Romance Novelist Accused of Murdering Her Husband

Author Nancy Brophy allegedly shot her chef husband in Oregon
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 7, 2018 11:29 AM CDT
Romance Author Accused of Killing 'Mr. Right' in Real Life
Nancy Crampton-Brophy   (Multnomah County Sheriff's Office)

A romance novelist might've been better suited to the crime genre, according to Oregon authorities who accuse Nancy Crampton-Brophy of killing her chef husband. The 68-year-old, who writes under the name Nancy Brophy, was arraigned on charges of murder and unlawful use of a weapon Thursday, three months after 63-year-old Daniel Brophy was killed in a June 2 shooting in a kitchen of the Oregon Culinary Institute in Portland, reports the Oregonian. Court documents describing details of the case are sealed—prosecutors say releasing the information could jeopardize the investigation—but Daniel's mother says family members are "in absolute shock." Crampton-Brophy had attended a vigil for her husband of 27 years in the days after announcing his death on Facebook, per People, saying she was "struggling to make sense of everything."

But a neighbor says the author didn't seem to be all that rattled by the murder of the man she called Mr. Right. "She had an air of relief, like it was almost a godsend," and spoke casually of being a suspect, he tells the Oregonian. The author of several books including 2015's The Wrong Husband—which tells of a woman who escapes her abusive spouse and falls in love with another man—previously described how her life inspired her fiction on her website. "You dig deep and unearth portions of your own life that you've long forgotten or had purposely buried deep," she wrote, adding that "my stories are ... about the joy of finding love and the difficulty of making it stay." KVAL reports that she's due back in court on Sept. 17. (This man became a hit writer only after his murder conviction.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X