Pod Insights True Crime All The Time Nancy Brophy About this episode Nancy Brophy is a former author who wrote romantic suspense novels. She once wrote an essay on how to get away with murder. When her husband was found murdered, Nancy quickly became the prime suspect.
Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Nancy Brophy. Prosecutors believed she spent months plotting the murder to cash in on more than a million dollars of life insurance money. They also think she used a crime thriller-like twist to try to get away with the perfect murder.
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1:46 Speaker 00 Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 441 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson, and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?
1:56 Speaker 01 Hey, I'm doing good. How about you?
1:57 Speaker 00 I'm doing great.
1:58 Speaker 01 That's good.
1:59 Speaker 00 By the time this comes out, I will have had another birthday.
2:03 Speaker 01 Will be an older man.
2:04 Speaker 00 An older man than I am, sitting right here, right now.
2:07 Speaker 01 That's true.
2:08 Speaker 00 But
2:09 Speaker 01 Very factual.
2:10 Speaker 00 Very factual. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Shannon.
2:14 Speaker 01 Hey Shannon.
2:15 Speaker 00 Cade Schultz.
2:16 Speaker 01 What's going on Schultz?
2:18 Speaker 00 Kyle Hughes jumped out to our highest level.
2:20 Speaker 01 Hey, thanks Hughes.
2:21 Speaker 00 Jenny Quintero.
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2:23 Speaker 00 Fallon Pitt.
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2:25 Speaker 00 Bobby Valentine.
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2:29 Speaker 00 Kevin DiVincenzo.
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2:33 Speaker 00 Which is just fun to say.
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2:35 Speaker 00 Spike Adelica.
2:36 Speaker 01 What's going on Adelica?
2:38 Speaker 00 And last but not least, Joseph Hayes.
2:40 Speaker 01 Hey Hayes.
2:41 Speaker 00 And then we go back into the vault.
2:44 Speaker 00 This week, we selected Amelia Thompson.
2:46 Speaker 01 What's up Thompson?
2:47 Speaker 00 Yeah, appreciate all the support. So we have a lot of episodes out right now. On Saturday night, we dropped a new Patreon episode, which is on Alexander Jackson, a former Eagle Scout, squeaky clean, no criminal record, who was convicted of kind of massacring his family.
3:06 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:07 Speaker 00 And there's a lot of evidence against him, but the defense argued, well, there was no motive. So we go through all the details. And then we have a new one out on True Crime of the Time Unsolved. We're talking about Kate Brown and Cornell Sledge. They were close friends who were murdered in broad daylight, while sitting together on a park bench. That was about six years ago and the killer still has not been caught.
3:33 Speaker 01 Fascinating.
3:34 Speaker 00 Yeah. So check all of that out. All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime of the Time?
3:39 Speaker 01 I am.
3:40 Speaker 00 We're talking about Nancy Brophy. Nancy Brophy is a former author who wrote romantic suspense novels. She once wrote an essay on how to get away with murder. Years later, Nancy was arrested for murdering her husband. Prosecutors believe she spent months plotting the murder to cash in on more than a million dollars of life insurance money.
4:02 Speaker 01 Probably not helpful that you wrote something back in the day.
4:07 Speaker 00 About how to get away with murder?
4:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:10 Speaker 00 She wouldn't be the first person to have done that and then kind of carried it out. Sometimes it happens in a very similar way to the writing.
4:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:20 Speaker 00 Which makes it even worse. Nancy Crampton, later Brophy, was born in Wichita Falls, Texas in 1950. She was the third child of Roger and Barbara Crampton, who were attorneys. Nancy studied economics at the University of Houston. She was concerned with overpopulation and its effect on the environment. At the University of Houston, Nancy founded the Population Awareness Committee and passed out condoms on campus. Nancy pushed administrators to provide birth control at the student clinic. And the dean of students credited Nancy with convincing the administration to hire the university's first gynecologist.
5:02 Speaker 00 I know you passed out a lot of condoms on campus when you were in college. I don't know what the reason for that was.
5:10 Speaker 01 Just wanted everybody to be safe.
5:12 Speaker 00 I thought maybe you figured out you were never going to use all of them and thought, why have this big surplus? I'll, you know, just give them out to people.
5:20 Speaker 01 Why don't I go to Costco, CM's Club to buy this crate of condoms? I'm just giving them away.
5:26 Speaker 00 Nancy's first published work was a reproductive healthcare pamphlet she published for the University of Houston titled Between Your Navel and Your Knees. It was originally a capstone project for her sociology class, but her pamphlet received widespread attention. Nancy spoke to local reporters and Woman's Day Magazine about her project. The university paid to print her pamphlet and 8,000 copies sold in three weeks. Kind of a strange first foray into writing.
5:58 Speaker 01 It is.
5:59 Speaker 00 After graduation, Nancy worked in real estate before moving back to Wichita Falls. She was briefly married to a police officer there. Nancy lived in Denver before moving to Portland, Oregon in 1991. She enrolled in culinary school and met her future husband, Dan Brophy.
6:19 Speaker 01 I love culinary school.
6:20 Speaker 00 Yeah, I'm, I know you've said it many times to me. I don't know that you've talked about it on the podcast, but you know, you had all, all of this really extensive academic life. And then you kind of went into more of the eclectic arty artsy type stuff like, like culinary school.
6:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, but also enhance my knife skills.
6:45 Speaker 00 I'm sure you had one of the better collections in the class. Nancy and Dan ran a catering company for years before she decided to focus on fiction writing, which had always been her passion. She sold life insurance on the side. So, I mean, the one thing about Nancy you'd have to say is she was a busy person.
7:07 Speaker 01 Not afraid of work.
7:08 Speaker 00 No, she had a lot of different interests and she tried out different things. In 2003, Nancy joined her local chapter of Romance Writers of America and began publishing novellas and romantic suspense novels. Her author profile stated, "Her stories are about pretty men and strong women, about families that don't always work and about the joy of finding love and the difficulty of making it stay."
7:36 Speaker 01 You want to talk about a fun club? Man, that was a fun club back in the day. I don't know if they're still out there, but man, that, that Romance Writers of America, they could have some fun.
7:46 Speaker 00 Well, it's, it's interesting how you got involved. I mean, I know you weren't writing, but you were posing for a lot of the covers.
7:55 Speaker 01 Tried.
7:56 Speaker 00 You and Fabio were kind of. This was like a Zoolander situation. You were competing heavily.
8:03 Speaker 01 A few poses off. Pose off?
8:06 Speaker 00 Or pose offs? Or I don't know how you'd say that. Dan Brophy's culinary career spanned four decades. He started off washing dishes and later became a chef. Starting in 2006, Dan was an instructor and lead chef at the now closed Oregon Culinary Institute in Portland. It was said that Dan could be a stern teacher, but he cared about his students. He often brought a wagon full of homemade jams and herbs for them to try. And he enjoyed taking them on field trips to see where their food came from. And you know, some people don't want to know where their food comes from.
8:41 Speaker 01 That's true. Just let me eat it.
