The Murder of Daniel Brophy | Morbid | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash I'm Caleb [Music] and this is morbid it's a special edition of morbid with Caleb
I would also like to acknowledge the fact that pepper is here you might hear him every so often if you're so lucky
he's a very he's a very uh Dapper Dachshund the most dapper he is he's a beautiful man he has a
sweater he has a diaper but that doesn't matter to the audio listeners my bad I mean it does matter they need to know
like set the scene Caleb has a Christmas sweater on I just have a lavender sweatshirt we're all pretty pretty
dashing today I almost wore a Santa hat you should have I can I mean I like the turkey 100 hot I
can't lie shout out turkey 100. listen to scream um but yeah so Caleb's joining me today
because Elena is busy at some kind of award show getting awards for her book and stuff I know things
um but yeah Caleb was nice enough to join me while Elena is in New York being Fancy with John and actually getting
some husband wife time so happy for her what a you know a book writing gal just a real gem just writing
books kicking ass taking names I love that girl period period all right so I invited Caleb on to tell him the story
of Dan and Nancy Brophy and I actually picked this case because I was watching um this is embarrassing but I was
watching Married at First Sight on Lifetime have you ever seen that I have yeah yeah I'm like wildly addicted to it
um but I was watching that I don't watch a lot of Lifetime anymore that's like the only thing that I will watch on
there but when I was younger I used to watch Lifetime movies all the time so when I see the commercials now I'm like
damn that shit's wild and I saw a commercial for this lifetime story which is the Nancy Brophy story and I was like
what the hell is happening there yeah the last name Brophy is crazy uh this woman is also completely delusional
um yeah yeah thought she was gonna get away with it with his wild sorry to um alert you up
front she did it I mean yeah she she definitely did it she definitely wrote about it
um the fact that she wrote about it so she wrote about it before it even happened we're gonna get into all of
that but first I gotta tell you about Nancy when she was born so okay tell me about when she was born
I'll tell you Nancy cramped and Brophy she was born Nancy Lee Crampton on June 16 1950 which makes her not only a
Gemini but the middle child of her parents so it was all from the start yeah yeah that's a little there's a few
problems there yeah Gemini middle child out here wild in so both her parents were lawyers and they decided that they
wanted to raise their family in Wichita Falls Texas which is my favorite place to say
it is a very fun name Wichita is a are there more wichita's is it just the one in Texas no I feel like there's other
ones there's more wichita's right I mean I'm gonna I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say there's like many in
Wichitas I feel like there is I think I've heard of that name often like when you said Texas it kind of threw me off
because I feel like I've heard of uh Wichita somewhere else I think there might be a Wichita Kansas
Wichita is gonna stop being a word any second now this is Wichita with Caleb and Ash but anyway after graduating from
high school in 1968. Nancy she went on to study at the University of Houston and there she majored I don't know why I
said it like that I was in Texas I guess um she majored in economics and she ended up graduating in 1972. now not
long after graduating from the University of Houston she got married to her first husband who was a police
officer and according to her later testimony she was not or he was not allowed to keep his gun in the house she
wouldn't let him okay which is interesting when we get to later because yeah she claims that she's
obsessed with guns but weird that she was like no he couldn't leave his gun in the house like I I didn't like that
from what I saw about this it seems like she kind of flip-flops too she'll be like no I'm not I don't like guns at all
it's not a thing but she's like well everyone had a gun so like you know we just had to and then she was like oh
well we shouldn't have yup that's exactly what she does she's she's a flip-flop fish she's definitely a
flip-flopper she is um so it's unclear really how long their Mass marriage lasted or when it ended
but by the end of the 1980s she was divorced and she was ready to shake her life up in a real big way and so she
moved to Portland Oregon in 1990. she just really wanted to put like her old life behind her start over completely so
she decided to try something new she said on the enroll in culinary school okay yeah I feel like that's a fun thing
to do so she didn't know that was her thing too interesting yeah it was for like a minute so she enrolled in the
western Culinary Institute which is now Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts it's another fun fun set of words caught
on Blue yeah Le cord on blue blue um but it was there that she ended up meeting Daniel Brophy
so oh okay he was also born in June but he was born a little bit later in June June 27 1954 which makes him a cancer
but he was born in Valley City North Dakota and after he graduated high school in 1971 he went to the University
of Sioux Falls graduated from there in 1976 and then he started his own culinary career shortly after that
right his passion for food and cooking eventually led him to Portland Oregon where he became I feel like you're gonna
love this he became a mushroom hunter and gardener oh no I don't love that no no I hate
mushrooms uh well yeah but I just thought you would love that like lifestyle like he was just like you know
what I'm gonna go find out about mushrooms I'm against it I don't think they should be harvested I don't think
they should be made I don't think they should be in existence I don't like smelling them
you don't like smelling mushrooms I feel like they don't really have much of a smell they smell like fungus because
they are a fungus they you know they're just dirt I don't like them okay well you might
not like them and I might I like I go back and forth with mushrooms but Daniel he loved mushrooms and he was good at
mushrooms like like picking out which ones you could Harvest and eat and which ones you shouldn't anyway this is a very
interesting thing there are a lot of mushrooms out there there are I've even like in Elena's guard there's like
several different kinds of mushrooms that is true and I'm like kids don't eat those because I am not an expert on
shroomies those are weird I could never imagine just walking out and going like all
right I'm gonna eat this weird looking phallic thing growing out of the ground kids will eat like anything on the
ground but I mean Elena's kids do not eat the mushrooms on the ground but I feel the need to be like don't touch
that you know yeah mushrooms just seemed like something I shouldn't eat yeah but but it's good to know which
ones you can and cannot eat like if you're like stranded somewhere and you're hungry
I can see that yeah so you know Daniel he he knew all about that and actually he got so good at it that he would
eventually start leading tours and giving lectures on the Region's mushrooms herbs and other local
ingredients and once he became a full-blown Chef he honed his craft at restaurants like
Jake's famous crawfish which is a Portland Landmark that has been in business for more than 125 years
wow okay it's a lot of crawfish over that time that's a lot of restaurant over that time
but outside of work Daniel was really committed to his community he not only worked at a soup kitchen every week but
he would also bring his own ingredients to the soup kitchen to make sure he could cook up something special this
wasn't like regular soup kitchen food it was Daniel's soup kitchen food and he put a lot of love into his food he did
it see it really seems like he did and he loved cooking he was super knowledgeable in his field he was also
just like a really easy going man in general and he just wanted to share his passion and his smarts with other people
so because all those things were really working for him he decided that he'd like to become a culinary instructor
so he started at that Western Culinary Institute the one that would later become Le Cordon Bleu and he was in his
first year as an instructor when he met Miss Nancy okay not a good time not a good time she
you know I have I all the nancies I've come across I'm sorry all the Nancy's out there but they've been a problem in
this Nancy just kind of confirms it for me I only have ever really dealt with one Nancy in my life that I can think of
and she's the only person that I ever requested not to work directly with so so I agree with you so guys I'm sure
there's a few of you good nancies out there and shout out to you but yeah these nancies I don't know so far it's
like Karen's there's great carrots but then there's Karen Karen's yeah but then you feel bad for the great Karen's
because they're like Jesus Christ I want to change my name yeah some of these nancies are just you know they're
they're making it bad for other nancies needle and Nancy's you know I don't know that's the best I could
come up with yeah yeah no I got it she's a metal in Nancy because she was immediately taken with Daniel she
thought he was a fine instructor and a fine man and it started to become very clear to everybody else in the class
just how much she liked him um but there was a big issue Daniel was married he couldn't be out here with Miss Nancy
Nance no Nancy's roommate at the time Tanya Medlin she warned Nancy about getting
too close to Daniel because you know he was married and all and she told her don't be dipping your candle in somebody
else's wax which I loved that's like a that's a real quote that's a that's a crazy way
to put it don't dip your candle in somebody else's wax I love it no not not even the that side of it the
candle side of it why would you why would you dip your candle in somebody else's wax in the first place it's
