A 34-year-old California man could spend the rest of his life in prison after being convicted of murdering his parents and their housekeeper at their Newport Beach home nearly six years ago.
Camden Burton Nicholson, then 27, fatally stabbed his parents—64-year-old Richard Nicholson and 61-year-old Kim Nicholson—after they held an intervention urging him to seek treatment for his mental health and substance abuse issues. The following morning, he killed 57-year-old housekeeper Maria Morse by slitting her throat when she arrived for work.
A jury in Orange County on Wednesday found Nicholson guilty of three counts of first-degree murder, along with a special circumstance enhancement for committing multiple murders.
Nicholson’s Parents Threatened to Cut Him Off Financially if He Refused to Seek Treatment
Prosecutors said Nicholson was “completely dependent” on his parents, who had warned they would cut him off financially if he refused to get help. After the killings, he reportedly used his parents’ money for a “shopping spree,” spending hundreds of dollars at a marijuana dispensary in Santa Ana and purchasing sex toys.
According to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, Nicholson confronted his father at their Newport Beach home on February 11, 2019, stabbing him repeatedly before dragging the body into a bathroom and blocking the door to conceal the blood. When his mother returned home minutes later, Nicholson struck her with a metal statue and stabbed her multiple times, killing her in the garage.
The next morning, when Morse arrived for her routine cleaning, Nicholson attacked her, stabbing her several times and slitting her throat before placing her body in a large plastic bin inside the kitchen pantry.
Nicholson Told 911 He Killed His Parents in Self-Defense Because They Were ‘Trying to Kill Him’
Afterward, Nicholson stole his father’s car and drove to a Kaiser Permanente facility in Irvine, where he called 911 and confessed to the murders, claiming he acted in self-defense because his parents were “trying to kill him.”
Police discovered the home in disarray, with blood throughout the house and all three victims still inside. The trial has now entered its sanity phase, during which jurors will decide whether Nicholson was legally insane at the time of the killings.
