A California man has been found guilty of murdering his parents and their housekeeper inside their $6 million Newport Beach home, just hours after being released from a psychiatric facility, authorities said.
Camden Burton Nicholson, 34, killed Richard and Kim Nicholson, 64 and 61, along with housekeeper Maria Morse, 57, during a multi-day rampage in February 2019. The killings reportedly followed a confrontation over his parents urging him to enter a mental health and addiction treatment facility.
Nicholson, once described as a happy and normal child, became severely depressed and exhibited strange behavior after returning from a nine-month Mormon mission at age 19. His family reported escalating tensions, including theft of his mother’s car and lavish spending with his father’s credit card, which led to involuntary psychiatric hospitalization on February 5, 2019.
Released from a 72-hour psychiatric hold on February 11, Nicholson returned home that evening. Around 7 p.m., he fatally stabbed his father. When his mother arrived home at 8:44 p.m., he attacked her with a 20-pound silver statue and multiple stab wounds, leaving her to die in the garage. Morse arrived the following morning for work and was stabbed repeatedly, her throat slashed, and her body stuffed into a large plastic bin in the pantry.
After the killings, Nicholson used his father’s car to go on a shopping spree in Santa Ana, spending hundreds of dollars on marijuana and sex toys. He later called 911 from a medical center in Irvine, claiming he had killed his parents in self-defense.
Nicholson has a history of mental health treatment, including for autism spectrum disorder, but had no diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Depending on the outcome of the sanity phase, he could face life in prison without parole or be committed to a mental health facility.