8:44 Speaker 00 Dan also had a degree in marine biology, was a beekeeper, gardener, and knew how to forage for edible mushrooms.
8:53 Speaker 01 Impressive.
8:54 Speaker 00 Well, maybe that's why these two got along so well.
8:57 Speaker 01 Sure.
8:58 Speaker 00 They were into a lot of different things, some of it together. Nancy continued focusing on her writing career while Dan worked at the OCI. In 2011, Nancy wrote an essay titled, "How to Murder Your Husband", for the website C Jane Publish. She started her essay by writing, "As a romantic suspense writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about murder. 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."
9:38 Speaker 01 So maybe this is a little, um, what's the word I'm looking for?
9:42 Speaker 00 I never know.
9:45 Speaker 00 Foreshadowing?
9:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, let's go with that.
9:47 Speaker 00 Okay. I mean, I'm just, I'm not in your head, but I'm trying to think of what word you're looking for. But you know, think about what she said. You know, as a suspense writer, even a romantic suspense writer, it sounds like she had a lot of murder in her books. Well, you know, who else spends a lot of time thinking about murder?
10:08 Speaker 01 Murders?
10:09 Speaker 00 Well, you and I.
10:10 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, we do.
10:11 Speaker 00 Researching murder, writing about murder, talking about murder.
10:16 Speaker 01 And orange is not your color either.
10:17 Speaker 00 No, but you do like jumpsuits for some strange reason.
10:21 Speaker 01 Something about a nice jumpsuit, you know?
10:24 Speaker 00 And I've heard a lot of people say, especially women who have written in and say, well, you know, my husband worries about me listening to all these true crime podcasts.
10:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:34 Speaker 00 Because, you know, they're afraid I'm going to learn how to get away with murder.
10:39 Speaker 01 It might be on to something.
10:41 Speaker 00 In this post, Nancy listed five motives for murder. Finances, lying and cheating, falling in love with someone else, abuse, or being a hired killer. She also listed out methods of murder in one section of the essay. According to KOIN6, these options to consider included guns. And then she wrote loud, messy, requires some skill. If it takes 10 shots for the sucker to die, either you have terrible aim or he's on drugs. Knives, really personal and close up, blood everywhere. Ooh. Okay.
11:24 Speaker 00 You don't see a lot of people who are, you know, talking about murder use the term, ooh.
11:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:33 Speaker 00 The third one was grog. How much upper body strength does it require to strangle a person? Nancy wrote in the conclusion, I find it easier to wish people dead than to actually kill them. I don't want to worry about blood and brains splattered on my walls. And really, I'm not good at remembering lies. But the thing I know about murder is that every one of us has it in him or her when pushed far enough. And to be honest with you, that statement might be true. I mean, if you think about it, is anyone capable of murder? I mean, I think the answer is yes. Most of us are never going to do it.
12:17 Speaker 01 But if pushed far enough, maybe you just would.
12:21 Speaker 00 Now, if you came at me with one of the 16 knives that you have on you at this time, I might be forced to defend myself and shoot you. Now, I'm assuming that that's going to be ruled a justifiable homicide or whatever the term is.
12:41 Speaker 01 You'd probably be okay.
12:42 Speaker 00 So maybe it's, it's not technically murder. Maybe I should have said, I think, I think most people are capable of killing someone if they had to in, in a certain situation.
12:55 Speaker 01 I'm going to agree with you on that.
12:56 Speaker 00 From 2014 to 2017, Nancy and Dan were struggling financially. In the fall of 2017, they took out $35,000 from Dan's retirement account, about half of the account's value, to catch up on mortgage and credit card payments. And I get it, you might have to do that, you know, if you get into, to financial straits. It's not an ideal scenario because you want that money to, to work for you and to be able to grow. But according to the Oregonian, Nancy still made payments for Dan's life insurance plan, even though she was skipping mortgage payments.
13:37 Speaker 01 Now, that's very suspicious.
13:41 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's, it's either terrible financial decision making.
13:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:48 Speaker 00 Or it's a precursor to a crime that's about to happen. On the morning of June 2nd, 2018, Dan Brophy was murdered inside the Oregon Culinary Institute. It was a seemingly normal day for Dan. He entered the building and turned off the alarm at 7:22 a.m., then went about preparing for class. He was standing at the sink getting ice water and coffee, ready for the students, when he was shot in the back at close range. The killer then fired a second shot directly into his chest. Dan's students found his body around 8 a.m. Authorities found two 9mm shell casings at the scene.
14:32 Speaker 00 His wallet was also found and nothing had been stolen from the institute, which seemingly ruled out robbery. There were also no signs of a disturbance or struggle. Dan's pocket knife was still clipped to his pants. He didn't get a chance to defend himself. And these are the types of things that we talk about in many cases. If you're a burglar and you kill someone, you don't take their wallet. You don't take anything from this place, which I'm sure there was some valuable stuff inside the institute. But what were you there for? And then when you have no signs of a disturbance or struggle and Dan doesn't get out his knife. I mean, it's pretty obvious that he was kind of ambushed.
15:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:18 Speaker 00 So what are police left to think? That this was most likely a robbery gone wrong? Or that this was someone who knew Dan? Knew his schedule, was either close to him or, you know, had some knowledge of what he did on a daily basis?
15:38 Speaker 01 And that could have been another reason why he didn't take his knife out if he knew the person didn't feel threatened.
15:43 Speaker 00 Well, that's true. I mean, he was shot first in the back, but that doesn't mean he didn't turn his back on the person who shot him because he had no reason to fear that person. A forensic scientist with the Oregon State Police would later testify that Dan was likely shot with a Glock. And, you know, nine millimeter Glocks, a lot of people have them. It's a very popular gun.
16:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think it's like the most popular.
16:10 Speaker 00 It might be one of the most popular nine millimeters for sure. Nancy came to the O C I after a friend called her and told her police were there. She was informed her husband had been killed. Nancy told detectives is quoted by Oxygen. Here's the terrible thing, even if you find who shot him, it's not going to bring him back. And I want him back. That's the part I want. I don't care about who shot him. I just want him back. Okay. I mean, these could be the words of a grieving spouse, right? They just found out that their husband has been killed and they're saying, hey, I just want my husband back. But obviously that can't happen.
16:53 Speaker 00 What can happen is to find out who did this and maybe, you know, get some justice. So it's either she's so grief stricken that she's not really thinking about what she's saying. Or she's being truthful that she doesn't care about who shot him because she already knows.
17:17 Speaker 01 Big possibility.
17:18 Speaker 00 During her initial interview, Nancy said she had been home all morning and only spoke to Dan briefly before he left. Nancy shared news of Dan's death on Facebook on June 3rd. In her post, she called Dan her best friend and wrote, "While I appreciate all of your loving responses, I am overwhelmed. Please save phone calls for a few days until I can function." And I think if I saw that, I wouldn't make anything out of it. Gibbs, I really wouldn't. How could you not be overwhelmed? How could you not be in a state of trauma, depression, you know, whatever you want to call it? Yeah, you know, people want to
18:02 Speaker 00 reach out, but you don't really want to talk to anybody, probably.
