"Dragnet": Just the Facts

       The TV series "Dragnet" starring Jack Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday of the Los Angeles Police Department was aired from 1951 to 1959, then came back in 1967 and ran until 1970. The stories, based on actual police files, portrayed the bureaucracy, boredom, frustrations and drudgery--punctuated by bursts of danger--of real life detective work.

     The crimes featured on "Dragnet" ranged from murder, armed robbery, missing persons, arson, check fraud, embezzlement and even shoplifting. The stories unfolded in a straightforward fashion, helped along by Jack Webb's voice-over narration that informed the viewer of the time, date and place of every scene. The acting was direct and unpretentious (stilted if you're a fan of the angst-ridden I'm-going-for-an-acting-award style) and didn't overshadow the terse, crisp, clear-eyed exposition and dialog. The script writing was a blend of Ernest Hemingway and first-rate news reporting. 

     Each "Dragnet" episode had a beginning, middle and end followed by a wrap-up where you learned the criminal was tried and convicted in "Department 187 of the Superior Court of California, in and for the city and county of Los Angeles." First-degree murderers were "executed in the manner prescribed by law at the state penitentiary, San Quentin, California." Case closed.

     Jack Webb produced the series with James E. Moser as his chief writer. Moser peppered the scripts with police terminology such as M. O. and APB (all points bulletin) and realistically portrayed how criminal cases are solved by detectives who logically follow one investigative lead to the next. Detective Joe Friday didn't have feelings in his "gut" or lay awake at night in angst over the mental and emotional strains of being a cop. He simply performed his duty in a workman like fashion. 

A Strange If Not Suspicious Death

     Brooke Baures, a 21-year-old social work major at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota, worked part time across the Mississippi River at WingDam Saloon & Grill in Fountain City, Wisconsin. From 2011 to 2014, the native of Chetek, Wisconsin excelled as a member of the university's gymnastics team. As a bar and beam gymnast, the senior competed three times at national gymnastic events and was named an All-American gymnast three years in a row.

     At the restaurant and bar in Fountain City one of Baures' jobs involved taking food and drinks from the dumbwaiter that ran between the first floor kitchen and the second floor eating and drinking area. The opening to the food elevator measured three feet wide and three feet tall. This opening was not designed for human access.

     At eight in the evening of Monday December 1, 2014 the Buffalo County Sheriff's Office received a 911 call regarding a young woman stuck or trapped in the shaft of a restaurant food elevator. The victim turned out to be Brooke Baures. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.

     Law enforcement authorities quickly ruled out foul play in the strange death. (Since 2003 only two people in the U.S. had died in food elevator accidents.) The no-foul-play announcement, before autopsy and toxicological results, seemed premature.

     After questioning half of the customers and all of the restaurant employees investigators did not find an eyewitness to the incident. Apparently nobody saw Baures enter the food elevator shaft. Fountain City Police Chief Jason Mark told reporters that, "I highly doubt that Baures was using the dumbwaiter to move herself." He said she was probably using the elevator to shuttle food and drink.

     Eliminating the possibility of foul play before a thorough death investigation was self-defeating and amateurish. Moreover, it produced a lot of questions and raised suspicion of a cover-up. For example, who discovered Baures and how long had she been dead? What was the position of her body and exactly how did she die? How could this have happened? Are dumbwaiters that dangerous?

     On December 6, 2014 Buffalo County Sheriff Mike Schmidtknecht told reporters that Baures' death was probably a freak accident. He said investigators believe she possibly pushed the down button then noticed something and reached in and got caught and was dragged down into the shaft by the elevator. 

     The authorities on December 9, 2014 released the results of Baures' autopsy. According to the report the cause of death was "extensive destruction of the brainstem and the left side of the cerebellum." Manner of death: accident.

Alexander Edwards: The Babysitter From Hell

     In 2013 Melissa Delp lived in south central Virginia with her two daughters and her boyfriend, Daniel Janney. On December 22, 2013 the couple's friend, 20-year-old Alexander Edwards, came to the Concord, Virginia house to babysit the girls, both of whom were under 13-years-old.

