In June 2018, students at the Oregon Culinary Institute found their instructor, Dan Brophy, dead from two gunshot wounds when they arrived for class. Dan’s death was investigated as a homicide from the start, and it wasn’t long before the investigators turned their attention to his wife, Nancy Brophy, a romance novelist. With the debut of Wondery’s true crime podcast “Happily Never After: Dan & Nancy,” interest in the case has been reignited.
Who Is Nancy Brophy?
Nancy, who was born and raised in Wichita Falls, Texas, moved to Oregon in the ‘90s, where she met Dan. At the time, he was working as an instructor at the Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Portland. The couple went on to get married in 1999.
Nancy eventually went on to begin publishing her own romance novels, and in 2011, she published an essay titled “How to Murder Your Husband.”
Did Nancy Brophy Kill Her Husband Dan?
The Texas native was arrested on September 5, 2018, on charges of murder three months after Dan’s body was found.
Nancy initially denied having any involvement in Dan’s murder and claimed that she was taking a shower and walking the couple’s dogs when he was shot. However, investigators found traffic camera footage in 2020 that showed Nancy driving to and from the Oregon Culinary Institute during the time the murder occurred. She went on to change her story and claimed that stressful events of the day caused her to forget about a trip to get coffee that morning. Nancy even took the stand in her own defense and said that she was “suffering from retroactive amnesia.”
Prosecutors later alleged that Nancy shot and killed Dan as a way to cash in on his life insurance policies, which totaled approximately $1.4 million. It was also discovered that Dan had been shot with a Glock pistol, the exact type of gun Nancy had ordered a receiver blank kit for on the internet. The defense attorneys claimed Nancy was researching the gun for a new novel she was writing about a woman who was protecting herself from an abusive partner, but ultimately, the jury didn’t buy it.
On May 25, 2022, Nancy was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
‘Happily Never After: Dan & Nancy’ Details Dan Brophy’s Murder
The podcast “Happily Never After: Dan & Nancy” is hosted by Heidi Joy Tretheway and features never-before-heard audio from Nancy’s calls from jail and detective interviews with some of Nancy’s closest friends. Heidi, who is a novelist and had previously met Nancy, also details some of her strange encounters with her while also giving listeners a behind-the-scenes look at how the romance authors in Nancy’s community were divided by her sentence.
The first two episodes of “Happily Never After: Dan & Nancy” premiered on June 3, 2024, while the rest will be released on a weekly basis.
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