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This mystery unraveled in a BLOG POST - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: Today's story is about a fiction writer who used her
0:02
Speaker 1: own life as inspiration for her books. However, as she
0:06
Speaker 1: would find out, some stories are better left untold. But
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Speaker 1: before we get into today's story, if you're a fan
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Speaker 1: of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format,
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Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. On the night of June 1st, 2018...
0:54
Speaker 1: 68-year-old Nancy Crampton Brophy sat in bed with her computer
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Speaker 1: on her lap in the home she shared with her
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Speaker 1: husband in the suburb of Beaverton, Oregon. Nancy was trying
1:04
Speaker 1: to work on her newest book, but for some reason
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Speaker 1: she just couldn't focus on the chapter she was writing.
1:09
Speaker 1: So Nancy was a romance writer who had actually finished
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Speaker 1: 11 novels, and she also ran a blog with some
1:15
Speaker 1: other romance writers who lived in the area. Now, writing
1:18
Speaker 1: really was Nancy's passion, and she'd been doing it her
1:20
Speaker 1: whole life. But despite that, she really had not made
1:24
Speaker 1: any real money from writing. She'd never gotten a legitimate
1:27
Speaker 1: publisher to buy one of her books. So those 11
1:29
Speaker 1: novels she did, well, they had to be self-published and
1:32
Speaker 1: basically had to be free online for anybody to read them.
1:35
Speaker 1: And so in order to keep on writing, she had
1:38
Speaker 1: to have a day job to pay the bills. In
1:41
Speaker 1: the past, she'd run a catering company, but now she
1:44
Speaker 1: worked for Medicare. However, despite not having made it big,
1:47
Speaker 1: at least not financially as a writer yet, It didn't
1:50
Speaker 1: deter Nancy. I mean, she was totally motivated to keep
1:53
Speaker 1: on writing because she believed that, you know, the next
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Speaker 1: thing she wrote was going to be the thing that
1:59
Speaker 1: finally made her a bestseller and made her famous and
2:02
Speaker 1: financially stable on her writing. However, tonight, Nancy just felt
2:06
Speaker 1: completely stuck. She could not think of what to write next.
2:11
Speaker 1: So she leaned back into her pillow and just thought
2:13
Speaker 1: about what her character was going through and tried to
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Speaker 1: think if if she'd ever gone through anything similar that
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Speaker 1: might inspire, you know, what would need to happen next
2:21
Speaker 1: in the story. So these romance epics that Nancy wrote
2:25
Speaker 1: were very over the top, but she did draw a
2:27
Speaker 1: lot of inspiration from her actual personal life. Most of
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Speaker 1: her work featured very powerful women and had similar themes
2:35
Speaker 1: like freedom and strength and love because Nancy really valued
2:38
Speaker 1: all those things in her own life. The other things
2:41
Speaker 1: all her books had in common was they always had
2:43
Speaker 1: happy endings. And Nancy knew all about happy endings because
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Speaker 1: in some ways, you know, she was living one. Nancy
2:50
Speaker 1: and her husband, Dan Brophy, had been married for almost
2:53
Speaker 1: 25 years. They had both been married before, and Dan
2:57
Speaker 1: actually had a son and granddaughter from his first marriage.
3:00
Speaker 1: And so the fact that Nancy and Dan had found
3:02
Speaker 1: each other after essentially both of them had been living what,
3:05
Speaker 1: you know, felt like very complete lives to that point,
3:08
Speaker 1: felt like another theme that she wrote about all the time,
3:10
Speaker 1: which was this idea of fate. You know, as if
3:13
Speaker 1: fate is the thing that brought Nancy and Dan together.
3:15
Speaker 1: Dan and Nancy even called themselves soulmates, sort of playing
3:18
Speaker 1: on this idea that really fate had led them together.
3:21
Speaker 1: I mean, they had fights and disagreements like any other couple,
3:25
Speaker 1: but they also knew each other so well that sometimes
3:28
Speaker 1: Nancy felt like they could almost read each other's minds,
3:31
Speaker 1: and that sort of got them through any rough patches.