     While the 35-year-old mother and her 32-year-old boyfriend were away from the house their babysitter used a home tattooing kit to ink the girls under his care.

     When Delp and Janney returned home the girls had their names tattooed on their shoulders. Janney, with the help of the girl's mother, tried to remedy the situation by removing the tattoos with a hot razor blade. This extremely painful procedure made matters worse by exposing the youngsters to infection and permanent scarring.

     Beyond being alarmingly stupid, why would these adults maim the girls in a futile attempt to erase the babysitter's unwanted ink? Perhaps Delp and Janney were worried that if the authorities got wind of the forced tattooing they would get in trouble with the law for being negligent parents.

     On January 16, 2014 a teacher noticed on one of the girls the inflamed and scabbed aftermath of Janney's botched attempt to remove the unauthorized tattoo. The scarred girl, when pressed by the teacher, spilled the beans regarding the source of her condition. The concerned teacher reported the possible child abuse case to the Campbell County Sheriff's Office. She also called child protection services.

     Two days later deputies booked the tattooing babysitter, Alexander Edwards, into the Campbell County Adult Detention Center in Rustburg, Virginia. The 20-year-old faced felony charges of malicious wounding, child abuse and abduction. (Abduction includes unlawful confining or restraint.)

     On January 18, 2014 deputies also arrested Melissa Delp and Daniel Janney. Placed into the county jail in Rustburg, the couple faced felony charges of malicious wounding and child abuse.

     Michael Mucklow, owner of the Go! Tattoo removal service in Kutztown, Pennsylvania heard of the involuntary tattooing in Virginia and offered to help. Mucklow believed he could mitigate the damage by removing what was left of the tattoos by using laser technology. There was nothing he could do, however, about the physical and emotional trauma caused by Janney's alleged razor blade removal attempt.

     On August 2014,Melissa Delp pleaded guilty to felony child abuse. The judge sentenced her to eight years in prison.

     On March 2, 2016, following the additional charges of rape and sodomy (of the 12-year-old girl); solicitation to commit a felony (Edwards asked a potential hitman to kill several witnesses against him); conspiracy to commit murder; and attempted murder, the Campbell County judge sentenced Alexander Edwards to two life terms in prison.

     The judge sentenced Daniel Janney to a year and two months in prison after he was convicted of felony wounding. 

A Short History Of Scientific Criminal Identification

     In 1901, Scotland Yard became the first law enforcement agency in the world to routinely fingerprint its arrestees. Fingerprint identification came to America in 1904 when the St. Louis Police Department established its fingerprint bureau. Before fingerprinting, arrestees were identified by sets of eleven body measurements, a system created in the 1870s by the Frenchman Alphonse Bertillon. By 1914, the year of Bertillon's death, fingerprinting had replaced anthropometry or Bertillonage in every country except the United States where, in many jurisdictions, the outdated system was used until the 1920s.

     Because a set of inked, rolled-on fingerprint impressions can be classified or grouped into ridge patterns--loops, whorls and arches--arrestees who use aliases can be physically identified. Through centralized fingerprint repositories comprised of millions of fingerprint data, individual arrest histories can be maintained on habitual offenders. These fingerprint collections have been responsible for the apprehension of tens of thousands of fugitives.

     Beyond the use of fingerprinting to maintain crime records and catch repeat offenders and fugitives, crime scene finger marks--so called latent fingerprints--constitute one of the most common methods of linking suspects to the sites of their crimes. While latents can be made visible by various chemicals, iodine fuming and laser technology, the most popular method of identifying and preserving fingerprints, particularly on hard surfaces, involves the use of fingerprint powder and special lifting tape.

     Crime scene latents can be scanned into a massive computer--the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS)--and matched to single fingerprints in the data base. Identifying unknown crime scene latents involves the ability to prove who committed the offense.

