Day two of the Nancy Crampton Brophy murder trial in Portland went underway last Tuesday by calling three former Oregon Culinary Institute students to the witness stand.
The first witness to testify was Courtney Arias. She was a pastry student at the Oregon Culinary Institute at the time of the murder. She remembered the student door being locked that morning and waiting outside for Damon to open it. Which was out of the ordinary, because Daniel Brophy usually had it open by then.
Once the door was opened and students went inside, she said everything seemed fine at first and then all hell broke loose.
“And then all of a sudden I heard ‘Help me!’” Arias recalled, crying as she testified. “At first I thought they were joking, and then I saw one of my classmates Katie run past the window, because we have a window in our classrooms, and she ran past it on the phone, and she’s on the phone 911.”
She said she then went into the kitchen where everyone was and saw Daniel on his back. Then she left the kitchen and then waited by the lockers. She didn’t realize Daniel had been shot until she and other students heard it from a responding police officer or paramedic.Miranda Bernhard was the second witness to testify. She was a student of Daniel's at the time. She had arrived early the day of the murder. She said that it wasn't unusual for the door to be locked because sometimes Daniel would forget to unlock it. What she did find strange was that a garage door on the side of the building was open. Typically, it was only opened for deliveries.
When she went into the school and Daniel's body was discovered, Bernhard remembered seeing Clarinda Perez kneeling next to him and doing chest compressions.
Bernhard volunteered to keep other students out of the kitchen. She prevented a man who was a student from entering.
Once in the kitchen, Bernhard remembered a table being askew, like it was out of place. Usually, the two tables in the kitchen would be in a row.
Bernhard said she learned about the gunshot from overhearing it from one of the policemen's radios. When the people in the building were asked to sit around the tables in the student lounge and place their hands on the tables, Bernhard realized the seriousness of the situation.Clarinda Perez was the third witness to take the stand. Besides being a student, Perez was a medical assistant at the time of the murder. She said that she had arrived early of the day in question because it was a final exam day. Perez thought it was unusual for the door to be locked on such an important day.
She walked to a nearby Starbucks and by the time she returned to the school, the door had been opened and students were filing in.
Once inside, Perez said she went to fill her water bottle and noticed the water container was not in its usual spot. Daniel normally had the water container filled, along with the coffee, and ready for students.
She walked into the Kitchen 1. The lights were on, and she heard the water running. That’s when she saw Daniel lying on the floor.
Perez checked Daniel and found him responsive. She then ran to the doorway and yelled for someone to call 911.
Perez immediately began CPR.
“His chest was really squishy,” Perez testified in between sobs “and I thought I had broken a rib because as I continued to do compressions, my hands started getting full of blood.”She said that she had no idea he had been shot. She thought she fractured his ribs, but continued compressions because she’d been taught to not stop. She said no blood was visible before she started compressions.
When the EMTs and paramedics arrived, she stopped compressions and sat against a stove in the kitchen with her ears covered for a long time before going outside.
Author Nancy Brophy Finally on Trial for Husband's Death.
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