Tragic Triple Homicide Shakes Exclusive California Neighborhood: Adult Son Charged

A Newport Beach resident, aged 34, has been found guilty of the horrific murder of his parents and their housekeeper, a crime that unfolded over six years ago, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

In the weeks leading up to the tragic event, Richard and Kim Nicholson expressed concerns about their son’s increasingly erratic behavior. At that time, Camden Burton Nicholson, then 27, was reportedly engaged in illegal drug use, steroid consumption, excessive pornography viewing, and frequenting escort services.

The troubled couple had reached out to a private investigator, expressing that their son had been a well-adjusted and happy child. They noted a significant change after his nine-month Mormon mission at age 19, after which he returned home deeply depressed and exhibiting unusual behavior.

In December 2018, a tense argument with his parents over seeking mental health and addiction treatment led Camden Nicholson to leave their home in anger. He took off in his mother’s vehicle and disappeared from sight.

“His parents were worried he might have harmed himself or ended up hospitalized,” the private detective shared with KTLA shortly after the family’s tragic deaths in February 2019.

The then 27-year-old later turned up at a Marriott hotel and, using his father’s credit card, began spending lavishly. When the card was cancelled, he began sending angry text messages to his parents. Despite telling them not to contact him, his parents insisted he return home.  

Investigators say that on Feb. 11, 2019, Camden confronted his father in the family’s Newport Beach home in the upscale gated community of Bonita Canyon and repeatedly stabbed him. When his mother returned home a few minutes later, he attacked her with a metal statue and stabbed her to death in the garage.  

“The next morning, Nicholson attacked the family’s longtime housekeeper, Maria Morse, when she arrived to clean the house,” the OCDA’s office said in a news release. “Nicholson stabbed Morse repeatedly and slit her throat before stuffing her body in a large plastic bin in the kitchen pantry.” 

Prosecutors said that after he killed his parents and their housekeeper, the then 27-year-old went on a shopping spree, spending hundreds of dollars at a dispensary in Santa Ana and buying sex toys. 

At around 8:30 p.m. the next evening, Camden drove his father’s car to a Kaiser Permanente facility in Irvine where he called 911 and told police that he’d killed his parents in self-defense.  

Newport Beach police conducted a welfare check at the family’s residence, found the home in disarray, with blood throughout it, and all three victims stabbed to death.  

This week, a jury in Santa Ana found the 34-year-old guilty of three counts of first-degree murder along with the special circumstance of committing multiple murders.  

During his trial, his attorneys argued that the 34-year-old should be found not guilty by reason of insanity due to a schizoaffective disorder diagnosis. The sanity phase of the trial is scheduled for Oct. 23 and will determine whether Camden was criminally insane at the time of the murders.

“Those verdicts will determine whether Nicholson is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole or if he will be sent to a mental health facility,” prosecutors said.