     Perhaps the three most significant developments in the history of law enforcement are fingerprint classification, AFIS and the cutting edge science of DNA "fingerprinting" that burst upon the scene in the mid-1990s. 

Criminal Voyeurism

     The act of voyeurism runs the gamut of watching reality TV to window peeping to the use of hidden and clandestine cameras for one's sexual gratification. In an era of adult entertainment it seems odd that so many teachers, clergymen, politicians, bosses, lawyers and physicians have been caught using covert devices like pen cameras to satisfy their sexual curiosities.

     A man (this is not a crime usually committed by women) who risks his family, career and position in society by secretly videotaping females (and young boys) changing clothes, showering, using the restroom or merely going about their daily activity must possess a powerful sexual compulsion that by any standard is deviant. Because this form of pathological voyeurism is also a crime, the clandestine video-taper also risks going to prison. The risk/reward imbalance inherent in this bizarre behavior suggests that these voyeurs are beyond the reach of counselors and medication.

Richard Watkins

     In March 2010 an elementary school teacher in Calne, a town of 13,000 in southwest England was caught using a pen camera to video-record boys as they changed their clothes for physical education class. Richard Watkins had been doing this for two years and had thousands of clandestinely acquired images on his home computer.

     The 28-year-old teacher and former children's entertainer (said to possess "circus skills") pleaded guilty to thirteen counts of criminal voyeurism. The judge sentenced Watkins to four years in prison.

James Mucha

     In March 2011, James Mucha, an employee of a small manufacturing company in Avon Lake, Ohio was caught using a pen camera in the women's restroom. A female employee noticed a pen standing upright behind the door after she closed it. Thinking this was an odd place for a writing instrument the woman picked it up, unscrewed the cap and found a mini-camera.

     The 43-year-old pen camera owner was charged in August 2011 with three counts of voyeurism. (The company fired him.) Three months later the judge sentenced Mr. Mucha to 150 days in the county jail followed by one year of probation. The judge also fined him $2,000. (Voyeurs who video adult women usually get lighter sentences than men who record children.)

Joshua Waguespack

     In April 2012 in LeLand, Florida, police officers arrested Joshua Waguespack, a seventh grade math teacher at St. Peter's Catholic School. The 33-year-old had used a pen camera to take videos of two girls, ages 12 and 13, who used his teacher's storage closet to change into their gym clothes. He had downloaded these images onto his iPhone and iPad.

     After pleading no contest to two counts of criminal voyeurism in February 2013 the judge sentenced Mr. Waguespack to five years in prison. (This is a relatively heavy sentence for a defendant who pleaded guilty which suggests that Waguespack had a criminal history the judge didn't like.)

Dr. Adam Levison

     Having studied at the University of California Berkeley, Georgetown University and the New York Medical College where he graduated at the top of his class, Dr. Adam Levison taught robotic surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital's School of Medicine in Manhattan. The 39-year-old assistant Professor of Urology lived in a posh West Greenwich Village apartment. Dr. Levison had prestige, good-looks and money. From all appearances this man had it all. He also had a lot to lose.

     On Tuesday, August 2, 2012 a New York subway transit officer, acting on a tip from two passengers riding on the train with Dr. Levison, arrested the urologist for using a pen camera clipped to a folded newspaper to take shots up women's skirts. Taken into custody at the Union Square Station during the evening rush-hour, the doctor did not protest or proclaim his innocence.

     At his arraignment the day after his arrest the judge charged Dr. Levison with second-degree unlawful surveillance. If convicted he faced a maximum sentence of four years in prison. Dr. Levison posted bail and was released.

     A search of the doctor's pen camera video footage confirmed the suspicions of his fellow subway passengers and the arresting transit officer.

     Mount Sinai Hospital, two months after the subway arrest, announced that the physician was no longer employed by the institution.

     In January 2014 Dr. Levison pleaded guilty in return for a sentence of five years probation. 

