About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of The Cross Examination of Nancy Brophy — dreading from dreading (crime and psychology), published June 24, 2026. The transcript contains 19,263 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"my name is Daniel Brophy. Welcome back to another episode of Dreading. A few weeks ago, we covered the case of Dan Brophy in depth, and how his romance novelist wife, Nancy, planned and executed his murder. That video went over the abundance of evidence against Nancy, how she meticulously planned..."
[00:00:00] Daniel Brophy: my name is Daniel Brophy. Welcome back to another episode of Dreading. A few weeks ago,
[00:00:09] Speaker 2: we covered the case of Dan Brophy in depth, and how his romance novelist wife, Nancy, planned and executed his murder. That video went over the abundance of evidence against Nancy, how she meticulously planned his demise over the span of a year, and how she managed to throw off the investigation with the use of a ghost gun, which allowed her to turn over a gun to the police that appeared to have never been used. If you are interested in learning more about the beautiful and impactful life of Dan, as well as the ins and outs of the case, the original video will be linked in the description box down below. I highly recommend you watch that video if you haven't before watching the rest of this one, as today, we are going to be going over the cross-examination of Nancy during the trial, and how she, over the span of a couple hours, destroyed her own defense. And made herself appear incredibly guilty. This video came highly requested from my viewers, as well as my patrons over on Patreon, who majority voted that I analyze the cross-examination in full. If you are interested in supporting my content, as YouTube tends to demonetize it, feel free to check out my Patreon. If you are simply interested in watching true crime content for free, and find yourself enjoying this video, hit the like button and subscribe. If there are any topics that you would like to see me cover, please let me know in the comments down below, or by emailing me at dreading.official@gmail.com. I'm currently working on videos about Sylvia Likens and Victoria Martins, and those should be up relatively soon. With that covered, let us begin. This is a brief clip taken from the direct examination that Nancy just finished with
[00:01:42] Speaker 3: her legal counsel. Let me know if you can't hear me because you can't read my lips.
[00:01:48] Nancy: Sorry. Where'd you grow up? I grew up in Wichita Falls, Texas.
[00:01:52] Speaker 3: And how big is Wichita Falls, Texas?
[00:01:54] Nancy: It's $100,000, but a lot of that is the airbase that's there.
[00:02:01] Speaker 3: When did you move to Oregon?
[00:02:05] Nancy: Uh, 1990 or 1991. And why did you move to Oregon? Because I wanted to take a year off, and I thought going to culinary school sounded like a whole lot more fun than saying, oh, I'm just taking a year off.
[00:02:17] Speaker 2: She's incredibly bubbly and bright. And many people who watched this trial, when it originally was livestreamed, remarked that her demeanor is less like a person who is standing trial for the murder of their husband, and more like a woman catching up with some old friends from high school. This was the attitude that she carried throughout her testimony. And though there were small instances where she appeared distraught over the situation, she was more or less happy and upbeat while on the stand. There could very well be strategy to this, and this would have been something that Nancy practiced over the years with her lawyers, but her portrayal of herself came across as incredibly narcissistic. In past videos about Anthony Todd and Diane Downs, we have seen the same kind of behavior, where the individual believes, beyond reason, that they can convince the public of their innocence, even when there is direct evidence of their guilt. For Diane, it was owning the gun that killed her children, driving below 20 miles an hour to the hospital, as seen by witnesses, and changing her story. For Tony, it was defensive wounds on his body and the fact that he lived with his family's remains for weeks. And for Nancy, it was the fact that she was photographed in the area the morning of the murder, as well as lied about her whereabouts, sought multiple life insurance policies, and bought a ghost gun, most of which she withheld from the police. She truly believes that she can make all the evidence disappear and seem inconsequential by just talking. But let's see how she fares during her cross-examination. Also, I do want to clarify that she is wearing headphones because she is hard of hearing. That was asked quite frequently in our original video, and I wanted to make that clear to avoid any further confusion. Thank you, Judge. Good afternoon, Ms. Brophy.
[00:03:53] Nancy: Good afternoon.
[00:03:59] Daniel Brophy: Back in 2018, did you carry a purse? No. Carry a wallet? No. How did you carry your critical pieces of information, like an ID and stuff like
[00:04:11] Nancy: that? In my bra? I know that's weird, but so much of what I did was not aided by having a purse. So I had my phone in my bra if I needed a driver's license or a card, you know, and I rarely had cash.
[00:04:30] Speaker 2: So, in my bra. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to imagine that her legal counsel would want her to appear bright and bubbly throughout her testimony. In fact, due to her age, many lawyers would tell her to lean into the stereotype of the little old lady who was much too kindly and frail to carry out any act of violence. Her demeanor throughout the initial examination would have fallen into that portrayal, but immediately, when questioned by the defense counsel, she turns hostile. She stares unblinkingly, her shoulders are set towards him, and she had the body language of a teacher talking down to a student. This will continue throughout, and at points, she will scold him, clearly showing her contempt.
[00:05:11] Daniel Brophy: And you wrote this letter to Dan in 2015. I did. That's been referred to a couple of times. After you wrote that, did you print it? Yes. And what did you do with it? I put it in an envelope,
[00:05:27] Nancy: and it was a purple folder, and I put it on a desk that we shared. So if something happened, and he came back and had to go through the desk, he would see it first thing.
[00:05:39] Daniel Brophy: And that was the only thing in that envelope? Yes. Oh, no, there was probably copies of the
[00:05:46] Nancy: policies in the envelope in addition, you know. Not only did I give him the information, I gave him
[00:05:52] Daniel Brophy: the policies themselves. And how would Dan know to have looked for that letter after, if you were to
[00:06:01] Nancy: pass during that time? I figured sooner or later he would go to our desk, is what I figured. That sooner or later he would be looking for something, and there would be the photo with Dan on it, and he would
[00:06:12] Daniel Brophy: see it and read it and realize what he had. Okay. So you put this letter and some policies, perhaps, and put them in this envelope, put it on the desk. Folder. Folder. I'm sorry, what did I say? You said envelope. It's a purple folder. Okay. Purple, sorry, purple folder. And did you write his name on it? Yes, in big letters. Did you say something about a picture? Did you not say that? I don't think so. Oh, I'm sorry. So it says Dan on it? Right. Okay. And is this a folder that closes or like, is there a snap on it or anything like that? Can you hold up
[00:06:54] Nancy: that orange folder? Thank you. It's a folder just like this. It's a folder and it's purple. Gotcha.
[00:07:06] Daniel Brophy: Thank you. And so when you got back from your surgery, right? Was that folder still there? It was. Right where you left it? Yes. Was there any indication to you that Dan had ever read that letter? No. As far as I can tell, Dan never read it. In that letter, you direct Dan to keep paying on the AmeriCo policy because he'll get the premiums back in nine years. Yes. My math skills were a little iffy there. And that's what I was going to ask you. Is your math wrong or did you just have a typo or what?
[00:07:41] Nancy: I'm going to tell you my math was either wrong or I had a typo. I had no idea, but it is wrong.
[00:07:46] Daniel Brophy: You're absolutely right. Because it's actually 19 years, right? No. By that time, it was probably more like 15 years. So probably not a typo then because of nine. Nancy's reactions to the prosecution are
[00:08:01] Speaker 2: incredibly telling. She corrects him over small mistakes. She stares at him unblinkingly for long periods of time. Her eyebrows are furrowed by looking towards him. And here, she outright rolls her eyes at him. In her mind, this man is an idiot. She believes that he isn't as smart as she is. And that this is a waste of time. Nancy had already spent hours testifying on her own behalf. And it's clear to see she believed that she won the jury over in that time. Because if she thought she still needed to come across as likable, kind, and happy, she wouldn't be acting this way. She, like Tony taught before her, she thinks that this is a victory lap. And she can be as confrontational as she deems fit. Because the jury is already on her side. Nancy, however, has virtually no self-awareness. And doesn't recognize that this behavior she is displaying, and had displayed the entire trial, is incredibly narcissistic and unlikable. As we go along, pay attention to how she scolds and talks down to the entire court, thinking that she is besting the prosecution.
[00:08:56] Daniel Brophy: But he had about 15 more years that he needed to pay on it. And you knew that. You knew that about the policy. I did. And you also knew that if you were to get to that point where you were collecting, or I'm sorry, had the ability to collect the premiums back, you knew then that if you were to take that money back, that you'd actually have to give up the policy. Nope. You didn't know that?
[00:09:21] Nancy: No, I could continue paying on the policy for Dan. But I could take the money out of it.
[00:09:26] Daniel Brophy: Uh, didn't your insurance expert testify? Did you hear him testify and say that if you were to take that money out of that policy, that you would have had to forfeit the policy?
[00:09:39] Nancy: I don't. If they said that, I didn't understand. But I can tell you this. They have a schedule in the policy that shows what happens if you have this money. For example, if Dan died when he was 78, we didn't get 100,000 back. We got 167,000 back. But if we took the 67,000 out of it, we could continue paying for the policy. Now that's not to say it was a 20-year term. That's not to say they might not raise the premium on it. But we could
[00:10:16] Daniel Brophy: continue paying for it. You disagree with your insurance expert? I disagree with that aspect, if that's what they really said. Okay. And this, you said, was part of a bigger retirement plan, correct? It was? Correct. Um, and so, you know, this idea that, I mean, would you agree it's pretty risky? What is risky? Well, the one you have to live to, to be able to collect on the policy, right? Well, yeah. Okay. And if you don't want to give up that, well, I guess you disagree with that notion that you have to give up the policy. So I guess I'll just ask you this. You agree that you paid three to six times more for that policy than what you could have bought a similar coverage for? I do. And so, um, in just asking, you know, did you guys have the thought that, well, maybe we should put this money away and actually be able to access it whenever we need it, um, instead of risking not getting it at all. Did you have that discussion?
[00:11:28] Nancy: Okay. I need to break that down and answer your question. Let me ask you in a series of questions.
[00:11:33] Daniel Brophy: Okay. Um, did you have the discussion with Dan that, well, maybe we don't want to spend all this money on a policy right now. Let's pay for a cheaper policy, but let's put some money away, like as if we were putting it in to the life insurance.
[00:11:48] Nancy: That would, that we would have had that discussion if either one of us were savers, but I, at that point I knew I was not a saver. I, so I understand this about myself. Part of the reason why I have forced savings policies is because I know I'm not a saver. And if I can put this money away where I can't get to it, we will have it later on when we need it. If we're just doing a savings account or we're investing in the stock market, I'm, I'm not good like that. But you agree that you
[00:12:19] Daniel Brophy: treated the forest foresters policy that also had this savings component. You know, it's forced savings,
[00:12:25] Nancy: but you were just taking the money. I took the money out when we needed it because it was there, you know, because why we had it was for a retirement, but b emergencies and disqualified as an emergency.
[00:12:39] Daniel Brophy: Not much of a forced savings though, if you're just taking the money out, right? That is true.
[00:12:44] Nancy: In fact, you didn't pay that back either. No, we did not. But our part of our plan was to pay that back. You know, when we sold the house, we were going to overfund the policy. Sure. Um, and in that dearest
[00:12:55] Daniel Brophy: Dan letter, you also told, uh, Dan, or you were writing at least that he should try to collect on a Canseco policy, even though you knew that it wasn't really enforced, correct? No, it had been. Let me go
[00:13:10] Nancy: back and explain that a little differently. It had been universal life. Canseco had an iffy reputation at that point. We had decided to let that go. But when you have universal life that you can't borrow against, it continues on because the money you have in there continues to pay the policy. So I knew it was being paid, even though I had stopped paying on it. I knew there was a real good possibility it was in force.
