By the CN&R staff
From stunning recklessness to cold-blooded malice, Butte County’s courtrooms have recently been filled with cases that involve defendants harming those closest to them – or those who were.
One of those sagas centered around near-fatal domestic violence. It started on the night of July 8, when an Oroville man named Nathan Sumpter decided to violate a restraining order against him from the mother of his two-year-old child. According to authorities, at some point police became aware that something might be wrong at the house and drove out to check on the mother. However, prosecutors say that, by the time officers arrived, Sumpter was already inside the dwelling, promising the victim that he’d “kill her and members of her family” if she told police what was happening.
Unaware of the threat, the officers listened at the door as the victim told them that there was no issue.
Butte County District Attorney Michael Ramsey said that Sumpter went on to spend the night strangling his victim and punching her in the face, and that much of this abuse happened in front of their little toddler.
The following morning, Sumpter attacked the child’s mother again, this time choking her until she was rendered unconscious. This prompted Sumpter to call the victim’s aunt and say that she wasn’t moving. The aunt hurried to the scene, spotting Sumpter as he tried to escape the area. Sumpter’s victim was ultimately rushed to Oroville Hospital where she was treated for bone fractures in her eye socket.
Ramsey said the episode “emphasized the insidious nature of domestic violence as it occurs out of sight and behind closed doors.”
On July 31, Sumpter pleaded no contest to felony charges of assault likely to cause great bodily injury and witness intimidation. He also pleaded guilty to violating a restraining order. Sumpter is currently being held without bail until he’s sentenced at the end of the month. He faces a maximum of four years and eight months in state prison.
At the same time Sumpter’s case played out, Butte prosecutors were also dealing with an unexpected situation that started in Magalia on August 4.
Authorities say that, just after Midnight, 41-year-old Cathryn Kreceman was allowing her 11-year-old daughter to drive her Jeep Liberty around some residential streets in east Butte County. There were four other kids in the vehicle as well, their ages ranging from 10 to 13. None of them were wearing seatbelts.
Eventually, the child behind the wheel lost control, which sent the Jeep careening straight into a house on Bridgeport Court.
Arriving CHP officers found numerous kids with serious injuries and responding firefighters had to free one child trapped inside the vehicle. Three out of the five youngsters were taken to a hospital.
Prosecutors say that Kreceman originally claimed she’d been the one behind the wheel during the collision, though she allegedly came clean about what happened later at the E.R.
“She told officers that she allowed the girl to drive as her father had let the girl drive on the father’s 160-arce ranch,” the D.A.’s Office said in a statement.
On Aug 6., Kreceman was arraigned in Butte Superior Court on five counts of child endangerment, with two of those charges carrying a special allegation of causing great bodily harm.
Judge Virginia Gingery raised the mother’s bail to $350,000 before issuing a restraining order that bars Kreceman from going near her kids.
Kreceman and Sumpter’s cases were new to the system, but prosecutors also spent early August closing out a chilling family violence case that dated back to the pandemic. That incident involved 27-year-old Jessica Rose Nichols of Oroville, who murdered her husband Mateo Lang at an apartment on Grand Avenue in November of 2020.
According to authorities, Lang, who was 22, was sleeping on the living room floor of the unit he shared with Nichols and their baby. As Lang was lying there, defenseless, Nichols approached with a handgun and fired two shots into him.
A neighbor reportedly heard the cracking of the rounds.
“That neighbor saw Nichols walk out of the couple’s apartment pushing a baby stroller, which she handed to the neighbor,” the D.A.’s Office wrote in a summary of the case. “The stroller contained the couple’s 22-month-old child. Along with the stroller and the child, Nichols handed a note to the neighbor, which contained the child’s name and contact info for the child’s paternal grandmother. Nichols then turned and walked back into the couple’s apartment.”
The neighbor quickly got an Oroville emergency dispatcher on the phone. As that call was being recorded, a third pistol shot rang out from inside the dwelling. The neighbor then watched Nichols come outside again and sit down on the front steps of her apartment.
Initially, Nichols told homicide detectives that had she shot Lang in self-defense. Ramsey says that all elements of a lengthy investigation, including ballistics, forensics and audio recordings, indicate that Lang was sound asleep when he was executed.
“Detectives were also able to review audio from the prior evening from the security camera, and could hear Lang arguing with Nichols, with Lang stating that he intended to leave Nichols the next day and end their marriage,” the summary from the D.A. notes.
After five years of legal wrangling, and Nichols changing attorneys on multiple occasions, she finally pleaded guilty to first-degree murder with a gun enhancement on Aug. 7. She is scheduled to be sentenced in early September. She faces a maximum of 25-years-to-life in state prison.
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