The Michael Nolan Murder-Suicide Case

     Michael Nolan resided in his 86-year-old father's house in Brentwood, New Hampshire, a town of 4,200 in the southern part of the state. The 47-year-old son and his father, Walter Nolan, shared the two-story house in a tree-shaded neighborhood restricted to people 55 and older.

     At four in the afternoon of Monday, May 12, 2014 a neighbor on Mill Pond Road called 911 to report shouting and screams coming from the Nolan residence. Ten minutes later officer Stephen Arkell, a part time 15-year veteran of the Brentwood Police Department, pulled up to the scene and was let into the house by Walter Nolan, the owner of the dwelling.

     Four minutes after officer Arkell entered the Nolan house Derek Franek, an officer with the Fremont Police Department, arrived at the scene. Inside the house officer Arkell, as he spoke to the older man, was shot and killed by Walter Nolan's son Michael. When officer Franek entered the dwelling through the front entrance Michael Nolan opened fire on him. Both the Fremont officer and the senior Mr. Nolan managed to escape the house without being shot. Once outside officer Franek radioed that an officer was down and that he had been fired upon by someone inside the Nolan dwelling.

     Officer Franek's urgent call brought a New Hampshire state SWAT unit and the Seacoast Regional Emergency Response Team. Walter Nolan, in a state of shock and unable to communicate coherently with police officers was taken by ambulance to Exeter Hospital.

     Inside the police-surrounded house Michael Nolan poured gasoline throughout the dwelling, lit a match then began shooting out a window at the SWAT officers. When the SWAT police fired back a bullet hit a propane gas line that touched off a massive explosion.

     At six o'clock that evening, thirty minutes after the propane blast blew off a third of the roof, firefighters began dousing the charred structure with water. Firefighters remained on the scene until nine-thirty that night.

    Cause and origin arson investigators combing through the debris found Michael Nolan's remains. Lying next to his body the officers found three handguns, three rifles and a cache of ammunition.

     Brentwood police officer Stephen Arkell, killed in the line of duty, left behind a wife and two teenage daughters. He was 48-years-old.

     Although a forensic pathologist performed an autopsy on Michael Nolan, the medical examiner's office did not immediately reveal if he had been shot to death by the SWAT police, died in the fire, or had killed himself.

     According to neighbors Michael Nolan rarely spoke to anyone and spent most of his time in his room watching television. Police officers had not been called to the Nolan residence in the past and Michael did not have a criminal record.

     In May 2015 the authorities, under pressure from the local media, released the results of the joint investigation of the case by the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office, the State Police Major Crime Unit and the ATF. According to the report Mr. Nolan shot himself to death before the house exploded. In the report he was described as a "stressed out" alcoholic gun enthusiast.

Serial Killer And Rapist Joseph Naso

     On April 11, 2011, police officers in Reno, Nevada arrested 77-year-old Joseph Naso on four first-degree murder charges filed against him in Marin County California. The former commercial photographer stood accused of raping and murdering four Bay Area prostitutes between 1977 and 1994. The victims, Roxene Roggasch, Carmen Colen, Pamela Parsons and Tracy Tafoya ranged in age from 18 to 38, and each had first and last names that began with the same letter.

     Forensic scientists connected Naso to two of the victims through DNA. A search of his house produced several nude photographs of women who appeared unconscious or dead. Police officers also found a so-called "rape diary" containing narrative accounts of women and girls who had been picked up and raped. The murder suspect's house was also littered with female mannequin parts and women's lingerie. In Naso's safety deposit box searchers found a passport bearing the name Sara Dylan. (A skull, found years earlier in Nevada matched Sara Dylan's mother's DNA.) Naso's safety deposit box also contained $152,400 in cash.

     The Joseph Naso serial murder trial got underway in San Rafael California in June 2013. The prosecutor in her opening statement to the jury said the state would prove that Naso had drugged, raped and photographed the four victims. He strangled them to death then dumped their nude bodies in remote areas in northern California.