[00:13:39] Daniel Brophy: I see. You just weren't really sure. Right. Okay. And, um, when you, four days after, uh, Dan's murder,
[00:13:49] Nancy: you called detective Posey. Is that right? No. Dan died Saturday morning. I called Monday afternoon.
[00:13:58] Daniel Brophy: That's when you called detective Posey regarding the insurance policy. Right.
[00:14:02] Speaker 2: The prosecution was wrong here, but in this instance, it would have been better for Nancy to agree with them. Given that he was saying that Nancy waited four days to call the police to get a document that stated she wasn't under suspicion of his murder. So she could collect on multiple insurance policies that she had taken out on him when she was working as an insurance agent. Nancy, as just stated, only waited two days.
[00:14:24] Nancy: I had done what they had told me. I'd called them insurance companies and started the claim and that's when they had, we had a conversation and then I called Holly and then I called detective Posey.
[00:14:35] Daniel Brophy: Well, we'll break that down. I'm sorry. You're saying that was on the fourth? I think so. I think it was that Monday. And if your call records show that it was actually the sixth?
[00:14:43] Nancy: It could have been. Okay. You know, the call records are going to be more accurate at this point than I am.
[00:14:49] Daniel Brophy: And also on the sixth, you actually, well, during that phone call with detective Posey, you only disclosed a $40,000 policy. Yes, but he didn't ask me about anything else. I understand. I don't think he even asked you about that. Isn't it true that you actually just offered that it was just a $40,000 policy? Mm-hmm.
[00:15:07] Nancy: The smallest of all of your policies? No, it wasn't the smallest, but it was a small policy.
[00:15:12] Daniel Brophy: Besides the life map $2,500 policy. Right, but it was the smallest. The only one you offered to detective Posey was the smallest policy. Yes. During the same conversation that you're asking him for a letter of exoneration?
[00:15:25] Nancy: I'm asking to see if that's something that he would have said, "Oh, sure. We'll do that for you." Or if he said, "No." I mean, I was prepared for the worst. I was prepared for him to say no.
[00:15:34] Daniel Brophy: Isn't it true that you actually talked to all your insurance policy companies that day?
[00:15:38] Nancy: I did. I did. And not a one of them asked for that, but Forrester's.
[00:15:43] Daniel Brophy: Okay. So you called all your life insurance companies? Mm-hmm. Notified them of Dan's death? Yes. Yes. One of them asked you for a letter of exoneration? Mm-hmm.
[00:15:52] Nancy: You asked Detective Posey for that? I asked if it was possible to get that.
[00:16:01] Daniel Brophy: So when did Susan Estrada get into town?
[00:16:06] Nancy: Susan got in. Dan? Okay. Let me think for a minute here.
[00:16:12] Speaker 2: Nancy, as we can see, has studied at the School of Over Dramatics alongside Stephanie Lazarus. In order to showcase that she is thinking, she puts her hand on her head, leans back, and makes it a whole show of how she is recalling this information. This isn't something that she has done before, and for some reason, is really attempting to sell that this isn't information that she can recall at a moment's notice, despite the hours of preparation she has done with her own legal team. This will continue for a few more moments, as she will talk us through her thought process in an overly drawn out way.
[00:16:44] Nancy: Susan got in on that Friday, the following Friday. So Dan died on Saturday the 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th. She would have gotten into town on the 8th of June.
[00:16:57] Daniel Brophy: So you would agree that she was not with you when you made that call to Detective Posey?
[00:17:01] Nancy: I would. And I don't think she, I think I've told her about it, and her memory was just off on it.
[00:17:09] Speaker 2: In her previous testimony, Nancy would often state that various people who had testified, like her mother-in-law, were not properly recollecting what had occurred, and were just off on certain details. This is something that she would continue to do as a way to try and negate any testimony that had been given that makes her look guilty. She will continue to undermine other people's recollection of events throughout, implying that age or emotion got in the way of their memories, all the while trying to distract from the fact that in her own direct examination, she said that she had memory holes, and often doesn't remember certain events.
[00:17:44] Daniel Brophy: Sure. She was not sitting next to you while you made that call?
[00:17:48] Nancy: No. I would think that, uh, I would think that after four years, her memory was just fuzzy.
[00:17:58] Daniel Brophy: Oh, I'm sorry. Were you telling us why she forgot or something?
[00:18:01] Nancy: I was telling you what I thought happened. I thought her memory was fuzzy on what happened.
[00:18:07] Daniel Brophy: Um, based on your work history and Dan's work history, would you expect Dan's Social Security
[00:18:14] Nancy: income to be higher than yours? Oh, we already knew it was. Social Security sends you a statement, I think every quarter. And they tell you, if you work till this age, it'll be this much. If you work till this age, it'll be this much. We knew his was a lot higher. And when Dan could have started collecting that at 65? He could have started collecting at 62, but we decided not to do it. Until when? Until he was 70, when we got the maximum benefit of it. I see. But you chose to draw yours sooner? I did. You started drawing yours at 65? I know. I started drawing mine at either 66 or 67. I'm not sure which one we decided on. It might have been 66. No, I think it was 67 that I started drawing it. If Dan had started drawing at the time that he died,
[00:19:07] Daniel Brophy: what would he have been able to collect? I don't know. But it was more than yours? It was a lot more
[00:19:14] Nancy: than mine. You know, he was employed and I was self-employed. And if I declared a loss in my company one year, and believe me, in 2002, 2003, after 9-1-1, I had losses. And if I declared a loss, then Social Security was also part of that and you didn't have to pay. So my Social Security was a lot
[00:19:38] Daniel Brophy: less than his was. And isn't it true that if Dan, after he died, you could actually collect his
[00:19:44] Nancy: Social Security instead of your own? I'm not sure exactly how that works. I know that's the theory. But I think he had to have claimed it first before I could have claimed it for me. You know what I'm saying? If he hasn't claimed it, then I can't come in and claim it. But I could be wrong on that. You know, Social Security is like Medicare. It's 8 million rules that are secretly hidden
[00:20:12] Daniel Brophy: in a mayonnaise jar somewhere. You hadn't done any research on that, even though you guys were approaching or looking at retirement planning? Yeah, but we weren't looking at retirement planning where
[00:20:21] Nancy: Dan was dead. Right. You know, that wasn't part of the plan. You know, the plan was he was going to take
[00:20:28] Daniel Brophy: Social Security at 70. And when were you actually planning on selling the house? When were you, before Dan died, what was the plan for when the house was going to go on the market?
[00:20:39] Nancy: It was okay. I was aiming for September. He said, I want to garden one more year around the edges while they finish it up. So he was aiming for later in the fall. Okay. So you guys agreed that fall of 2018? Yes. But later in the fall probably meant October, not December. Sure. What does downsizing mean to you? Well, we had a four bedroom house and there were two of us. We didn't need that much space. We had a four bedroom house with a full basement. And, you know, I guess I think Dan needed some sort of space for his stuff, but, uh, but we didn't need that kind of, we needed a good kitchen and real frankly, a couple of bedrooms. Uh, and I like a nice bath, but other than that, I'm really pretty flexible.
[00:21:34] Speaker 2: This is an outright lie. At this point, Nancy's mother-in-law and her stepson had already testified that Nancy had a taste for the finer things in life and specifically didn't want to downsize. She wanted more, not less, and was not comfortable with the idea of selling their home and moving into one that was smaller. Her taste for the finer things in life is why she racked up thousands of dollars in debt in both her and Dan's name and why killing Dan felt necessary for her because the money from the insurance would mean that she could pay off the debt and retire in luxury.
[00:22:07] Daniel Brophy: And you had started to look at some properties?
[00:22:11] Nancy: No, we had started to locate properties. We hadn't looked at them. You know, we just said, look, I found some things in this area. What kind of price range were you looking in? Well, what we wanted to do is be able to pay it completely off. And we thought we would have about four hundred thousand dollars to do that with. So we were probably looking in the 350 price range,
[00:22:33] Daniel Brophy: somewhere like that. And you're saying out in the kind of halfway to the coast?
[00:22:37] Nancy: Well, Dan liked Delilah's property and it is east of Banks. It is west of Banks. It's toward the coast. I like Vernonia. Vernonia is this charming, charming little town. It has a lake. It has this downtown that on the light posts, they have these metal cutouts of bears messing with honey. It has flat land. It has no trees. I liked Vernonia. Now, Vernonia was a little further on and to, I'm going to say the northwest, but it still would have been a straight shot down 26 pretty much.
[00:23:21] Daniel Brophy: How many times did you visit Vernonia? Oh, I was in Vernonia all the time.
[00:23:26] Nancy: I had clients there. I liked the town. When we started talking about there, I'd gone down there two or three times and looked around at the houses and the neighborhoods and what we could get. So yeah,
[00:23:40] Daniel Brophy: I was in Vernonia a fair amount. When you were going to sell your house, would you agree that you had about a little under $250,000 owed on your mortgage? I would think that's right. And you did sell your house later that year. Is that correct? No, I sold it the next year. I sold it in 2019. Oh, when in 2019?
[00:24:02] Nancy: I'm going to say February, March, somewhere in there, maybe as late as April.
[00:24:06] Daniel Brophy: And it sold for about $565,000? Yes. So after fees and realtor fees and all that, would you agree that you probably would make
[00:24:18] Nancy: a little less than $250,000? I didn't see the settlement statements on that, so I really don't know.
[00:24:27] Daniel Brophy: But that wouldn't. Okay, we'll move on then. Now, you said part of the reason of selling the house was basically you don't necessarily want stairs anymore.
[00:24:43] Nancy: Yes.
[00:24:44] Daniel Brophy: But at the time that Dan died and the time you guys were deciding to sell the house, you two were both relatively healthy still? Yes. You could still do the stairs just fine?
[00:24:52] Nancy: I was struggling with arthritis in my knee, but yeah.
[00:24:57] Daniel Brophy: Okay, but you didn't, you still had your bedroom upstairs? We did. You didn't move down to the main floor to deal with that?
[00:25:02] Speaker ?: No.
[00:25:07] Daniel Brophy: I was a little confused about the discussion of the tiny houses.
[00:25:11] Nancy: Oh.
[00:25:12] Daniel Brophy: So whose idea was that?
[00:25:14] Nancy: It was Dan's. Dan, who needs more room than anybody I know, said, "Oh, we could live in a tiny house." No, we couldn't. But his fantasy life, like mine is going to be an expat, Dan's was we could live in these little tiny houses and, you know, that would work fine for us. And I thought, you know, smaller than our kitchen now, which, you know, Dan was spilling out of. No, we couldn't live like that. And the other thing is you have to be in really good health to live in a tiny house because most of the bedrooms are loft like bedrooms and you have to climb up this ladder, you know, night and day to get up there. Plus, I mean, real frankly, once you hit that 40-H group, you and I both know that we're up more in the middle of the night than we ever, ever wanted to be. And I don't want to go up and down the stairs or the ladder 18 times in the middle of the night. Was he joking or? No, he was serious, but it was a fantasy. It was like lots of things. It was like my wanting to go to Portugal. This would be a fabulous idea. And so, you know, we sing and dance to the other one and the other one pokes a hole in that balloon, you know, and says, that's not going to work for us.
[00:26:29] Daniel Brophy: So he was...
[00:26:30] Speaker 2: This next portion is unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but it's enlightening to Nancy's psyche. Watch how quickly Nancy goes from laughing and joking to dead serious. The swift change is subtle, but it's one of the key reasons as to why the jury and everyone watching would find her off-putting
[00:26:46] Daniel Brophy: and inauthentic. His ideal situation was that he would have his own tiny house and you would have
[00:26:50] Nancy: your own. No, he would have a house for junk and then he would live in mine where it would be tiny.
