Romance novelist Nancy Brophy, who once wrote a blog called ‘How to Murder Your Husband’, has been convicted of killing her spouse following a seven-week trial in Portland, Oregon.
The phrase ‘life imitates art’ could never be so apt for the 71-year-old writer, who now faces life in prison after being sent down for second-degree murder after shooting chef Daniel Brophy in 2018.
The jury, which consisted of seven women and five men, took just 24 hours to reach the conclusion that the author was guilty and she will now be sentenced on June 13.
Mr Brophy was found dead by his students at the Oregon Culinary Institute on June 2, 2018, where he taught cooking classes – he had been shot twice.
Prosecutors claimed Ms Brophy killed her husband to get her hands on his $1.4 million life insurance policy and believed she murdered him at his place of work to avoid cameras and witnesses.
They also put forward the argument that she had bought several gun pieces in the months prior to the killing, including one extra component that would ensure the bullets would not be traced back to her gun.
“She had the plan in place,” said Shawn Overstreet, a deputy district attorney, in his closing argument.
“She had the opportunity to carry out this murder, she was the only person who had the motive.”
Ms Brophy’s defence team argued that the gun pieces were purchased as research for a book she was writing, about a woman who obtained gun parts in order to complete a weapon and turn the tables on an abusive partner.
They also contended she did not have the sufficient financial motivation to justify murdering her husband, with their insurance policies not particularly unusual, while she was not a beneficiary of all of them.
Ms Brophy had written a blog in 2011, writing that a wife who kills her spouse must be “ruthless” and “very clever”, because she is likely to become a prime suspect, while also pondering methods of murder, supposing that knives were too personal, poison was too traceable, hitmen were too untrustworthy and guns were too messy.
After police informed her of her husband’s death, she was questioned about her whereabouts, where she claimed he rose early and did some chores, before having a shower – when she woke up – and then left for work at 7am.
But investigators looking into the case found video evidence of Ms Brophy driving in the area in her old minivan around the time of the killing, but on the witness stand she testified that she had no memory of that, claiming she was either on a coffee run or taking notes for her book.
Ms Brophy’s lawyers also insisted that she and her husband had been happily married for 25 years, with her attorney Kris Winemiller stating: “The love that Nancy and Dan Brophy had was no mere possibility, it was the best-proven fact in this trial.”
They suggested that a homeless person could have been responsible for the killing – they showed video of one man who hid behind a wall and looked in a bag when police arrived on scene.
Investigators said they were unable to identify him.
Also in their closing argument, prosecutors conceded that their case was based on “all circumstantial evidence,” saying the jury needed to join together the pieces of “a puzzle” to reach its conclusion.
“Nancy is the only person who could have committed this crime,” Mr. Overstreet told the jury.
Another attorney for Ms Brophy, Lisa Maxfield, says they now plan to appeal, saying: “We were hoping the jury would see it as ‘could’ve, should’ve, would’ve’ that we did, but they didn’t.”