already waxed it's already a candle that's the thing you already it's already a marriage it's already
them two together stop dipping into it that's that's what my good girl Tanya was trying to say
it's a saying and a half you know but Nancy responded well that's not gonna last which like don't ever be that girl
like you don't know his wife or anything about her and even if you do like stop battling in people's marriages but
unfortunately Nancy was correct the marriage would end just a few years later in 1994 and once it did Daniel
Brophy began dating Nancy um no he kept building his career at the same time as a chef instructor with the
culinary school and Nancy actually opened up her own catering business uh Chef du jour catering it was a really
successful catering company in Northwest Portland by the late 1990s things actually were going really well for the
both of them as a couple because Nancy's catering business had grown really considerably at the time they were
employing 25 people and they were earning half a milli per year damn okay right and then in 1999 eight
years after they met Dan and Nancy held what they called a large marriage ceremony and they started calling each
other husband as well husband and wife but it actually took them until June of 2016 to file the
legal paperwork okay paperwork because like that's really relatable for me but I was gonna say I
mean some people just you know I I I'm bad at paperwork I'm bad at getting back to things like that whatever my
accountant is like it's time to look through your taxes I'm like I don't know what those are
trust me I'm horrified about that I hate tax season it freaks me out because I'm
like where did I put that little slip of paper six months ago literally so maybe
that's what happened with Dan and Nancy here they were like [ __ ] we had that marriage certificate we don't know where
it is and then they found it and they filed it but you get to it when you get to it
yeah now just like a lot of people Dan and Nancy hit a little bit of financial trouble when the economy downturned
after 9 11. Nancy had to lay off at least 10 people from the catering business so to help supplement their
income Dan kept teaching but he also started Moonlighting as a chef at a retirement home now they also on top of
that ended up refinancing their house so that they could get money from their equity
I don't really know how any of that works but things started improving financially over the next couple of
years Daniel got a better job he got hired actually as lead Chef instructor at the
Oregon Culinary Institute in 2006 and immediately people freaking loved him there students uh especially really
loved him and they said he was quote the most active faculty member leading field
trips organizing student projects and speaking in the community so he's like one of the favorite
teachers that sounds like a stand-up guy shout out Brody he really does no not long
brofia not long after he started working at oci the college there he and Nancy moved to Beaverton which I love the name
of that town it's a small City just outside of Portland and in 2013 Nancy decided to
dedicate as much time as humanly possible to her passion for writing you guys had no idea Nancy is a writer
no in the past she had written some small pamphlets in college she made some money as a technical writer but she
always wanted to pursue her interest in writing fiction and now she kind of had the chance
since graduating from culinary school in the early 90s she joined a few writing groups and she said that she had quote
spent years dabbling in literary crafts but she never really thought it would be
something or could be something that she would take very seriously but she I because I don't know enough
about all this part is she a successful writer like was she fairly big how um in the grand scheme of things how did
it go for her I don't really think she didn't make a lot of money doing it she may have been successful in the way that
she did write several books which is more than I can say um but I don't I don't think they were
like in in a crazy amount of success yeah because I think we'll get into it later but one of the books she wrote it
seems like like it has one of those names that seems like it's pretty popular but it also seems like
it's just she called it that because something like that is already really popular you know what I mean yeah I
think that's exactly what it was and I think okay she was also writing in a genre that is probably I'm just assuming
here probably hard to get into because I think there's so many books that in the
genre that she'd write it already exactly but we'll get there don't jump ahead yeah okay okay okay so she she really
when social media started like happening and the internet started becoming more mainstream throughout the 2000s and
early 2010s it made it easier for writers to reach an audience through websites and blogs and self-publishing
so Nancy decided to give writing an honest try for like the first time ever now we're going to get into some of what
she wrote writing as Nancy cramped and Brophy she would eventually pen nine romance novels including a five book
series with titles like the wrong husband the wrong cop and the wrong lover oh my God I've seen this time and
time again standard lifetime standard Lifetime and these were self-published books and they were sold online they
were pretty much all within I've never heard of this but it's called The bodice Ripper genre
what is that I think it's like when you rip off your corset probably or something like that it's the whole genre
for that isn't that just an action I don't really know man I'm not in that job now but it featured quote unquote
rugged men strong women and a good story and that was according to her website and then all of the novels had covers
that quote depicted handsome Heroes and at least one heroine with chiseled bodies and dark quaffed hair
I don't even know what koifter is I think it just means it's like in place this seems like a very uh
I don't know it's very time explanation it's very like Nicholas Sparks kind of writing and like kind of genre I feel
and also it's taking me back to a place of the America's Next Top Model shoot where Fabio joins I don't know if you
ever watched that I'm not I've just been honestly my brain is getting fried lately because all I've
been watching is 90 Day Fiance and um since I got into this Rabbit Hole I've realized that there's like 36 like
offsets of 90 Day Fiance so really it's a whole you could dig yourself into I I don't think it's it's not a hole you can
dig yourself it's a hole you can't dig yourself out of that's really actually that's exactly what it is that's what I
should have said it doesn't end like there's so many my grandma you should talk to Cath next time you're here
because that girl loves 90 day she's like did you watch the I'm like I don't watch it Ma
she said I didn't know that Ma loves 90 day I mean me and Mom already get along well but once we start getting to the 90
day I mean it's not gonna stop it's about to go off most of the one that got me into Bravo in the first place she
doesn't really watch it anymore but 90 day I don't think she'll ever give up on 90 day I I feel her dude I get it well
it's kind of like how Nancy wasn't going to give up on writing bodice Ripper novels so writing fulfilled her
personally but like you were kind of asking earlier uh it didn't really do it for the couple financially she wasn't
making a lot of money doing this and very soon they were struggling again to the point where in 2014 they started
dipping into Daniel's 401k which like I don't really know a lot about that but I don't think that's
something you want to dip into if you can help it but yeah that's basically the the
standard practice Yeah Yeah that's the take so they were dipping into it I think like obviously like good
intentions they wanted to fix up their house and eventually subdivide the property and sell off the various
subdivisions and they actually even went as far as to have Nancy's name taken off
the deed which reduced the amount of income reported by the homeowner who now at that point was just Daniel basically
I was trying to figure out like what that would save them and I think it just saves them taxes if you're like if your
income is like less than what you were originally reporting I would think it was just tax time like
things but I don't really know I'm sure you guys listening will know if you're into taxes and things like that all you
people that are into taxes out there you just you do your tax things oh you CPA brothers and sisters
shout out CPAs shout out even though there was a steep decrease in income Nancy she kept focusing on her writing
she was writing full time at this point but now she was spending money quite frequently on her writing and quote
unquote research for her novels she would spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on all kinds of things for This
research like one time when she bought a Victorian era chastity belt for research
to research what exactly goddess Ripper genre I don't know do you can't just like Google that stuff
well that's the thing I think maybe she had like a shopping problem or something
like that or I don't know maybe she just really liked these things and wanted them but then like wrote it off as
research so her husband wouldn't get mad at her I would just love to be a fly on
the wall just to see what she was doing with this chastity belt I would not like
to be a fly on the wall for that look it's not for pleasure it's purely for science just for writing it down and
doing experiments later of course but in addition to her spending on Research she and Daniel actually started
investing heavily in life insurance policies and that was starting in 2014. that was a red flag right when people
are just like gambling on their life insurance yeah definitely you don't need to have like multiple
multiple multiple life insurance policies I think like one or two will cut it again not something I really know
a lot about yeah to me it just seems like starting a life insurance policy seems fairly standard to a certain
