Murder Mystery Writer Accused of Murdering her Husband

Nancy Crampton Brody

Portland author Nancy Crampton-Brody, who wrote several novels as Nancy Brophy, has been arrested and charged with the June murder of her husband of 27 years, Daniel Brophy. Daniel had been lead chef instructor at the Oregon Culinary Institute [OCI] since 2006, and had been teaching culinary skills long before that. He was shot at an OCI kitchen, where his students found him, dying. There were initially no suspects and no description of any suspects.

Police soon began to suspect Brophy, who admitted to her neighbor that she was considered a suspect. Perhaps it did not help that she had penned books like “The Wrong Husband”, and in 2011 wrote an online essay titled “How to Murder Your Husband” with suggestions of how to get away with it (WP located the archive, as the post is no longer public.) The arrest report has been sealed, so there are not many details in why the police have charged her, or what her motive may have been. The sealed report suggests the investigation is still open, perhaps there is an accomplice or yet-unnamed collaborator. If so, Brophy would have been ignoring her own advice in her essay, where she discouraged using hitmen. Whether or not she did it is yet to be decided, but having penned an essay about murdering her husband is not a good look.