18:05 Speaker 01 I think that would be how I would expect them to be.
18:09 Speaker 00 But authorities quickly discovered that Nancy was lying to them. The OCI did not have video surveillance inside or outside, but cameras from nearby businesses captured Nancy's van driving near the OCI around the time of the murder. Detectives also discovered that Nancy had purchased a Glock, believed to be the type of gun that killed Dan. Okay, you are going to go, based on that information, very quickly from the grieving spouse to a potential murder suspect. You told the police you were home. Video surveillance
18:52 Speaker 00 says otherwise. You also bought the exact type of gun, thought to be the murder weapon.
18:59 Speaker 01 Not looking good for Nancy, right? You know, for somebody that has these books on suspense and murder, I feel like she didn't really do her homework on how to make sure it didn't show up in her own life.
19:13 Speaker 00 Yeah, I get what you're saying. I'm sure she knew there probably was no video surveillance inside or outside of the Culinary Institute. What she probably didn't count on was video surveillance from another business picking her up.
19:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
19:34 Speaker 00 Now, I don't know how she thought she was gonna get away with, you know, the police not finding out that she had purchased this Glock handgun. Nancy was arrested on September 5th and charged with murder and unlawful use of a weapon. On September 14th, a grand jury indicted Nancy for murder with a firearm, constituting domestic violence. Nancy pleaded not guilty. Court documents were unsealed in April 2019, revealing that Nancy asked detectives to write a letter declaring she was not a suspect. So she could collect Dan's $40,000 life insurance policy.
20:17 Speaker 00 Detectives didn't give her the letter and learned she was actually the beneficiary of several policies worth more than $350,000.
20:27 Speaker 01 Well, she was selling them, right?
20:29 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah. Selling life insurance on the side?
20:31 Speaker 01 Yeah. Maybe she found a way to use that to her advantage.
20:35 Speaker 00 Without Dan even knowing, possibly. According to the documents, Nancy was seen driving by the OCI building at 7:08 a.m. She was seen leaving the area at 7:28 a.m. A coworker of Dan arrived at 7:30 a.m., but his body wasn't found until students entered the building at 8 o'clock. But we mentioned it, right? Nancy told the police she was at home on the morning of the murder. When asked if Dan might carry a gun for protection, Nancy said she recently purchased a Glock 9mm pistol at a gun show, which Dan was aware of, but neither of them had used.
21:19 Speaker 00 She turned the gun into the police. Okay, so she's not trying to hide the fact that she bought this Glock. The state crime lab determined Dan was most likely shot by a Glock 9mm pistol, but it was likely not the gun Nancy turned in.
21:38 Speaker 01 Well, we're not really surprised, right? I mean, she gave them the gun. I'm sure she gave them the gun because she knew they weren't going to be able to tie it to the murder.
21:47 Speaker 00 Yeah, most murderers, if she was a murderer, they wouldn't just voluntarily give up the murder weapon, right? I think the question is, and something we're going to have to look at down the road, is what was the purpose of buying this Glock 9mm? Was it to create a smokescreen?
22:09 Speaker 01 It certainly seems so.
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24:46 Speaker 00 Detectives also discovered that Nancy and Dan shared an iTunes account. And there was a bookmarked article on their account titled 10 ways to cover up a murder. Okay, like we said, if people searched our computers or search history, all of that, it would not look good for us.
25:03 Speaker 01 It wouldn't.
25:04 Speaker 00 Now, we do have an excuse in the, in the fact that we do a number of true crime podcasts. But if we didn't, our search history would look really bad.
25:15 Speaker 01 Especially yours. But she also has a similar excuse though, right? I mean, she can say I'm a writer.
25:20 Speaker 00 I'm researching. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. More court documents were released in late April 2020, ahead of a bail hearing. Nancy's lawyers argued she should be moved out of jail and put on house arrest due to the pandemic. And I'm sure there were a lot of attorneys arguing that. In their arguments for why Nancy should remain in jail, the DA's office provided details about the investigation, revealing that Nancy and Dan were living month to month financially and that Nancy was seeking a more exciting life.
25:57 Speaker 01 That more exciting life. I'm so tired of just sitting around this house with you. I want to do something and do something fun.
26:05 Speaker 00 Maybe with someone else.
26:06 Speaker 01 That's right.
26:07 Speaker 00 Nancy told authorities she and Dan purchased a Glock at a gun show in early 2018 in response to the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. They lost interest in the gun and never bought any ammunition. As we mentioned, right, ballistics testing determined that Nancy's Glock was not the murder weapon. However, detectives later found out Nancy purchased a replacement slide and barrel on eBay.
26:35 Speaker 01 There you're getting a little sneaky now.
26:37 Speaker 00 Very sneaky because when you start to talk about ballistics, right, you are talking about the barrel, you're talking about the ejector markings. So if you change out the slide and barrel, it's not going to match the ballistics of the gun that you bought.
27:00 Speaker 01 Right.
27:01 Speaker 00 And it's very easy to switch out both the slide and a barrel. It literally takes no time at all. Now, I was not aware you could buy a barrel and slide on eBay.
27:12 Speaker 01 Me neither.
27:13 Speaker 00 But maybe that's not considered or wasn't considered a firearm.
27:18 Speaker 01 Because it's pieces.
27:19 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's it's pieces of a gun, but you can't really do anything with it. See, it still seems like a loophole, though.
27:25 Speaker 01 It does.
27:27 Speaker 00 But I think we are getting maybe into the area, Gibbs, of, you know, a fiction crime, romance crime writer, you know, is that part of the thought process? When you sit down to start or write a book, okay, how does the person who is going to commit the murder think they're going to get away with it?
27:50 Speaker 01 Right.
27:50 Speaker 00 And I gotta be honest with you, this is not the dumbest thing in the world.
27:57 Speaker 00 Investigators believe she put the replacement slide and barrel on the Glock before the shooting, then reassembled the gun with its original parts, presenting a new, fully intact firearm to police. That would not be a match to the shell casings that she left at the crime scene.
28:16 Speaker 01 Okay.
28:17 Speaker 00 And again, I'm telling you, that's, that's pretty ingenious. I hate to say that, but it really is. And like I said, putting in a slide, putting in a barrel, that's just, you know, you, you have to reassemble those parts after cleaning a gun. It's, it's not hard at all.
28:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, but you have to be thinking like a killer.
28:42 Speaker 00 Oh, you have to think ahead.
28:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:44 Speaker 00 The second slide and barrel were never found. Additionally, per the court documents, Nancy made an accidental death benefit workers compensation claim after the murder. Between life insurance and workers comp, she stood to receive 1.15 million dollars.
29:02 Speaker 01 That's a lot of money.
29:05 Speaker 00 It is.
29:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:06 Speaker 00 The Brofies also had more than $300,000 equity in their home, meaning Nancy could have gained around 1.5 million from Dan's death. So let's go back to him being killed at the Culinary Institute. I don't think that was accidental because of this workers comp claim that seemed to be worth quite a bit of money. Well, that can only happen, right? If something happens to him while he's working.
29:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, that's a good point.
