Author of 'How to Murder Your Husband' goes on trial for murdering her husband

Nancy Crampton Brophy has pleaded not guilty. (Image credit: @meghamohan/Twitter)

Eleven years after writing an essay titled 'How to Murder Your Husband', romance novelist Nancy Crampton Brophy is now on trial in US for murdering her husband of 21 years.

The 71-year-old is accused of shooting dead her 63-year-old husband Daniel Brophy, a chef, in June 2018. She has pleaded not guilty.

Her essay, however, would be excluded from the trial's evidence Judge Christopher Ramras announced on Tuesday. He deemed the post too old to be relevant - and said that any value it may provide the trial is outweighed by the prejudice it may spark.

In the essay, Nancy Crampton Brophy wrote that she spends "a lot of time thinking about murder".
"As a romantic suspense writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about murder and, consequently, about police procedure," she wrote. "After all, if the murder is supposed to set me free, I certainly don't want to spend any time in jail. And let me say clearly for the record, I don't like jumpsuits and orange isn't my color."

Brophy's death remained a mystery until his wife's arrest. Investigators said there were no signs of force or struggle and no signs of robbery and footage from traffic cameras showed Crampton Brophy's minivan arriving and leaving the scene at the time of the shooting.

According to the prosecutor, Crampton Brophy was motivated by greed and a $1.4 million insurance policy. They also played an audio recording of her asking a detective four days after her husband's death to write a letter  exonerating her so she could collect the life insurance policy.

She had said the policy was worth $40,000, but investigators said she tried to claim 10 different policies that totaled $1.4 million, and a worker's comp plan because her husband was killed on the job.

The trial is expected to last seven weeks.