded not guilty to the crime.
However, detectives believe the 68-year-old may have planned the shooting years before she posted the 2011 article.
Crampton-Brophy is accused of lying to police multiple times regarding where she was the morning her husband’s body was found and about life insurance, according to search warrant affidavits unsealed Friday.
The suspect told police she was at home that morning, but investigators said surveillance video showed her driving her minivan outside the culinary institute just before her husband’s body was found.
Investigators also said Crampton-Brophy told them she’d taken out a $40,000 life insurance policy on her husband. They later discovered she was the beneficiary on several policies valued at more than $350,000.
Investigators tested the one gun, a 9 mm pistol, Crampton-Brophy told them she owned, which was bought at a gun show in February 2018. The two bullets that hit Brophy did not match that gun.
But detectives said they later discovered that in December 2017, Crampton-Brophy bought a kit online from GhostGuns.com to make a similar, untraceable version of the pistol. They also said she bought gun parts like a slide and barrel online, and the gun and accessories match the bullets that hit Brophy.
According to court documents, someone also used Brophy and Crampton-Brophy’s shared iTunes account to bookmark an article entitled “10 Ways to Cover Up a Murder.”
According to police, when the 68-year-old was arrested last September, she said, “You’re arresting me? …You must think I murdered my husband.”
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