Romance novelist Nancy Crampton Brophy, 68, has been arrested in Beaverton, Oregon for the killing of her husband. The author of “The Wrong Husband” is accused of killing her chef spouse of 27 years after praising him as “Mr. Right” and publicly grieving his murder. Update: Brophy also authored an essay entitled “How To Murder Your Husband.”
A neighbor expressed surprise at how matter-of-fact Brophy appeared when asked about the murder and casually said that she was a suspect.
I have seen some situations which never make the papers, or which if they do, are cherry picked and erroneously reported, where women long played elaborate dirty tricks. It is enough to make one suspect that when it comes to dissembling deviousness, over all, compared at group level, women have a greater talent for it than men.
On the subject of various kinds of abuse, unlike women who often get tv interviews, lawsuit damages, and perfunctory protective orders out of it; men who are abused just get mocked and disbelieved. Mostly. So they don’t report.
You say it’s a patriarchy? I guess that depends on definitions and perspective.
Maybe the roast got burned or the salad was wilted ……
Maybe he was diddling one of the students and she found out. At any rate I’m glad she was caught
Good Lord, she’s unattractive.
One feature of the homicide rate having been cut in half since 1980 has been the radical decline in the number of murders committed by strangers. Outside of slum neighborhoods and points adjacent (wherein perpetrators are not usually identified) police are able to clear about 90% of the cases, and with odd exceptions, it’s someone in the immediate social circle of the deceased.
DSS – they do say the best way to get away with murder is to pick your victim at random and then don’t murder again.
You mean like Stephen Paddock?
DSS – I think if he had stopped at one, they would have never found him.
He kicked out a window before he started shooting, so his room would have been identifiable. Security cameras all over the place in commercial establishments. They’d have identified him eventually. He was a regular at Las Vegas casinos.
One day you’re a hero, the next day you’re a goat. A woman has a right to change her mind.
Independent Bob – they should be in the car when my wife is trying to decide where to have lunch on Saturdays. Even though a place will be picked and agreed upon, on the way there she will suggest at least four other places to go. At least!!!!
So true
Brophy Wife
This is for sure going to end up on Forensic Files. I can hardly wait. 😉
Unless Oregon has a much better court system than Arizona, your wait will be a looong one. Common conclusion to a Forensic Files episode is that they identify the killer with some contrivance (“mitochondrial DNA”, “superglue fuming”), then he’s arrested and charged a couple of years later (why the delay? who knows?) then he goes to trial a three or four years after that, &c.
DSS – Tell me it ain’t so, Joe!!! The long delays in Arizona can’t be the same in liberal Oregon? Shirley, they can get someone to trial within 90 days.
I think she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity for killing a chef! Her own personal live-in chef! Is she crazy?!
I guess we’ll find out.
Cindy, I agree. A big house, half his, half mine. He provides good meals, I don’t kick him out or kill him.
Otoh, he may have been abusive, in which case it may have been justified.
If your husband blows your brains out, I’ll contribute to his legal defense fund.
No need to donate. It got rid of the abuser through divorce. Cost me a lot of money to get rid of him but it was a bargain.
bettykath…..I thought of that too. You never know what goes on in a marriage. My husband has never wanted family law cases and refuses to take them. It’s too depressing, especially when children are involved. When he was a brand new attorney, he was sitting in a court room, waiting for his hearing to be called. The case ahead of his was a divorce…..and the two sides were arguing over who would get custody of Willie. It was a very contentious hearing. Afterwards, my husband found out that Willie was a plant!!
Cindy, IIRC, the number of nonjusticiable homicides perpetrated by civilians in a typical year in this country is around about 300. Successful self-defense claims are really unusual and a typical metropolitan prosecutor will have perhaps 1 such case a year in his office. The killing occurred outside a domestic setting. This elderly man wasn’t knocking over a convenience store or mugging someone at the time. The notion that his wife had a reasonable surmise she was in imminent danger from him while he was at his workplace is rather rum. The notion that she might have a legitimate self-defense claim which she sat on for three months beggars belief. I’m sure Jodi Arias’ lawyers would have been delighted to have the two of you on their jury.
