An American jury has convicted a self-published romantic novelist, who once wrote an essay entitled How to Kill Your Husband, for shooting her husband four years ago.
The Portland jury, made up of seven women and five men, found Nancy Crampton Brophy, 71, guilty of second-degree murder after deliberating for two days over the death of chef Daniel Brophy, KOIN-TV reported.
Brophy, 63, was murdered on June 2, 2018, while preparing to work at the Oregon Culinary Institute in southwest Portland.
Romantic writer Nancy Crampton Brophy, left, was found guilty of killing her husband, Dan Brophy, in June 2018. (AP)
Crampton Brophy showed no visible reaction when the verdict was handed down inside the full Multnomah County courtroom.
Lisa Maxfield, a Crampton Brophy attorney, said the defense team plans to appeal.
Prosecutors told jurors that Crampton Brophy was motivated by money problems and a life insurance policy.
Prosecutor Shawn Overstreet presents his initial statement at the murder trial of romantic writer Nancy Crampton Brophy in Portland. (AP)
Crampton Brophy said during the trial, however, that she had no reason to kill her husband and that her financial problems had been largely solved by charging a portion of Brophy’s retirement savings plan.
She possessed the same make and model of weapon that she used to kill her husband and was seen in the images of the surveillance cameras coming and going from the culinary institute, judicial exhibits and judicial witnesses were shown.
Police never found the weapon that killed Brophy. Prosecutors alleged that Crampton Brophy changed the barrel of the weapon used in the shooting and then discarded the barrel.
Romantic writer Nancy Crampton Brophy in the background. (AP)
Defense attorneys said the weapon parts were an inspiration for Crampton Brophy’s writing and suggested that someone else might have killed Brophy during a robbery that went wrong. Crampton Brophy testified during the trial that her presence near the culinary school on the day of her husband’s death was a mere coincidence and that she had parked in the area to work on her writing.
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Crampton Brophy’s com-dos treatise detailed several options for committing an inevitable murder and expressed a desire to avoid being caught. Circuit Judge Christopher Ramras finally ruled out the trial trial, noting that it was published in 2011. A prosecutor, however, alluded to the subjects of the trial without naming him after Crampton Brophy took over. the charge.
Crampton Brophy has been in jail since her arrest in September 2018, several months after her husband was shot. His sentence is scheduled for June 13.