[00:27:01] Daniel Brophy: So the plan was to subdivide this property. Yes. You, you and Dan discussed. That swift
[00:27:08] Speaker 2: shift is deeply illuminating as to how authentic her laugh was and how the majority of what she is showcasing on the stand is an act. I'm going to fast forward past her testimony about packing up her home and other statements that aren't critically important. I think there's been a lot of testimony
[00:27:23] Daniel Brophy: and I'm assuming you'll agree that Dan was a really beloved member of the community. Yes, he was held in high regard. Yes, he did. Uh, would you agree that his death was a devastating blow to the entire community? I would. Everybody loved Dan, right?
[00:27:40] Nancy: As far as I know. Yeah. You know, I certainly did. But I would have people come up to me all the time and say, "You're Chef Brophy's wife? I love Chef Brophy." I said, "Me too." Right. You're talking about
[00:27:53] Daniel Brophy: before. Before. And then after, outpouring of love and support for this man. Yes. Imagine the love of
[00:28:00] Speaker 2: your life, the person you had been married to for over a decade, died. And you were being questioned as to your involvement in their death. Someone brings up how beloved they were. And the best, most emotion you can muster is a blase, almost annoyed statement about how everyone loved him, including you. Nancy's temperament is not in line with a grieving spouse who has just been wrongly accused. It's as if she barely knew him. This is in stark contrast to one of his students who testified, who was incredibly distraught. And he deserved every bit of it. Is it fair to say that there's
[00:28:34] Daniel Brophy: numerous qualities that Dan had that you admired? Yes. And that he admired about you? Yes. In some ways, we were even envious of the way that people looked up to him. Oh, no. Oh, no. I can
[00:28:53] Nancy: remember a dinner that Karen and I and Dan went to. And we all sat down at the table. I think it was back when Hall Street Grill was still in business. And appetizers came out. And we all looked at each other and said, we didn't order anything. And the person put him down said, no, the guys in the kitchen saw Dan, I saw Chef Brophy come in and they wanted him to try this appetizer plate. It was nothing to go to dinner with Dan and have the chef come out of the kitchen and sit down and say, you know, we're thinking about changing our menus. And here's what we're thinking about doing. What do you think of that? Dan was not envious. That was proud. You know, I was delighted that people thought so highly of this man and with reason. He was smart. And he gave them his full attention and gave them his best possible answer. Dan was never, that was never even a minor irritation for him.
[00:29:56] Daniel Brophy: Dan, do you think the way that people thought of Dan and treated him that they then transfer that to
[00:30:03] Nancy: you as well? There was some of that. Yes, I thought that I got, uh, I thought that I got, uh, some of that as well. And that, um, uh, and that the fact that when I had a catering company and he talked to his class about my catering company, that my catering company gained a better reputation also as a result.
[00:30:32] Daniel Brophy: Is there anything that you did yourself in the community? Well, let me ask you this. Did you think that you were held in high regards in the community as well? Yes, but not in the same way.
[00:30:41] Nancy: Did that make you jealous? Oh no. Oh no. That made me proud that, that, you know, we were a couple who went
[00:30:50] Speaker 2: together. Uh, there was no jealousy there. Uh. Nancy repeats her oh no's because she is for the first time genuinely offended by what is being implied by the prosecution. The idea that she would be jealous over her well-loved husband is more egregious than the idea that she killed him. Because as far as Nancy thinks she was just as well liked as Dan and they were, as she said, a package deal. Her body language and expressions show clearly that she finds this assertion that she would have been jealous of his prestigious reputation absolutely offensive. However, her friend's testimony and her own blog spoke about how well liked he was and how people should be careful what they wish for in life because she had the perfect husband but was still unfulfilled says otherwise. First off, Dan was so humble that being
[00:31:43] Nancy: jealous would have been just completely out of the picture. I mean, this was a guy who wasn't gloating because people felt that way. This was a man who, uh, was quietly pleased. But no, I was never jealous that he was like that. I assume he wasn't jealous of you either. I'm I can't imagine why he would be, you know. But no, he, he talked about me to his classes and he had a joke that I was management. Let me tell you a story and I think this kind of sums it up. Dan was co-teaching with another instructor and the other instructor was whining because he said it's so hard to teach to cook with your wife because they don't understand mise en place. And, and so men, mise en place really is get your stuff together before you start cooking. That's a translation I'm sure the French would roll their eyes at. But they turned to Dan and they said, well, you don't have that problem because, uh, your wife is culinarily educated. And Dan said, I don't have that problem for another reason. And, uh, they said, uh, what is that reason? And he said, my wife doesn't cook. And so I think they spoke kind of slowly to him in case he wasn't catching on and said, your wife owns a catering company. How can you say she doesn't cook? And he said, my wife hires people to cook. My wife could close the deal. And that was the first time that I thought he actually understands completely what it is that I do. And there was no jealousy there. There was pride, you know? Uh, and yeah, I never cooked a meal in 25 years. So 24 years, 10 months, whatever.
[00:33:36] Daniel Brophy: At the end of the story. Yes, it is. I'm sorry. Uh, what did you normally order from Starbucks?
[00:33:42] Nancy: Oh, fancy, non-fat, two-equal latte. He ordered, uh, he ordered a chai tea latte. Uh, you know, we had our drinks. Did Dan know your order? Oh, yeah.
[00:33:59] Daniel Brophy: Did he often go to Starbucks in the morning to get yours? He did. Was that really the routine? That was really the routine. You would wake up, stay in bed. He'd bring you Starbucks.
[00:34:10] Nancy: Even when we were on vacation, he would go out and find coffee for me. And even if we were in a foreign country, you know, that was our routine. And he would come back and I would get up and get dressed and drink coffee every day or most days, most days, you know, uh, he was a tea drinker. And so he drank, he drank, he drank, he drank Lapsang Sousong and Lapsang Sousong is a strong smoky tea. And this, I love this about him. He drank that because he read a book by Jim's James Michener called Centennial. And in it, they talked about how the Scottish traders drank the smoky tea. And Dan was so interested that he went out and got some and tried it and liked it. Now, how can you not love a guy who has chosen a literary reference for his tea? You know, we were a team.
[00:35:15] Daniel Brophy: In the morning that, uh, Dan died, you expected him to have a cup of his tea. I did. You told that to the police. I did. That was true. Yes. Carried it in pretty much in the same cup. Yes. We had a number
[00:35:29] Nancy: of those cups. He could change them out. I don't want to jump too far ahead, but the idea that you
[00:35:36] Daniel Brophy: had, somebody had maybe gone to Starbucks that morning, maybe not. I don't know. Do you recall back, did you have a Starbucks at any time that morning? I did. Just don't know how you got it.
[00:35:49] Nancy: It was part of my routine. That's all I can tell you. I don't remember it. I just know that,
[00:35:56] Speaker 2: uh, it was part of my routine. Nancy shaking her head and responding that getting a Starbucks was just a part of her routine while confirming she has absolutely no recollection as to how she got it is illuminating to say the least. Throughout her testimony, she has tried to discredit her mother-in-law and her friend's testimony as to her behavior after Dan's death and given reasons as to why they have given incorrect dates and stated she was behaving poorly. And yet, when questioned about the morning Dan died, she has no clue as to how she got her Starbucks or why she was in the area of the culinary institute when Dan was murdered. The morning he died, she told the police she had been home in bed when she heard about the shooting and then drove to the institute to find out what had happened. But they were able to find security footage of her driving to the culinary institute right before the shooting, then leaving the area directly after. In her own direct examination, Nancy stated that because of her old age, she has memory gaps and cannot be sure as to what she did that morning. She stated she believes now she went to get coffee, then went to a park, then went home, and got back into bed before finding out about the shooting, but simply was overwhelmed the morning of and misspoke. But seeing as she has no problem recollecting the intricacies of life insurance policies she took out over seven years ago and has no memory issues outside of that one date in time, that makes no sense. Previously, she has stated that others' memories were shaky and cannot be trusted. However, when it comes to her own misremembering, she gives incredibly short, curt answers in order to make them seem like it's not that important and shouldn't be focused on. As shown, Nancy tends to go on long-winded diatribes about the littlest of issues, so her trying to skirt around this is incredibly telling. Also, it should be noted that had she gone to Starbucks prior to the shooting, that information would be seen on her bank statements,
[00:37:44] Daniel Brophy: but it was not. Could Dan have brought it to you?
[00:37:49] Nancy: At that point, no. He had live fire that day. He would never have stopped to do something like that when his day was already going to be as packed as it was. You knew about that live fire?
[00:38:02] Daniel Brophy: I did. We'll talk about that in just a little bit, okay? Okay. You testified that you read an article regarding ghost guns or gun build kits, and you found yourself on the website searching around. I mean, you're saying you bought this gun kit as a research. When did that
[00:38:27] Nancy: story start in your head? It came together when I read that story. When I read that article in the paper about this guy, and all of a sudden, I knew how I could twist it and make it into a story. Ideas come out of the blue, and when they come sailing by, you write them down so you don't forget them, and then sometimes you act on them. And that was November of 2017? Sometime in November of 2017. You read the article, started doing research. Nancy states here that the
[00:39:03] Speaker 2: moment she read the article about how to build a ghost gun, she began writing her next story, using it as research. But that is not the case. Nancy never turned over any notes or material that aligned with her narrative, and never showed actual proof that she had begun writing a story using this.
[00:39:20] Daniel Brophy: And you visited the ghost guns website several times without purchasing anything? That's true. And what were you searching for on the ghost guns website? Research?
[00:39:32] Nancy: What were you looking for? I was looking, keep in mind, I know nothing about guns at this point. I knew nothing about guns. And so what I was trying to do, if I'm going to write a story on building a gun, I got to learn a lot about guns in the timeframe that I have. You know, I cannot be the person who knows nothing and write a story anybody would believe. Okay. And were you doing other research online regarding ghost gun build kits? Not that I remember. I was pretty happy with the ghost gun site, and I know there were other sites that did similar things, but the ghost gun site made it seem simpler
[00:40:17] Daniel Brophy: than some of the others. Okay. And you felt that it provided you some information on how the build would occur? Yes. Were there plans or anything on there?
[00:40:33] Nancy: What do you mean exactly? Plans? You mean like architectural plans, like plans that show like when you're putting Ikea furniture together plans? I guess. Not that I saw.
[00:40:49] Daniel Brophy: And so I guess what you're saying is then when you decided to purchase one, you just thought that it was going to be easier to build. I leap into the water first. Yes.
[00:41:03] Nancy: Dan's a researcher in that regard. You are a researcher or you're not? No, I said that backwards. I am a person who, once I have an idea, tends to leap forward. Dan, once he has an idea, tends to research it to death. And then the chickens are a perfect example of this. You know, he would read to me at night from the romantic books called Chickens in Your Backyard or Chicken Tractors. And, but when we got chickens, Dan had a whole plan for how they were going to work. If I had thought, Hey, chickens would be fun. We would have had a plan, build it as you go plan.
[00:41:41] Speaker 2: He was just a planner and I was not. Nancy just ruined her own argument without even realizing it. Throughout the direct examination, Nancy focused on how she was in charge of the finances and the home because she was the best at planning. She emphasized that fact only to state that she was more impulsive than Dan and he was a better planner. She fails to notice this mistake, although it is likely her counsel noticed immediately and the court adjourns for that day. While the prosecution was fairly tame during the last half of her cross-examination and allowed Nancy to go on long-winded stories that didn't fully relate to what was being asked, they changed their approach on day two.