29:40 Speaker 00 In 2017, the Brofies fell over $6,000 behind on mortgage payments, yet they paid over $16,000 in insurance premiums.
29:52 Speaker 01 She paid.
29:53 Speaker 00 That's a lot of money in insurance premiums.
29:56 Speaker 01 It really is.
29:57 Speaker 00 DA Rod Underhill wrote in the court documents, "Dan Brophy was content in his simplistic lifestyle, but Nancy Brophy wanted something more. As Nancy became more financially desperate and her writing career was floundering, she was left with few options." So they're, you know, they're really getting into the area of motive, right, for the murder. Obviously, you have the financial component, which we've talked about, the life insurance, the worker's comp. But then you also have this component of Nancy's writing career, you know, was floundering. But she wanted a much more affluent
30:41 Speaker 00 or exciting lifestyle than what she was leading with Dan. Dan apparently didn't care for that. He was fine sitting at home, very much like I am. I don't need to be jet setting off to France. I'm fine here in the, in the confines of my home.
31:01 Speaker 01 If you want french fries, you're good on McDonald's and get them. No, you are not a world traveler.
31:07 Speaker 00 No, there are places I'd like to visit, but I don't need to be a jet setter.
31:12 Speaker 01 No, not you.
31:13 Speaker 00 That's what I'm getting from Nancy Brophy. She, she needs excitement. She needs what's happening in, in her romance thriller novels.
31:24 Speaker 01 Exactly.
31:25 Speaker 00 Not sitting on the couch, watching Wheel of Fortune.
31:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, she, she wants to live what she's writing.
31:31 Speaker 00 Yes, I, I think that was a big part of it. Nancy's trial was delayed by the pandemic and finally started on April 4th, 2022. On day one of the trial, the judge ruled in favor of the defense and did not allow Nancy's 2011 essay, "How to Murder Your Husband," into evidence. Which, which I understand, right? I mean, how do you make the connection that something she wrote in 2011 is part of this murder that the prosecution said happened in 2018? And that she's responsible for?
32:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, I get it. I'd want it thrown out too. Not gonna look, if you, if you leave it in, it's not gonna help your case at all.
32:17 Speaker 00 No, it's not gonna help Nancy's whatsoever. In opening statements, prosecutors described the surveillance video that shows Nancy's van in the area of the institute before Dan arrived to work and after he entered the building and was killed. The prosecutor told the jury, per KGW8, Dan was standing at a commercial sink. He was filling up the ice and water buckets as he did every day. For the students, he would have had his back to the door. Nancy likely came through. Nancy then shot him first through the back, penetrating his spine, piercing his heart. As Dan fell onto his back, possibly paralyzed,
33:00 Speaker 00 Nancy shot him through the chest, also piercing his heart.
33:04 Speaker 01 Well, Nancy wasn't gonna mess around.
33:06 Speaker 00 No, I mean, if it happened the way that the prosecutor is, is putting forth, then no, she walked right in, shot him twice and got out of there. But also, she's dealing with a time crunch, right? She had to have known if she's the shooter, what time the students come. She knows his day, probably.
33:31 Speaker 01 True. She don't have time to fiddle around.
33:34 Speaker 00 And also the fact that there's gonna be other people, workers coming in, aside from students. But what, you know, really gets me in cases like this, Gibbs, is the thought that you could be so callous to your wife or husband.
33:52 Speaker 00 This person with whom you're supposedly in love with. It's just, it's hard to believe, you know, being married for almost 30 years. I can't imagine it. I would never want my wife to hurt at all. And I certainly wouldn't shoot her in the back. And then as she was falling to the ground, shoot her in the chest. I mean, I wouldn't shoot her at all, but you know what I'm saying?
34:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, I got you.
34:19 Speaker 00 I just can't imagine it.
34:22 Speaker 01 But there are people out there that probably can't imagine it.
34:25 Speaker 00 Oh, it, yeah, I mean, it happens all the time. We know it. It doesn't change, you know, my incredulity around it.
34:35 Speaker 01 Oh, look at that.
34:36 Speaker 00 I put that in there for you.
34:38 Speaker 01 Waiting to use that word?
34:39 Speaker 00 It happened. And I'm sure you'll find a way to use it later on in the episode, as you normally do.
34:44 Speaker 01 Absolutely, I will.
34:46 Speaker 00 When Nancy allegedly came home, her neighbor saw her looking distraught. She said she was looking for her dogs that had gotten out, but the neighbors never saw any dogs. A friend called and told Nancy the police were at the culinary school. She called her friend back and forth before calling Dan's mom, who asked why she hadn't gone over to see what was going on. Nancy did eventually go and speak to the police. And I think that would be the question I'd be asking too. Why are you making all these phone calls? Get in the frickin' car and go over and see what's going on.
35:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:24 Speaker 00 But you know who doesn't need to go find out what's going on?
35:28 Speaker 01 The person that did it.
35:29 Speaker 00 Yeah, because they already know. And I think there are some things like this that, you know, kind of give that away. When she was told Dan had been killed, she said, yeah, I got that. When everyone gave me a sad sack look. Okay, I don't think that's the reaction that the police would expect from most spouses when they're told that their loved one has been shot and killed. Yeah, I got that.
36:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:01 Speaker 00 According to the prosecution, the Brofies paid around a thousand dollars a month for multiple life insurance policies while sometimes failing to pay their mortgage.
36:12 Speaker 00 Dan took out a $35,000 loan against his retirement to help with the mortgage. And again, we've talked about this a couple of times, but I think it's, it's big. Life insurance is important. Don't get me wrong. Now a thousand dollars a month is a lot of money for life insurance.
36:30 Speaker 01 It really is. And what was the payout for her? 300,000?
36:35 Speaker 00 I thought it was like 350.
36:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:37 Speaker 00 And now maybe they were paying the workers comp too.
36:41 Speaker 01 Maybe.
36:42 Speaker 00 Because that was a large amount, it seemed like.
36:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:44 Speaker 00 But I don't know. You don't normally pay the workers comp, I don't think, but I don't know how it broke down. All I know is I have healthy life insurance policies. Don't tell my wife. I don't pay anywhere near that. I pay like that a year.
37:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, I know the one.
37:01 Speaker 00 Not a month.
37:02 Speaker 01 I know the one I pay for you is, is not too bad.
37:05 Speaker 00 Well, of course not, because you're paying it.
37:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's true.
37:08 Speaker 00 So obviously you're not going to spend a lot, but you're hedging your bets and you're hoping to collect on that at some point in time. How you got the life insurance policy without me signing a single piece of paper? I have no idea.
37:25 Speaker 01 Well, you signed.
37:27 Speaker 00 I just had no idea I was signing a life insurance policy. It's just a lot of money.
37:32 Speaker 01 It is.
37:32 Speaker 00 A thousand dollars a month when you then can't pay your mortgage.
37:38 Speaker 01 It's the wrong priority.
37:40 Speaker 00 Oh, absolutely. And, and what are police to think? Well, you made that a priority because you were planning on killing your husband.
37:49 Speaker 01 Exactly.
