Nancy Brophy Trial Latest: Day 7 Brings Her Stepson To The Stand

PORTLAND, OR — Nathaniel Stillwater told jurors on Thursday that relations were not always bad between himself and his stepmother who is now accused of killing his father. Stillwater took the stand on the seventh day of her trial in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

Nancy Crampton Brophy is accused of leaving her home in Beaverton the morning of June 2, 2018 and driving to the Oregon Culinary Institute in Portland where her husband Daniel worked as a chef/instructor. Prosecutors accuse her of shooting him twice, killing him.

Stillwater told jurors that in the hours after the shooting, he was concerned about Crampton Brophy.

"I knew there was a lot to be done," he testified, adding that he "was also concerned for her well-being."

He said that he had taken a week off to grieve and to be there for his stepmother.

Stillwater testified that he thought that his father and Nancy had had a good marriage. He said that they were affectionate with each other and with other family members including Stillwater's children.

He added that he had thought it odd that on the day of the murder, he tried several times to reach out to her, leaving messages. Stillwater told the jury that she never called him back or reached out to see how he was doing.

On the stand, Stillwater also described the call he'd received from his grandmother letting him know that his father – her son – was dead.

Stillwater said that, "her words were, 'your sweet daddy it was your sweet daddy.'"

In 2019, Stillwater filed a nearly $2 million wrongful death suit against Crampton Brophy. That suit was put on the back burner while she fights the charge of second-degree murder.

Jurors also heard from Steven Santos, an insurance expert for the prosecution who argued that the couple had been paying considerably too much in life insurance, particularly the $700,000 in polices that were taken out on Danel.

Santos told jurors that the couple had been paying around $800 each month on the insurance. Prosecutors had presented financial records showing that the Brophys had been having trouble making mortgage and other payments at the time that they were paying for insurance.

Prosecutors also called two friends of Crampton Brophy's from the Rose City Romance Writers Group – Crampton Brophy is a novelist who once wrote an essay, "How to Murder Your Husband," that the judge said could not be admitted as evidence at the trial.

Crampton Brophy's friends told the jury that evidence of research that she had done into guns that prosecution had introduced could very well have been research for a book.

The trial will resume on Monday.