3:33
Speaker 1: And also, another part of the reason that they seemed
3:36
Speaker 1: to work so well together as a couple was because
3:38
Speaker 1: they gave each other plenty of space to pursue their
3:41
Speaker 1: own interests. They were you know, given freedom, something again
3:44
Speaker 1: that Nancy really valued. And so for Nancy, her sense
3:47
Speaker 1: of freedom, her sense of, you know, being able to
3:50
Speaker 1: pursue what she wanted to meant shutting herself away every
3:54
Speaker 1: evening in their little attic bedroom for hours and hours
3:57
Speaker 1: to write. And for Dan, you know, his sense of
4:00
Speaker 1: freedom and his ability to pursue his own interests meant
4:03
Speaker 1: working long hours at a career he loved as a
4:06
Speaker 1: chef and a teacher at the Oregon Culinary Institute. Just
4:09
Speaker 1: like Nancy was sort of obsessed with writing, Dan was
4:12
Speaker 1: obsessed with food and cooking, and when he was not
4:14
Speaker 1: in a kitchen, he was often out in the backyard
4:17
Speaker 1: of his and Nancy's house, raising chickens and working in
4:19
Speaker 1: his garden, or maybe on a trip into the Oregon
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Speaker 1: woods to forage for mushrooms. But tonight, despite how happy
4:26
Speaker 1: Nancy's life was and how secure she felt in her
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Speaker 1: own relationship, like, none of that really mattered relative to
4:32
Speaker 1: what she was trying to do, which was write this book.
4:35
Speaker 1: She just was not able to do it. And as
4:37
Speaker 1: she continued to struggle with writer's block... Her mind kind
4:41
Speaker 1: of spiraled off into more sort of pessimistic thinking. And
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Speaker 1: she began thinking about, you know, the money problems that
4:46
Speaker 1: recently had begun to take a toll on both her
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Speaker 1: and Dan. Neither Nancy nor Dan had ever made particularly
4:52
Speaker 1: high salaries. And their finances had always been pretty tight.
4:55
Speaker 1: So that was kind of normal for their relationship. But
4:58
Speaker 1: about two years ago, they'd gotten really behind on credit
5:02
Speaker 1: card debt. And that extra debt threw everything else out
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Speaker 1: of whack. And at one point, they actually had not
5:08
Speaker 1: even been able to afford their mortgage. Now, realistically, things
5:11
Speaker 1: were actually more under control now. Nancy and Dan had
5:15
Speaker 1: taken a chunk of money from Dan's retirement account to
5:17
Speaker 1: pay off some of this debt. And they'd also made
5:19
Speaker 1: the decision to sell the house, the house they were
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Speaker 1: in now, and downsize, which Nancy actually was kind of
5:25
Speaker 1: excited about. With these lower overhead costs, it would likely
5:29
Speaker 1: mean that she would get to quit her day job
5:31
Speaker 1: and just pursue her passion, writing, and also pursue being
5:35
Speaker 1: the best grandmother she possibly could be. So in a way,
5:39
Speaker 1: things were starting to look up, at least in terms of,
5:41
Speaker 1: you know, their financial situation. But Nancy knew, especially tonight,
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Speaker 1: that she couldn't just forget about the fact that they
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Speaker 1: had these problems. Like she couldn't just pretend they weren't there.
5:51
Speaker 1: In fact, tonight, the reason Dan was not home when
5:54
Speaker 1: normally he would be is because recently Dan had picked
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Speaker 1: up a second job cooking for an assisted living facility.
6:01
Speaker 1: And he had picked it up to help pay off
6:03
Speaker 1: this debt. So it really was sort of beginning to
6:06
Speaker 1: infect their whole lives, this debt. He was working for
6:08
Speaker 1: a friend of theirs. It was a woman whose name
6:10
Speaker 1: was Tanya Medlin. And the job wasn't bad exactly, but
6:13
Speaker 1: it definitely was not Dan's dream job either. But just then,
6:17
Speaker 1: as Nancy's having all these kind of conflicting and sort
6:19
Speaker 1: of bad thoughts, she heard the front door open and
6:22
Speaker 1: realized that Dan must be home. So she slammed her
6:25
Speaker 1: laptop shut, figured she would attack this later, and she
6:28
Speaker 1: went downstairs to meet him. Nancy got to the front
6:31
Speaker 1: door just as Dan was taking off his boots and
6:33
Speaker 1: coming into the house. And she quickly gave him a
6:36
Speaker 1: kiss and asked how his shift went. But Dan just
6:39
Speaker 1: kind of grunted and said, you know, fine. And then
6:41
Speaker 1: he disappeared into the kitchen to make some food. Dan
6:44
Speaker 1: had always been a pretty gruff person, but to Nancy,
6:47
Speaker 1: it was sort of part of his charm. He was
6:49
Speaker 1: blunt and a little socially awkward, but his love language
6:53
Speaker 1: was food. And so he made her elaborate meals to
6:55
Speaker 1: show her that he cared about her, and she knew that.