     Naso, who represented himself at the trial, told the jury that he was not the monster the prosecution was trying to make him out to be. The defendant said the nude women he had photographed had been willing models. "I don't kill people, and there's no evidence of that in my writings and photography."

     Following two months of evidence that featured the defendant's rape diary, the nude photographs and the DNA evidence linking Naso to two of the murder victims, the case went to the jury. During the trial, Naso, as his own attorney, made a courtroom fool of himself and tried the patience of the judge. On August 19, 2013, after deliberating seven hours over a period of two days, the jury found the defendant guilty of the four counts of first-degree murder. The verdict also included a finding of special circumstances that made Naso eligible for the death penalty.

     While the jury recommended the death penalty in the Naso case there was no chance the state would put him to death. In 2006 a federal judge had put California's executions on hold until the state modified its execution protocols. That has not been done. Naso would join 725 inmates on California's death row. While some politicians and judges threw roadblocks in the path of the state's death penalty procedure, juries in California continued to impose the death sentence.

     Homicide investigators believe Naso raped and murdered three 11-year-old girls between 1971 and 1973 in Rochester, New York. He was living in the city when these murders occurred. These victims also had first and last names that began with the same letter. One of the girls, Carmen Colon, had the same name of one of the women Naso killed in California. Detectives also believed that Joseph Naso murdered at least ten other women. Following the verdict Mr. Naso insisted that he had not raped or killed anyone.

The Jorelys Rivera Murder Case: The Polygraph as an Interrogation Tool

     Several years ago a story went around about an ingenious small town cop who hooked a young thief up to a copy machine the kid thought was a lie detector. When the suspect gave an answer the interrogator didn't like he hit the print button causing a sheet of paper to come out of the copier that read, "Not True." The suspect, convinced he had been caught by a sophisticated lie detection instrument confessed.

     The copy machine-as-polygraph story illustrates an important point about scientific lie detection and how the polygraph technique can be used by examiners to coax confessions out of guilty suspects. The debate over polygraph accuracy, in this context, is not relevant. What does matter is this: most criminal suspects who happen to be guilty believe that the polygraph works. In the right hands it can be an effective interrogation tool. Years ago the Georgia Bureau of Investigation made public a video-tape of a murder suspect's polygraph examination and follow-up interrogation. The transcript of this session reveals how a professional polygraph examiner/interrogator can use the instrument to acquire a confession.


The Jorelys Rivera Murder Case

     On Friday, December 2, 2010, 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera, a resident of the River Ridge Apartment complex in Canton, Georgia outside of Atlanta went missing. Three days later police officers found her body in a dumpster not far from where she had been abducted. Ryan Brunn, a 20-year-old newly hired maintenance man had lured the girl into a vacant apartment where he had raped and murdered her.

     On the day following the discovery of the murdered girl's body Keith Sitton, a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation gave the suspect a polygraph test. What follows is the word-for-word account of that session:

SITTON: Regarding that girl, do you intend to answer the [polygraph] questions truthfully?

BRUNN: Yes.

SITTON: Did you participate in any way in causing the death of that girl?

BRUNN: No.

SITTON: Do you know for sure who caused the death of that girl?

BRUNN: No.

     In discussing the results of the polygraph test with Brunn after the examination,  Sitton said this to the suspect: "I can see you're not doing good on this test. Those [last two] questions are really bothering me."

     "I promise you. I'll take the test again," Brunn replied. His voice was weak and he was obviously nervous.

     "There's something on this that you're not telling us. Something that you're keeping to yourself. What is it you're holding back? Because we're going to solve this thing. It's just written all over you. Something's bothering you."

     "I'm not bothered at all."

     "You haven't told the complete truth about everything."

     "I have," Brunn replied.

     The GBI agent asked Brunn about having been accused of sexually fondling a young girl in Virginia: "You know what I'm talking about," he said.

     "I don't."

