(NewsNation) — Nancy Crampton Brophy, a 71-year-old romance novelist, has authored nearly a dozen books, but it’s a blog post she wrote in 2011 titled “How to Murder Your Husband” that’s now turning heads.
More than a decade after penning the post, Brophy is on trial for the murder of her 63-year-old husband.
Chef Daniel Brophy was found dead inside the Oregon Culinary Institute in 2018 as students arrived for their classes. Nearly four years after the well-known chef’s shooting death, the murder trial is underway and expected to last weeks.
One key point in the trial is that Crampton Brophy’s “How to Murder Your Husband” blog post has been excluded from the trial. The novelist wrote the post for a writers workshop and it has garnered loads of attention since her arrest.
“I find it easier to wish people dead than to actually kill them,” part of the blog post reads.
“…But the thing I know about murder … is that every one of us have it in him/her when pushed far enough,” she also wrote in the post.
At the beginning of the trial Monday, Judge Christopher Ramras ruled that the blog post would not be used as evidence since it was written years ago and is “substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice and confusion of the issues.”
The exclusion serves as a big win for the defense, which says the Brophys were a “loving couple who cared about one another” and had been happily married for 27 years before the chef was gunned down at work.
On the contrary, prosecutors are painting a picture of a cash-strapped couple with a big life insurance policy as the ticket for financial freedom.
KOIN reports that Crampton Brophy was the beneficiary of $1.4 million and that she asked law enforcement for a letter to send to a life insurance company.
Prosecutors are also pointing to Crampton Brophy’s internet searches for ghost guns and her multiple gun purchases. While investigators believe this could have been the start of Crampton Brophy’s alleged plans to kill her husband, the defense says it was all part of research she was conducting for a novel.
Crampton Brophy entered a not guilty plea. She has been held without bond since 2018 and is expected to take the stand in her own defense during the trial.