6:58
Speaker 1: Nancy did know that other people didn't really understand Dan
7:01
Speaker 1: and often took his mannerisms and gruffness the wrong way.
7:05
Speaker 1: In fact, at the last school where he taught, he'd
7:07
Speaker 1: gotten fired because of his bad attitude. And at the
7:10
Speaker 1: culinary institute where he was currently teaching, a group of
7:13
Speaker 1: students had complained that he was way too tough and
7:16
Speaker 1: had impossible standards. Now, Nancy did worry about this. I mean,
7:20
Speaker 1: she understood Dan. She knew what he was like. But
7:23
Speaker 1: I mean, the reality here is that if he loses
7:26
Speaker 1: his job or multiple jobs here, they're going to be
7:28
Speaker 1: in a bad spot financially. And again, they have these
7:31
Speaker 1: financial problems that they're working through, but that would be
7:34
Speaker 1: really bad. And then also on top of that, this
7:37
Speaker 1: was sort of buried in the back of Nancy's mind,
7:39
Speaker 1: is she had this fear that, you know, Dan was
7:42
Speaker 1: going to upset the wrong person. It just seemed like
7:45
Speaker 1: he kind of made people mad everywhere he went. And
7:48
Speaker 1: who knows? I mean, a student could snap and try
7:50
Speaker 1: to hurt him. And so maybe it was just the
7:52
Speaker 1: stress kind of coming through as she can't write and
7:54
Speaker 1: they have money problems. But on this night, she just
7:57
Speaker 1: had this feeling of like, I hope he's going to
7:59
Speaker 1: be OK here. I hope he isn't going to make
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Speaker 1: more people mad and jeopardize his own safety. And so
8:05
Speaker 1: Nancy goes to Dan in the kitchen and she kind
8:07
Speaker 1: of tries to lighten the mood and just like ask
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Speaker 1: him how the day went. You know, nothing too crazy.
8:11
Speaker 1: But she noticed that Dan's attitude was really bad. Like
8:15
Speaker 1: even by his standards, he was really being quite rude.
8:18
Speaker 1: And Nancy knew that very likely the reason for this
8:21
Speaker 1: is because he had to work the second job because
8:23
Speaker 1: they were in debt. And so Nancy tried to be understanding.
8:26
Speaker 1: But as Dan got grouchier and grouchier over the course
8:29
Speaker 1: of the next few minutes... You know, Nancy just started
8:32
Speaker 1: to feel like he was being rude to her and
8:34
Speaker 1: it was totally unnecessary. And it's like, she's in this
8:36
Speaker 1: with him. You know, why are you treating me so badly? Eventually,
8:40
Speaker 1: Dan finished making his snack and it was big enough
8:43
Speaker 1: that he put some on a plate for Nancy as
8:45
Speaker 1: well and he handed it to her. And this made
8:47
Speaker 1: Nancy smile, even though she was kind of annoyed with Dan.
8:50
Speaker 1: Because it felt like, oh, the old Dan's back. You know,
8:52
Speaker 1: giving me food is his way of showing me he
8:54
Speaker 1: loves me. And so they ultimately sat down together and
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Speaker 1: They ate and they chatted a little bit before Dan said,
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Speaker 1: I'm tired, I'm going to bed. Just before 5 a.m.
9:09
Speaker 1: the next day, so June 2nd, Nancy woke up to
9:12
Speaker 1: the sound of Dan banging around in their bathroom. Nancy
9:16
Speaker 1: liked to sleep in when she could, and today she could.