Teaching Spastics……….No no no. You did not understand what I said. I would NEVER advocate the killing of an abusive husband by his wife.. Murder is murder.
When I replied to bettykath and said “I wondered about that”. I meant that I had wondered if he had been abusive and she finally snapped.
I know we all are guilty of second guessing people’s views on this blog. Your remark about Judy Arias’ lawyers wanting someone like me on the jury was particularly offensive, though I’m sure you didn’t intend that.
Forty years ago, I was founder and president of a group of about 500 women who suffered from PMS in Austin Texas. Our group’s purpose was to educate ourselves, and the public, including the medical profession, and provide support for sufferers, including men who lived with PMS women. It was unknown territory.
Several times in the middle of the night back then, I was contacted by the Austin Police Department to come help them by sitting and talking with a distraught woman with severe PMS, who had called the police dept. for help. Many had been left by husbands. I finally asked the police if I could supply their own police psychologist with all of the PMS educational materials I had, and have the psychologist replace me, as I was just a housewife/former music teacher, and most certainly not a professional counselor/psychologist, certified in suicide prevention and spousal abuse. They did.
Just wanted to tell you where i stood. Thanks, Teaching spas.
Cindy, a 63 year old man (a culinary teacher) is shot dead at his worksite. The first thing which pops into bettykath’s addled head is the notion that he had it coming to him. Your reaction is merely less forthright, built around a common fiction that domestic relations are unfathomable unless you’re living them. She has her hand in the cookie jar, while you’re just hovering over it. Makes no difference to me. You both get slapped.
Teaching. Spas……….Are you on drugs? My initial reaction was a joke about living with a chef. I cannot believe you.
So, you really ARE going to give money to Betty’s husband’s defense if he “blows her brains out”?. That was not said in jest?
I don’t know how or why you got burned by a woman, but boy, she did a job on you, and I’m sorry for you.
I note the obvious, that a man is dead and her default reaction is that he must have had it coming to him. You were also speculating (quite seriously, no joke there) that he must have been ‘abusive’. Here’s a suggestion to you both: a normal range reaction to someone being shot dead is to pity the man dead unless you know something damning about him.
I’ve been burned by nobody. I’ve been around quite a variety of women my whole life and try to be realistic about them.
I expect women to speak as if they had personal agency and expected other women to think and act like beings with personal agency. I am deferential to women selectively. A great many women find both dispositions to be uncongenial.
Teaching spastics…………..Because I said I wondered about the subject did not mean I thought he deserved to be dead! How do you make that jump with such ease? That really hurts my feelings that you don’t have the decency to think I’m being truthful.
In fact. I watched several videos of the poor guy and wondered if perhaps SHE had been abusive to him in the marriage.
I have no idea what personal agency is, but if it applies to me, it must not be good…..and therefore, makes you feel better? Why you purposefully accuse me, someone who actually likes you, of being so heartless as to want a man dead, is a mystery and an insult.
I’m sorry. Let’s just call it off.
Teaching spas….I apologize, too. Thank you.
I did not say this woman was justified in killing her spouse because he abused her. I suggested that there may have been abuse which, to my mind, means we shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions because we don’t know the whole story. May she just found out he had betrayed her in some way. We don’t know.
Actually, it would be to anyone’s defense if Cindy or I was on a jury because we are willing to consider more than one side of the story.
Wow, TSTD, My first reaction was to react to Cindy’s joke, to validate it as a joke and then to take it one more ridiculous step. I pointed out the possibility of abuse because I’ve been there, divorce was my answer. Long term spousal abuse has been validated as a legitimate defense. Not sure it’s the case here, but we don’t know.
bettykath – sometimes you can get away with using spousal abuse as a defense. 25 years of hospital records to back you up are a help.
bettykath – and a bathtub for two. 😉