A romance mystery writer charged with murdering her husband will not get to ride out the coronavirus pandemic in a private guest house as she had hoped, a Multnomah County judge ruled.

Circuit Judge Christopher Ramras said Nancy Crampton Brophy, 69, must instead seek a bail hearing if she wishes to be released from jail pending her trial in September, court records show. The defendant had previously waived her right to have one.

Ramras also dismissed a habeas corpus petition the defendant filed against Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese, which alleged the conditions in the jails he oversees create a medically dangerous environment that threatened her life.

Lawyers for Crampton Brophy had argued their client’s age and history as a diabetic spelled her “imminent death” should she remain held at the Multnomah County Detention Center in downtown Portland as the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19, spreads in Oregon, court filings show.

They instead proposed that Brophy stay in an undisclosed guest house in the Portland area, where she would be under GPS monitoring, have food and groceries delivered to her and and not be allowed to leave.

Crampton Brophy is among a growing number of inmates in Oregon and around the U.S. who have sought release from local, state and federal custody amid the COVID-19 epidemic, which public health experts say can spread more aggressively within jails and prisons than the community at large.

Multnomah County’s two jails, which can hold up to 1,200 inmates, have yet to report a known case among jail staff or the general population.

Crampton Brophy has been in custody since September 2018 after police say she gunned down Daniel Brophy, her husband of 27 years, in a kitchen at the Oregon Culinary Institute that June. Daniel Brophy had been a beloved instructor at the school in downtown Portland.

The case became international news after The Oregonian/OregonLive revealed Crampton Brophy once wrote an essay titled “How to Murder Your Husband.” Her self-published titles include “The Wrong Husband” and “Hell On The Heart.”

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; 503-294-7632

Email at skavanaugh@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @shanedkavanaugh

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