By PAUL ANDERSON
Jurors have determined that a 34-year-old man who repeatedly stabbed his parents and a longtime housekeeper inside the family home in a gated Newport Beach community was legally sane at the time of the killings.
Camden Burton Nicholson was convicted Oct. 22 of three counts of special-circumstances murder. But because he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, the trial entered a second phase, with jurors set to decide whether he was legally insane at the time of the 2019 slayings.
Jurors on Thursday, Oct. 30, found he was indeed legally sane, so Nicholson faces life in prison without the possibility of parole when sentenced on Dec. 19. If found legally insane, he would have faced an indefinite stay at a mental-health facility.
Nicholson killed his parents — 64-year-old Richard Nicholson and 61-year-old Kim Nicholson — on Feb. 11, 2019, then murdered 57-year-old housekeeper Maria Morse of Anaheim the following day.
Nicholson’s attorney, Richard Cheung of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, said the law required the defendant be found with a mental disease or defect and that he did not understand the crime was legally or morally wrong.
Cheung said psychiatric experts concluded that Nicholson wrongly believed his parents and his maid were in on a conspiracy to kill him and he acted in self-defense.
“Yes, Camden understood three people were killed,” Cheung said. “But he was delusional, psychotic. … He had this delusion his parents and housekeeper were in a conspiracy to kill him.”
Nicholson thought that when his parents attempted to hospitalize him to help him, they were setting it up to have him poisoned, Cheung said.
Nicholson was also paranoid his parents were tracking him, so when he would leave home and check into a motel, he would continuously switch rooms, Cheung said.
Part of the reason Nicholson was suspicious of Morse was because she used a room deodorizer, which triggered his seizures, Cheung said.
Forensic psychologist Lisa Grajewski testified that when Nicholson was in college “he was struggling” with suicidal ideation, so he was hospitalized and prescribed medication. Nicholson had “periods of compliance and non-compliance” with taking his medications, she said.
Nicholson was also using steroids for low testosterone and cannabis “to self medicate” in addition to anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers and tranquilizers, Grajewski said.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Dave Porter noted that Nicholson appeared to take steps to destroy evidence such as a blood-stained jacket and moved the housekeeper’s car about a mile away from the home.
Richard Nicholson was seen in security footage driving back to his home at 36 Palazzo about 12:45 p.m. the day of his death, Porter said in his opening statement of the trial.
Nicholson, who was “completely dependent on his parents,” met his father in the garage and “stabbed him over and over again,” Porter said.
Nicholson placed his father’s body in a small bathroom and used towels to block the bottom of the door to keep blood from seeping out, Porter said.
About 10 minutes later, his mother came home and Nicholson struck her with a metal statue before repeatedly stabbing her, Porter said.
“There was so much blood, the defendant tried to soak it up” with a bag of flour, Porter said.
The next day, Morse arrived for work about 7:45 a.m.
Nicholson repeatedly stabbed her and slit her throat before stuffing her into a large plastic bin with her arms and legs sticking out, Porter said.
Nicholson then went on a series of shopping sprees, spending $300 on marijuana at a dispensary and making stops at a drugstore and an adult novelty shop, Porter said.
Around 8:30 p.m., after returning home, Nicholson left again in his father’s car and drove to a Kaiser Permanente facility in Irvine, where he called 911 and said he had killed his parents in self-defense because they were trying to kill him, Porter said.
Nicholson was diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder. In 2012, he suffered his first episode while on a Mormon mission in Florida, Cheung said. He was prescribed medication and sent home early.