A writer who penned a piece titled “How To Murder Your Husband” is on trial in the United States for…killing her husband.

It is a case that has all the hallmarks of classic detective fiction, a huge insurance payout, an impecunious suspect who claims to have amnesia, a missing weapon, and surveillance footage that seems to have caught the culprit red-handed.

But for novelist Nancy Crampton Brophy, it’s not the plot of her latest book; it’s real life in an Oregon court room.

Crampton Brophy, whose “Wrong Never Felt So Right” series of novels include “The Wrong Husband” and “The Wrong Lover,” stands accused of shooting Daniel Brophy, using a gun whose now-missing barrel she bought on eBay.

Prosecutors say the 71-year-old writer was struggling to make payments on her mortgage, but kept up multiple life assurance policies that would pay out a total of $1.4 million in the event of her husband’s demise.

“I do better with Dan alive financially than I do with Dan dead,” she said as she took the stand in Portland this week, The Oregonian newspaper reported.

“Where is the motivation I would ask you? An editor would laugh and say, ‘I think you need to work harder on this story, you have a big hole in it.’”

Prosecutor Shawn Overstreet said security camera footage had captured Crampton Brophy’s minivan outside the Oregon Culinary Institute on June 2, 2018 at almost exactly the time her chef husband was killed in one of the school’s classrooms.

“You were there at the same time that someone happens to be shooting your husband….with the exact type of gun that you own and which is now mysteriously missing,” he said.

Crampton Brophy told the court she has no memory of being there, though acknowledges she must have been, insisting the CCTV images show her in the area because she was driving around getting inspiration for a story.

“This is not a man I would have shot because I had a memory issue. It seems to me if I had shot him, I would know every detail.”

Daniel Brophy, 63, was found dead that morning by students readying for a class. He had been shot twice.

Investigators say the barrel from the Glock handgun used in the slaying was purchased by the suspect on eBay.

That barrel, which would contain damning forensic clues — has never been recovered, despite an exhaustive police search.

Crampton Brophy admits having bought a Glock pistol, which she says was for her husband to protect himself when he went mushroom hunting in the woods, but says the missing barrel was purchased as part of research for an unfinished novel.

“There was a big separation between what was for writing and what was for protection,” she told the court, The Oregonian reported.

Prosecutors say, Crampton Brophy, whose “How To Murder Your Husband” remains accessible online and whose books can be bought on Amazon, was facing financial ruin before her husband’s death but continued to pay into 10 separate life insurance policies.

The blog on murdering a husband discusses methods and motivations for dispatching an unwanted spouse.

These include financial gain and the use of a firearm, although it notes guns are “loud, messy, require some skill.”

“But the thing I know about murder is that every one of us has it in him/her when pushed far enough,” the essay says.

The trial, which began in early April, is ongoing.

Credit: AFP

The United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan died aged 73 on Friday, state media said, after battling illness for several years.

“The Ministry of Presidential Affairs condoles the people of the UAE and the Islamic world… on the passing of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan on Friday, May 13,” the official WAM news agency said.

The ministry announced 40 days of mourning with flags at half-mast from Friday, with work suspended in the public and private sector for the first three days.

Sheikh Khalifa took over as the UAE’s second president in November 2004, succeeding his father as the 16th ruler of Abu Dhabi, the federation’s richest emirate.

He has rarely been seen in public since 2014, when he had surgery following a stroke, although he has continued to issue rulings.

His brother, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, has been seen as the UAE’s de facto ruler in recent years.

Hanke’s Annual Misery Index has rated Nigeria as the 11th most miserable country in 2021.

According to the report, which analyzed 156 countries by calculating their unemployment rates, inflation, prevailing lending rates, and GDP growths, Nigeria went from 15th among the most miserable countries in the world in 2020 to 11th in 2021.

The figures, published on the verified Twitter handle of Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at John Hopkins University, showed that Nigeria was the fourth most miserable country in Africa last year, only behind Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Angola.

According to the report, the five least miserable countries were Brunei, Switzerland, China, Taiwan, and Japan. The United States ranked 95th, making it the 14th least miserable nation of the 108 countries on the table.

The latest report by the economic expert once again underlines the instability of Nigeria’s economy in the last seven years, captured by two recessions between 2016 and 2019.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the consumer price index (CPI), which measures inflation, increased to 15.92 percent year on year in March 2022. Figures by the NBS also pegged Nigeria’s unemployment rate at an all-time high of 33.3 percent.

The latest figures bring Nigeria’s misery index points to 49.22, a significant uptick from the 41.12 index points recorded at the start of Buhari’s term.

In a recent report titled, “Africa Faces New Shock as War Raises Food and Fuel Costs,” the International Monetary Fund, in its Regional Economic Outlook, said that it expected Nigeria’s economic growth to slow to 3.8 percent this year from last year’s 4.5 percent.

The report said the effects of Russia’s invasion on Ukraine would be deeply consequential, eroding standards of living and aggravating macroeconomic imbalances.

“We now expect growth to slow to 3.8 percent this year from last year’s better-than-expected 4.5 percent, according to our latest Regional Economic Outlook. Though we project annual growth to average four percent over the medium term, it will be too slow to make up for ground lost to the pandemic.”

Inflation in the region is expected to remain elevated in 2022 and 2023 at 12.2 percent and 9.6 percent respectively, the first time since 2008 that regional average inflation will reach such high levels, the report said.