A 28-year-old man playing a video game in his bedroom threw a fit, broke his headset, then picked up a gun and killed his mother, according to police in Ceres, California.

Matthew Nicholson stayed with his parents. It was a loving and open home, and 68-year-old Lydia Nicholson was the sort of mother who “wanted to see the best in people at all times,” her daughter told Fox 40.

But a police spokesman told the station that officers had visited the home after a fight between Nicholson and his parents once in the past six months, before Thursday, when they would arrive too late.

Nicholson was in his room that night playing a game, according to Ceres police, when something upset him and he began to yell. His mother went in to check on him, they started to argue, and Nicholson broke his headset.

He blamed his mother for this, police said, and threatened to kill her and his father, identified by Fox 40 as Loren Nicholson.

There was a gun in the house, police said, and so Nicholson tried to make good on his threat. “He came out yelling something about, ‘My headset is broken,’ ” police spokesman Greg Yotsuya told NBC affiliate KCRA. “Then grabbed a gun and started shooting.”

He allegedly fired twice into a wall and then shot Lydia Nicholson in the head, police say.

“He would’ve killed the father too, but the gun jammed,” a family friend told Fox 40. “The father grabbed the gun, emptied it.”

Without a weapon anymore, police said, Matthew Nicholson fled in a vehicle. Loren Nicholson called 911 and his wife died later in the hospital.

Matthew Nicholson had only driven a couple of miles before police pulled him over in Riverbank. He was charged with homicide and jailed without bail.

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