A 34-year-old Newport Beach man, Camden Burton Nicholson, has been found guilty of the brutal murders of his parents and their housekeeper. According to a statement obtained by KTLA, the conviction was delivered after a heated confrontation over Nicholson being urged to check into a mental health and addiction treatment facility by his parents.
The murders, which took place more than six years ago, involved Nicholson confronting his father and, subsequently, violently attacking his mother and the family's housekeeper. Nicholson has been judged to have committed multiple murders, which is a special circumstance that potentially escalates the severity of his sentencing. His attorneys have come forward with claims of his schizoaffective disorder diagnosis in attempts to argue that he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. The sanity phase of the trial is to commence shortly, as reported by an Orange County District Attorney's Office press release. This portion of the proceedings will aim to evaluate whether Nicholson was criminally insane at the time of the crimes.
After initially storming out of his family's upscale Bonita Canyon home, Nicholson made significant purchases using his parents’ credit card until it was canceled. His spending spree included hundreds of dollars at a marijuana dispensary and on sex toys, elucidated by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. The violent crimes took place between February 11 and February 13, 2019, each victim suffering fatal stab wounds in this upscale California community.
The jury has already rendered Nicholson guilty of three counts of first-degree murder. The outcomes of the sanity phase will be pivotal in determining whether Nicholson is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or will be institutionalized in a mental health facility. A private detective, who was hired by his parents before the murders, told KTLA about the parents' fears for their son's well-being before the crime. They feared he might have "committed suicide or was in the hospital somewhere" due to his erratic behavior following his return from a Mormon mission.
