The author behind the online essay How To Kill Your Husband has been handed a life sentence after being convicted of murdering her partner.
In a very eerie moment of art imitating life, Nancy Crampton Brophy was found guilty of second-degree murder following a seven-week trial, according to The Guardian.
A jury found the self-published romance novelist guilty of shooting her husband, Dan, at his workplace in Oregon, Portland, four years ago.
Nancy had paid a visit to the now-closed Oregon Culinary Institute, where she killed her husband to get her hands on multiple life insurance policies that totalled to USD$1 million (AUD $1,442,005 or £823,867), as per CNN.
According to court documents, the writer was after a more lavish lifestyle, something her husband could not provide.
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It read: "As Nancy Brophy became more financially desperate and her writing career was floundering, she was left with few options.”
Although Dan’s workplace had no CCTV footage, nearby traffic cameras revealed that Nancy’s Toyota minivan was around the institute at the time of the shooting.
Prosecutors told the jury that Nancy shot her husband with a 9mm handgun and private investigators discovered two shell casings at the crime scene.
They also disclosed she had purchased a ‘ghost gun’, which is an unregistered and untraceable firearm.
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However, Nancy maintained that she had nothing to do with her husband’s death and was a devoted wife. She told the court that she had acquired the guns purely for research.
"What I can tell you is it was for writing," she said. "It was not, as you would believe, to murder my husband."
I mean, her online essay entertaining the possibility of killing off a partner really doesn’t help.
It’s even worse than when OJ Simpson published a hypothetical description of the murder of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in the book If I Did It. Yes, OJ 'if'.
Although Nancy’s 'How To Murder Your Husband' essay was not permitted as evidence, the jury still found her guilty.
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The judge gave the writer the possibility of parole after 25 years in prison, KPTV FOX 12 Oregon reported.
Charisa Bossinakis