[00:42:19] Daniel Brophy: Uh, Ms. Brophy, I want to start. Can you hear me? Okay. I can. Okay. I want to start, uh, just clear, clarifying something from yesterday. Okay. That I believe you testified to. Um, you, you said when you got downtown, um, later that morning, uh, June 2nd, that, uh, you kind of figured what was going on based on how people were reacting around you. But is it, it is true that nobody actually told you that it was Dan that had been killed until detective Posey, correct? Yes. Nancy knowing that Dan had been
[00:42:56] Speaker 2: shot prior to being told by the police is one of the most key pieces of evidence in the case. There's absolutely no reason as to why someone would declare their spouse dead prior to being told as much and start telling their family that all she knew by her own recollection at this point was that there was a shooting. Someone was hurt and that's it. But she felt confident enough to tell his family that he had been killed. Let's watch as she tries to justify that action. And that was during that interview. Yes.
[00:43:26] Daniel Brophy: But you stated that Karen called you before you went into that interview. Yes. Dan's mother, Karen. Yes. And that you told her that it was Dan and that he was dead. Yes. Based on the fact that you thought that Dan had been killed.
[00:43:48] Nancy: It was more than think. But you hadn't been told. I had not been told, but I had not heard from him. All of his friends avoided looking at me. And the police officers knew who I was before I got there. And one police officer hugged me. This is not good news I'm going to hear. What if you were wrong? Then I would have called Karen and said happy days. I was wrong. And Karen and I would have celebrated. And we would have laughed. And we would have had family jokes about this for 20 years. And it would have
[00:44:20] Daniel Brophy: been much much better than it turned out. You stated you bought this ghost gun build kit. And you realized
[00:44:30] Nancy: you couldn't put it together. No. I realized it was more intricate. I didn't realize I couldn't put it together. It was more intricate than I thought it would be. And based on what? Based upon the fact that it was supposed to be a few parts and I thought it was a few too many parts. What steps did you take to actually try to build it? I didn't take any because I wasn't ready to write this story yet.
[00:44:53] Daniel Brophy: You decided to write that story months prior. Yes. But you weren't ready to start writing it. That's
[00:45:01] Nancy: right. What was the need to buy the gun at that point? I was celebrating it was Christmas. Right.
[00:45:10] Daniel Brophy: But what was the need to buy the gun if you weren't writing the story yet?
[00:45:20] Nancy: Mr. Overstreet, we have had testimony upon testimony upon testimony about the fact Dan was a collector. Dan wasn't a collector by himself. I had my little piles of stuff. You know? What I found what I have found in life is if you see something you want it, you can afford it. Buy it now because circling back for it. It may or may not be there. And so now you're a gun collector? No. Now I have a
[00:45:45] Speaker 2: piece of writing information research. This answer isn't the best as she has seemed to have forgotten the fact that Dan and her could not in fact afford the ghost gun as she had put them into thousands of dollars in debt and they weren't able to keep up with their mortgage payments. Likewise, she didn't have her own little collections, especially not of ghost gun kits. As the lawyer points out, she believes she can make even the most nonsensical of statements seem rational as long as she is the one saying them.
[00:46:20] Daniel Brophy: You said you didn't take any steps to try to build this gun. I did not. And I'm going to show you what's marked the state's exhibit 25. Do you first of all, do you recognize this? Yes. Do you recognize all the parts in here? Well, you're further away than I would say,
[00:46:42] Nancy: but certainly it looks like all the parts are there. Is this what it looked like when you got it? Yes. Approximately. Approximately. Okay. And you saw this part in the kit? I did. Was there anything you needed to do to this to make it functional? I hadn't gotten that deep into this gun. I'm not sure how to answer that question because the answer is I don't know. Okay. Was there anything in the instructions
[00:47:10] Daniel Brophy: or anything you saw online that made you think that you needed to manipulate this part?
[00:47:16] Nancy: And once again, I go back to, I don't know, because there are a slew of parts, you know, uh, the only thing I can attribute it to is when you buy an Ikea thing, there are pieces that come fairly close together and that isn't where you celebrate. You celebrate the little bags of all, you don't celebrate the little bag. Let me say this sentence again where it makes sense. You're delighted to see pieces more or less together. All the little parts you're less delighted to see.
[00:47:46] Daniel Brophy: And is this why you never even opened these little baggies? I wasn't ready to start yet. I didn't want them misplaced. Okay. So you made no attempts to try to build it. You didn't do any further research because you weren't ready to write this story? That's right. Thank you.
[00:48:03] Speaker 2: Nancy's shrug towards her own legal counsel is telling, and for a good number of reasons. The prosecution is showing her the gun kit that she purchased for herself the November prior to Dan's killing. The gun kit, as she just stated, was almost entirely intact, with nearly every part present and accounted for. However, one part is missing, and that was the part that was used on the gun she owned with Dan during the killing, that she got rid of directly after and replaced with the original part, to make it appear as if the gun had never been fired. Nancy's reaction and repeated statements that she doesn't know enough about the gun kit to label various parts, flies in the face, of her previous testimony, that she heavily researched getting a gun kit and putting it together prior to buying it. She has said, time after time, that she only went to the ghost gun site and article as often as she did because she used it as research for her book, and she wanted to make sure she knew how it worked so her poorly selling romance book could be incredibly accurate. But here she is saying that after going to those articles, watching countless videos and buying the kit, she still has absolutely no idea how it worked, what each part does, and how it can be used. It seems like even Nancy is acknowledging that what she is saying is dumb.
[00:49:31] Daniel Brophy: Your defense attorney stated an opening that you knew or that you thought you knew that Nathaniel had previously done a build kit. Yes. You knew that or thought that at least. I thought he had said that and I believed him. When you had this story to do a gun build kit and you actually when purchased a gun build kit, you didn't ever talk to Nathaniel about his experience with a build kit. No, and that wouldn't
[00:49:58] Nancy: have been where I would have gone with that. Where I would have gone first would be to my father-in-law, Jack, who I knew had every equipment in the world, and could help you drill out the parts that needed to be drilled out. Okay, but you didn't do that either? No, because I wasn't ready to start yet.
[00:50:12] Daniel Brophy: And how did you know you needed a drill press? Because it was on one of the videos. One of the videos. Uh-huh. How many did you watch? I don't know. Why were you watching videos if you weren't
[00:50:21] Nancy: writing the story yet? I was watching videos to see how to put it together. But I thought you weren't ready to put it together. I'm not ready to put it together, but that doesn't mean I'm not researching what I have to do to get it ready to get put together. Okay, so now you're doing research online. We have stated previously, and I am not backing down from that, that I investigated, investigated, investigated. One of my friends has a sign over her desk that says only James Michener gets to use all his research. You research everything to maybe come up with six sentences in a book that will make the book more realistic. So yeah, I do tons of research. You do a lot of research. I do.
[00:51:07] Daniel Brophy: So I'm just having a hard time having that make sense with what you said about planning and preparing.
[00:51:15] Nancy: Dan was a better planner than I was. Hang on. Let me ask you a question. I'm so sorry.
[00:51:21] Daniel Brophy: You said yesterday that you're not a planner.
[00:51:26] Nancy: Did you say that? I did say that, but let me put a caveat on that. Please. I am not a planner in the initial stages the way Dan was. But you know, I rarely go into anything willy-nilly and I rarely do anything that I don't complete.
[00:51:49] Daniel Brophy: State's exhibit 82 showed that you were doing some of your research, maybe on February 1st.
[00:51:57] Nancy: You were searching for gun shops at that time. I'm not sure what state exhibit 82 is.
[00:52:03] Daniel Brophy: Okay. It was your internet, some of your internet history. Okay. It was showed to you yesterday by your counsel and asked to you by your counsel about February 1st and you're searching for gun shops in Portland. What were you searching for?
[00:52:19] Nancy: That was different. I wasn't researching that. When I'm looking for gun shops in Portland, it was not for gun pieces. At this point, it's on the whole different conversation. That's writing. And that's a little cubicle in and of itself in my life. What Dan and I were talking about was did we need to own a gun at this point? And while we had both been adamant anti-gun people for a long time, the last three or four years had changed how we felt about that. And we were discussing
[00:52:48] Daniel Brophy: it and had been discussing it for well over a year. So as what was described yesterday as a left-leaning individual, your response to gun violence in the country was to buy a gun?
[00:53:02] Nancy: In 2017, one of the memes of the left was if we continue to be anti-guns, what's that mean that everybody in the country who will own a gun but the people on the left? And it was a serious concern. Lots and lots and lots of people were changing their ideas about gun ownership because the country had become so diversified. Well, Ms. Brophy, I appreciate a meme as
[00:53:32] Daniel Brophy: well and what other people's opinions might be, but I'm asking your position as somebody who was so anti-gun, so anti-gun in fact, that your law enforcement husband wasn't allowed to have a gun in the house. No. Hang on. Sorry. So anti-gun, but your response to gun violence increasing in this country was to buy a gun yourself. Yes or no?
[00:53:52] Nancy: Yes, with a caveat.
[00:53:56] Daniel Brophy: At what point, from the time you received this ghost gun to June 2nd, did you decide that you were not going to use it?
[00:54:15] Nancy: We're speaking now of the gun that we bought at the gun show. No. Oh, all right. Ask me the question again, please. This ghost gun that I just showed you. Right.
[00:54:33] Daniel Brophy: What point did you decide you were not going to use it? I never decided I was not going to use it. Is that why you kept it?
[00:54:38] Nancy: I kept it because eventually I was going to put it together and write this story.
[00:54:42] Daniel Brophy: Okay. And you decided the way to keep it would be to put it in a box with scarves and purses and store it in storage?
[00:54:52] Nancy: No. What I decided was to store it away until I reached the point that I would do it, but I was trying to get moved at that point. Certainly there was, you know, I didn't see another big option there and I even marked the box because at any point I expected the police got to come back to me and say things like, "Does Dan have a computer? Do you all have a computer? Can we look at any of this? Do you all have anything else?" So I marked it so I could find it again. That was for the police benefit. That wasn't for mine. Oh. Oh. I marked the box that I packed that it had a gun kit in it because I thought sooner or later the police are going to come back to me and the police never once talked to me after that.
[00:55:41] Daniel Brophy: Did you literally just say that was for the police's benefit?
[00:55:44] Nancy: That's literally what I said. I marked the box for the police's benefit so that I could find it again when the police came back. And I, well, I sort of thought that if the police didn't find something they would want to come back and re-interview and I would be able to show them things. I thought the fact that all they had was Stan's, uh, phone and not a computer from us might not had, they may have reached a dead end and said, "Mrs. Brophy, is there anything you can give us that would help? Any electronic equipment? Anything else?" So I was kind of in my mind making a list. I, at that point, silly me, since I believed I didn't kill my husband, I didn't think I was a, uh, with a, uh, serious, uh, suspect.
[00:56:28] Speaker 2: Since I believed I didn't kill my husband. Not since I didn't kill my husband. Not since my husband was murdered by a homeless man, as I have stated countless times. But since I believed I didn't kill my husband. This slip of the tongue would have easily been caught by the jury and everyone else in the room, given her annoyance with the prosecution and how little everything she is saying makes sense.
[00:56:48] Nancy: Despite you telling people that you were? I told people I was the suspect because it's always the
[00:56:53] Daniel Brophy: wife. All right. So you lost me there for a minute. Um, let's circle back. You said something about computers. Right. I didn't ask anything about computers. I'm asking about a gun. You're asking why I was
[00:57:08] Nancy: marking things for the police. I did not ask you that. Okay. I think maybe that's where I got a little
[00:57:16] Daniel Brophy: lost. Okay. You said that you marked that box for the police benefit. Uh huh. Okay. So you thought that was important to the police that they might want this gun kit.
