'How to Murder Your Husband' writer gets life term for killing husband

A US court has sentenced Nancy Crampton Brophy, a romance novelist who apparently foretold her crime in an essay titled "How to murder your husband", to life in prison for the killing of her late spouse.

The 71-year-old was found guilty last month (25 May) after it was proved in court that she shot her husband of 26 years in 2018 for a $1.5m life insurance pay-out.

Her life sentence, handed down on Monday, carries the possibility of parole after 25 years. Her lawyers said they plan to appeal, BBC reports.

Her late husband, Daniel Brophy, was a chef and respected teacher at the Oregon Culinary Institute.

He was found shot twice in the kitchen of the Institute in June 2018.

A jury of 12 convicted the writer of second-degree murder after deliberating for less than two days.

The case attracted much attention for an essay Crampton Brophy had written years before the crime, titled "How to murder your husband".

A judge ruled against admitting the essay as evidence at her trial because it was penned years earlier as part of a writing seminar.

But prosecutors did not need the text.

On Monday, they successfully argued that Crampton Brophy had the motive and the means to murder her partner, showing the couple had fallen on hard times financially, and she stood to pocket a hefty insurance pay-out after his death.

Taking the stand in her own defence, the author claimed she had a "memory hole" from the morning of Brophy's death. She could not however deny it was her driving around the Institute.

Although police never found the murder weapon, she was shown to have purchased a gun of the same make and model.

Nancy Crampton Brophy had been a self-published author whose works of steamy romance and suspense include novels such as "The Wrong Husband" and "The Wrong Lover".