extent but then those they used a few keywords that made it sound like they're doing this many different times and just
kind of throw in life insurance policies around and that seems worrisome that was
a really good inference you made there because between 2014 and 2017 they had acquired six life insurance policies all
right for Daniel like not for Nancy uh oh these life insurance preparers how do they even allow that they could be they
should just be like okay wait that I'm pretty sure why I think it's because they were going like different places so
the other life insurance brokers I guess is what you call them they didn't realize that they already had five
others taken out this is crazy it does so they had six life insurance policies between 2014 and 2017 that they took out
and they had a base payout of four hundred thousand dollars and an additional three hundred and twenty
thousand dollars in the event that Daniel's death was accidental this is from each of them
um I think it was like a majority of them okay like at least but I think between all of them that's what would
have happened so can you just do that like can you just have multiple life insurance policies and just like
take them all out I don't know enough about life insurance is what I'm realizing right now I would think that
that would be some kind of fraud if you had multiple but right I don't know I mean like people aren't going around
with like you know three different car insurances you know what I mean right and I mean you have to get approved for
all of them also fun fact getting life insurance is really [ __ ] hard and it's really [ __ ] annoying because you
have to answer like a bunch of questions like if you've ever done drugs are you overweight do you smoke cigarettes you
must have a physical some lady has to come to your house and you have to pee in a cup and give it to her it's awful
wow and to do that six different times I'm like you couldn't pay me money and like you would be but you couldn't so by
September of 2017 sadly they had blown through almost all of Daniel's 401k and as of that month there was only about 35
000 remaining now obviously thirty five thousand dollars is a lot of money but I
think when it comes to to a 401k not very much you can't really live off of that for the rest of your life no and
that's that's exactly it but Nancy had been pushing Daniel to sell the house and the land thinking that that would
wipe away their debts and kind of give them a fresh start but the problem was after Consulting with a financial
advisor Nancy was informed that even if they sold the house and the land they would still come out of that deal with
negative cash flow so basically her spending habits and I mean really inability to generate income
had put her and her husband deeply in the red financially speaking and not even selling the house would generate
enough money to get them out of it so basically they're [ __ ] pretty much basically Nancy should have just like
reopened her catering business yeah or done anything really aside from um the wrong mister and the wrong
chastity belt it's like at the end of the day if that's not bringing you in enough money to support you and your
husband and like in addition to his income that's a hobby you're not yeah you know like you you gotta get
something to supplement this if you're in the red so the morning of June 2nd 2018 we're
flash forwarding here and fast forwarding um it started out pretty much sorry let
me catch you off real quick what what timeline were we at before that uh before that we were between 2017 or 2014
and 2017. oh okay yeah they started having money problems after 9 11 because like the economy went down and stuff
like that but then they were able to kind of regain but then they kind of started floundering again when Nancy
stopped The Culinary business and started writing okay okay so 2017 is when things got like really really bad
financially that's when they were told like even if you sell the house even if you sell the land and subdivide all
these properties you're still going to end up with some debt and like a good amount of debt so now
we're in 2018. it's June 2nd 2018. and this morning started off pretty regular for Daniel Brophy like pretty much like
every other morning had he woke up early he went out back to feed the chickens in
the backyard he just seems like a very wholesome man like working at a retirement home working at a soup
kitchen feeding his chickens he takes the dogs for a walk comes back home takes a quick shower and then he heads
off to work so he got to the Oregon Culinary Institute oci a little after 7 A.M and
since he was the first one to come in the building he disabled the alarm and headed to Kitchen one which was his
usual kitchen classroom one another thing too he was pretty much always there every morning he was the first one
there every morning really early yup he loved getting there early and just like being able to set up the kitchen before
all the people came now A co-worker arrived about 10 or 15 minutes later they were going to be the
one that was going to unlock the doors for the students and kind of greet them when they started filing in and then
they would go to their classroom where Daniel had everything set up so in kitchen one like I just said he
was setting everything up for the day starting the coffee maker making other arrangements he was at the sink filling
up pictures with ice water though when somebody snuck into the classroom quietly and shot him one time in the
back and when he got shot with that one shot the force of the bullet caused his body
to spin around 180 degrees at which point his killer fired again quote directly sent her Mouse to his chest
Jesus which sent a second bullet tearing through his torso ultimately piercing his heart
brutal as [ __ ] and just like out of nowhere this man is just at work setting up for the day you would never expect
this and at first Carla his for his culinary class yeah right exactly and here's the thing students are
starting to come in and clearly like nobody really heard this because there wasn't that many people around us like
right when it happened so he's laying there on the ground as students are filing into the kitchen just after 7 30
and they are completely shocked to find their instructor lying on his back in front of the industrial sink unconscious
and bleeding profusely from two gunshot wounds and I did watch a little video about that I think how it happened and
I'm not sure who I heard speaking they were in core and they were explaining like you know this is the building this
is the back door that we were all lined up at blah blah I'm not sure if it was one of the students or I I think to my
knowledge I might have been another one of the teachers like another one of the culinary teachers I think there's only
like a few because they were doing like weekend classes Saturday and Sunday Type
Thing um but she said she saw a bunch of students like lined up out there and was
like that's weird they're usually all in there because he's early he lets them in
really early but the door was locked none of them came in and then another like um one other worker or something
something like that came over to the side let all the kids in and then after they're in I think they walked around
for a bit and eventually one of them goes hey call 9-1-1 there's a body over here like found him over there can you
imagine you're just like filing into your classroom they're like oh I gotta take a Saturday class and that's what
you stumble into yeah like the 911 call was pretty crazy too because I mean but I can never listen to 9-1-1 calls it's
not one of those like really really I mean they're all horrific you know but it's not one of those ones that's like
you know it like makes you want to like break down while you're listening to it but it is still pretty [ __ ] up and you
know you're listening to it and they don't really realize that he's dead at first they're like hey he's unconscious
like he's down here I don't think he's BR he's breathing but then after a while they go oh [ __ ] like he's bleeding from
his chest right and then you know it goes on and then they realize yeah he's gone
so sad so yeah like you said one of the students just called 9-1-1 the police and the emergency responders they raced
to the scene but again like you just said by the time they got there it was too late he was dead dead on the rifle
so Portland detectives Anthony Merrill and Darren Posey arrived at OSI excuse me
um around 8 30 in the morning and at that point the school had been placed in lockdown crime scene
technicians had started processing the scene so when the detectives entered the kitchen they found so sad the metal ice
scoop lying on the floor where he had dropped it when he was shot and then nearby they discovered two nine
millimeter shell casings on the floor which meant that whoever had killed Daniel most likely wasn't a professional
killer Merrill told interviewers from Dateline they wanted to get in quick and get out quick
yeah So within two hours of the murder somebody a friend had called Nancy to let her know that the police were
converged on oci so she immediately drives down to the school detectives meet her and they Usher her into a room
that they started kind of using as a command center and they kind of you know go through
their series of questions like what was your husband doing this morning what does he usually do like blah blah
what were you doing and after several minutes they finally gave her the news they told her we believe it's Dan that's
been killed now she barely skipped a b and said to them yeah I got that when everybody gave me the Sad Sack look
like okay we're weird response weird energy weird response now what followed was typical Behavior like what you would
call it she was bewildered she was grief stricken she was crying that is the kind
of reaction that you would expect from somebody but again me and Alina say it all the time like you can't chop like
somebody's guiltiness up to how they react to something right away because not everybody's gonna cry right away