[00:57:32] Nancy: I had a hard time believing that I would be interviewed by the police for 45 minutes. We would have a brief conversation on the telephone and I would never hear from them again until the case was solved. I thought for sure the police would come back and say, is there anything else you've got that could help us? And that would have included the gun kit. Let's make this easier. What is the relevance of this gun kit to the police? None, but we had it. You know, I figured they'd ask for it sooner or later.
[00:58:04] Daniel Brophy: Why would the police ask you for a gun kit that they don't know that you own? But I'm failing to understand what your rationale was for making this available to the police. You think it's so important to them that at some point they're going to come asking for it, but you don't call them.
[00:58:26] Nancy: I figured the police were doing the police job the way the police did it, that they probably did not need. I will be the first to tell you, I got my detective's license on TV and I can guarantee you I had ideas on how this case should have gone. But I sort of figured the police had more experience
[00:58:41] Daniel Brophy: and they were the ones in charge. So you think you have relevant evidence to a murder investigation and you don't think you should mention it to the police? How does a gun kit, even though I marked it,
[00:58:54] Nancy: how is a gun kit relative evidence? I'm asking you. I'm asking you because I don't think it is because it's never been put together. Then why would you mark it for the police? Because I figured the police would come back and want to know.
[00:59:08] Speaker 2: Nancy is failing to answer his questions in any meaningful way. And what's notable is that the police had asked her to turn over any weapons that she and Dan owned. That is why they were able to process the gun the couple owned and see that it had never been fired. But as she also turned over the ghost gun kit, they could have surmised that the gun had been fired, but she simply used the kit to make it appear as if it hadn't. Her stating that she considered the kit to be irrelevant information to the investigation, but she had never turned it over and had put it into storage is ridiculous. It's clear by her reaction, she doesn't want to dwell on this line of questioning any longer.
[00:59:45] Daniel Brophy: What else did you think was relevant to the police investigation that you marked and did not share
[00:59:50] Nancy: with them? I thought they would eventually want to know about the computers. I thought they would eventually want to go through the computers and see what they could find, if anything, that would help
[01:00:03] Daniel Brophy: them. And did you give them a computer that belonged to Dan? No. We had a computer. They never asked for
[01:00:10] Nancy: it. But in my mind, I knew they would eventually, if they didn't solve the case by somebody coming in and confessing, they would eventually come back and say, can we see your computer? My computers weren't packed because I thought they were relevant to the police if the police wanted to go in that
[01:00:26] Daniel Brophy: direction. Well, that's not exactly true, right? I mean, you had a computer in storage. No, I had a
[01:00:34] Nancy: computer in a box in one room and a computer by the bed in another room. That's not in storage. Right,
[01:00:40] Daniel Brophy: one in a box in your room. What about the one that was in the storage unit? There was not a computer. So there wasn't a laptop in the storage unit? There was not. Okay. What your testimony, what your
[01:00:51] Nancy: guy's testimony was, they found the computer in a bedroom and they found the computer in a box in the other, in what had been the office. And you would agree then that the stuff that was found on the
[01:01:05] Daniel Brophy: computer that has been shown here in court was on the computer that was packed away in a box?
[01:01:09] Nancy: I think that's why they, they did it. But you know, it were the two computers. Why did you get a new computer in March of 2018? When you open the computer, the old computer, you can't read the
[01:01:24] Daniel Brophy: screen because it's become lines across it. So you did all your research of all these guns on one computer then pack that away and put it in a box in the closet and then you got a new computer. Is that right?
[01:01:34] Nancy: I get a new computer every year. I take a computer with me when I go out to the fields. I beat a computer up. I buy a fairly inexpensive computer because I know I'm replacing it the next year.
[01:01:44] Daniel Brophy: And you thought the police would want that but you didn't give it to them?
[01:01:50] Nancy: The police never contacted me again. I assumed that they were doing their job and didn't want my interference.
[01:01:57] Daniel Brophy: So you told your friends uh in this car ride that was in February right? To one of them yes. The one where you're telling Darla Lueckenbaugh about the fact that you bought this gun kit? Yes. And at that point you had already bought states exhibit 26 the full gun from the gun show correct?
[01:02:19] Nancy: If I hadn't bought it I was close to buying it. I'm not sure the exact date of the car ride in February.
[01:02:27] Daniel Brophy: In fact you had not only bought this gun during that car ride but you were actively bidding on the slide
[01:02:34] Nancy: and barrel isn't that right? Yes probably if it was after the 15th of February that we did this.
[01:02:40] Daniel Brophy: And we'll get to the slide and barrel in a minute but your testimony and your what your defense has asserted in their opening statements was that you bought that slide and barrel for writing. That's true. But you didn't tell your friends about the slide and barrel.
[01:02:53] Nancy: I was more on the story than I was on the gun kit. Right.
[01:03:04] Daniel Brophy: You would agree that you never told law enforcement that you owned this ghost gun kit?
[01:03:09] Nancy: No, because this ghost gun kit despite the fact you refer to it as a weapon on a regular basis is not a weapon unless I hit somebody over the head with the case. There's nothing about that gun kit that's a gun. Except that if you spend a few hours and put it together it could be a gun. But I've got eggs and flour in my pantry and that's not an omelet either until you put it together.
[01:03:34] Daniel Brophy: And you would agree that you also never told the police about the slide and barrel that you purchased on eBay?
[01:03:42] Nancy: Mr. Overstreet, when I talked to the police in June they asked me specific questions. My husband had just died. The fact that I was coherent at all is a miracle. The fact that they never came back to me after that for a follow-up interview I thought was shocking. You know, I thought this was on the police. This wasn't on me. The police said we're handling this. You just go home and rest. You know, you go home and take it one day at a time, you know, and they never contacted me again. Except for the things that they asked me for, which was Dan's schedule. I got that to them and I was having trouble with their email. But I did what I was asked to do.
[01:04:24] Daniel Brophy: Are you declining to answer my question?
[01:04:27] Nancy: Perhaps not. What was your question?
[01:04:30] Daniel Brophy: That was a lengthy answer for not remembering my question.
[01:04:32] Nancy: Well, I go off on tangents.
[01:04:34] Daniel Brophy: So I asked you, is it true that you did not tell the police about the slide and barrel?
[01:04:39] Nancy: It is true. I did not tell the police about the slide and barrel.
[01:04:42] Daniel Brophy: The slide and barrel that would fit perfectly on the gun show gun that you purchased.
[01:04:46] Nancy: The slide and barrel that I was using for research for my writing. I did not tell them about that.
[01:04:51] Daniel Brophy: You can answer that question.
[01:04:53] Nancy: I did. I said I did not tell them.
[01:04:56] Daniel Brophy: Would you agree that it fit on the gun that you bought from the gun show?
[01:04:59] Nancy: It was the same thing. It could have been interchanged. Yes.
[01:05:03] Daniel Brophy: So although you owned, well, we'll get to that in just a second. When exactly did you put the ghost gun in storage?
[01:05:12] Nancy: Somewhere between June 2nd and September 5th when I was arrested. I have no idea.
[01:05:22] Daniel Brophy: How big was your property?
[01:05:24] Nancy: We had half an acre.
[01:05:25] Daniel Brophy: Half an acre. You're sure of that? I'm positive of that. Yeah, some conflicting testimony as you might remember.
[01:05:34] Nancy: Yes, yes, but it was testimony from a woman who lived in an apartment who thought any amount of lawn was going to be huge.
[01:05:41] Daniel Brophy: So you had a half an acre.
[01:05:42] Nancy: Yes.
[01:05:43] Daniel Brophy: And it's true that that lot behind your house was not five acres, right? It was actually just about an acre.
[01:05:48] Nancy: It could have been slightly larger. I think I think I've seen the plot than it was something like 1.3, but that's been a long time ago and I could be wrong.
[01:05:56] Daniel Brophy: You talked about the interview with the police and how you just found out your husband died. And it's very hard to remember everything that you talked about in there. But you do recall that you didn't have any trouble telling them about the firearm that you had purchased at the gun show, correct? In fact, you told them the whole story about why and how you purchased the gun.
[01:06:16] Nancy: Detective Merrill said, does Dan have any guns? Dan owned half a Glock. I told him about the full Glock. And I'm not trying to be sarcastic here, although I thought listening to that sentence, it came out snotty, which wasn't really the way I wanted it to come out. But what I will tell you is he asked me, I answered him the best way I knew how.
[01:06:37] Daniel Brophy: Why didn't you just say, yes, we have a gun?
[01:06:41] Nancy: I was trying to be helpful to the police at this point so they would know what was going on. You know, at this point, I thought they were going to find my husband's killer. I didn't think they were going to say, let's look at the one person who didn't kill him.
[01:06:56] Daniel Brophy: But instead of just answering, yes, we have a gun and it's at home, you actually made sure to give them a full story as to how and why you purchased that gun.
[01:07:05] Nancy: Mr. Overstreet, you are having trouble keeping me quiet now because I tell stories as I'm talking to you. Do you think I was less than that with the police when I'm upset? This is how I talk. I tell full stories to illustrate what I'm saying.
[01:07:19] Daniel Brophy: Even though you were just informed of your husband's murder?
[01:07:21] Nancy: Well, apparently it didn't make me quieter, it just made me more upset.
[01:07:25] Daniel Brophy: And you paid cash for that gun?
[01:07:27] Nancy: Yes, we did.
[01:07:31] Daniel Brophy: Your attorney made a big deal out of you purchasing things with your debit card or credit card. Right. Why would you pay cash at the gun show?
[01:07:40] Nancy: Well, actually that was Stan's idea. And when we talked about it and what have you, he said, here's 400 in cash. You get cash from your thing. So I went on Dan's idea on that.
[01:07:52] Daniel Brophy: Didn't you actually withdraw the $400?
[01:07:53] Nancy: I withdrew the $400, but it was, he gave me 400 in addition and he gave me cash.
[01:08:02] Daniel Brophy: Okay. I don't know that I quite understand that. Didn't you withdraw $400 from your On Point account?
[01:08:07] Nancy: After he had given me the first 400.
[01:08:09] Daniel Brophy: How did he give you 400? In cash. Where did that come from?
[01:08:13] Nancy: Dan has cash at the house. Dan operates the cash business. You know, he sells eggs. He sells crap on the cart. He sells, um, he operates with a lot of cash.
[01:08:26] Daniel Brophy: Okay. So he gave you, and we'll talk about that too. Um, so he gives you $400.
[01:08:31] Nancy: Mm-hmm.
[01:08:32] Daniel Brophy: You then go to On Point and withdraw $400.
[01:08:35] Nancy: Mm-hmm.
[01:08:36] Daniel Brophy: So you have $800 cash.
[01:08:37] Nancy: I do.
[01:08:38] Daniel Brophy: What did you do with the remaining $300?
[01:08:41] Nancy: Well, it wasn't a remaining $300. Uh, as they were taking the gun apart to show me how it worked, they sold me, uh, but I didn't have a receipt on this. They showed, sold me, uh, some oil that I would, they thought I was going to need. And in addition, I had bought a book on Glocks in general. So, uh, what did I do with the probably $200 plus, but not much plus? I don't know. Maybe I gave part back to Dan. That was a long time ago. It wasn't that essential to me. I have no memory of what I did with it.
[01:09:18] Daniel Brophy: You didn't put it back in your bank account?
[01:09:21] Nancy: Maybe Dan and I went out to dinner. Who knows? You know? But I could have just as easily given it back to Dan. Okay.
