Nancy Crampton Brophy Sentenced To Life In Prison For Husband's Murder

PORTLAND, OR — Nancy Crampton Brophy was sentenced to life in prison Monday after she was convicted in Multnomah County Circuit Court of killing her husband, Daniel Brophy, in 2018. Crampton Brophy, who was convicted on May 26, is eligible for parole after 25 years. She is 71 years old.

Crampton Brophy didn't appear to show any emotion as Judge Christopher Ramras announced the verdict. She had also sat silently in May when the foreman of the five men and seven women jury read the verdict.

A lawyer for Crampton Brophy had said then that they plan to appeal, but didn't specify on what grounds. As of Monday, no appeal had been filed.

"It was a long road to this verdict," Deputy District Attorney Shawn Overstreet said after Crampton Brophy's conviction. "Daniel Brophy’s family waited for justice for nearly four years."

Crampton Brophy, a self-published romance novelist who once penned an essay, "How to Murder Your Husband," was arrested in Sept. 2018, almost three months after Daniel Brophy was killed.

He was found shot twice at the Oregon Culinary Institute where he was a popular chef and instructor.

The 27-day trial painted two very different pictures of the life that the Brophys shared in their home in Beaverton.

Crampton Brophy's lawyers maintained that their client, who had pleaded not guilty, was very much in love with her husband. They said that while the couple had had financial troubles, things were back on the right path.

Prosecutors took the opposite approach, telling jurors that Crampton killed her husband for reasons that included her belief that she would benefit more from him financially if he was dead than alive.

Before the jury got the case on Tuesday, Overstreet had one last chance to make his argument to the jury.

"The last time Nancy saw Dan was when she stood over him, looked into his eyes and pulled that trigger one last time," Overstreet said.

Overstreet was responding to an assertion by defense lawyer Kristen Winemiller that the last time Crampton Murphy saw her husband was the morning of his death, when he left their home in Beaverton for his job at the Oregon Culinary Institute where he was a chef and instructor.

Overstreet accused the defense of trying to distract the jury from the facts of the case and of raising issues that were not relevant.

The prosecutor argued that Crampton Brophy had the motive, the means and the time to kill Daniel Brophy.

He disputed the defense assertion that Crampton Brophy would have been better off financially with her husband alive, arguing that a witness detailed how she would have received more money from insurance policies than she would have had if her husband had continued working.

"Nancy is guilty of murdering her husband, and it's now up to you to deliver the justice for chef Dan Brophy and the rest of the Brophy family," Overstreet told jurors.

She was arrested on Sept. 5, 2018, and has been held in Multnomah County Detention Center without bail since then.