Why Did Eric Richins Become A Target The Moment He Tried To Leave?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is Hidden Killers, Half Year in Review. A look back at some of the most compelling cases of 2026 so far.
This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:15)
After Eric Richins died, Cory wrote a children's book, Are You With Me? The title, about a father who dies and becomes a firefly, watching over his children from above.
A story about grief and healing and love that transcends death. She went on morning shows to promote it. She sat across from hosts, talked about loss, about resilience, about helping her children through the hardest time of their lives. Writing the book, what an exercise it was in working through her grief.
She performed The Grieving Widow on national television selling the book about the death she allegedly caused.
A book that she actually didn't write, but she performed that she did.
And here's what gets me about the whole damn thing. She put herself at the center, not Eric, not the children, her. The devoted mother helping a family heal, the author with something meaningful to say about loss, the woman who found a way to turn tragedy into inspiration. That takes a specific kind of mind, not just the ability to kill someone, but the need to be seen as the hero of the story afterward. The inability to stay in the shadows, the compulsion to step into the spotlight and collect sympathy for the crime you committed. This is part four of The Perfect Wife, and this one is about the narcissist's fatal flaw. The need to control the narrative, to author reality, to make everyone else a character in your story. And I want to get your thoughts in the comment section on YouTube and Substack as we work through this. The links are in the description. Nancy Crampton Brophy wrote an essay in 2011 called, How to Murder Your Husband.
That's not a joke. That's not me editorializing. That's the actual title of an essay she published under her real name on a writer's forum. She discussed methods. Hitman. Too risky. They might talk. Poison. How to obtain in lethal quantities. Gun. Loud and messy but effective. She weighed pros and cons like she was planning a vacation or comparing cell phone plans.
And then she wrote this. If the murder is supposed to set me free, I certainly don't want to spend any time in jail. Seven years later, she shot her husband Daniel twice in the chest. The essay was excluded from her trial. Too old, the judge ruled, written too long before the crime to be directly relevant. But everything about Nancy Crampton Brophy tells the same story. The story of someone who believes they're the author of reality. Someone who thinks they can write the narrative to make everyone else play their assigned parts. That's the narcissist's delusion. And it's what caught her.
Daniel Brophy was a culinary instructor at the Oregon Culinary Institute in Portland. Chef! Students, his students loved him. He was the kind of person who showed up early, did his work well, didn't need anyone to notice or applaud. Quiet competence, steady presence. Nancy was not that. She was a self-published romance novelist with modest sales and big dreams. Her books weren't setting the world on fire. The finances were strained. And there were life insurance policies on Daniel worth about 1.4 million.
And in the months before Daniel's death, Nancy bought a Glock 17 handgun. She bought a ghost gun kit. Parts that allow you to assemble an untraceable firearm. When investigators later asked about those purchases, she had an answer ready. Research! For a book. Writers do this all the time.
June 2, 2018, Daniel arrives at the Oregon Culinary Institute around 7:15 a.m. early, like always. He's preparing for his morning class. Students won't arrive until 7.30. He's shot twice in the chest. No witnesses, no security footage inside the building. The killer takes the gun and leaves. But here's what Nancy didn't account for. Cameras exist beyond the walls she was watching.
Surveillance footage from near the school captured, minivan matching Nancy's vehicle arriving that morning and leaving shortly after. The timing aligned perfectly with Daniel's death. Nancy's alibi was simple. She was home writing. No witnesses, just her word. And for a while, she must have believed that would be enough because the narcissist is always the smartest person in the room, in their own mind. They've imagined this scenario a hundred times. They know exactly how to play the grieving widow. They've rehearsed the performance. They can't imagine anyone seeing through it because truly imagining that would require believing that other people are real, that other people are paying attention, that other people might be as smart as you or have emotions or feelings.