[01:09:28] Speaker 2: The very idea that Nancy would have no idea as to what she did with the remaining money doesn't add up with the previous testimony she has given, where she goes in depth on what she said or did on random dates, 10 years in the past. But regardless, she seems to have realized that things are not going well. She continues to glance over to her counsel, who isn't objecting or helping her in any way. She is getting argumentative and annoyed whenever the prosecution negates her answers. And it's clear that she is losing credibility as time goes on, even to her. In previous videos where we've looked at manipulative criminals like Tony Todd, it was clear that throughout his testimony, he believed he was winning the jury over and that everyone believed his story. Nancy was incredibly similar up until this point. Pay attention to how many times she looks over towards her counsel for help, as she now seems to realize how much of her own narrative doesn't make any sense and how she is losing this battle.
[01:10:24] Daniel Brophy: You told detectives, and I believe you testified to this as well, that you got home with that gun and looked at it, thought it was heavy, ugly, some other maybe descriptive terms you used, I'm not quite sure right now. But you realized you didn't want it. You and Dan both realized you didn't want it.
[01:10:50] Nancy: I think we were both ambivalent about it still. This didn't really solve the problem, but I think we went back and forth for months before we bought it and for weeks after we bought it.
[01:11:01] Daniel Brophy: Okay, so you didn't decide you didn't want it that day.
[01:11:03] Nancy: That's right.
[01:11:05] Daniel Brophy: Got it home. You took it. Did you handle it?
[01:11:07] Nancy: Oh, sure. We both did.
[01:11:09] Daniel Brophy: What did you do to handle it?
[01:11:11] Nancy: Well, you know, we pulled it out and we looked at it. And I mean, how would I have known it was heavy if I hadn't held it? Uh, you know, uh, and you know, somebody testified earlier that there were two little dark hairs that were in the slide in our house. Who had two little short dark hairs was not me. You know, that would have been Dan. Uh, he handled it. Um, did you see him handle it? Yeah, it was right there.
[01:11:41] Daniel Brophy: And what did he do with it?
[01:11:42] Nancy: He looked at it. He picked it up. He messed with it. He pointed it toward the backyard. So, you know, even though it had no bullets in it. Uh, and, um, you know, I don't recall. We had a great conversation about it, but he definitely handled it.
[01:11:58] Daniel Brophy: Did you ever remove the sign barrel?
[01:12:00] Nancy: Oh, sure. I played with it.
[01:12:01] Daniel Brophy: Oh, you did remove the sign barrel?
[01:12:03] Nancy: Sure. Oh, I didn't think that was a secret.
[01:12:08] Daniel Brophy: Well, you didn't tell the police that.
[01:12:10] Nancy: The police didn't ask me whether I'd remove the sign barrel.
[01:12:13] Daniel Brophy: You told the police that you got it home and that you realized how much you didn't want it and you put it away and never touched it again. Do you remember that?
[01:12:21] Nancy: I could have said that, but I was upset at the time. So, that was probably an exaggeration. Uh, I handled the gun, you know, I may not have loved it, but I was still curious about it. And keep in mind, I'm writing a story about a gun and I need to research guns so I can have it. But yes, I didn't, you know, I touched the gun.
[01:12:42] Daniel Brophy: Yeah, and so your testimony today, after hearing all the testimony and seeing all the evidence on the screen, your testimony today is that you have removed that sign barrel. I have. So, you know how to do it? Yeah. It's not that hard, right?
[01:12:53] Nancy: Oh, it's terribly hard. I broke two nails doing it. Don't believe them when they say it's not that hard. You can't just whip it off the way they do it. You have to hold the gun a certain way. You have to pull it back. I broke two nails pulling it back and I thought this isn't any fun. And, uh, you would be shocked at how hard it is to do. You know, yeah, if you've handled guns all your life, I'm sure it's a piece of cake, but I can tell you, for me, it was not.
[01:13:18] Speaker 2: In a couple of minutes that have gone by, Nancy looked over at her counsel five times, whereas previously she hardly looked at them at all. Similarly, her statements here lack reasoning. If she had handled it and had a quirky little anecdote about how awful her experience handling the gun had been, why would she have not remembered to say as much to the police? Why would she have instead lied and said she never touched it? Her own mannerisms are
[01:13:41] Daniel Brophy: destroying her argument. So you remove the slide and barrel. Yes. You can see that it's nearly identical to the ghost gun slide and barrel, correct?
[01:13:54] Nancy: I'd have to look at both of them now, but I would say yes. Let's do that. Oh, yeah, we can look at that. Okay.
[01:14:13] Daniel Brophy: I'm not going to hand these to you. I'm just going to show them to you. Yes. I would agree that these look nearly identical.
[01:14:24] Nancy: I would agree that they look identical, but they obviously are not. One of them is quite a bit longer than the other one.
[01:14:31] Daniel Brophy: Quite a bit longer.
[01:14:36] Nancy: Which makes them not identical. When you're circling the little things on, which find five things in this picture that aren't identical, you would circle them.
[01:14:45] Daniel Brophy: Right. This one is slightly shorter. Yes. Block 19, ghost gun. What else is not identical about this gun?
[01:14:55] Nancy: Well, one of them obviously has a zip tie on it, but they are similar is what I would say, but they are not identical. Can you see the back? Yes. I agree they're similar. Can you see the top? I agree they're similar. I'm not going to point this at you,
[01:15:14] Daniel Brophy: but can you see the barrel? I can. Anything about this side that is not exactly the same?
[01:15:27] Nancy: I would ask you this, as you're demonstrating this, does it fit on the other gun? No. Does that make it not identical? Yes.
[01:15:34] Daniel Brophy: And you knew it didn't fit, right?
[01:15:35] Nancy: I knew it didn't fit because I knew that I had a book on glocks, and in order for a block to work, it had to work the right way.
[01:15:44] Daniel Brophy: You knew it didn't fit, and then you bought a slide and barrel that would fit the gun show gun, right?
[01:15:48] Nancy: No. I bought a slide and barrel that was the same one. I could have easily bought one that fit the ghost gun, but I did not. I bought this one.
[01:15:59] Daniel Brophy: Why would you buy another slide and barrel to fit the ghost gun when you couldn't build it? You already own it? You own this piece right here? You own this? Yes. So why would you buy another one?
[01:16:11] Nancy: You know, if a trigger had been available, I would have bought a trigger. I'm telling you, I was fascinated with gun pieces at that point because I was writing a story on gun pieces and making it into a gun.
[01:16:23] Daniel Brophy: There's a trigger in this kit.
[01:16:25] Nancy: Yes, and I would have bought another one if I'd had it. I figured if I could construct them together the way the character would have, it would have worked fine.
[01:16:33] Daniel Brophy: But Ms. Brophy, you didn't buy other gun pieces. You bought a slide and barrel that would fit this gun. That's true. No other pieces did you buy?
[01:16:42] Nancy: No, but I wasn't finished shopping either.
[01:16:49] Daniel Brophy: You were worried, your counsel said this. I don't know if you believe it or agree with it, but I'm going to ask you. You needed to buy that slide and barrel because you were worried about taking this gun apart? Yes, okay, but you just testified that you took the slide and barrel off of it.
[01:17:05] Nancy: That's not taking the gun apart. We're talking about if we took the slide and barrel, the slide and barrel itself completely apart, could I put it back together and have a gun that wouldn't backfire on me and kill me? You know, and so the fact that when I said to Dan, I can take this gun, the real gun, not the kit, played the gun apart and it'll help me do this. Dan said, no, no, no, no. I've seen you in action. That's a mistake. Let's keep it together. We may get to sell it.
[01:17:39] Daniel Brophy: I'm not talking about taking the entire gun apart.
[01:17:41] Nancy: Okay.
[01:17:42] Daniel Brophy: Talking about the slide and barrel.
[01:17:43] Nancy: Yes.
[01:17:44] Daniel Brophy: The critical piece of information, as you know now, if you didn't know before this trial, you know now the slide and barrel is at issue, right?
[01:17:52] Nancy: Yes.
[01:17:53] Daniel Brophy: You keep talking about the gun and taking it apart and all that. Talking about the slide and barrel. You have a gun complete, slide and barrel intact. You know how to remove it. In fact, you did. You can manipulate the slide and barrel separate and apart from the rest of the gun, but you chose to buy the exact same piece. Is that right?
[01:18:21] Nancy: Yes, but I have a caveat on that too. Of course. Go ahead. The caveat I have on that was I wasn't thinking, hey, uh, this would work that way. I was thinking because for me, the gun was the gun. The toy was the toy. The pieces were the toy. You're not talking about the ghost gun, Ms. Brophy. We're talking about the difference between the slide and the barrel.
[01:18:48] Daniel Brophy: I'm not talking about the ghost gun. Okay. I thought when you said caveat that you're going to explain to us why in the world, when you've already owned this exact piece, you would need to buy another one days later. Within days.
[01:19:08] Nancy: What I can tell you is it was for writing. It was not to, uh, as you would have it murder my husband.
[01:19:15] Daniel Brophy: Why isn't this for writing? What's the difference?
[01:19:19] Nancy: Are you tapping the ghost gun or are you tapping the, uh, uh, the full gun? That isn't for writing because that isn't the story. Your honor, at this point,
[01:19:33] Speaker 3: if council's going to be aggressive, I would ask that he not have a gun.
[01:19:37] Nancy: Okay. Hold on a sec. I'm going to allow him to hold the gun.
[01:19:42] Daniel Brophy: Explain to me what the difference is between this piece right here that I'm pointing to the slide barrel that you removed yourself and the one that you bought on eBay.
[01:19:51] Nancy: I thought we just went through that.
[01:19:54] Daniel Brophy: You're telling me you couldn't use this for writing.
[01:19:57] Nancy: No, that was the end piece. That was for protection. The other was for research.
[01:20:20] Daniel Brophy: So at this point you spent over a thousand dollars in guns and gun parts. Is that right? By the time you buy the eBay slide and barrel, you're upwards around fifteen hundred dollars. About. About. Your attorney seemed to indicate that you happened upon the eBay slide and barrel.
[01:20:45] Nancy: Yes.
[01:20:46] Daniel Brophy: It was just a pop-up ad.
[01:20:48] Nancy: No, it wasn't a pop-up ad.
[01:20:49] Daniel Brophy: That's what she said.
[01:20:50] Nancy: Well, if that's what she said, then I probably said that to her at one point or another, but it wasn't something that, uh, the slide and barrel was a, did you say that? Uh, sorry. Uh, I didn't happen upon it. At the point that I decided I wanted to do this, I tend to be impulsive and I bought it because I wanted it.
[01:21:18] Speaker 2: At this point, Nancy knows her credibility is shot. She just said that she probably told her counsel a false story, which they used in her defense about how she shot the gun. And she was so flustered that she looked at her counsel after saying she might have said that to ask, "Did I say that?" It's as if she is purposely trying to help the prosecution by being as inept as possible.
[01:21:50] Daniel Brophy: Where is it?
[01:21:52] Nancy: I have no idea. If you'd asked me on the day of my rest, I would have told you that it was either in the house or it was either in storage. I haven't seen it for months and months and months. So.
[01:22:05] Daniel Brophy: And you just bought it in February and got it at the very last day of February, right? February 28th? Could be. I don't know. I mean, I'm not looking at my numbers, notes. You didn't lose this gun. No. You didn't lose the gun kit.
[01:22:22] Nancy: The gun kit went to the police. The gun went to the police. I didn't have to worry about packing that.
[01:22:29] Daniel Brophy: Ms. Brophy, I'm talking about the time leading up to the murder.
[01:22:32] Nancy: Ms. Oh, all right. No, I knew where it was.