some people are gonna you know freeze yeah everyone has different reactions man yeah Nancy just makes weird comments
and then she cries but anyways they were like okay um like you can go for now and we're
gonna talk to you later today like we'll be in contact because they were still working on the scene
so by the next day the news had made its way around the OSI community and there was a wave of stunned and shocked
responses current and former students were on the internet just sharing their surprise and grief they were posting
comments to social media one said Oregon Culinary Institute lost a top-notch chef
instructor that touched so many lives and another one said Daniel was also one of the smartest most
thoughtful people I've ever met and would take the time with whatever you needed
so sad so that seemed like a good dude he really did and then Nancy shared her thoughts online
um and in my opinion this is a pretty strange Facebook post but she wrote for those of you who are close to me and
feel this deserved a phone call you're right but I'm struggling to make sense of everything now while I appreciate all
of your loving responses I'm overwhelmed please save calls for a few days until I
can function hmm just weird like I don't know a bizarre a bizarre post in my opinion yeah I mean I guess again I
guess I don't know what to chop it up to because I mean I guess I already know the outcome of the story and that's the
scumbag but yeah I guess in hindsight looking at it but I don't know I guess if I didn't
know what I knew it might not be that odd of a statement like hey you know leave me alone kind of thing
give me a little while like I can't talk about this like I get it I appreciate it
but I don't know it is it's a little odd no but that's a solid point I'm looking at it through the lens
of like I already knew and again we already set it up like clearly she did this so when I read that I was like well
that's weird but if I had read that and she didn't if she wasn't the one that did it maybe I would feel differently
probably yeah you might just think like hey you know she's tired of hearing about this and she's trying to agree
right right and she doesn't want to like have her phone blown up all day when she's going through it yeah but to
reiterate that's not the what's happening she's a piece of [ __ ] yeah not the case [ __ ] Nancy so a candlelight
vigil was held in Daniel's honor a few days later in the parking lot at the school and Nancy reiterated her grief
and her shock to the students and the faculty saying I just can't wrap my head around it Dan was one of the very few
people I've known that knew exactly what he wanted in life and loved doing it which is really sad when again we know
that she's the one that is doing this she's standing in front of all of these grieving people saying I can't wrap my
head around it he was the nicest guy he knew what he wanted and he was doing it it's like okay so like then why did you
kill him he was happy he was doing what he wanted to do like what like that's just some
people have no shame they truly don't so back to the investigation as they surveyed the scene detectives Marilyn
Posey were a rather perplexed there was no sign of a struggle no sign of forced entry Daniel still had his wallet phone
Keys his car was still parked in the parking lot so pretty much right away those factors ruled out the whole
robbery gone wrong scenario to them it seemed like somebody had snuck into the culinary school to murder
him and then snuck out without disrupting or taking anything but they were stumped because they were like who
the hell would want to do that Daniel was super well liked so they were having a really hard time coming up with
anybody who disliked him especially enough to kill him or have him killed yeah I mean you get a culinary chef
who's just there for his like weekend job right at an Institute like someone walking in and killing someone like that
is pretty wild yeah just like very sudden and out of the blue and then to have all of his things still with him
you're like what like yeah crazy so detective Posey told Dateline there was people that were like he's tough but
nothing that you know somebody had it out for him because they like had their career ended by him or anything like
that so many people knew Daniel Brophy to be a very direct person who quote wasn't afraid to have conversations that
many instructors might shy away from and also his dry sense of humor and he did have kind of like a rigid personality
that did did tend to rub people like certain people the wrong way but it was never to the extent like I was just
saying that somebody would want him dead for something he said or anything he did
it was just like I'm trying to honestly it kind of reminds me of my grandpa yeah
little guy yeah like yeah a little bit he might like piss you off because he's not gonna like beat around the bush but
it's like hey he's not like he's not a bad dude murder material you know no exactly not that anybody is but
no yeah and that's I think that's exactly like you put it so perfectly like he's not gonna beat around the bush
like he's just gonna tell you how he feels so with a case like this where somebody
is killed seemingly for no reason as we all know the spouse is the one that they
look into first so when Nancy was questioned shortly after the murder she told investigators that she'd woken up
briefly when Daniel came in after walking the dogs that morning but she said she fell asleep soon after he had
left and otherwise she'd just gone about her morning leisurely until she got the
call about what happened now detectives outwardly seem to accept her description of her movements that
morning but they also knew right away that she was lying even as she was telling them her uh version of that
morning's events Because by the time they sat down to question her they had already found surveillance footage that
contradicted her story so she says she's sleeping and that she just woke up when Daniel came in with
the dogs and then fell right back to sleep and just had a chill morning nope at 708 am when she was supposedly
at home sleeping a surveillance camera from a business across the street from the culinary school captured Nancy
driving by the school in her minivan I mean the dude's been an idiot every step of the way seriously this dude
Nancy you're leaving shells at the scene just driving by running around with cameras all over you she's like oh no
I'm I'm sleeping I was in bed thank you I don't understand 2018 and you don't realize that we are being videoed every
[ __ ] second of every [ __ ] day like when you were driving around in your car you were being caught on surveillance
footage everywhere you can't just say that you're not home sleeping you should have said oh I got
gas across the street from the culinary school I can't believe that happened while I was there
I mean I guess I'm not giving you like a an alibi but still no but we're just saying she's a giant idiot and she could
have said anything else if she was really you know not a giant idiot and was able to like you know come up with
some kind of Alibi I mean I'm glad that she's a bozo and got caught but but come on man now again that she was
not snoozing like she said she was because that same camera where she was caught at 708 captured her again about
20 minutes later in front of the school and then about 10 minutes after Daniel had deactivated the alarm system at the
school and then five minutes before his body was discovered in the classroom so she was discovered left right and Center
on this [ __ ] surveillance system so the other thing is her story about being home and in bed at the time of the
murder was not her only suspicious behavior in the days and weeks following the murder just three days after Dan was
killed detective Posey got a call from Nancy asking if he would produce a letter confirming that she was not a
suspect in the murder so that she could assure the insurance company she wasn't involved in the deaf okay buddy AKA let
me get my insurance payout yeah like hand me the check and then we'll figure out what else is going on exactly so
Posey clearly had never been asked for such a letter by anybody and he was like yeah girl like that's not gonna happen
his real direct quote was he literally said to her he goes the way you clear somebody is you arrest somebody else and
take them to trial like you're not gonna get a letter until I have tried somebody
for this murder that's not you so she's just like wait so her quote wasn't yeah buddy
no no not the direct quote okay but it wasn't just detectives who found her reaction to Dan's death to be unusual
there were neighbors who were also pretty put off by her behavior John McConnell who lived in the house that
abundant Daniel and Nancy's property told reporters quote she never showed any signs of being upset or sad I would
say she had an air of relief like it was almost a godsend McConnell asked whether
the police had been keeping in touch with her and Nancy told him no I'm a suspect
like damn girl now other neighbors had also noticed her odd behavior too she was moving
furniture in and out of or out of the house she had started telling people that she was seriously thinking of
putting the house on the market because she was quote haunted by Dan's side of the bedroom she said thinking about him
upset her and she wanted to get away from the house okay which I mean if my neighbor said
that to me after their husband was murdered I feel like I'd be like I don't think I would consider that strange like
no she's like the bedroom that makes sense but putting the house on the market that's like
that's abrupt yeah I mean I don't know again I guess when I look at it through the lens of
maybe she you know like something she's actually going through something I could see that
happening because I've had friends who have lost spouses who have had very similar reactions so I mean yeah I don't
know I guess it's just kind of out of character at this point because she was so
sporadic and terrible about like you know leading shells at the scene like being caught on camera everywhere just