37:50 Speaker 00 Nancy said in a recorded call with a detective, four days after Dan died, "I don't want to be the stupid question of the day. I think I have to be the question of the day." Okay, so she's saying she gets it. She's going to be the question of the day. She doesn't want to be the stupid question of the day. The state also pointed out that when the police came to arrest Nancy, she said, "Oh, you must think I killed my husband." And I'm sure they said, "Yes, we do."
38:23 Speaker 01 That's why we're here.
38:26 Speaker 00 The jury heard that in late 2017, Nancy started researching ghost guns, a term for untraceable firearms that can be purchased online and assembled at home. According to Fox 12, Nancy spent $15,000 of the retirement account money on guns and gun parts, including a ghost gun she received in January 2018 that she was unable to build.
38:54 Speaker 01 Wow. She took this serious.
38:57 Speaker 00 Yeah, but just think about the money, right? We can't pay our mortgage. We're $6,000 behind. You know what is one of the things that people try to pay? Their mortgage.
39:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:10 Speaker 00 Who doesn't want to be without a roof?
39:14 Speaker 01 You could have took half that money, paid your mortgage and been okay.
39:18 Speaker 00 But I just think when investigators and the authorities learn all this, you know, why would somebody want a ghost gun? It's because it's untraceable.
39:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:28 Speaker 00 That's why it's such a hot topic. It's why they're, you know, they get banned. Nobody wants that.
39:34 Speaker 01 Didn't that kid that shot the insurance guy use one of those?
39:39 Speaker 00 Did he? Yeah, maybe.
39:40 Speaker 01 I think he did.
39:41 Speaker 00 I think you might be right. Nancy then purchased a Glock handgun barrel on eBay in February 2018. Investigators theorize she attached this barrel, which was never found, to the Glock she bought at a gun show. I don't want to keep overstressing it, but I almost have to. It's so easy to replace a barrel, to replace a slide. And as much as I hate to admit it, this is a pretty ingenious plan. Now,
40:16 Speaker 00 The problem is not that hard for investigators to figure out that you bought the barrel.
40:23 Speaker 01 Exactly.
40:23 Speaker 00 And that's kind of where the, the plan goes awry. And then not too hard to theorize that you replaced the barrel, shot your husband, put the original barrel back in, and then gave the gun to police as if, you know, you didn't, you weren't worried at all because you weren't. Cause that's not technically
40:45 Speaker 01 The gun.
40:45 Speaker 00 The gun that fired the fatal shots.
40:48 Speaker 01 Go ahead, run test on it. Yeah, please.
40:51 Speaker 00 The defense speculated the murder could have been a robbery gone wrong. Nancy's defense noted that she sold insurance for years and made commissions off policies she sold, even the ones she sold to herself. She and Dan were using the $35,000 to pay credit card debt, their mortgage, and do landscaping in preparation for selling their home. You mean besides the $15,000 that she spent on the ghost gun?
41:19 Speaker 01 Yes.
41:21 Speaker 00 And gun parts. Nancy's attorneys acknowledged that she visited ghost gun sites and purchased two firearms. She was inspired by the crimes of Kevin Neal, a California man who killed five people and injured 10. In 2017, Neal built a gun because he couldn't buy one. Nancy wanted to write a story about a woman who was in an abusive relationship and was afraid to leave. This character would build a gun. Because she could not purchase one, Nancy wanted to purchase a ghost gun for research purposes. She found a New York Times article that had links to the websites she visited.
42:03 Speaker 00 She purchased the gun in 2017 and viewed it as a jigsaw puzzle. The defense claimed that Nancy asked Dan for help, but realized she didn't have the equipment or skill to put it together, so it sat unused.
42:18 Speaker 01 Hey honey, I know what, uh, we haven't paid the mortgage in a while and we could lose the house, but I really want to buy this ghost gun and, um, research it. So yeah, we're not going to pay the house payment at this time either. Does that, does not even make sense?
42:36 Speaker 00 No, as though that would go over well.
42:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:39 Speaker 00 Now, I get it. You can make the argument that you might spend some money to buy something that would later then help you in your knowledge, right? Of writing a compelling story. $15,000 is quite a bit of money, given the financial straits they were in.
42:58 Speaker 01 Exactly.
42:59 Speaker 00 I think you could maybe just research it online. Dan also knew Nancy was going to buy a gun at the gun shop. She purchased a slide and barrel because replacing some parts might be easier than building a whole gun. Now that makes no sense to me whatsoever. Do you know how well-built a Glock is? There's a reason why Glock is, you know, one of the most sold firearms. Number one, they work. They're very reliable. You can fire, I don't know how many tens or hundreds of thousands of rounds and never have to replace a gun. Now you, you
43:40 Speaker 00 would have to replace some parts, right? Springs, you know, maybe a slide, maybe a barrel at some point, but it would be down the road. Most people don't buy those extra parts when they buy the gun.
43:56 Speaker 01 No.
43:56 Speaker 00 It's going to be some years down the road and that's with quite a bit of shooting. So, you know, that explanation to me just doesn't hold water.
44:09 Speaker 00 The defense noted that Nancy had purchased other items for writing research, including night vision goggles, the telescope, handcuffs, glass doorknobs, and different kinds of locks. Alright, I get it.
44:24 Speaker 01 But those aren't $15,000 worth of stuff.
44:27 Speaker 00 Well, I don't know. Night vision goggles can be quite expensive. What I was thinking is none of these things are something used to kill a person. Well, I guess you could kill someone with a lot of different items, but you know what I mean?
44:40 Speaker 01 Yes.
44:41 Speaker 00 Also, the other difference is that, you know, the other times where she did buy some of this stuff, her husband wasn't killed. So, you know, you have to factor that in as well. Nathaniel Stillwater, Dan's son from his first marriage, testified for the prosecution. Nathaniel had previously sued Nancy in civil court for wrongful death. He testified that he once had a strained relationship with his dad, but after reconnecting with Dan, he started working for Nancy's catering company. Nancy and Dan sometimes took care of his daughter. They enjoyed being grandparents. If Dan and Nancy ever fought, it wasn't in
45:23 Speaker 00 front of him. Nathaniel testified, is quoted by KGW8, "There was never much cause for concern. I could probably count on one hand, the evenings we came over and noticed tension." And to me, that only goes back to what you and I talk about often. You know, there are a lot of people outside the home that just don't see what's really going on in a relationship.
45:48 Speaker 01 Including one of your kids?
45:50 Speaker 00 Absolutely. If they're not living there on a full-time basis, they're not going to see everything. About a year before the murder, Nancy and Dan talked about selling their home. Nathaniel was surprised, and Dan told him they needed a ranch-style home because Nancy had a hip or a knee issue and struggled with stairs. And that wouldn't be unusual, right? People, as they get older, sometimes kind of downsize to a ranch home for this very reason. Who wants to walk upstairs when you have certain types of ailments or knee, hip issues, stuff like that?
46:29 Speaker 01 It's pretty normal when people get older, they want to do that. You know, my parents did it. I'll probably have to do it, you know?
