A woman who penned an essay titled 'How To Murder Your Husband' is now set to go on trial after being accused of murdering her husband.
As reported by The Independent, Nancy Crampton-Brophy is a romance novelist who penned an essay called 'How to Murder Your Husband' back in November of 2011.
The piece appeared on the See Jane Publish blog, and saw Crampton-Brophy describe five core motives for having a character kill their husband. As well as listing the best possible weapons for the crime, the author ultimately advised hiring a hitman to carry out the task, adding: "An amazing number of hit men rat you out to the police."
"As a romantic suspense writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about murder and, consequently, about police procedure. After all, if the murder is supposed to set me free, I certainly don’t want to spend any time in jail," she wrote in the essay.
Now, the 71-year-old is set to go on trial in Oregon after being accused of fatally shooting her husband, 63-year-old chef Daniel Brophy, back in June of 2018. She was arrested in September that same year and pleased not guilty to all charges against her.
Per The Washington Post, Brophy was killed at his workplace of the Oregon Culinary Institute. After students arrived at the building, he was found dead in his kitchen, with a reported gunshot wound to his chest and back.
His widow received $1.5 million in insurance money from his death, prosecutors allege, per PEOPLE. The couple was married for 27 years.
Court papers now reveal that after claiming to have been at home at the time of her husband's death, Crampton-Brophy was actually in downtown Portland, where her husband worked.
The day after her husband's death, she wrote on Facebook: "I have sad news to relate. My husband and best friend, Chef Dan Brophy was killed yesterday morning.
"For those of you who are close to me and feel this deserved a phone call, you are right, but I'm struggling to make sense of everything right now."
Per a 2020 prosecutor’s motion, "Nancy Brophy planned and carried out what she believed was the perfect murder. A murder that she believed would free her from the grips of financial despair and enter a life of financial security and adventure."
In her 2011 essay, she wrote: "It is easier to wish people dead than to actually kill them. But the thing I know about murder is that every one of us have it in him/her when pushed far enough."
Oregon Live reports that the trial is set to begin, and could last up to seven weeks.
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