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Oregon Novelist Charged With Killing Husband Bookmarked Article on ‘10 Ways to Cover Up a Murder,’ Records Allege

Nancy Crampton-Brophy bookmarked an article titled “10 ways to cover up a murder” on iTunes.

The author of an essay titled “How To Murder Your Husband,” who is charged with murdering her husband, also saved an online listicle detailing ways to conceal a murder, according to new court documents. Nancy Crampton-Brophy, a romance novelist, is accused of gunning down her chef husband in Portland, Oregon. She had an article titled “10 ways to cover up a murder” bookmarked on an iTunes account she shared with her spouse, a probable cause affidavit shows. Her husband, Daniel Brophy, was found shot in a kitchen at the culinary school at which he taught. Surveillance video captured Crampton-Brophy driving near her husband’s work around the time he was shot. She had also recently purchased a 9mm handgun—the same weapon used in Brophy’s killing, court records show.

In Brophy’s now-infamous essay, “How To Murder Your Husband,” she writes about the importance of evading detective work. “As a romantic suspense writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about murder and, consequently, about police procedure,” Brophy wrote. “After all, if the murder is supposed to set me free, I certainly don’t want to spend any time in jail.”

FORESHADOWING

Writer Accused of Killing Wrote ‘How to Murder Your Husband’