Really, Nancy Brophy? Really?

In Oregon, 71-year-old self-published romance novelist Nancy Crampton Brophy was found guilty of the June 2018 fatal shooting of her husband, chef, and culinary instructor Dan Brophy. She was sentenced to life in prison last month.

The couple had financial issues, and Nancy wanted to pay off all their marital debts and travel the world, but Dan didn’t like that idea. And that’s when it hit Nancy that Dan had a $1.5 million life insurance policy, as well as several other assets that would all be hers if he were … out of the way.

But police investigators became suspicious when they noticed that, while the Brophy’s were falling behind on paying their mortgage, Nancy made sure Dan’s insurance policy was paid right on time each and every month. Oh, and it didn’t help that her computer history showed that she went online and bought a ghost gun kit online—she claimed it was for “novel research”—and then also purchased a Glock 17 handgun—which turned out to be the murder weapon—at a gun show.

Then, on the day of the slaying, Nancy Brophy’s van was caught on traffic cameras near the scene at the time of Dan’s murder, and then while in jail awaiting trial Nancy ALLEGEDLY told a cellmate that she shot Dan in the heart twice, and then used her arms to demonstrate how far away from him she was when she fired.

But the most telling evidence in the case against Nancy Brophy? She wrote and published an essay in 2011 giving tips on the best way to kill your husband. Nancy now says the essay, How to Murder Your Husband, was just “jokes’ and here are some of the funnier lines:

“Divorce is expensive, and do you really want to split your possessions?”

“Or if you married for money, aren’t you entitled to all of it? The drawback is the police aren’t stupid. They are looking at you first. So you have to be organized, ruthless and very clever.”

Sadly, it seems that Nancy Brophy wasn’t as good at murdering her husband as she was about writing about murdering her husband. Perhaps Nancy should write another book on How To Better Kill Your Husband and Not Leave Behind Any Clues.

She has Life to do that.