9:18
Speaker 1: But Dan, he couldn't because he had a lot to
9:20
Speaker 1: do that morning, so he was up. That day, he
9:22
Speaker 1: had to go to his school, the Oregon Culinary Institute,
9:25
Speaker 1: to set up the classroom before his students got there
9:28
Speaker 1: and then also teach that day. And then before that,
9:31
Speaker 1: he also had a list of chores that he did
9:32
Speaker 1: around the house before work, like feeding his chickens. Nancy
9:35
Speaker 1: tried to fall back asleep, but Dan, frankly, was too loud.
9:39
Speaker 1: And at this point, you know, she was kind of
9:40
Speaker 1: back in some negative thought loops and she couldn't sleep.
9:44
Speaker 1: And so she laid there and she began thinking in
9:46
Speaker 1: particular of all the negative thoughts about the book. that
9:50
Speaker 1: she just couldn't continue to write this book. It was
9:52
Speaker 1: like she really had writer's block. And she had not
9:55
Speaker 1: really experienced that in previous novels. This one was just really,
9:58
Speaker 1: really challenging. And so after tossing and turning for a
10:01
Speaker 1: few more minutes, feeling really frustrated, she decided she would
10:05
Speaker 1: just get up and go take a drive and just
10:07
Speaker 1: clear her mind. This was Nancy's go-to. Whenever she needed
10:10
Speaker 1: to work out a storyline or plot hole, she would
10:13
Speaker 1: just hop in her car and drive around and just
10:16
Speaker 1: kind of let her thoughts wander. And this morning... She
10:19
Speaker 1: knew exactly where she wanted to go. She wanted to
10:21
Speaker 1: go to this very beautiful neighborhood with streetcar tracks and
10:24
Speaker 1: tree-lined roads in the nearby city of Portland. So up
10:27
Speaker 1: and out of bed she got, she found Dan in
10:29
Speaker 1: the bathroom and said bye to him, and then she
10:31
Speaker 1: went outside, got in her car, and she was off.
10:35
Speaker 1: Less than 20 minutes later, and Nancy was in Portland.
10:38
Speaker 1: In particular, she was in the neighborhood that she thought
10:40
Speaker 1: was beautiful, and it was this area near a place
10:42
Speaker 1: called Washington Park. And so it's got beautiful foliage and
10:46
Speaker 1: there's all these beautiful homes and it's just this wonderful area.
10:49
Speaker 1: And she's driving around, just kind of looking out the window,
10:52
Speaker 1: enjoying herself. And then she had this sort of pang
10:55
Speaker 1: of jealousy because Dan's school, where he worked, was roughly
10:59
Speaker 1: in this area. And so he got to go through
11:01
Speaker 1: here every morning and she suddenly felt like, man, I
11:03
Speaker 1: wish I could do that. However, as she continued to
11:06
Speaker 1: drive around Portland, she began to see other sides of
11:10
Speaker 1: the city that she herself did not necessarily think were
11:13
Speaker 1: so great. In particular, she drove through an area where
11:16
Speaker 1: there were all these tents on the streets where people
11:18
Speaker 1: who were displaced or potentially homeless, you know, that's where
11:21
Speaker 1: they were living. And, you know, they were making the
11:23
Speaker 1: best of it. But from her perspective, this represented danger.
11:27
Speaker 1: And in fact, there'd been a whole lot more drug
11:29
Speaker 1: and criminal activity in this area lately that sort of
11:33
Speaker 1: coincided with more and more of these tents popping up
11:35
Speaker 1: around town. And this had actually really bothered Dan. You know,
11:38
Speaker 1: he was worried about this. However, the way Dan had responded, ultimately,
11:42
Speaker 1: beyond just telling Nancy about his concerns, is he had
11:45
Speaker 1: recently started this outreach program where he took extra food
11:49
Speaker 1: from his school and he gave it to a local
11:51
Speaker 1: church to help feed the homeless. Now, Nancy and Dan
11:54
Speaker 1: both thought this was a great idea. And it seemed like,
11:57
Speaker 1: you know, giving back in that way was exactly the
11:59
Speaker 1: right way to respond to what really amounted to a
12:02
Speaker 1: homelessness crisis in the city. But for Nancy, who worried
12:05
Speaker 1: about Dan... She couldn't help but feel like, I kind
12:08
Speaker 1: of wish he wasn't really getting involved. Like, I don't
12:10
Speaker 1: really want him in this part of town. I want
12:13
Speaker 1: him home and safe or just at his school and
12:15
Speaker 1: safe there. And just, she just had this growing sense
12:18
Speaker 1: of dread that something was going to happen to Dan.