saying like oh I'm in bed but then when it comes to this I don't know I feel like I almost feel like she did react
kind of well for someone who's trying to hide the fact that they killed their husband I think there are times where
she does and then I think there are times where she slips up oh I think she slips up basically all
over the place yeah I think more often than not she's slipping up but as technicians began digging into Dan's
personal life they only found more evidence leading them back to Nancy as they were searching through his cell
phone for Clues they actually discovered an article bookmarked on their shared iTunes account so this iTunes account
was shared by Dan and Nancy and the article they found was titled 10 ways to cover up a murder
okay no not long after they also discovered another suspicious article this one written by Nancy herself in
2011. she had written this article for a Blog called CJ in publish and it was titled how to murder your husband your
husband yeah yeah that's that's the one I was referring to earlier um real unreal
like I don't know I don't know Nancy again maybe maybe don't if that's your goal but you
know maybe even if that is your is not your goal like don't write about how to murder people
it's that's something else so this this article was written kind of like in an essay format and it detailed the motives
and methods that somebody might use to kill their spouse in a romance novel Nancy wrote divorce is expensive and do
you really want to split all your possessions or if you married for money aren't you entitled to all of it the
drawback is the police aren't stupid they're looking at you first if the murder is supposed to set me free I
certainly don't want to spend any time in jail I wish I said the police aren't stupid
but I am yeah literally she launched into the pros and cons of the five methods of murder the essay
recommended against hiring a Hitman to do the job because quote an amazing number of Hitmen Hitmen rat you out to
the police how many Hitmen do you know thank you what statistic is this she beat it up uh
she then cautions against using poison saying who wants to hang out with a sick husband
yeah that's that's the only downside to poisoning your bands sorry what and then
she ends the essay by saying I find it easier to wish people dead than to actually kill them I don't worry I don't
want to worry about the blood and brain splattered on my walls and really I'm not good at remembering lies
I mean I guess this is a fairly it's not even a good script for a movie about a psychopath it's a very
Bland script it's a very but wish them dead I'm sorry yeah this is a weird list even for someone who is
a terrible person and does terrible things this is this is odd like I love that she's like you know I would just
rather wish people dead because I don't really want to like clean up my walls and I'm really bad at remembering lies
not like I have a conscious and I would never murdered someone like oh I get what this is now she wrote this
so she could show it to the police later and go no no no see this is me saying I
would never do I would only wish it I I acknowledge that you guys aren't stupid and I knew you'd be looking at me of
course it's not me maybe it was honestly that's not a bad point like it's crazy Nancy but I can see that being like her
kind of logic you know in this probably yeah no her I mean because we'll get into it we already have a little bit her
logic is wild logic but so they find all of that they're like okay well this is plenty of
evidence and then detectives learned that the couple owned a Glock nine millimeter handgun which
was the very same caliber used in Daniel's murder that it was but it gets tricky according
to Nancy she had purchased the nine millimeter as research for one of her novels
and she claimed that neither her or Daniel had ever fired it so see and I heard another side too
where she was like oh all my friends had one and then we felt like it was stupid
because we didn't have one because friends just kept showing up to our house and they were like oh we have a
gun I was like I don't think that ever happened actually but sure interesting story I think that ever happened Nancy I
think you're just cray-cray but so she said that they had never fired it that it was for research blade or it was
because her all her friends had one and she just had to get it like it's a new pair of Nikes uh but investigators took
the gun into evidence and they had it tested but forensic technicians determined it probably was not the gun
used in the shooting no okay later but that but maybe it was because later detectives learned that
this wasn't the first gun Nancy had purchased in late 2017 she had purchased what's called a ghost gun kit online
which would have allowed her to make her own untraceable gun no wait what apparently the kit was
actually too difficult for her to complete and that's when she purchased the Glock but through the course of
their investigation detectives would also learn that while the Glock wasn't a match for the casings at the scene on
the day of the murder it might have been used because Nancy had purchased additional parts for a Glock 9
millimeter on eBay and she had swapped several components of the gun before handing it over to detectives so that's
where she actually like is kind of a scary Mastermind how did she manage to do all of that but
she goes no I was asleep I had no idea also like Mama they're gonna look at your search history yeah I mean you
bought it on eBay come on like that's very traceable I mean like the thing that she did like you said that's kind
of impressive that's kind of crazy right I don't know how many people would think
to do that but uh maybe people that are like more into guns but I don't know like that's still
just that's crazy this chick riding murder mystery [ __ ] lifetime novels about killing her husband
I mean I don't know and she's saying she's gonna wish people dead but then she thought to do this that that's
that's something else it's wild and I also love that she was like yeah the the ghost gun kit online was too hard for me
but I was able to switch out several components of another gun she's an enigma for sure she really is
so after months of quietly following leads and collecting evidence detectives had assembled what they believed was a
pretty strong case against Nancy Crampton Brophy for the murder of her husband she and Daniel were way behind on their
mortgage they were living well beyond their means and it was mostly especially when it came to Nancy's spending habits
she was really the one pushing them above their means uh then there were the multiple life insurance policies that
would pay out nearly four hundred thousand dollars in the event of Daniel's death
Israel's also she's spending all this money how much money are they spending on six different life insurance policies
it must have been like crazy and I think I have to wonder if he knew I don't think he knew about those I think she
was probably buying those and like keeping it secret from him and then the fact that should Daniel die the house
and all of his assets would be transferred directly to Nancy so she had the most to gain from his death and then
finally the most damning evidence of all and the reason why they were actually able to
get a probable cause affidavit in the first place was the surveillance video footage proving that contrary to her
statement Nancy was at the school during the very short window of time in which Daniel was killed
so oh so can I actually play you a clip yeah that I think is very um interesting
kind of regarding that yes you may this is uh like from one of her uh trials I believe
did not not sure where would have been shooting your husband within a six minute window
the exact type of gun that you own your version of what happened that is not my version I think your case is held
together with real frankly Band-Aids girl that's the thing it's like you were there in a very small time frame you
have all the means all the motives to do this but it wasn't you all the materials
even too and then why why were you lying about sleeping like you really put it out there like
pretty straightforward within a six minute time frame she goes nope your defense terrible dog [ __ ] what do you
mean why why is the defense terrible because you haven't given her favor that's the thing so so crazy on the
morning of September 5th 2018 just three months after the murder of her husband police arrested Nancy at her home at
previously the couple's home in Beaverton she was seemingly shocked and asked you're arresting me you must think
I murdered my husband no Nancy we thought that you actually stole some Cheerios from the Stop and
Shop down the street um yeah you arrested for that this has nothing to do with your husband's murder no this is
just from something that happened like two decades ago you know you grew up the Skittles from the Kroger you just like
had a couple unpaid parking tickets Nance it's we're just gonna take you downtown like yes they think you
murdered your husband of course that's why they're arresting you and don't they literally say like you're being arrested
for the murderable yeah for sure there's no way remains silent anything you say can yeah
so she's really quick on the uptake there but despite all the strong evidence against her like we just heard
in that crazy ass clip Nancy maintained that she was innocent but still offered zero explanation for her presence
outside the school on the morning of her husband's murder but strangely enough her arrest actually
shocked almost everybody who knew her and Daniel especially the people closest to them her old roommate Tanya she said
I was absolutely shocked I don't think she did it and I would be embarrassed if I was them if they can't prove this
now Daniel's son Nathan Stillwater was among those most stunned by Nancy's arrest he told Dateline they were you
know they had started making some plans for what was going to happen in their retirement years and while it hadn't