46:36 Speaker 00 I'm not that far away from doing it either. You know why? Because I hate having my bedroom on the second floor.
46:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:43 Speaker 00 Number one, it's always way hotter.
46:45 Speaker 01 Well, that's true.
46:46 Speaker 00 There's no way around it.
46:47 Speaker 01 No doubt about it.
46:48 Speaker 00 And right now, it's 95 degrees.
46:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:51 Speaker 00 So, sleeping is a little tougher.
46:54 Speaker 01 But you still have stairs you gotta tackle if you're gonna have a basement because you like to hide from everybody.
47:00 Speaker 00 Oh, that's true. I'm always gonna have a basement, but that would be one set of stairs instead of two. Now Nancy wanted to travel around Europe after they sold their house, but she and Dan never reached a common ground on their plans before he was killed. And that's interesting to me because we said it earlier, right? She wanted this more exciting life and Dan, it was said, was pretty content with his, what was called pragmatic lifestyle.
47:30 Speaker 01 Oh yeah, the integrity of it.
47:32 Speaker 00 Oh, exactly. I knew you'd bring it around at some point. It was said Nathaniel didn't know much about their finances, but Nancy expressed some anxiety about money after Dan died. He remembered soon after she indicated to him that the coffers had refilled. The coffers had refilled.
47:53 Speaker 01 Okay, but coffers.
47:55 Speaker 00 It sounds very callous. I, I, I get it. People worry about finances regardless of the situation, but your husband's just been killed, been murdered, and you're telling his son, don't worry, the, the coffers have refilled.
48:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:13 Speaker 00 After Dan died, Nathaniel learned he was a beneficiary of the life insurance policies. He also learned Nancy was not on the mortgage, but was recently added to the D before Dan died. He also learned that Nancy and Dan were not married, but had recently filed paperwork to get legally married.
48:36 Speaker 01 Okay.
48:37 Speaker 00 So there's a, some added layers here.
48:41 Speaker 01 Sure is.
48:42 Speaker 00 And, and it's almost like a lot of this is happening right before Dan is killed.
48:49 Speaker 00 Right? Nancy's not on the mortgage, but she's at it. Well, that's a big deal because if you're not on the mortgage, you're not getting that.
48:59 Speaker 01 That's right.
49:00 Speaker 00 And we said they had, what, $300,000 in equity on the house? That's a lot of money.
49:06 Speaker 01 That is a whole lot of money.
49:08 Speaker 00 And they weren't legally married, but had filed paperwork. On day six of the trial, the jury learned that Nancy's van was seen near the OCI much earlier than was previously made public. Detective Anthony Merrill testified that two detectives took Nancy home, one driving her van for her since she was in an emotional state. After learning Dan was dead, Merrill returned to view surveillance footage from businesses near the OCI and was shocked when he and his partner saw a van that looked like Nancy's.
49:45 Speaker 00 Nancy's van was seen in the area at 6:39 a.m., at 7 a.m., and at 7:01 a.m. Originally, it was reported that the van was seen at 7:09, which it was. The van was then seen at 7:28 a.m. leaving the area. This was significant because Nancy originally said she was still in bed between 6:45 and 6:50 that morning. She said she saw Dan leave the house between 7:05 and 7:10 a.m. Well, obviously those statements can't be true.
50:20 Speaker 01 No, there's a conflict here.
50:21 Speaker 00 If she's in her van being seen near the OCI at 6:39 a.m. During cross-examination, the defense pointed out a man in the surveillance footage that the police did not identify or talk to. He was loitering in a parking lot near the institute. When the police drove past, he looked into a bag and walked off. The defense also focused on a man named Oscar Taylor, who had prior convictions for robbery, theft, and assault against police. The defense pointed out a note from Detective Merrill's interview with Taylor. Taylor said about the people around the institute, "Lots of crazy guys down there carry guns."
51:05 Speaker 00 This comment did not make it into the final report written by Merrill's colleague.
51:11 Speaker 01 It's an important piece of information you want the jury to hear.
51:14 Speaker 00 If you're the defense?
51:15 Speaker 01 Yes.
51:15 Speaker 00 Yeah, and you're probably going to make something out of the fact that it doesn't make it into the final report. Now, could that just be an omission, an accident? Yeah, it could be. Could the defense also spin it into, well, they didn't want that in there because they wanted everything to point at Nancy. Yeah, that's the type of stuff the defense will do. The detectives who drove Nancy home also took the stand. Detective Rico Benica testified that Nancy allowed them into her home and gave them her gun without hesitation.
51:55 Speaker 00 Well, at the house, he received a call asking him to take photos of Nancy's van because a similar one was seen on surveillance. He asked Nancy if this was okay, and she responded, "Why? I wasn't there this morning. I was at home." Both detectives noted that the slide of the firearm Nancy turned in was seated incorrectly on the base of the gun. This would be difficult to do accidentally. There was also a zip tie on the barrel of the gun.
52:26 Speaker 01 Why would you have that?
52:28 Speaker 00 I don't know if they're talking about something that came from the factory. I don't think a zip tie is, I had a Glock at one time. I haven't had one for a very long time. I don't know. I don't know what the zip tie would be for. Detective Darren Posey testified that he contacted J and B, the company that sold Nancy the Glock 17 at the gun show, and asked them to record a video of how to change a slide and barrel on a gun. They exchanged the slide and barrel with the zip tie for one without a zip tie. The police believe Nancy did the same.
53:09 Speaker 00 Again, that may explain where the zip tie comes in. And maybe it did come from the factory. Maybe it was a part of the original gun and you have to remove that.
53:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
53:23 Speaker 00 Before operation. Insurance expert Steven Santos testified that the bro fees paid over $800 a month for life insurance policies worth more than $700,000 for Dan alone, which was 20% of their gross income. And I'm assuming that meant that $800 was 20% of their gross income.
53:48 Speaker 01 Sure.
53:49 Speaker 00 Not the $700,000.
53:51 Speaker 01 Yeah. But that's a lot, right? You spend 20% of your gross income on life insurance?
53:55 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah, that's, that's a huge number. And Santos said, this was not financially responsible. And if they were his clients, he would advise them to make changes. And I think any, you know, financial expert, insurance expert would say the same thing. Again, life insurance is important, but having so much life insurance that you can't pay your mortgage? That is not fiscally responsible.
54:27 Speaker 01 Oh, it's just stupid.
54:29 Speaker 00 It also inspires a great amount of incredulity.
54:34 Speaker 01 Yes, I was going to say the same thing.
54:36 Speaker 00 I figured you were.
54:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
54:38 Speaker 00 The jury also heard from Nancy's former cellmate, Andrea Jacobs. Andrea and Nancy were housed together for about 15 months and were friendly with each other. Nancy sometimes talked about her case. Andrea asked Nancy how her husband died and testified that Nancy told me that he was shot two times to the heart and she showed me the distance. Nancy stretched out her arms and indicated it was about this far. According to Andrea, she said, when we were first talking, she slipped up and she started to say, I, but then she switched really quick to it. So I mean, she was saying it was about this far.
55:22 Speaker 01 Instead of, I was about, I mean, it was about.