12:22
Speaker 1: But as Nancy is having seemingly like 10 thoughts all
12:25
Speaker 1: at once in all different directions, she suddenly has an epiphany.
12:29
Speaker 1: She has this moment of absolute clarity that, about how
12:33
Speaker 1: to write her book. It was like all these elements
12:37
Speaker 1: came together and were showing her the way. And so
12:40
Speaker 1: in an instant, she turned back around and she drove
12:43
Speaker 1: back home to get to work. When Nancy got back
12:46
Speaker 1: to her house, she saw that Dan was already gone,
12:49
Speaker 1: which meant he was off to work at the Culinary Institute,
12:52
Speaker 1: which meant Dan was sort of, you know, back into
12:55
Speaker 1: the dangerous part of town, you know, potentially, you know,
12:57
Speaker 1: surrounded by these homeless people that could potentially harm him.
13:00
Speaker 1: At But she told herself she needed to focus. She
13:04
Speaker 1: needed to just do the writing while she had this
13:07
Speaker 1: moment of clarity. And so she rushes up to her
13:10
Speaker 1: bedroom and she spends the next two plus hours just
13:13
Speaker 1: writing nonstop. But then at around 10 a.m. that morning,
13:19
Speaker 1: her concentration was broken when her cell phone rang. And
13:23
Speaker 1: when she answered it, she was very surprised to hear
13:25
Speaker 1: one of Dan's colleagues from the Institute on the other line.
13:29
Speaker 1: And the colleague sounded totally frantic. And she told Nancy
13:32
Speaker 1: that Dan was not at the school and she had
13:36
Speaker 1: heard there was a shooting at the school this morning.
13:38
Speaker 1: And so she was just worried about Dan. She had
13:40
Speaker 1: to make sure he was okay. She said she had
13:43
Speaker 1: tried to call Dan to see what was going on,
13:44
Speaker 1: but he hadn't answered. And so she was hoping that
13:47
Speaker 1: Nancy would know where he was. When Nancy heard this,
13:50
Speaker 1: it was like immediately her mind exploded with all the
13:53
Speaker 1: worst possible case scenarios that could be playing out here. But,
13:57
Speaker 1: you know, she took a deep breath and tried to
13:58
Speaker 1: stay calm, and she told this colleague, although she was
14:01
Speaker 1: not confident this was true, but she told the colleague,
14:04
Speaker 1: likely Dan is just in the middle of a lesson,
14:06
Speaker 1: and that's why he's not picking up his phone. He's
14:08
Speaker 1: probably just fine. The colleague sort of agreed and decided
14:11
Speaker 1: they would sort of wait and see if maybe Dan
14:14
Speaker 1: got back in touch with them. But as soon as
14:16
Speaker 1: Nancy hung up the phone, she threw her laptop aside
14:19
Speaker 1: and ran downstairs and turned on the TV. And as
14:22
Speaker 1: she was flipping through channels looking for the news to
14:25
Speaker 1: find out more about the shooting, she also grabbed her
14:27
Speaker 1: phone and called Dan. But it rang and went to voicemail.
14:31
Speaker 1: So she hung up. She tried it again. But again,
14:33
Speaker 1: he didn't answer. And so she texted him. But he
14:36
Speaker 1: didn't text back. At this point, the news was now
14:39
Speaker 1: on the TV. And as Nancy took stock of what
14:42
Speaker 1: she was seeing on the screen, she was horrified. Because
14:45
Speaker 1: it was all these images, you know, from helicopters and
14:48
Speaker 1: from reporters that showing Dan's school with all these police
14:52
Speaker 1: and all these news crews outside. I mean, clearly something
14:54
Speaker 1: had happened at the school. And she had just spoken
14:57
Speaker 1: to the colleague who said there was maybe the shooting.
