In court documents, prosecutors said the 63-year-old man had been shot twice – once in the back as he stood in a sink filling buckets of ice and water for students and then in the chest at close range. The couple was in debt – the Crampton-Brophy novels he published were not very good sellers – and he was insured for more than $ 1 million, prosecutors said. Crampton-Brophy testified that she was financially better off with her husband alive – and the fact that her minivan was seen near the school was just a coincidence. Prosecutors told the court that the author followed her husband to work and shot him with a Glock pistol. Investigators found two 9-millimeter calyxes at the site. He had also bought a “ghost weapon” assembly kit that the researchers later found in a storage facility. “Ghost weapons” are unregistered and detectable firearms. Crampton-Brophy bought a gun and a ghost gun kit as part of the search for a new book, he told the jury. “All I can tell you is that it was for writing,” he said. “It was not, as you would think, to kill my husband.” News of the murder and subsequent criminal charges made headlines everywhere – in part because of an essay written by Crampton-Brophy seven years before her husband’s death. In 2011, he published it in a famous blog post entitled “How to Murder Your Husband.” “As a romantic writer of agony, I spend a lot of time thinking about murder and, consequently, the police process,” the 700-word post began. It was published in a blog called “See Jane Publish” which has since become private. The essay is divided into sections that describe in detail the pros and cons of killing a bad spouse. “If the murder is supposed to set me free, I certainly do not want to spend any time in prison,” Crampton-Brophy wrote. “And let me be clear about the story, I do not like overalls and orange is not my color.” The judge ruled that the essay would not be allowed as evidence because it was written years ago as part of a writing seminar and could unfairly prejudge the jury. As it turns out, the jurors did not have to read it to reach their verdict.
