Inside the mind of the husband-murderer who wrote ‘How to Murder your Husband’

An 11-year-old blog post has given a chilling insight into mind of a woman convicted of murdering her husband.

“I find it is easier to wish people dead than to actually kill them. I don’t want to worry about blood and brains splattered on my walls. And really, I’m not good at remembering lies. But the thing I know about murder is that every one of us have it in him/her when pushed far enough.”

Nancy Crampton Brophy wrote this is an essay on the blog on November 4th, 2011, in a post titled, “How to Murder your Husband”.

On May 25th, 2022, a jury in Portland, US, convicted her of fatally shooting her husband.

In her essay, Crampton Brophy wrote: “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 lists potential motives for someone to carry out this supposedly hypothetical scenario including “financial”, “lying, cheating b*stard” and “abuser”. She also goes through the pros and cons of potential weapons and methods.

“What constitutes a good romantic suspense is the whys? What happened that forced a person into this situation? How will they justify this action?” she wrote.

Daniel Brophy was killed on June 2nd, 2018 by Crampton Brophy.

A jury of seven women and five men found the 71-year-old, self-published romance novelist, guilty of second-degree murder on Wednesday after deliberating for two days, local media reported.

Brophy was killed, aged 63, as he prepared for work at the Oregon Culinary Institute in southwest Portland.

Crampton Brophy displayed no visible reaction inside the crowded Multnomah County courtroom.

Lisa Maxfield, one of Crampton Brophy’s lawyers, said the defence team plans to appeal.

Prosecutors told jurors that Crampton Brophy was motivated by money problems and a life insurance policy.

Crampton Brophy said during the trial, however, that she had no reason to kill her husband and that their financial problems had largely been solved by cashing in a chunk of Brophy’s retirement savings plan.

She owned the same make and model of gun used to kill her husband and was seen on CCTV footage driving to and from the culinary institute, court exhibits and court evidence showed.

Police never found the gun that killed Brophy.

Prosecutors alleged Crampton Brophy swapped out the barrel of the gun used in the shooting and then discarded the barrel.

Defence lawyers said the gun parts were inspiration for Crampton Brophy’s writing and suggested someone else might have killed Brophy during a robbery gone wrong.

Crampton Brophy claimed during the trial that her presence near the culinary school on the day of her husband’s death was mere coincidence and that she had parked in the area to work on her writing.

Circuit judge Christopher Ramras ultimately excluded the essay from the trial, noting it was published in 2011.

A prosecutor, however, alluded to the essay’s themes without naming it after Crampton Brophy took to the witness box.

Crampton Brophy has remained in custody since her arrest in September 2018.

Her sentencing has been scheduled for June 13th. — This article originally appeared in the New York Times