Ceres man who killed mom over broken video game headset sentenced
A Ceres man who authorities said shot his mother over a broken video game headset three years ago has pleaded guilty to her murder and was sentenced to prison last month.
Matthew Douglas Nicholson, 32, shot his 68-year-old mother in the head on Jan. 11, 2018.
At the time, police said Nicholson had been in his bedroom playing video games when he got upset and started yelling. When his mother went to check on him, he began to argue with her and ended up breaking the headset to his video game, police said.
Nicholson then blamed her for the broken headset and threatened to kill both his parents.
“Nicholson grabbed a revolver and fired one shot into the wall and another into the ceiling before aiming the gun at his mother and shooting her once in the head,” according to a press release from the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office.
The release says Nicholson turned the gun on his father, pointing it at his chest, but didn’t shoot. He eventually handed the gun over to his father and fled from the house.
Nicholson was captured in Riverbank a short time later.
In April, Nicholson pleaded guilty to the charges of murder and assault with a firearm and admitted to an enhancement for using a firearm.
During a sentencing hearing on May 28, multiple family members and friends of Lydia Nicholson gave victim impact statements to the court.
Her daughter said her “world absolutely shattered” that night and that each day since then has been an “absolute nightmare,” according to the release.
In the victim impact statement she read to the court, Autumn White also said her son, now 9, has struggled since Matthew shot the boy’s grandmother, and has been in grief counseling.
“How do you explain the depth of evil in this world to an innocent child?” she asked.
White also said she thinks often of her mother’s last moments.
“I constantly struggle with the image of my mother watching Matt shoot her. I wonder if in that moment she knew that she was going to die by the hands of her baby boy.”
Others said Lydia Nicholson was like a second mother to them and that she always made them feel welcome in her home as if they were part of the family.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Shawn Bessey noted the senselessness of the crime and sentenced Nicholson to 27 years to life in state prison.
This story was originally published June 10, 2021 at 1:49 PM.
