Man found dead in Anaheim, police investigating as homicide
Family of housekeeper killed in Newport Beach triple homicide sues slain couple's estate
By Orange County on March 5, 2019
The family of a housekeeper killed along with her two employers in a Newport Beach house last month has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the slain couple's estate in the wake of their son being charged in the three deaths.
Maria Morse, who had worked in Kim and Richard Nicholson's home for 12 years, was found dead in the house on Feb. 13 along with the couple.
Camden Nicholson, 27, was arrested and being held without bail.
Morse, 62, visited the Bonita Canyon house once a week to clean. The lawsuit, filed Friday, March 1, alleges that the couple knew their son was "violent, aggressive and unstable" but didn't take action to protect Morse. Edward Susolik, who is representing the Morse family, told the Southern California News Group that the family was seeking in excess of $10 million in damages.
The lawsuit alleges that while Nicholson was living with his parents last year he grew marijuana and used steroids. The suit further says he made "constant physical threats of violence" against his parents, repeatedly telling his mother that he wanted to kill his father and at one point saying he wanted to "gut" him. Kim Nicholson briefly moved out of the home out of fear he would harm her because of his "'roid rage," the lawsuit says.
Police have not yet disclosed how the three were murdered.
The suit does not contend that the son ever threatened Morse.
Days before the killings, Nicholson sent "vulgar" and "disturbing" text messages to his parents when they cut him off financially, and he'd been spending tens of thousands of dollars with his father's credit card, according to the complaint. The couple was memorialized over the weekend in Newport Beach.
Susolik said the couple should have taken steps to protect Morse – a wife, mother and grandmother – as she was a regular visitor to the family's home and they knew of their son's erratic behavior.
"The Nicholsons were grossly negligent in repeatedly inviting Maria to come to their home and clean their house without taking security and safety measures, including police intervention," Susolik said.
Much of the information for the suit was from the housekeeper's husband, the attorney said.
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Source: Orange County Register
Published in Crime + Public Safety, homicide, Local News, News and Top Stories OCR
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