[01:22:35] Daniel Brophy: You knew where the ghost gun was?
[01:22:37] Nancy: Ms. It was on the floor of my closet.
[01:22:39] Daniel Brophy: You knew where that gun was?
[01:22:40] Nancy: Ms. Yes. Ms. And I would tell you that the slide was on the floor of my closet next to the ghost gun.
[01:22:46] Daniel Brophy: You're sitting on the floor? Ms. Mm-hmm. You're just like literally sitting on the floor?
[01:22:51] Nancy: Ms. Well, it wasn't in the middle. It was tucked next to, rather than behind, next to an armoire I had in the closet. Okay. When's the last time you saw it? Ms. That's what I was saying. I can't remember. I have no idea when the last time I saw it was. I know that I messed with it in February. I know I messed with it in March, but I can't remember seeing
[01:23:12] Speaker 2: Ms. If you were in the jury listening to this woman recount various inane instances of her life, from what she did every day to the things that happened once while on vacation, would you then believe that she would lose something she claimed was vital to her research? Would you believe that she wouldn't be able to recall exactly where she had it last and what she did with it? Because I wouldn't.
[01:23:41] Daniel Brophy: Why didn't you make an attempt to locate it and mark it for the police like you did the ghost gun?
[01:23:47] Nancy: Ms. I stumbled across the ghost gun when I was packing. That's why I marked the box. In my mind, I had a list of things I thought the police might come back and ask me for. And I thought the ghost
[01:23:58] Speaker 2: gun would be among them. Moments earlier, she said she put the ghost gun kit and their computers in a box specifically because she thought the cops might ask for it later on. But now she has changed that into she thought that they might use it later. And she just so happened to stumble upon the kit while packing. And that's why she packed it for the police. Those are two very different things if you are trying to absolve yourself of suspicion after your husband was murdered with a gun that matched
[01:24:25] Daniel Brophy: the one you own. Do you see the irony and not being able to locate that and that being the allegation
[01:24:34] Nancy: that that was the murder weapon? You know, I see nothing ironic about this case at all. I see nothing happy about this case at all. You're aware that the police searched your storage unit? I am. Your pods?
[01:24:51] Daniel Brophy: Yes. Your house? Yes. You're aware that they even opened up your appliances inside your house to search for guns? I was not aware of that. Okay. You would agree that you've previously written about hiding weapons inside appliances, correct? One of your books? Maybe, but I don't remember that. Okay. Are you aware that they even opened up a wall
[01:25:17] Nancy: to search for a gun? Yes, they did it after the house went into eight months after they had gotten the search warrant. They went back with a new search warrant just before it closed.
[01:25:28] Daniel Brophy: So they did all that searching? Mm-hmm. Got the ghost gun? Mm-hmm. Couldn't find the sliding barrel from eBay? Mm-hmm. But you stored a lot of stuff in your niece's basement, didn't you? I did.
[01:25:46] Nancy: But the stuff I stored in my niece's basement happened after the police were finished with the house. That was everything that was at the end. So the police had either looked at it or they hadn't.
[01:26:02] Daniel Brophy: You didn't store anything anywhere else before your arrest? No. And you're sure
[01:26:10] Nancy: that nothing went to your niece's house? I'm positive nothing went to my niece's house. Until afterwards. Wait, wait, let me back up just a minute because there's a fact here. Susan had left some clothes. For a while they had been at Sarah's house before Dan died. And I'm going to say maybe as long as a year before Dan died, I went and got all the boxes that Susan had left and put them in our storage building so that when Susan came, I was able to give those to her sister and she took them home. So I have had things stored at Sarah's house in the past.
[01:26:51] Daniel Brophy: Ms. Burpee, I'm going to come back to that in a minute. But I believe your answer was that you did have the discovery. You reviewed it. Yes. And you do realize or did realize that this slide and barrel that was outstanding was a central issue in this case.
[01:27:13] Nancy: Yes, probably eight months after my arrest, I realized that.
[01:27:18] Daniel Brophy: Okay. And you understand that today? Yes. Now you've testified. Well, we've heard different things from your from your interview with the police and what you've said on the stand that you sort of hated guns, you didn't like them, but then you became interested in them for writing then for safety. And then you seem to have taken quite an interest after that in in guns. Is that safe to say?
[01:27:48] Nancy: I would say the irony is that we bought a gun to protect us and it didn't protect us. I'm just asking about your interest in guns. My interest in guns were twofold. One is the protection, which it didn't work. And second is the writing, which has nothing to do with guns, but has to do with gun pieces. Right. But you said you became obsessed with firearms. I was obsessed with the writing and the gun pieces, not with firearms. You know, I wasn't investigating AR-15s or shotguns or anything like that.
[01:28:20] Daniel Brophy: Just Glocks?
[01:28:21] Nancy: Just a handgun that would protect my character. And you did a lot of research online?
[01:28:27] Speaker 2: Not yet. I've started it. Watching Nancy continue to lie about basic things and negate her own story is downright infuriating. She goes from stating she was obsessed with researching guns because her story, to saying she researched for months prior to purchasing a gun kit or a gun, to now saying she hadn't really started researching at all. In essence, she just negated her entire former testimony. At this point, Nancy had been on the stand for hours, between two days, and has lost track of her former statements. She appears to just be trying to disagree with what the prosecution is alleging, even if it was something she had said in the past. It's as if she just doesn't want to agree with the prosecution because she doesn't like him and wants to make his job harder. The jury watching has spent the past day and a half listening to her statements. And if any number of them had believed her story, they would have jumped ship here, seeing as she is now saying that the things she previously claimed were a part of her personality and way of writing were not true.
[01:29:27] Nancy: Didn't you just testify, like? That I started researching, that I research online all the time, but I wasn't finished researching by any stretch of the imagination. You had been to a gun show?
[01:29:38] Daniel Brophy: Yes. Bought a gun? Yes. Bought a ghost gun? Went through that whole process? Right.
[01:29:46] Nancy: When did you go to the gun range? I never have been to a gun range. Never been to a gun range.
[01:29:54] Daniel Brophy: So you're doing this research, you're getting ready to do this writing, you have all these people around you that know about guns and own guns and have maybe even done some research themselves for their own books. Why didn't you ever talk to Nathaniel about guns?
[01:30:19] Nancy: I have talked to Nathaniel about guns. There was a point I was writing a story early on, and I told him I needed a gun, a type of gun that I could have my hero use. And he gave me the name and explained why. When was that? Well, you know, it was probably,
[01:30:43] Daniel Brophy: it was probably, uh, 2010. It was, it had been a while before. So in 2018, 2017, 2018, you had known for years that Nathaniel had knowledge about guns. Yes. But, sorry. Did you talk to Dan's brothers about guns? They owned them. Or at least Bill owned them. And, uh, did you talk to Tanya Medlin and her
[01:31:09] Nancy: husband about guns? Apparently Dan talked to him more than I did, but yeah. And Terry Reed? No, I don't think Terry Reed and I discussed guns at all. What about your other writer friends, including Jesse Smith? Jesse Smith, salute. Uh, I probably talked briefly to Linda Smith, but I knew how she felt. Uh, and Linda Smith does not write that kind of a story anyway.
[01:31:33] Daniel Brophy: Why didn't you talk to Matt Gitchell about guns?
[01:31:37] Nancy: Well, I didn't know that he was an authority. Why not follow up with Tony Hall, who you knew was an authority? Tony Hall was really Dan's friend. I mean, I knew him, but I never ran into him. Why didn't you do any research at the gun
[01:31:53] Daniel Brophy: show or go to a gun store and talk to them? Because I wasn't ready to write the story yet. That would have come. In fact, the company that you bought the gun through J and B firearms, that's actually a gun store. That's very close to your house, right? It turned out to be, yeah. They had recommended that you go to a threat dynamics or that gun range that we've seen a couple of times. Uh, you never went to the threat dynamics? Never.
[01:32:21] Nancy: You've never gone to the tri county gun club? Is that the one that we keep talking about out on 26? No. Oh, well, no, I've never been there.
[01:32:38] Daniel Brophy: Where were you going on the 26th when you're out near that gun range?
[01:32:42] Nancy: Oh, on the two random days in March that we've been talking about off and on? Is that what you're asking me about now? Yes. Okay. Uh, Dan and I had decided that that was an area we wanted to look at. I'm driving around frequently out there trying to look to see if there's any property, anything that leaps out at us, anything that is all the requirements Dan has. The land has to be flat for gardening. The land has to be fairly treeless so that we don't have the shadow hanging over it. I know what he requires and I know what I need in the house. Isn't that state land out there? It is after fashion and that's why I didn't go all the way out to where you're saying it was. I went out after fashion came back.
[01:33:27] Daniel Brophy: You just drove out there randomly. Were there less than a couple of minutes and then headed back to Portland?
[01:33:33] Nancy: No, I didn't. I didn't do any of that. Wait, let's stop. Ask your question to me again and let me see. On the 26th, the first day, I believe it was Monday.
[01:33:44] Daniel Brophy: Right. While Dan was at work. Right. You drove out to that area. Right. And according to cell site location information, it appears that you drove out there, turned around and drove back.
[01:34:00] Nancy: I don't think I drove that far out there. I mean, you know, I don't I if I know that it's out there. I know because we've talked about it and talked about it and talked about it, but I have never ever, ever been there. And if I had been going there, I would have gone there with Dan and I would have gone there. We ended up at the closest I got to it. We had, what, two minutes, 10 minutes that I could have spent there. I can think if I was just going out to fire a gun at dirt that I could have found someplace a whole lot closer to my house and driving an hour and a half to make that happen. So you knew about that gun range? I had heard about the gun range from the J and B people. In fact, that's your handwriting, right? I don't know. I haven't seen that note in ages.
[01:34:47] Speaker 2: For those keeping track, Nancy has now stated once again that she was deeply researching guns and how to use them at this time. After saying less than 10 minutes ago, she barely had begun to research them and hardly touched them. She also was stating that she has no recollection of what she did on very relevant days, despite being able to recall incredibly fine details of other later
[01:35:08] Nancy: dates with no issue. So you knew it was there though? And I'm not sure that is my handwriting, so I'm thinking about it. I think they wrote it down, but I can look at the note again and tell you.
[01:35:19] Daniel Brophy: Let's not get lost in the weeds here. Okay. You know about the gun range? I knew about the gun range? Your car just happens to be out in that area on the 26th. I'm sorry. Your phone happens to be out in
[01:35:30] Nancy: that area on the 26th. And what I can tell you is Delilah Marvell's property is west of Banks. Vernonia is northwest. The area Dan wanted to look in is this area. And we, I was looking, you know, and I can tell you we've been looking for a while. You'll see if you went back and looked at my, uh, my, uh, locations at the kiosk. I frequently was in that area looking once again, property, what would work? You know, you'll, I'm all over town. Now, to be perfectly honest, I don't remember doing any of this, but I'm sure I did it. And since you brought it up so often, I have seriously thought about it. But all I can tell you is it wasn't a day where I thought, whoa, this will be new and different. This was just a day. And I'm assuming the reason I'm driving around out there in that area is because I look for property. This is not a situation where I have a clear memory of it. This is a situation where if I was out there on two random days in March, then what was happening was I was probably looking for property. And that is my best guess. Didn't you have lunch with someone that day? I could have. I don't remember. In Portland. I have no idea. I mean, let's go back. Let's look at the records. I can
[01:36:53] Daniel Brophy: probably reconstruct. But, uh, where does it say I had lunch? Didn't you go to Nicholas's restaurant in Northeast Portland on Broadway on the 26th? Okay. I could have. Does that sound familiar?