     "Remember, I said you had to be 100 percent truthful. I asked you [on the polygraph] if anyone made accusations. So what you have done is told me a lie."

     "They put things in that child's head. I'm a good person. I didn't do nothing to that little Spanish girl, and I didn't do nothing to the other girl [the one in Virginia].

     The next day officer Sutton questioned Brunn again. He informed the suspect that according to the polygraph he had lied. To this Brunn said, "I should have told the truth straight up. But I didn't. I was scared." At this point Brunn made a full confession. He said he had raped the girl, cut her throat, wrapped her in a garbage bag and dumped her body in the trash compactor.

     On January 17, 2011 Ryan Brunn pleaded guilty to murdering Jorelys Rivera. The judge sentenced him to life without parole. A year later while serving his time at the Georgia State Prison Brunn used his sweatshirt to hang himself.

What Happened To Teleka Patrick?

     Raised in New York City, Teleka Patrick graduated from the Bronx High School of Science before earning her Bachelor of Science Degree at Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama. Three months after graduating from medical school at Loma Linda University in southern California, Teleka, in June 2013 began her four-year residency at Western Michigan University. She moved into the Gull Run apartment complex in Kalamazoo.

     At seven o'clock in the evening of December 5, 2013 Dr. Teleka Patrick was caught on a parking lot surveillance camera at the Borgess Medical Center where she worked. She had just finished her shift. From the hospital a male co-worker gave her a lift to the Radisson Hotel in downtown Kalamazoo. A hotel surveillance camera recorded Dr. Patrick entering the lobby dressed in a black hoodie and dark slacks.

     According to a Radisson employee, the woman in the hoodie tried to rent a room using cash. Because she did not show any identification the person on the front desk refused to register her.

     At eight o'clock Teleka Patrick got a ride back to her car at the Borgess Medical Center in a hotel shuttle van. The shuttle driver later described her behavior as nervous. He said she ducked between cars to avoid being spotted. From the medical center parking lot that night she went missing.

     Two hours after Dr. Patrick returned to the medical center, an Indiana State Trooper 100 miles from Kalamazoo came across, off Interstate 94 in Portage, an abandoned light-gold 1997 Lexus ES 300. The vehicle, registered to the missing woman, had a flat tire.

     Inside the Lexus officers found a wallet containing Teleka Patrick's driver's license and credit cards. The car also contained pieces of the missing woman's clothing and a small amount of cash. The car keys were gone along with her cellphone.

     A bloodhound later traced Patrick's steps from the abandoned vehicle to the freeway where her trail went cold. A search of the area surrounding the car failed to produce any clues to her whereabouts.

     According to Carl Clatterbuck, a Kalamazoo private investigator hired to find Dr. Patrick, the missing woman's ex-husband and a former on-again off-again boyfriend were not suspects in her disappearance.

     In late December 2013 several YouTube videos made by Patrick surfaced. Unfortunately, they raised more questions than answers. One of the videos, produced in early November 2013, featured a table in her apartment containing an elaborate breakfast spread. The narrator, identified as Patrick, says, "I just wanted to show you what I made. If you were here this would be on your plate." In another video she addressed an unknown person as "baby" and "love."

     On January 1, 2014 Ismael Calderon, married to the missing woman from 2000 to 2011, told a Grand Rapids, Michigan television reporter that his ex-wife suffered from a serious mental problem. The illness led her to believe she was being followed. "This is a tragedy," he said. "I don't think she's hiding somewhere. I think she's being held against her will or the worst. I think that Teleka had this fear of being branded with a mental illness. Second, the practical fear of losing her career."

     The next day a 46-year-old Grammy-nominated gospel singer and Grand Rapids, Michigan pastor named Marvin Sapp said he had filed a protection order against Teleka Patrick three months before she disappeared. According to Reverend Sapp she had sent him 400 love letters, joined his congregation and contacted his children.

     On April 6, 2014,a man fishing on Lake Charles in the northern part of Indiana saw something floating in the water. It turned out to be a body and the corpse was Teleka Patrick. The lake had been frozen over during the winter. According to a family member she was on her way to Chicago to visit a relative.