been nailed down yet it seemed like they were on to some exciting ideas honestly
we were coming to terms that this would be an unsolved murder it doesn't make any sense
wow so at first I think before they knew what the evidence was people in their lives were just like no there's no way
Nancy could have done this but then they're sitting there through the trial and they see the surveillance footage
the multiple life insurance taken out the the different gun parts like and they're like holy [ __ ] I knew this woman
and like this is what she's capable of so Clancy was arraigned in Multnomah I believe it's how you say it circuit
court on September 7th and a week later on September 13th a grand jury indicted her on one count of murder with a
firearm constituting domestic violence to which she pled I'm sure you'll be amazed not guilty I'm not amazed at all
no exactly I was being sarcastic so while she was sitting in jail waiting for her trial the story was circulating
online and eventually made its way to the national news outlet and the late night cycle and of course they were all
shelving at the bit to get the story out about the woman who wrote the wrong husband and how to murder your husband
but reporters were actually having a tough time lining up any interviews with the brophy's friends family or anybody
at the school their request to those people went almost entirely ignored and actually Daniel's students and his
friends had quote made a pact to stay silent out of respect for a man who had life valued his privacy
yeah which I think is cool so yeah that was good stuff yeah good stuff so in the months after Nancy's arrest
the County Judge imposed a protective order actually which barred the release of any information or evidence related
to the case on the grounds that it might jeopardize the investigation but by April 2019 the news had gone National
and because of that Nancy's attorney tried to have the protection order extended essentially arguing that if any
more coverage or any more information got released Nancy wouldn't get a fair trial
but the prosecutor Sean Overstreet completely disagreed and he argued all of the information being shared was fact
it was just damning and that's why the defense wanted it left out so ultimately the judge agreed with the prosecution
and the order was lifted as it should be yeah agreed so as the prosecution and the defense did their
thing detectives actually kept on investigating Gathering more and more evidence against our girl dance who is
not our girl at all it was during this time that they discovered several more life insurance policies that Nancy had
taken out in Daniel's name and they discovered the replacement Glock parts that would later be essential in
Prosecuting Nancy according to the prosecutor the gun confiscated from Nancy was the exact
make and model used in the killing of Daniel but the ballistics testing found out that the bullets taken from his body
were not a match for Nancy's gun but the match of gun but mismatch of the bullet seemed too much of a coincidence
for the investigators so they dug deeper into Nancy's activities and they found a
possible explanation and that's when they ended up finding out that she had bought separate parts for a Glock nine
millimeter handgun on eBay meaning the gun could be a match for the murder weapon it just had a different slide and
Barrel and that's why Nancy thought she was going to get away with it I mean like
she couldn't even had someone else buy it for her on eBay like I don't know like I'm not trying to give you ideas uh
potential nancies out there but no come on no you're right though like you have to sit there and you're like oh my God
but then at the same time it's like wow she literally thought to like replace different I would I don't I don't even
think I knew before this that you could replace different parts and like mix match gun parts I thought they all just
had to like line up together like a Lego set or something but I mean like I knew
that that was a thing I'm not like super into guns or anything um but like I knew that was a thing but I wouldn't
have I wouldn't have thought to like you know be like oh that could be a thing in
a case where you're switching it around for like you know the investigation purposes like I wouldn't have thought of
that and I don't I don't know maybe other people listening they're like oh of course think of that but
I wouldn't think that Nancy would think of that that's the thing like and why is
she so cocky thinking she's gonna get away with this when she's like yeah I did this but you didn't you didn't prep
anything else that's the thing I don't understand I think like you were saying in the beginning I think she just had to
have been delusional if she thought she was gonna get away with this she is fully delusional
I mean that is held together by Band-Aids according to her it's like no it's tied together by actual
surveillance footage of you outside of a murder scene but the case ended up finally going to trial on April 4th 2022
there were tons of delays because of coven her lawyers actually tried to get her released from prison
um because of like covid complications they were like she's in danger and this is like a violation of her rights and
they were like she waved a bell hearing so unless you want to have a bale hearing like we can talk then but if not
you're sitting in prison and even if you do talk about a bail hearing you're most
likely sitting in prison you're awaiting trial for murder yeah but they were Off
to the Races with prosecutor Sean Overstreet arguing on behalf of the state and Lisa Maxfield arguing for the
defense now by the time the case was ready for trial the judge actually had decided to exclude the how to murder
your husband blog post from the evidence on the grounds that quote any minimal probative value is substantially
outweighed by the danger of unfair Prejudice and a confusion of the issues so I think basically what he was saying
is that like it might be confusing to the jury that's kind of what I got out of that I don't agree but I can see
where like maybe it would have been an issue um because it's like it's like a fiction
novel type thing or like a blog post or whatever it happened to be exactly and I
think they really well in the prosecution they were okay with that because they had actually planned in
their argument to minimize that post anyway because they had stronger evidence so they were okay with it being
omitted yeah they had better [ __ ] to work with so it is opening statement prosecutor
Overstreet told the jury that even though a good amount of their evidence was circumstantial they planned and
believed that they could show it that it was greed that motivated Nancy to kill her husband back in 2018. he told them
and would later tell Dateline as well quote Nancy wanted more Nancy wanted a lifestyle that Dan couldn't give to her
I think she thought if I could do this I'll get enough money that will allow me to change that lifestyle we never
thought that she didn't love him I think she probably hoped things had worked out
differently but when they didn't he was a problem for her ultimately I mean uh Nancy's out for
number one right exactly it's tale as old as time she thinks she's entitled to a certain lifestyle and she's gonna do
whatever she needs to do to get there and I think she also got more and more desperate as they were losing more and
more money and she wanted to be able to spend money on things that she wanted but she couldn't because he was the only
person making money and she was not and how [ __ ] old was she at this point she's like
I want to say she's like in her like late 50s early 60s it's just I don't know at that point
like I don't know is this weird just I feel like material things mean less and less
the older you get you know I think that it depends on who you are I think yeah if you've gotten what you if you've
gotten what you wanted out of life okay so far if you got to like age 50 60 I would assume that material items would
mean less to you but I guess if you're not getting what you want out of life then it's gonna mean more to you I think
it just I think it really depends on the kind of person you are and how much material things mean to you I think she
was a very materialistic person it seems yeah that's true and I and like you were
saying I think she was always out for number one she's definitely over number one Nancy
you suck right crazy and as Overstreet again the prosecutor put it to the jury Dan Brophy
was worth almost 1.5 million dollars to Nancy if he was dead but worth a life of
financial hardship if he stayed alive damn so [ __ ] up either like it's either way
it's your husband I know and it it sucks that you know they get to that point where they have to put it out there like
that it's like hey yeah I don't want to say this but he was just a number to her
yeah like I can't imagine like like putting a value on how much Drew is worth to me like a money a monetary
value right like that's crazy way more than that like I would what it's like hey this this is also a human you know
you remember that part uh exactly not really for your monetary gain but thank you
so over the course of 11 days the prosecution supported their argument by showing the surveillance footage of
Nancy at the school on the morning of the morning of the murders and then search history and data from her
computer which showed the purchase of the additional parts for the Glock the multiple life insurance policies that
would have provided a payout altogether once they found the other ones of nearly
eight hundred thousand dollars Jesus and then the jury also heard from 47 Witnesses including everybody from the
oci which by the way I think I said OSI earlier I'm sorry I meant to say ocially Institute I definitely did yeah
that's not what I was saying but they heard from the facilities manager at the school several of the students who
actually were the ones to find Daniel they heard from Daniel's father Jack Brophy and several of the couple's
friends now one of the witnesses that helped the prosecution significantly actually came from a financial analyst
