Nancy Crampton Brophy Murder Trial: Prosecutors Grill Her On Cross

PORTLAND, OR — It's been almost four years since Daniel Brophy left the Beaverton home he shared with his wife, Nancy Crampton Brophy, and went to his job at the Oregon Culinary Institute where he was a popular chef and instructor. Within about 30 minutes of arriving, he was dead, having been shot twice at close range.

Three months after that, Crampton Brophy was arrested, charged with murder.

On Tuesday, prosecutors got the chance to question her for the first time since the trial began and used the opportunity to ask about a range of topics including murder, her writing, her memory and more.

On the stand, Crampton Brophy told jurors a different story than the day that her husband had been killed. On that day, she had told detectives that she had been home when her husband left work and had not left the house.

Prosecutors showed surveillance video that showed what appeared to be her driving near the culinary institute before Brophy arrived for work.

On the stand, Crampton Brophy – a romance novelist – admitted that she it is her on the video, that she had been driving around looking for a place to write.

"I was driving round for a full hour before Dan got murdered," she testified. "I was there before Dan ever got to school. I was driving around writing for a full hour. I was only in that vicinity for six minutes."

Crampton Brophy that the events of the day had been so traumatic that she was having trouble remembering parts of the day, saying that parts of what she told detectives and others had been based on what she felt she would normally do during a day.

"I'm reconstructing this," she testified. "I'm reconstructing this based on what I know in my heart. The reason why I have no memory is because I was stunned by the fact that Dan was dead.

"I would not have been stunned if I was in the building and shot him."

Prosecutor Shawn Overstreet had seized on what she was described as memory issues.

"Isn't it possible that with your memory problems that morning, that you walked into OCI, that you shot your husband and you just don't remember?" Overstreet asked her.

"No, it is not," she said. "One thing I knew, is the last time I saw Dan. I see Dan every day. I talk to him every day. This is not a man I would have shot because I have a memory issue. It seems to me, if I shot him, I would know every detail."

The jury is expected to get the case sometime next week.