Man Who Killed Parents, Housekeeper In Newport Beach Found Sane By Jury

NEWPORT BEACH, CA — A 34-year-old man who repeatedly stabbed his parents and longtime housekeeper inside their family home in a gated Newport Beach community was declared legally sane at the time of the killings by a jury.

Camden Burton Nicholson was convicted on Oct. 22 of three counts of special-circumstances murder, according to a previous Patch report.

Because Nicholson pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, the trial entered a second phase, with jurors being told to determine whether he was legally insane at the time of the 2019 killings.

Jurors on Thursday, Oct. 20 found that Nicholson was legally sane. He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole when sentenced on Dec. 19.

Nicholson stabbed 64-year-old Richard Nicholson and 61-year-old Kim Nicholson to death after receiving an ultimatum by his parents to check into a mental health and addiction treatment facility.

He then slit the throat of their housekeeper, 57-year-old Maria Morse, when she showed up at the home for her shift.

After the deaths, he was accused of using his parents' car to go on shopping sprees, including spending hundreds of dollars at a Santa Ana marijuana dispensary and buying sex toys, according to Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer.

Lawyers for the 34-year-old argued that he had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and should not be found guilty by reason of insanity.

The sanity phase of the trial is scheduled to begin on Thursday, Oct. 23 to determine whether or not Nicholson was criminally insane at the time of the murders.

Nicholson was convicted of the killings on Feb. 11, 2019, when he apparently confronted his father in their Newport Beach home before stabbing him repeatedly. When Nicholson's mother returned home a few minutes later, he hit her with a metal statue and repeatedly stabbed her, killing her in the family's garage, Spitzer said.

The next morning, Nicholson attacked Morse when she arrived to clean the home. He stabbed the victim repeatedly and slit her throat before stuffing her body in a large plastic bin in the kitchen pantry.

A day after killing his family's housekeeper, Nicholson drove his father's car to a Kaiser Permanente location in Irvine — where he dialed 911 and reported he had killed his parents in self-defense because they were trying to kill him.