‘How to Murder Your Husband’ writer tried to get away with ‘the perfect crime’

“I was shocked,” Tretheway told Fox News Digital. “The first time I knew this was happening was when I saw Nancy Crampton Brophy’s mugshot on the news.”

An Oregon writer who plotted to kill her partner for months until she turned her devious plan into a real-life story is the subject of a new true-crime podcast on Wonderland, “Happily Never After: Dan and Nancy.” It is hosted by Tretheway, who was once in the same writing circle as Crampton Brophy. It features new interviews with people Crampton Brophy has met over the years.

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Before life became stranger than fiction, Tretheway joined the Rose City Romance Writers, the local chapter for Romance Writers of America, in 2013. Crampton Brophy was the president at the time.

“It looked like a queen bee,” Tretheway recalled. “She thrived on the attention that being president gave her—running meetings, being at the front of the room, giving unsolicited advice. She loved being the center of attention.”

Tretheway said it was early 2014 when she proudly showed off her new book that would be published. Crampton Brophy was not happy.

“Nancy immediately criticized the cover,” Tretheway said. “She said the title placement was wrong, the color placement was wrong. And then several other people in the group poured in their criticism. At first, I felt aggressive because I was so proud of the book. I thought I’d nailed it.

“I made the changes that were suggested, and that book was one of my most commercially successful books. So the feedback wasn’t bad by any means. But it was coming from someone who wasn’t really successful as a writer.”

But Crampton Brophy was not outspoken about everything. Tretheway said she doesn’t recall the writer ever mentioning her husband, Oregon Culinary Institute instructor Dan Brophy.

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“I don’t have any sense that suggests there were any difficulties in the home,” Tretheway said. “None of her friends who spoke to this podcast ever suggested that there was a problem with either. The crime seemed so out of the blue because Nancy would be the last person I would imagine could potentially do something like this. She seemed like a sweet little old lady who was very goofy… and loved to be in the spotlight.”

“I could never imagine such a brutal crime on his part,” Tretheway added.

Pals described the couple as opposites who had a very loving relationship with each other.

“Nancy is loud and always laughing, but then, on the other hand, Dan is very quiet and introspective,” Tretheway said. “He liked to go out in the woods for mushrooms. He liked organic gardening. He probably liked his chickens more than he liked talking to people. They were very different people, but… they had a loving marriage. A friend of Nancy’s also said. That Nancy Told her they had sex every night, and later he would talk about real commitment.”

But a very different story was unfolding behind closed doors, investigators said. According to the prosecution, the Brophys were struggling financially. After the fall before Brophy’s death, the couple withdrew $35,000, or about half, from their retirement account, Portland’s Coin 6 News reported. These funds were used for mortgage and credit card payments.

Meanwhile, Crampton Brophy kept busy writing. Over the years, she published novels and romance suspense novels with titles such as “The Wrong Lover,” “The Wrong Hero” and “The Wrong Husband.”

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Then in 2011, she wrote an essay titled “How to Murder Your Husband”. KOIN 6 News In the piece, Crampton Brophy reportedly listed several methods of killing a person, including firing a gun.

“Loud, messy, requires some skill,” she wrote, as quoted by the outlet. “If it takes 10 seconds for a sucker to die, either your aim is terrible or he’s on drugs.”

“I think Nancy wrote it just for the shock value, for the clickbait of it all,” Tretheway said. “It was consistent with her personality. At the time, people wrote in the comments section, ‘Nancy, I love how your mind works.’ One of the writers even said, ‘I identify with this — there are times when I I want to kill my husband too.’

“I think it was written in a darkly humorous way,” shared Tretheway. “Nobody took it seriously or as a real threat to Dan’s life. One guy even joked, ‘I’ll call Dan and make sure he’s OK.’ I’m not defending it as a good writing choice, but I can certainly understand…choose to write something a little provocative so you can create clickbait to get more people exposed to your books.”

Time passed and no one thought twice about Crampton Brophy’s part.

Then on the morning of June 2, 2018, Brophy was filling a bucket of ice and water at a sink. He was preparing for his day as an instructor. A mysterious man walks into the kitchen and shoots him from behind. Brophy fell to the ground, and was shot again, this time in the chest at close range.

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Brophy’s students later discovered his body.

The community was heartbroken. Brophy was a beloved figure known for serving the local homeless. But no one was more distraught than his widow, who had lost the love of her life.

But it doesn’t take long for Crampton Brophy’s tale of woe to unravel.

A forensic scientist with the Oregon State Police revealed that Brophy, 63, was shot with a Glock pistol. Crampton Brophy researched and bought a “ghost gun” kit online and then bought a Glock 17 handgun at a gun show, prosecutors said.

Video cameras also captured footage of Crampton Brophy’s minivan. She was near the Oregon Culinary Institute at the time her husband was killed. However, Crampton Brophy insisted she had “no recollection” of being there.

And there was a motive, prosecutors insisted — greed. They claimed that Crampton Brophy would pocket more than $1.5 million from her husband’s life insurance policy. She will also have full ownership of their $300,000 home.

“According to the prosecution, she systematically issued all these policies on Dan’s life, but not on her own,” Tretheway explained. “She was experiencing a life she didn’t intend for herself. Prosecutors said she wanted to sell the house, move to Portugal and live as an expat. Meanwhile, Dan had chickens, backyard experiments and his organic garden. His solutions Financial problems were only to make more work.

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“But there seemed to be a lifestyle that she wanted that her writing could never provide because she was never successful as a writer,” Tretheway continued. “She never sold enough books to make a comfortable living. It barely supported her Starbucks habit. So it appeared that she thought murder was a way to get the lifestyle she always wanted.”

Crampton Brophy was arrested in September 2018. The stunned widow said she had no reason to kill her husband. She pointed out that their financial problems were largely solved by cashing in part of Brophy’s retirement savings plan.

Police never found the gun that killed Brophy. Prosecutors allege that Crampton Brophy swapped the barrel of the gun used in the shooting and then removed the barrel.

Defense attorneys said the gun parts were the inspiration for Crampton Brophy’s writing. They suggested that someone else may have killed Brophy during the robbery. Crampton Brophy testified during the trial that her presence near the culinary school on the day of her husband’s death was a mere coincidence and that she had parked in the area to work on her writing.

Circuit Judge Christopher Ramras excluded Crampton Brophy’s how-to essay from the trial. He noted that it was published in 2011, seven years before Brophy’s death.

Tretheway said Crampton Brophy’s infamous part was impossible to ignore.

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“The essay says a lot about his mindset,” she said. “She talks about how you kill somebody. Maybe you shoot her, but then you get blood and brains splattered on the walls. You don’t want to clean it up. Well, she’s killed somewhere else, so She did. No need to clean it up.”

In 2022, 71-year-old Crampton Brophy was convicted of second-degree murder. She showed no visible reaction. She was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Tretheway said she tried to reach Crampton Brophy. Her letter went unanswered.

“If Nancy had been more successful as a writer, if money hadn’t been a problem, would she have felt so depressed?” Tretheway reflected. “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.”