named Steven Santos he testified that Nancy and dance retirement plans were financially unsustainable and that the
life insurance policies taken out in Daniel's name would have been more appropriate for a couple with more uh
discretionary income so basically saying because again when they met with that financial advisor
earlier they said even if you sell your house even if you sell your land you're still gonna end up in the red I think
she had gotten them so much in the red that even with the money that she would have gotten from Daniel she like she
still potentially could have been in the red I'm sure she would have been I mean it
sounded like it wasn't going well no and eventually I think even if even if she like did end up in the green a bit it
was only a matter of time before she ended up in the red again for sure I mean she's obviously wanted to get rid
of him to keep spending so I don't think that was gonna slow down I think of anything it was gonna ramp up yeah and I
mean it's crazy I'm sure like how fast that money could go like you see it when people win the lottery and like stuff
like that like obviously a million dollars is a lot of money but when you are spending it with like absolutely no
regard I'm sure it's gonna go quickly yeah So Lisa Maxfield the defense attorney
she tried to poke any hole that she could in the state's case about Nancy she told the jury in her opening
statement the state will present a circumstantial case that begs you to cast a blind dye to the most important
circumstance love Nancy crafted Brophy has always been thoroughly madly crazy in love with Daniel Brophy and she still
is to this day for Nancy Brophy he was perfect wow it's like yeah why'd she murder him
then yeah it kind of It kind of shatters once you uh like why was she outside of
school when he got killed then that doesn't really make a lot of sense to me but she uh write a whole entire article
on how to murder your husband while she was married to a perfectly great husband
but she uh write a letter to the insurance and go hey uh can I get that money uh post taste no she literally
that that wasn't even to the insurance that was to the detective clearing me as this like I was like
saying I'm not a suspect and they were like no that's [ __ ] crazy insane I guess the woman is delusional truly is
the definition of the word and then she she went on to try and explain every point that the prosecution had made a
way she said the ghost this is the defense attorney the ghost gun kit and the Glock were merely researched for
Nancy's writing I'm like I host a true crime podcast and never have I ever bought a Glock on eBay
yeah I mean really anything that you need to research about it you could look up or if anything I don't know maybe ask
a friend who has one or something be like hey can I just look at this for like a little bit or something like
anything else I don't think you need to go out and get a gun license if you just
want to look at a gun for a little while exactly and you were saying all of her friends had this specific kind of gun so
use theirs for your [ __ ] research and if she's saying like oh it's researchers
researchers this and that but I've never fired it how much research are you doing
you're not even gonna shoot the thing that you're researching like don't you want to see how a thing functions if
you're researching it I don't know there's there's a lot of levels to that which I think she's full of [ __ ] I agree
giant [ __ ] I agree and then she also said that the internet searches uh for how to cover up a murder were also just
for research yeah yeah fair and then she offered the alternative theory that Brophy had actually been killed by a
local unhoused man seen in the area that morning yeah always know it's going well
when they start offering up their own theories yeah exactly exactly the theory was very quickly dismissed by detective
Anthony Merrill who told the jury he and his partner had located the man and determined he was never a threat and he
pointed out Daniel had been shot but nothing had been taken yeah like hello and then he said there she was also
being a little racist when she did this because the um detective ended up saying later
they're asking you to consider the black guy in the neighborhood as the Killer without any any evidence you should be
offended like literally said to him you should be offended it's true now the most dramatic moment came on day 21 of
the trial when Nancy took the stand to testify in her own defense and as we know from the clip you showed us this
was a big yikes during questioning from the defense she tried to explain away the more damning
aspects of the prosecution's arguments she told the jury she was a very thorough researcher had saw the guns she
and Daniel were very much in love and they were working on solving their financial problems and then she admitted
yes she had purchased that replacement Glock barrel and slide from the seller on eBay but it was because she was quote
obsessed with gun parts and that the missing part were parts were surely in storage somewhere
okay well what do you think our plan was in that moment to draw them up like she
was gonna order them again do right I don't even think I think if it went down to it she was
gonna order them again and she was gonna go look they're right here and then they
were gonna go um it says right here yes Tuesday you just ordered a second set so
where's the first set should be like I don't know what you're talking about surely it should be like my my account
was hacked ridiculous so some of her testimony seemed sub plus like seemed plausible in some way but
other parts were downright ridiculous she said she had no memory of leaving the house on the morning of the murder
and she didn't know what she was doing on the surveillance camera footage she said you know maybe I was struggling
to write and I went out to clear my head and a psychiatrist for the defense testified it was possible that Nancy was
suffering from what's called retrograde amnesia from the later trauma of learning that her husband had been
killed and that's why she didn't remember what she was doing that morning but the prosecutor challenged that claim
and said to Nancy if you can't remember anything how could you be sure that you didn't kill your husband
and she goes uh she was like uh she said I see Dan every day I talk to him every
day this is not a man I would have shot because I had a memory issue it seems to
me if I shot him I would know every detail okay okay buddy that's also just a strange explanation
yeah I mean like I said she's the king of flip-flopping so after 25 days of evidence and testimony closing arguments
were presented on May 23 2022 so not that long ago Overstreet focused on Nancy's convenient claim of Amnesia the
physical evidence the forensic evidence that linked her to the crime including the purchases of the guns the
surveillance footage and in closing he turned the defense's argument back onto them and reminded the jury no one would
want to hurt Dan even Nancy herself told that to detectives so nobody else had a
motive but Nancy did no literally the only person in the world literally now in closing Arguments for the defense
Nancy's attorneys focused on the purely circumstantial nature of the case and reminded the jury that the prosecution's
case couldn't be proven Beyond A Reasonable Doubt instead they emphasized that throughout the trial the jury
repeatedly heard how happy Nancy and Daniel were together Maxfield even said at one point that the best proven fact
during the trial was that Nancy and Dan loved each other that doesn't nah I okay she murdered him
and then because after she was like they loved each other she was like there were
other possible assailants in the area then she claimed the police had ignored them which was not true
and also why are you saying there are multiple other assalians when the only person you brought up in the first place
was just an unhoused man minding his own business you dingus [Laughter] so on May 25th 2022 after eight hours of
deliberation I can't even believe it took them that long the jury returned with a unanimous guilty verdict for the
second degree murder of Daniel Brophy sentencing was held on June 13th and that's when they did Victim Impact
statements um Daniel's son Nathan did an impact statement and said to Nancy you opted to
lie steal cheat fraud ultimately killed the man that was for some reason still unbeknownst to me your biggest fan you
executed my father in an act of cold-blooded premeditated murder the man that did everything for you
I was actually curious on if they had kids or not I think that was his son from like his first marriage yeah no
that's what it seemed like yeah that's really sad so before pronouncing his sentence the judge addressed the family
saying I think the thing that you can take away which I hope gives you some small measure of Solace is that he was a
mentor and a teacher to many and hopefully they and hopefully they will turn and have an impact on others
themselves as they teach and with that said he sentenced Nancy to life in prison with the possibility of
parole after 25 years and then lifetime went on to make the movie called how to murder your husband the Nancy Brophy
story which I have not watched wow they took the name took the name that's crazy just like a really sad
story overall because it just didn't need to happen no I mean what a what an idiot dude I
mean I'm glad she's in jail I'm kind of disappointed that she has the possibility of parole in 25 years but um
hopefully she'll be like withering and like dying seriously at that point seriously
but Caleb thank you so much for joining me doggy of course dude thanks for having me
welcome I hope I did all right my my uh it's been a while since I've done a true
crime anything really I think it's been like three years you did a great job and
for those of you who are listening we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it
weird but not so weird that you murder your husband and write a blog post about it because that's really too weird
please [Music]