55:25 Speaker 00 Yeah. So, I mean, again, you, you know, you have to be careful with jailhouse informants, but you know, sometimes they do have good information. I mean, if you're in a small cell with somebody for 15 months.
55:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
55:42 Speaker 00 At some point, you're probably going to be talking about a lot of stuff.
55:46 Speaker 01 People like to talk.
55:47 Speaker 00 They do.
55:48 Speaker 01 You know, they want to get it off their chest. They want to tell somebody.
55:52 Speaker 00 Now Jacobs admitted she had a pending motion for compassionate release from prison when she spoke to detectives, but denied seeking any benefit from the conversation. The defense called on Reed College professor, Daniel Reisberg, whose research focused on how memory operates. Reisberg noted that he is not a trained mental health professional. The judge allowed the defense to ask general questions about how trauma could impact memory, but would not allow the defense to testify for Nancy by repeating what she said. A high level of stress leads to the biological process for memory consolidation not happening.
56:35 Speaker 00 Reisberg also described retrograde amnesia, which can cause someone to lose their memory of the minutes or hours prior to the stress, because the body is sending resources elsewhere. Nancy got on the stand and described her relationship with her husband and how she felt after losing him. Is quoted by Oxygen, she said, it's like you've lost an arm. Like, you're not as good as you were when you were with him. You were the best you could be when you were together with him. Now it's like, yeah, I function, but there's something missing.
57:11 Speaker 01 Like an arm, according to her.
57:13 Speaker 00 What she could have said, it's like, if you chopped your own arm off.
57:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:19 Speaker 00 Nancy described their financial struggles from 2014 to 2017. After Dan lost his second income and they had unexpected medical expenses. They were planning to sell their home and downsize to pay off their mortgage and credit card debt. Their life insurance policies were part of their planning for retirement.
57:41 Speaker 01 I'm not really sure how that works. I mean, I guess if you have one of those annuities, but.
57:46 Speaker 00 It didn't sound like they did.
57:48 Speaker 01 Right.
57:49 Speaker 00 Who's got a $700,000 policy or policies just for Dan that are actually worth money? Right? Like annuities. That to me, sounds like term life, not whole life. If I'm using those terms correctly.
58:06 Speaker 01 That's just more in continuity.
58:08 Speaker 00 Yeah. You said it, brother. Nancy acknowledged that she read an article about ghost guns in 2017 and planned to incorporate the concept into a future novel. She purchased a gun kit, which Dan was aware of, but it was more intricate than she expected. A few months later, she bought a Glock 17 at a gun show in Portland and a slide online. So here's the one thing that's troubling me. You know, I get a writer buying something to get the, the full experience, to be able to write about it more intelligently and in depth.
58:47 Speaker 01 Sure.
58:48 Speaker 00 And, you know, if you're a big time writer, if you're Grisham, okay, maybe you spend $15,000 on, on something.
58:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:58 Speaker 00 But it said her writing career was floundering. I don't think she was making all that much money if she's selling life insurance on the side. So that's a huge chunk of their disposable income.
59:14 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, I get it. It's probably a write-off, which I don't even know what that is.
59:19 Speaker 00 Nobody does.
59:20 Speaker 01 Yeah. But anyway, I mean, you just don't have it to lay out.
59:24 Speaker 00 For a future novel that may or may not get written.
59:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
59:30 Speaker 00 Pay out. On the day of the murder, a friend called her and alerted her to a situation involving police at the OCI. She tried to call Dan several times and received no response, so she called her mother-in-law. She drove to Portland and was worried when she saw groups of students outside the OCI, but not Dan. When an officer hugged her, she knew he was dead. During cross-examination, Nancy admitted that she took the slide and barrel off the Glock 17 she purchased at a gun show. She explained that she purchased the new slide and barrel because she was fascinated with guns at the time and wanted to do research for her book. The missing slide and barrel was packed up with her belongings before
1:00:15 Speaker 00 she was arrested, and she didn't know how it went missing. So again, for me, this is always that part, Gibbs, where, you know, the defendant has to try to explain some incriminating fact.
1:00:33 Speaker 01 Sure they do.
1:00:34 Speaker 00 And that fact here is, you know, that she bought this slide and barrel. It mysteriously went missing, and she's trying to explain that away. During redirect questioning, Nancy testified that she experienced what she called a memory hole concerning the morning of the murder.
1:00:54 Speaker 01 Well, that's interesting. That's a new one on me.
1:00:56 Speaker 00 Yeah, I don't think I've ever heard of that. I don't know if that's a technical term. I don't know if that's something she's just has made up. She said she woke up, talked to Dan about a leaky sink in the bathroom, then left the house to get coffee and work on her writing. She has a memory of parking and working on her writing, but she can't remember if that occurred on June 2, 2018. According to Oxygen, she believes she may have gone to Starbucks and then got lost in thought as she drove around thinking about her book. You know what's always safe when you're driving around the city is to get lost in thought.
1:01:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:01:37 Speaker 00 Very safe.
1:01:38 Speaker 01 Very responsible.
1:01:40 Speaker 00 She admitted she was the person inside the van seen in surveillance video around the time of the murder. She also testified that her statements about what happened were, quote, "based on putting stuff back together, not based upon actual memory."
1:01:56 Speaker 01 Say what?
1:01:57 Speaker 00 I don't, I don't know. I'm not sure exactly what she's saying. The prosecutor questioned how Nancy knew she didn't go into the OCI building. If she had no memory of what she was doing while driving around. She responded by saying, I know I didn't go in the building because I know I didn't kill Dan. I know that for a fact. You know, and here's where you talk about like selective memory. I remember that, but I don't remember anything else.
1:02:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, I was gonna say she didn't remember that she was driving down there earlier. Now she remembers she was driving down there. So it's just convenient.
1:02:39 Speaker 00 Right. Convenient memory, selective memory, whatever you want to call it. But the most important part is that she didn't kill Dan. That she remembers.
1:02:50 Speaker 01 That's why she's on trial.
1:02:51 Speaker 00 But all the stuff that is kind of incriminating, pointing to the fact that she did kill Dan. She doesn't remember. When asked if she agreed she was driving around the corner of the building at the exact time Dan was shot. Nancy responded per KOIN six, no, I actually don't agree with that. I was driving around for a full hour before Dan got murdered. I was down there before Dan ever got to school and was driving around for a full hour. I was only in that vicinity for six minutes. And I don't know that Dan was murdered in that six minutes. So she's lost great chunks of her memory during this time.
1:03:34 Speaker 00 But she knows where she was for the, that exact six minutes.
1:03:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, conveniently now she's like, oh, I know.
1:03:41 Speaker 00 That is not part of the memory hole.
1:03:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:03:44 Speaker 00 In closing statements, the defense argued that the Brofes were so in love that Nancy would never kill her husband. And an attorney said, the bottom line is Nancy Brophy was far better off with Dan in her life. Even if you look at pure economic terms, ignoring the love, she was better off with Dan a lot.
1:04:06 Speaker 01 Who is he Stone Cold? And that's the bottom line.