     Three days after the discovery of Patrick's body the Porter County, Indiana Coroner's Office announced that Teleka Patrick had died from asphyxiation from drowning. According to Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller, Teleka Patrick's drowning had been accidental. As a result the criminal investigation of this unexplained death was closed.

Murder She Wrote: The Nancy Crampton Brophy Murder Case

      In 2018, 63-year-old Daniel Brophy, a master gardener and expert on marine biology who also knew a lot about the growing of mushrooms, was the chief instructor at the Oregon Culinary Institute located in the Portland, Oregon neighborhood of Goose Hollow. Brophy and his 68-year-old wife of 27 years, Nancy Crampton Brophy, resided in nearby Beaverton, Oregon.

     Nancy Brophy was a self-published author of nine "romance suspense" novels featuring, according to the author's website, "pretty men and strong women." She promoted her fiction which was available on Kindle on her website. All of her male protagonists were Navy SEALS.

     At eight-thirty on Saturday, June 2, 2018 officers with the Portland Police Bureau responded to a 911 call regarding a man who had been found shot to death in the culinary school's kitchen area. The authorities identified the victim as Danial Brophy. He had been shot with a 9mm pistol.

     Other than perhaps a disgruntled culinary student detectives didn't have a clue as to who had shot the instructor. Without an eyewitness they didn't have much to go on.

     On Sunday, June 3, 2018, the day following Chef Brophy's homicide, Nancy Brophy wrote the following on her Facebook page: "For my Facebook friends and family, I have sad news to relate. My husband and best friend, Chef Dan Brophy was killed yesterday morning...I am struggling to make sense of this right now."

     The next day Nancy Brophy attended a candlelight vigil for her dead husband that was held outside the Oregon Culinary Institute.

     By July 2018 detectives had started thinking about the possibility that Mr. Brophy had been killed by his wife. In November 2011, on her blog "See Jane Publish," Nancy Brophy had posted a 700-word essay entitled, "How to Murder Your Husband." Regarding her marriage to Daniel Brophy she wrote: "My husband and I are both on our second (and final--trust me!) marriage. We vowed, prior to saying 'I do,' that we would not end in divorce. We did not, I should note, rule out a tragic drive-by shooting or a suspicious accident."

      In her murder essay Brophy wrote that she and her husband had their "ups and downs but more good times than bad." The romance novelist also had plenty to say on the subject of murder: "I find it easier to wish people dead than to actually kill them...But the thing I know about murder is that every one of us have it in him/her when pushed far enough."

     In her treatise on how to get away with murder Nancy Brophy advised against hiring a hit man who are almost always caught and spill their guts. Do the job yourself, she wrote. 

     In Brophy's 2015 novel The Wrong Cop the female protagonist fantasizes about murdering her husband. In The Wrong Husband, also published in 2015 Brophy's female hero tries to flee an abusive marriage by faking her own death.

     On September 5, 2018 detectives with the Portland Police Bureau took Nancy Crampton Brophy into custody for killing her husband Daniel. At her arraignment hearing the prosecutor charged her with murder and the unlawful use of a weapon. (Presumably the 9mm pistol.) The defendant pleaded not guilty and the judge denied her bail. Officers booked the homicide widow into the Multnomah County Jail where she awaited trial.

     In April 2020 Brophy's lawyer petitioned the court to have her released on bail due to the threat of being infected with the COVID-19 virus. The judge denied the request. 

     Nancy Brophy went on trial in early April 2022. The prosecution's key witness, the defendant's cellmate at the Multomah County Jail, testified that Brophy had described to her in detail how she had murdered her husband. Brophy did not take the stand on her own behalf.

     On May 25, 2022, the Multomah County jury found Nancy Brophy guilty of second-degree murder. A month later the judge sentenced her to life in prison with the chance of parole in 25 years when she was 95.