On Saturday June 2, 2018, students at the Oregon Culinary Institute (OCI) arrived at class that morning to find their instructor, sixty-three-year-old Daniel Brophy, dead from gunshot wounds to the back and chest. With more than fifty years’ experience in the culinary field, Brophy was a popular chef and instructor and, while detectives couldn’t rule out a disgruntled student, no one could imagine his killer was a member of the OCI community.

Thank you to the incredible David White for research assistance!

ReferencesCourt TV. 2022. OR v. Crampton-Brophy: Romance Novelist Murder Trial. June 15. Accessed March 8, 2023. https://www.courttv.com/news/or-v-crampton-brophy-romance-novelist-murder-trial/.

Flynn, Meagan. 2018. "Novelist who wrote about 'How to Murder Your Husband' charged with murdering her husband." Washington Post, September 12.

Green, Aimee. 2019. Details of murder case against romance writer should become public in 2 weeks, judge rules. April 5. Accessed March 12, 2023. https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/04/details-of-murder-case-against-romance-writer-should-become-public-in-2-weeks-judge-rules.html.

Karimi, Faith. 2022. "This romance novelist is on trial in her husband's killing. It's like a plot twist from one of her books." CNN Wire, April 7.

Kavanaugh, Shane Dixon. 2019. Gun parts bought online at center of Oregon romance novelist’s suspected spouse slaying. April 4. Accessed March 12, 2023. https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2019/04/gun-parts-bought-online-at-center-of-oregon-romance-novelists-suspected-spouse-slaying.html.

—. 2018. "Romance novelist suspected of slaying husband." Longview Daily News, September 7: B2.

—. 2020. No coronavirus ‘guest house’ for Oregon romance writer charged with murdering husband, judge rules. April 10. Accessed March 12, 2023. https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/04/no-coronavirus-guest-house-for-oregon-romance-writer-charged-with-murdering-husband-judge-rules.html. NBC News. 2022. Dateline. Television, New York, NY: NBC News.

O'Rourke, Ciara. 2019. A Beloved Culinary Instructor Was Murdered. What Happened Next Was Stranger Than Fiction. May 31. Accessed March 10, 2023. https://www.pdxmonthly.com/news-and-city-life/2019/05/a-beloved-culinary-instructor-was-murdered-what-happened-next-was-stranger-than-fiction.

Paul, Maria Luisa. 2022. "'How to Murder Your Husband' writer sentenced to life for." Washington Post, June 14.

Sparling, Zane. 2022. Love vs. money: Lawyers make final arguments in Oregon romance writer’s murder trial. May 22. Accessed March 12, 2023. https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2022/05/love-vs-money-lawyers-make-final-arguments-in-oregon-romance-writers-murder-trial.html.

—. 2022. Oregon romance novelist grilled on amnesia claim, missing gun barrel on crucial day in her murder trial. May 18. Accessed 2023 12, 2022. https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2022/05/oregon-romance-novelist-grilled-on-amnesia-claim-missing-gun-barrel-on-crucial-day-in-her-murder-trial.html.

—. 2022. Spotlight shines on Oregon romance novelist accused of killing chef husband. May 23. Accessed March 8, 2023. https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2022/05/spotlight-shines-on-oregon-romance-novelist-accused-of-killing-chef-husband-who-is-nancy-crampton-brophy.html.

Voorhees, Carolyn. 2018. Former students, friends mourn loss of Oregon Culinary Institute chef killed in shooting. June 3. Accessed March 8, 2023. https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2018/06/formerstudentsfriends_mourn.html.

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Brief Summary

Nancy Brophy murdered her husband Daniel for financial gain, leading to her arrest and conviction after suspicious behavior and evidence surfaced.

Key points

Nancy Brophy's Background. Exploring Nancy's early life and her journey into culinary arts.
Daniel Brophy's Culinary Journey. Daniel's passion for cooking and community service is highlighted.
Nancy's Writing Aspirations. Nancy's transition into writing romance novels is discussed.
Nancy's Research Spending. Nancy's extravagant spending on research raises eyebrows, including a Victorian chastity belt purchase.
Daniel's Shocking Murder. Daniel Brophy was shot twice while preparing for class, shocking students and staff.
Nancy's Odd Facebook Post. In a strange Facebook post, Nancy asks friends to hold off on calls after Daniel's death.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I don't like mushrooms!

Caleb shares his strong dislike for mushrooms.

6:14WatchApr 11, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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