Self-published romance novelist Nancy Crampton Brophy, 71, was found guilty of second-degree murder following the fatal shooting of Daniel Brophy four years ago following a two week trial. The 12-person jury found her guilty after two days of deliberations in the crowded Multnomah county courtroom.
Chef Mr Brophy, 63, was killed on June 2 in 2018 as he prepared for work at the Oregon Culinary Institute in south-west Portland.
Crampton Brophy, who also wrote a novel called ‘The Wrong Husband’, showed no visible reaction when she was convicted.
One of her attorneys Lisa Maxfield said the defence team plans to appeal the verdict.
It comes after Crampton Brophy’s cellmate Anndrea Jacobs, testified against her on May 18, telling prosecutors that she had described in detail the distance at which she shot her husband.
She said: “She told me that he was shot two times to the heart and that … she showed me the distance.”
Prosecutors told jurors how Crampton Brophy was motivated by a life insurance policy due to money problems.
But Crampton Brophy argued she had no reason to kill her husband and financial problems were solved by cashing in a portion of her husband’s retirement savings plan.
Crampton Brophy was seen on surveillance camera footage driving to and from the culinary institute, where her husband worked.
But she argued her presence near the school was a coincidence.
However she was found to have owned the same make and model of gun that was used to fatally shoot her husband.
Prosecutors said they believed Crampton Brophy had swapped out the barrel of the gun used in the shooting and then discarded the barrel to make the weapon harder to trace.
The weapon was never found.
But the defence argued Crampton Brophy’s purchase was for research in her work as a novelist.
Circuit Judge Christopher Ramras excluded Crampton Brophy’s essay, which went into detail about murdering a husband and ways to avoid getting caught, from the trial saying it was published in 2011.
But a prosecutor hinted at the themes in the essay without naming it.
Crampton Brophy will be sentenced on June 13.