1:04:09 Speaker 00 Well. But is that true? From a pure economic standpoint, was she better off with Dan alive? I think it's a hard argument to make, given the financial straits they were in.
1:04:25 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:04:26 Speaker 00 And the $1.5 million windfall that she, you know, could have gotten after his death. You know, it goes back to that old term, worth more dead than alive.
1:04:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, true.
1:04:43 Speaker 00 On May 25, 2022, Nancy was found guilty of second degree murder. After the verdict, Dan's family spoke to the media and said they had been waiting almost four years to start grieving and have closure. Dan's mother, Karen Brophy, said about Nancy, "She was our daughter-in-law for a long time. When she was arrested, it was a surprise to us until we found out she hadn't been truthful with us either." And, you know, I think it's hard to overstate how tough that would be for the family.
1:05:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:05:17 Speaker 00 You know, here's a person who has been a part of your family for years and years, married to your son. I'm sure when it first happened, as is often the case, they probably backed her. You see that quite often. But once they learn what the police know, and they find out that she was lying to them, I'm sure their opinions change pretty quickly. On June 13, 2022, Nancy was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. In 2024, Nancy filed an appeal for a retrial, arguing a dozen errors. The appeal argues that Nancy shouldn't have been allowed to answer the prosecutor's final
1:06:02 Speaker 00 question during cross-examination. According to the Oregonian, prosecutor Sean Overstreet asked, "My last question to you, Ms. Brophy, is if there's one thing that you know about murder, is it that anyone is capable of doing?" This phrasing came from Nancy's essay, "How to Murder Your Husband." Nancy responded that she absolutely believed anyone is capable of murder and added, "If it's your child, 10 to 1, you will find yourself capable of murder." Nancy's appeal attorney argued that her opinion on humanity's capacity for murder was irrelevant and improper character evidence.
1:06:47 Speaker 00 The appeal sought to suppress all evidence gathered from Nancy's computers and phone and said that the article, "10 Ways to Cover Up a Murder," bookmarked on the joint iTunes account, was written for mystery novelists and not criminals. Barring a successful appeal, Nancy will not be eligible for parole until she is in her 90s. Prosecutors and investigators feel certain that Nancy killed her husband, conducting research on how to get away with murder and disposing of evidence that would have proved her gun was the murder weapon. And as we wrap this one up, Gibbs, it's an interesting case.
1:07:28 Speaker 00 You know, you don't have video, right, of Nancy killing Dan.
1:07:33 Speaker 01 No.
1:07:34 Speaker 00 You don't have that type of evidence, but you've got some, you know, pretty damning surveillance footage. You have this Glock 19 with the extra slide and barrel. You know, just all of it points to someone with, you know, a pretty good mind for crime fiction writing.
1:07:59 Speaker 01 Right.
1:08:00 Speaker 00 Because like I said, as much as I hate to admit it, it's pretty ingenious.
1:08:06 Speaker 01 Yes, just had a few flaws.
1:08:07 Speaker 00 Yeah, she didn't get away with it, but I think there was also a lot of thought and planning that went into it. You know, for me, the bottom line is regardless of how it appeared to those on the outside, I don't think Nancy Brophy was happy in her marriage. They weren't financially secure. She wanted a far more adventurous lifestyle than Dan did. And I think she started to try to figure a way out of all of her problems.
1:08:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:08:43 Speaker 00 Financial relationship and her solution was to kill her husband and devise a scheme so that she would not get caught. And she did a halfway decent job.
1:08:59 Speaker 01 She did.
1:09:00 Speaker 00 She just made some mistakes and, you know, she got caught on surveillance video. Thankfully, because, you know, without some of that and leaving a record of, you know, buying this extra barrel and slide on eBay, she could have very well gotten away with this murder.
1:09:18 Speaker 01 Could have. I seen a movie or a show not too long ago where they did that, you know, the, uh, one guy took the other guy's gun that had the same gun and switched out the, the barrel.
1:09:31 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:09:32 Speaker 01 And slide.
1:09:33 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:09:34 Speaker 01 Use it to kill somebody and then came back.
1:09:37 Speaker 00 Switched him back.
1:09:38 Speaker 01 Switched him back. So now he, his buddy had the gun that was the murder weapon. And then, uh, he's the one that went down for the murder.
1:09:47 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:09:47 Speaker 01 So it works, I guess.
1:09:50 Speaker 00 It could work. And that's the thing, right? The, her idea could have worked.
1:09:55 Speaker 01 Could have.
1:09:56 Speaker 00 And that's the scary part about.
1:09:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:09:58 Speaker 00 Thankfully it did. But that's it for our episode on Nancy Brophy. We got a voicemail. You want to check that out?
1:10:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, let's hear it.
1:10:04 Speaker 02 Hi, my name is David. This is Justin McColl. I'm on the phone with you guys. I'm just trying to let you know I'm listening to you guys as well. We have to say, we're talking about how bad his childhood was. And I think you all agree, his childhood is bad. And like you guys said, it doesn't excuse what he did. Um, but I don't know if you guys like to read books or not, but there's a book you guys want to be in there for a minute called A Child Called It. It's about, it's wrote by a man named David, uh, High School, I think it was last name. He, um, is talking about his childhood and all this stuff that he went through. And he did end up becoming a bestselling author. He was actually a really
1:10:47 Speaker 02 good one. Um, like I said, he made a series out of it. The first one is called A Child Called It. Next one is A Lost Boy and then A Man Named Dave. Um, just maybe something you might be interested in too, or maybe you can have us on the podcast, maybe some other podcasts might be interesting. All right. Thank you. Have a good day.
1:11:06 Speaker 00 All right. Thanks for the voicemail. I am not familiar with those, but they sound like they could be interesting reads. I might have to check them out.
1:11:15 Speaker 01 I mean, I've read a lot of things.
1:11:17 Speaker 00 Oh, that's a given.
1:11:18 Speaker 01 But I haven't read those yet. So I mean, I'll have to put them in my, uh, my list of things to read. Uh, there's like, you know, you see my list. It's very long.
1:11:28 Speaker 00 But yet you've read so much. Why is the list still so long?
1:11:32 Speaker 01 Cause I keep adding to it. I'm so interested in, you know, what the world has to offer far as, uh,
1:11:39 Speaker 00 Literary masterpieces? Okay. I got you. You're, you're a world traveler. You're well read. You're a member of men. So we get it.
1:11:49 Speaker 01 But I, I really do prefer the, uh, the movies version.
1:11:53 Speaker 00 I know. Yeah. That, that's the strange thing about it. For all your academic proficiencies, you really like movies and picture books.
1:12:02 Speaker 01 I do. I love, oh, picture books are the best. I don't know why they stopped making them after a certain age, you know?
1:12:10 Speaker 00 They stopped making them for people after a certain age?
1:12:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:12:14 Speaker 00 Yeah. I, I get you. Because they're not necessary?
1:12:20 Speaker 00 Oh, all right, buddy. That is it for another episode of True Crime All The Time. So for Mike.
1:12:26 Speaker 01 And Gibby.
1:12:27 Speaker 00 Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.
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