Woman who wrote 'How to murder your husband' essay tried to get away with 'perfect' crime

Chilling details have emerged in the case of an author who wrote an essay on 'how to murder your husband' and then later went on to shoot her own partner dead.

Heidi Joy Tretheway, a writer and podcast host, was left stunned when she found out that Nancy Crampton Brophy, a fellow romance writer and former leader of their writing group, the Rose City Romance Writers, had been arrested on suspicion of murdering her husband. The two women were part of this local chapter for Romance Writers of America back in 2013.

Now, Heidi is exploring Crampton Brophy's life and plot to kill her husband in a new true-crime podcast on Wondery called "Happily Never After: Dan and Nancy". In the podcast, she reveals how Crampton Brophy rarely mentioned her husband Dan Brophy, which made his death and her subsequent arrest all the more shocking.

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"I had no insight that would suggest that there were any difficulties at home," confessed Tretheway. "None of her friends who talked for this podcast ever suggested either that there were any problems. This crime seemed so out of the blue because Nancy would be the last person that I would imagine could potentially do something like that. She seemed like a sweet little old lady who was very goofy, very gregarious... and loved being in the spotlight."

"I never could have imagined this kind of brutal crime coming from her," Tretheway expressed. Friends painted a picture of the couple as opposites who nonetheless had a deeply affectionate relationship, reports the Mirror US.

"Nancy is loud and always laughing, whilst on the contrary, Dan is introspective," Tretheway shared. "He enjoyed foraging in the woods for mushrooms, organic gardening and was perhaps more fond of his chickens than conversing with humans. They were polar opposites, but nonetheless a loving couple."

However, investigators suggest that a starkly different story was unfolding behind closed doors. According to claims by the prosecution, the Brophys were grappling with financial difficulties.

The autumn prior to Mr Brophy's death, he and his wife withdrew approximately half of $35,000 from his retirement fund, FOX News reported. This sum was used to settle overdue mortgage and credit card bills.

Meanwhile, Crampton Brophy kept herself busy with her writing, often penning novellas and romantic suspense novels with titles like "The Wrong Lover," "The Wrong Hero" and "The Wrong Husband." Then, in 2011, she wrote an eerily prophetic essay titled "How to Murder Your Husband."

In this piece, as reported by KOIN 6 news, Crampton Brophy outlined several ways to kill someone, including using a gun. "Loud, messy, requires some skill," she observed, as quoted by the publication. "If it takes 10 seconds for the sucker to die, either you have terrible aim or he's on drugs."

"I think Nancy wrote it simply for the shock value, the clickbait of it all," said Tretheway. "That was consistent with her personality. At the time, people wrote in the comments section, 'Nancy, I love your mind. You're so wickedly ornery.' Even one of the authors said, 'I identify with this there are plenty of times when I would like to kill my husband, too.'".

"I think it was written in a dark humorous way," Tretheway shared. "Nobody took it seriously or as an actual threat to Dan's life. Even one person joked, 'I'm going to call Dan and make sure he's all right.' I'm not defending it as a good choice of writing. But I certainly understand from the context of... choosing to write something a little bit incendiary so you can create the clickbait for more people to be potentially exposed to your books."

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However, it wasn't long before the piece was forgotten up until 2018 when Mr Brophy was killed at home. It was reported that on the morning of June 2nd, 2018, Mr Brophy was filling ice and water buckets at a sink, prepping for his day as an instructor.

As he was going about his routine a shadowy figure entered the kitchen and fatally shot him in the back. As Mr Brophy fell to the ground, the unknown figure delivered another bullet into his chest at point-blank range.

His students later stumbled upon his dead body. An Oregon State Police forensic scientist revealed that Mr Brophy, 63, was killed with a Glock firearm. Prosecutors highlighted that Crampton Brophy had researched "ghost gun" kits online and later bought a Glock 17 handgun at a gun fair.

Moreover, CCTV footage showed Crampton Brophy's minivan near the Oregon Culinary Institute around the time her husband was killed. Despite this evidence, Crampton Brophy insisted she had "no memory" of being in that area.

The prosecution argued that the motive was simple: greed. They claimed that Crampton Brophy stood to gain over $1.5 million from life insurance policies on her husband, plus sole ownership of their $300,000 property.

"According to the prosecution, she had systematically taken out all of these policies on Dan's life, but not on her own," Tretheway recalled. "She was living a life that wasn't what she envisioned for herself."

"The prosecution suggested she wanted to sell their home, move to Portugal, and live as an expat. Meanwhile, Dan was dedicated to his chickens, backyard projects, and organic vegetable garden. His solution to their financial problems was simply to work harder. Nancy's solution was to get him another job, ensuring he never had a day off."

"But it seemed there was a lifestyle she wanted that her writing could never provide because she was never successful as a writer," Tretheway continued. "She never sold enough books to even slightly have a comfortable life. It barely supported her Starbucks habit. So it appeared that she thought killing would be the way to get the lifestyle that she always wanted."

Crampton Brophy was arrested in September 2018. The stunned widow insisted she had no motive for murdering her husband, pointing out that their financial issues had been largely solved by cashing in part of Mr Brophy's retirement savings.

The murder weapon was never found by the cops. Prosecutors suggested Crampton Brophy swapped the gun's barrel after the killing and got rid of the original one.

Her defense team argued the gun parts were just research for her books and hinted that someone else might have killed Mr Brophy during a failed robbery.

During her trial, Nancy Crampton Brophy argued that being near the culinary institute on the day her husband was killed was just a coincidence, claiming she parked there to work on her writing. Judge Christopher Ramras dismissed the idea of using Crampton Brophy's how-to essay in court, noting it was penned seven years before her husband's death.

Yet, in a recent podcast, Tretheway suggests that the infamous piece couldn't be ignored. At the murder trial of romance novelist Nancy Crampton Brophy in Portland, Oregon, Prosecutor Shawn Overstreet made his stance clear during his opening remarks on 4th April 2022.

He focused on an essay written by the accused, stating: "The essay reveals a lot about her mindset," and continued, "She talks about how you murder someone. Maybe you shoot them, but then you'll get blood and brain splattered on the walls. You don't want to clean that up. Well, she committed the murder somewhere else, so she didn't have to clean it up."

In 2022, at the age of 71, Crampton Brophy was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. She showed no discernible reaction when the verdict was delivered.

Commenting on the verdict, Tretheway stated: "If Nancy had been more successful as a writer, if money had not been a problem, would she have felt so desperate? Did she really love Dan? Only she can answer that... Nancy always thought she was the smartest person in the room... She thought she could engineer the perfect crime and get away with it. Ultimately, she couldn't."