15:00
Speaker 1: And so she raised the volume to see if they
15:01
Speaker 1: would maybe say, you know, was it a shooting? Did
15:03
Speaker 1: somebody get shot? Who got shot? Who did the shooting?
15:06
Speaker 1: What happened? But nobody was saying anything that clarified it,
15:09
Speaker 1: just that something had happened at the school. And so
15:12
Speaker 1: at this point, Nancy couldn't wait any longer. She grabbed
15:14
Speaker 1: her keys, rushed out to her car, and she sped
15:17
Speaker 1: towards Dan's school. Less than 20 minutes later, Nancy drove
15:20
Speaker 1: through that same beautiful neighborhood that she had been in
15:23
Speaker 1: that morning in Portland. But this time, instead of admiring
15:26
Speaker 1: the scenery, she was laser-focused on trying to find out
15:30
Speaker 1: if Dan was okay. She was calling and texting him.
15:33
Speaker 1: And she was cycling through the radio to hear any
15:35
Speaker 1: news broadcast about what had actually happened here, you know,
15:38
Speaker 1: to make sure Dan was not involved in it in
15:40
Speaker 1: any way. But at this point, all she had learned
15:43
Speaker 1: from the news was that there really had been a
15:45
Speaker 1: shooting at the Oregon Culinary Institute. But that was it.
15:48
Speaker 1: There was no other information. And so by the time
15:50
Speaker 1: Nancy actually got to the school, she was such a
15:53
Speaker 1: nervous wreck. She was so anxious. She was nauseous. Her
15:57
Speaker 1: hands ached from having white-knuckled the steering wheel on the
16:00
Speaker 1: drive over. I mean, she was a mess. As Nancy
16:03
Speaker 1: looked around, all she saw was this sea of police
16:06
Speaker 1: officers and other first responders and all this crime scene
16:09
Speaker 1: tape had been put out and all these reporters. I mean,
16:12
Speaker 1: it was total madness. But in the chaos and despite
16:16
Speaker 1: her anxiety, Nancy was able to identify a couple of
16:19
Speaker 1: people in this big crowd that she recognized. They were
16:22
Speaker 1: colleagues of Dan's. And so she rushed over to them
16:25
Speaker 1: to ask them questions about where her husband was, what's
16:28
Speaker 1: going on. But as she ran up some stairs to
16:31
Speaker 1: get over to these other colleagues, they saw her coming
16:34
Speaker 1: and all of them just kind of looked away. Like
16:37
Speaker 1: they couldn't look her in the eye. Nancy didn't know
16:39
Speaker 1: what to do, but clearly picked up on the signal.
16:42
Speaker 1: And so instead of talking to them, she turned course
16:45
Speaker 1: and went to the nearest police officer. And she said,
16:47
Speaker 1: my name is Nancy Crampton Brophy. Dan Brophy is my husband.
16:51
Speaker 1: He works here. I can't get in touch with him.
16:53
Speaker 1: Is he okay? And as soon as she said this,
16:56
Speaker 1: the officers told her to just wait right here. They'll
16:58
Speaker 1: be right back. And then Nancy, she's standing there as
17:01
Speaker 1: these officers leave and they come back with these two
17:04
Speaker 1: other men who are wearing dark suits. And those men
17:07
Speaker 1: walk up to her and they introduce themselves and they say, Nancy,
17:11
Speaker 1: we're homicide detectives. And that her husband, Dan Brophy, was
17:14
Speaker 1: the man who was shot on campus and that he
17:17
Speaker 1: was dead. The next few days went by in a
17:25
Speaker 1: blur for Nancy. She spent basically half her time crying
17:28
Speaker 1: and grieving. and the other half being the person that
17:31
Speaker 1: was sort of in charge of delivering the bad news
17:34
Speaker 1: to friends and colleagues and family about what had happened
17:37
Speaker 1: to Dan. And the reality was, what happened to Dan
17:41
Speaker 1: was still very much up in the air. I mean,
17:43
Speaker 1: the only thing detectives knew at this point was that
17:46
Speaker 1: Dan had been found dead by his students in the
17:48
Speaker 1: kitchen after being shot twice, and that's what killed him.