[01:37:07] Nancy: I go there frequently. I have a friend who really likes to go there and we frequently meet and talk about riding there. And who were you meeting there? Oh, well, uh, it's somebody who hasn't testified. It's a woman named Marilyn Hill. Marilyn Hull. Hull. H-U-L-L. So on the 26th, you get up,
[01:37:25] Daniel Brophy: you Google how to load a Glock nine millimeter. You drive out to an area that... Wait, wait,
[01:37:30] Nancy: I don't know that I Googled that, but if you say I did, I'd like to see that. But I could have. I mean, once again, I am, I am messing with gun pieces. You know, I am not messing with, uh, research. I am not messing with, uh, so I could have put that in that morning if I had some spare time because I don't think I gave up the gun research until the beginning of April when I knew I had to get back and finish my other story. Part of the problem is, is if you don't finish the story you're on, then you have story pieces everywhere. And, you know, people say, what's the most difficult thing about writing a book? It's finishing the book. You have to force yourself to finish it. When you've written yourself into a hole, it's real easy to see a new idea out there that would be more interesting. You have to go back and force yourself. So yeah, I had a few months where I flirted with guns, but real frankly, my goal was to
[01:38:33] Daniel Brophy: finish the book I was on. Okay. So in March, you are doing research at that point. I could be, yes. And, uh, can we go ahead and put up States exhibit 82? Sure. Go there to March 26th, 10:13 AM. Do you see that? Searching, loading a nine millimeter Glock. Okay. Immediately after that, searching, cleaning a Glock. Okay. And then you get in your car. Okay. Drive out to an area that has now been established is where that Wolf Creek gun range is.
[01:39:14] Nancy: I don't know why I put this back on. Uh, okay. But if I wasn't, I can guarantee you that I wouldn't have gone that far. And the reason why is because it's all forested land and it's higher elevation than what Dan wanted. But I'm not going to tell you I wasn't out there because I probably was, you know, you've got video that shows my phone visited it. And you're out there for no time at all to basically turn
[01:39:37] Daniel Brophy: around and drive straight back into Northeast Portland for lunch. That could be, it could be that, uh,
[01:39:44] Nancy: that could have happened. I drive a lot in my job. I also drive a lot for meditation, for work, for writing.
[01:39:52] Daniel Brophy: Right. What does that have to do with what we're talking about?
[01:39:57] Nancy: You're saying you drove around two random days in March. I'm saying my best guess is I was looking for property. But my best guess could have been I was filling a plot hole too. Are you following me? Then I don't know what I was doing. I'm giving you what I regard as great possibilities of what I was doing.
[01:40:16] Daniel Brophy: Great. So you have a nice lunch. You go home. The next morning you get up and do the same thing. Okay. Dan's at work again. Okay. You drive out to the same area. Exact same area.
[01:40:30] Nancy: But you're there for longer. Do you recall that? I recall the testimony that I've heard. I'm asking if you recall. No. No. These are two random. I drive all the time. I don't think about this. I drive when I'm thinking for about the story. I drive when I'm working. I work all over this whole area. No. I don't recall two random days in March that I was driving around. I can tell you
[01:40:58] Speaker 2: for sure I never went to the gun range. So let's break this down. Nancy is trying to argue that she didn't go out to a gun range on the day in question and was just looking at property. Although she has virtually no memory about this day. The same way she has no memory about the morning her husband was brutally murdered in cold blood. However, her phone was pinged near a gun range that she had written down directions to. And she had searched multiple different things about firing and cleaning her gun that day. With that in mind, it is more likely that she just drove out to a gun range to look in nearby property and got so close to the range that her phone seemed to ping from inside it. Or that she went to the gun range, looked up various things involving using her gun, and then went home. Obviously, the second one is more likely. But Nancy is trying to sell a ridiculous version of events that she isn't willing to state happened with any certainty. Because, according to her, she has no idea how this happened. She also uses words like "you're saying" or "you're telling me" if this were to happen, and more. Trying to get across that she, personally, doesn't even believe that the evidence that has been brought to the court is, in fact, real. So in her mind, there is a conspiracy against her from the police, the prosecution, and possibly even her phone company that turned over the record of her searches, trying to make it appear as if she went to a gun range when she didn't. Sure, that makes sense.
[01:42:18] Daniel Brophy: Would it surprise you that that's the only two times that your phone, as far back as the phone records go, that we have, when you head out that way, that it's the only time you don't go all the way to the coast?
[01:42:29] Nancy: No, that can't possibly be true. And the reason why that can't possibly be true is because I have a lot of clients in, uh, Vernonia, and I would have gone out to see them, if nothing else, during Medicare, uh, season. You know, I have clients, I drive all over. I love Vernonia. I think it is a charming little town. But, uh, but that does not mean that I, that could possibly have been the only times I was out there that I didn't go to the coast.
[01:43:01] Daniel Brophy: Do you agree on the 26th and 27th you didn't go to Vernonia?
[01:43:05] Nancy: I don't remember going to Vernonia, but your records show that I didn't go to Vernonia and I'm ready, I'm willing to believe you.
[01:43:21] Daniel Brophy: I want to talk about, uh, Dan's routines. Okay. We've got a lot of testimony in this case. I think you'd agree that he held a pretty strict routine. Is that correct? Yes. When it, whatever it was, whether it was what time he left for work or depending on the day, he, he held a strict routine depending on what his, his schedule was for the day. I think you testified that within the 30 minute windows, pretty much he got up at the same time every day. Didn't matter if he was going to work. That's absolutely true. Um, what time was that?
[01:43:54] Nancy: It was between four and four 30. That's when he would wake up. Okay. Need,
[01:43:59] Daniel Brophy: I think you testified to, and I know you told the police that he walked the dogs, take care of the chickens, um, sometimes go get you coffee. That was pretty routine for him. Okay.
[01:44:11] Nancy: Anything else? He frequently, if he needed to do something like go to Wojamiah in the morning, he would do that. Uh, he did shopping for his class or for whatever he was doing, uh, usually early in the morning. Uh, you know, he, uh, he worked in the garden early in the morning.
[01:44:32] Daniel Brophy: Sounds like you two kind of did your own thing during the day. Like he would go to work. You had your things, sorry, your things to do. Like you would have go and meet clients, things like that. But you didn't, you didn't work together.
[01:44:47] Nancy: That's not true. We frequently worked together. Uh, you worked at OCI? No, no, but we worked together on different things. If he had a class outside of OCI, for example, I might take things down to him. I took things down to OCI for Dan three to four times a month because he would get to school and realize he'd left something. So we worked together in terms of, of doing things, but not necessarily on projects. All right. Am I being clear? Not really. Okay. So when you,
[01:45:23] Daniel Brophy: would you say that generally you knew where Dan was? Yes. Yes. I would say that. And in general, would he know where you were? In general, he would know where I was. You guys would communicate, I'm, I'm going to work or I'm coming home or whatever. Yes. Or, you know, uh, uh, I sold a policy or, uh, uh,
[01:45:45] Nancy: the dogs, uh, are having an issue or whatever. We caught, we were in constant contact. Okay.
[01:45:55] Daniel Brophy: And in general, I know it depends on what kind of stuff is happening at OCI on the weekends,
[01:46:01] Nancy: the Dan generally leave around the same time. In general, did Dan leave around the same time every day? No, it would depend on what his schedule was. You know, if he was working weekends, he worked, he worked, he left at a different time. If he was working days, he worked at a different time. If he was going mushroom hunting, he left at a different time. Listen to the question. The question is,
[01:46:28] Daniel Brophy: on the weekends when going to OCI, did he generally leave at the same time? I would say within a 30 minute window. Yeah. Okay. And on June 2nd, did you expect for him to leave earlier that day because
[01:46:42] Nancy: of the live fire? It wouldn't have surprised me for him to, but Dan was always prepared. Dan took being a Boy Scout to heart. And he was always prepared. We went to a party where somebody cut themselves with a knife. Who had a medical kit? Dan. You know, he was Mr. prepared. So he could have left earlier. He could have been well enough prepared that he didn't need to. And in preparation for that live fire,
[01:47:09] Daniel Brophy: he actually took two carts down to the school the day before, correct? That wasn't in preparation for the
[01:47:15] Nancy: live fire. He took two carts down because he does that every weekend. Gotcha. He does that every Friday? Yes. Most, well, I hate to commit to every Friday. He does it every weekend, but the days he
[01:47:28] Daniel Brophy: chooses to do it are his days. And you were aware that he did that that Friday, June 1st. I was. Okay. And you know Dan generally parks on 17th in front of the Culinary Institute? No. I think he parks there a
[01:47:49] Nancy: fair amount, but he also parks on Madison. He rarely uses a lot because he's one of the lucky people who have a parking sticker. He can park on the street. Yeah. And he parks wherever he parks. I mean, I don't think he has assigned parking or even his idea of assigned parking. Does it make sense to you though
[01:48:08] Daniel Brophy: that when he is bringing things to the school that he would park on 17th so that he could unload and load into the school? That would make sense.
[01:48:21] Nancy: But I would also say when he and the Starbucks across the street were doing five gallon buckets of coffee grounds, he parked on Jefferson so he could deal with that. Okay.
[01:48:36] Daniel Brophy: You stated that you knew that the doors would usually be locked at the school. Is that true? The doors
[01:48:44] Nancy: were always locked. As far as I know, I don't know of an incident where anything but the student door would have been opened, that people could have gone in and out. We'll talk about the school a
[01:48:59] Daniel Brophy: little bit more in just a second. Okay. You sort of mentioned this, I actually think you did mention it, that Dan always had cash. Was that just kind of the guy he was? He liked to deal in cash as opposed
[01:49:11] Nancy: to cards and credit cards? He operated with cash and so he needed a lot of ones because of the cart. So he frequently would have little money bundles of ones at home from either money he'd made off the cart or what have you. He operated with cash more, but it was largely for the cart. Right. And
[01:49:37] Daniel Brophy: it's true that he often didn't even know how much money was in his own account, right?
[01:49:44] Nancy: Dan was more routine than that. I wouldn't say he didn't know how much was in his account. I would say it differently. I would say Dan had certain, the reason why we broke up our finances the way we did was because his expenses were much more routine and he could figure out his money based upon the fact his check was much more routine than my life was. Right. But he would actually reach out to you to ask you if his check had been deposited, right? Yes. He, uh, occasionally he would call me and say, uh, I need you to look at the bank account and tell me this or that. Nancy admits to being in charge of the
[01:50:22] Speaker 2: finances in the home so much that Dan would often ask her to look at the accounts for him and make them make sense. This kind of trust is why Nancy was able to incur tens of thousands of dollars in debt in Dan's name and destroy their ability to retire in the timeframe they had wanted. Previous to this, Nancy had tried to state that her and Dan were a team, that he was well aware of their financial situation and that they had a plan to get out of debt that involved Dan waiting until he was 70 to retire. Dan had no idea that this was the plan. He told his students and colleagues as much and Nancy used that to her advantage. Past this point, there is another hour and a half of testimony in which Nancy doubles back multiple times, denies things she previously stated as fact and more. But in an effort to be precise, we can end the video here. Dan Brophy was an amazing man who unfortunately married a vile woman. Nancy was sentenced to life in prison, but that is hardly justice as the world still turns without a truly amazing person. A good many people commented on the original video with their own experiences about Dan, and I urge you to read some of their comments, as they really shed a light on what an extraordinary person he was. If you have made it to this part in the video, please consider liking and subscribing. If you have a case you would like to see covered, let us know in the comments down below or email me at dreading.official@gmail.com. With that said, have a great day and stay safe.
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