17:51
Speaker 1: But the school actually didn't have good security camera footage,
17:55
Speaker 1: and so there was no footage to try to indicate
17:57
Speaker 1: who could have come into the classroom and killed him
17:59
Speaker 1: and then left. It was like they didn't really have
18:01
Speaker 1: any good leads. They didn't have any good evidence. And
18:04
Speaker 1: in many ways, it was just this big mystery that
18:06
Speaker 1: didn't appear like it was going to get solved anytime soon. Now,
18:10
Speaker 1: Nancy certainly had her own theory. I mean, she felt
18:12
Speaker 1: like she knew Dan rubbed people the wrong way. And
18:15
Speaker 1: she always had this kind of, you know, basic concern
18:18
Speaker 1: that he was going to make the wrong person mad
18:20
Speaker 1: and they were going to just snap and hurt him someday.
18:22
Speaker 1: And that was definitely a worst case scenario. But here
18:25
Speaker 1: she is, her husband's been killed, he's been shot to death.
18:28
Speaker 1: And so that's what she thought had happened. Maybe it
18:30
Speaker 1: was a student who went crazy and snapped and killed him,
18:33
Speaker 1: or the fact that there was this burgeoning homeless crisis
18:37
Speaker 1: in Portland, and that he was often, or at least recently,
18:40
Speaker 1: interacting with homeless people. And she kind of equated that
18:43
Speaker 1: to being in danger due to the rising drug and
18:46
Speaker 1: criminal activity that was popping up in Portland. And so
18:49
Speaker 1: she had this theory that basically he had rubbed shoulders
18:53
Speaker 1: with the wrong people and they had killed him over it.
18:55
Speaker 1: She had no way to prove it, but that's what
18:57
Speaker 1: she thought. But instead of really dwelling on what happened
19:00
Speaker 1: to her husband, the reality was is over the couple
19:03
Speaker 1: of months following her husband's death, Nancy's life basically fell apart.
19:08
Speaker 1: She wasn't able to focus on anything. It was like
19:10
Speaker 1: her mind had gone blank. It was so traumatic what
19:13
Speaker 1: had happened to her. And so as a result, she
19:15
Speaker 1: couldn't write. So she didn't do any writing and And
19:18
Speaker 1: she also couldn't work. She had to quit her day
19:20
Speaker 1: job because she just could not concentrate on anything. Eventually,
19:24
Speaker 1: Nancy did decide that she would go through and try
19:26
Speaker 1: to sell the house, basically do the plan that she
19:29
Speaker 1: and Dan had thought of to sell it and downsize
19:31
Speaker 1: to get rid of some of this debt. But then
19:34
Speaker 1: she discovered her name was not actually on the deed
19:37
Speaker 1: to the house. And so she couldn't sell it because
19:39
Speaker 1: it technically really wasn't hers. And so now the bank
19:42
Speaker 1: was likely going to foreclose on it because she couldn't
19:44
Speaker 1: afford it. And so again, Nancy's life is just completely
19:47
Speaker 1: upside down. She's totally in debt. You know, she's facing
19:50
Speaker 1: financial ruin. Her husband's been killed. The police have no suspects,
19:54
Speaker 1: no leads. It seems like the case is just going
19:56
Speaker 1: to go cold. And so Nancy just didn't even know
19:58
Speaker 1: what to do. I mean, she was surrounded by friends
20:00
Speaker 1: and family that were there to support her, but there
20:03
Speaker 1: was nothing that anybody could reasonably do to lift her
20:06
Speaker 1: out of this horrible situation she was in. Fast forward
20:10
Speaker 1: to September 5th, so two months after Dan had been killed,
20:14
Speaker 1: and Nancy was on her way back to her house,
20:16
Speaker 1: the house that she still couldn't sell, and she had
20:18
Speaker 1: by this point sold a lot of stuff inside of
20:20
Speaker 1: the house just to pay the bills, and she still
20:23
Speaker 1: wasn't working, and she had tried writing a little bit,
20:25
Speaker 1: but still it was like her mind was just blank
20:27
Speaker 1: at this point from all the trauma. And she's on
20:30
Speaker 1: her way home from some errands, and she pulls into
20:32
Speaker 1: the driveway, and as she gets out of her car,
20:35
Speaker 1: she hears another car pulling behind her. she turns and
20:38
Speaker 1: she sees it's a police cruiser. Now, she had had
20:41
Speaker 1: several interactions with police pretty much immediately following the death
20:44
Speaker 1: of her husband. But for the most part, she didn't
20:47
Speaker 1: really see police officers all that often. And so these
20:49
Speaker 1: two detectives get out of the vehicle and they walk
20:52
Speaker 1: up to Nancy. And so Nancy, she's looking at them expectantly, like,
20:55
Speaker 1: clearly this has to do with Dan. Why else would
20:58
Speaker 1: you be here? But she's wondering, you know, maybe there
21:00
Speaker 1: was a break in the case. You know, maybe there's
21:02
Speaker 1: a promising new lead or they just want to talk
21:04
Speaker 1: to her. She didn't know, but she just stood there
21:06
Speaker 1: and They walked up to her and they told her
21:09
Speaker 1: that there has been a huge break in the case.
21:12
Speaker 1: They found something on the internet that points to exactly
21:16
Speaker 1: who Dan's killer is. It would turn out Dan's killer
21:20
Speaker 1: had actually confessed to their crime on the internet more
21:24
Speaker 1: than a decade before it happened. The killer literally wrote
21:27
Speaker 1: about how all they think about is murder. and that
21:30
Speaker 1: you have to be organized and ruthless and very clever
21:33
Speaker 1: to commit murder. And that, you know, the thing they
21:35
Speaker 1: know about murder is that everybody has it in them
21:38
Speaker 1: if they're pushed far enough. But the most damning thing
21:40
Speaker 1: about the confession was that the killer posted it on
21:43
Speaker 1: a romance blog under the title, how to murder your husband.
21:49
Speaker 1: Dan's killer was his own wife, Nancy. After she wrote
21:56
Speaker 1: that blog post, Nancy would spend the next 10 plus
22:00
Speaker 1: years writing romantic thrillers about powerful women who fell in
22:04
Speaker 1: love and then murdered their enemies. Now, to be clear,
22:09
Speaker 1: Nancy really did love Dan, and she did think they
22:11
Speaker 1: had this beautiful life together. But Nancy ultimately loved writing
22:15
Speaker 1: more than she loved Dan. And so ultimately, Nancy killed
22:19
Speaker 1: Dan basically to, one, live out the sort of fantasy
22:23
Speaker 1: that she played out in all of her novels about
22:25
Speaker 1: these powerful women killing their enemies, and You know, Dan
22:28
Speaker 1: was not her enemy, but he sort of represented a
22:31
Speaker 1: hurdle between her and the life she wanted, which was
22:34
Speaker 1: to be a writer full time, which meant she needed
22:36
Speaker 1: more money. And if she killed Dan and got rid
22:38
Speaker 1: of him, she could collect on his life insurance policies
22:42
Speaker 1: and fund the lifestyle that she wanted. And so in
22:45
Speaker 1: a way, there was a parallel there. And so she
22:47
Speaker 1: was able to literally live out a fantasy and also
22:51
Speaker 1: finance this lifestyle that she dreamed of to be a writer.
22:54
Speaker 1: And so on that day that Nancy was driving around Portland,
22:57
Speaker 1: you know, clearing her mind to think about what she
22:59
Speaker 1: was going to write, she really was doing that. But
23:01
Speaker 1: then she realized her big solve was just go shoot
23:04
Speaker 1: Dan to death in his school and all your problems
23:07
Speaker 1: are solved. But because Nancy had done all this writing
23:11
Speaker 1: in the years leading up to the crime about how
23:13
Speaker 1: to kill your husband, that was a central theme in
23:16
Speaker 1: a lot of her writing, it made her look really suspicious.
23:19
Speaker 1: And they brought that to Nancy and quickly, you know,
23:22
Speaker 1: her story fell apart. and she was found guilty. Nancy
23:26
Speaker 1: was ultimately sentenced to life in prison for the murder.
23:34
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for watching today's episode. Let me
23:36
Speaker 1: know what you thought of it in the comments below.
23:39
Speaker 1: And remember, we have a whole playlist of Places You
23:41
Speaker 1: Can't Go episodes ready for you to binge right now.
23:45
Speaker 1: So go ahead and click here and give them a watch. Alright,
23:48
Speaker 1: until next time, see ya.