NEW BALTIMORE — Former WWJ overnight anchor Jim Matthews was hit in the head more than two dozen times with a hammer and his throat was slit amid a brutal attack on his family in September inside their Macomb County home, according to court testimony Monday.

Matthews, whose legal last name was Nicolai, died in the attack Sept. 23 in his Chesterfield Township home, where his girlfriend and 5-year-old daughter escaped hours later. The couple’s 10-year-old son was found in a closet, bound and hit in the head with the hammer. He survived.

Arthur Williamson, 55, a friend of Matthews’ girlfriend, on Monday was bound over to Macomb County Circuit Court on seven charges, including murder, after gut-wrenching testimony by the girlfriend, Nichole Guertin, during a preliminary exam in 42-2 District Court in New Baltimore.

'When Jim gets home, I’m gonna kill him'

Guertin recalled Matthews’ horrific last moments; herself being bound with zip ties, duct tape and USB cords and being assaulted; the assault on her son and how her daughter, who also had been harmed, got scissors to help free her from the basement before she and the girl fled outside seeking help.

Guertin said she considered Williamson “my best friend at the time” before the attack, which occurred shortly after Matthews got home from work. She testified that Williamson called her in the middle of the night asking to come over and that they smoked a little crack cocaine and she had a little heroin before he cut her neck with a knife and told her “when Jim gets home, I’m gonna kill him.”

Guertin was one of two people who testified for the prosecution, recounting how she could hear her son, Hunter, crying and whimpering and how Williamson, who she knew as Smokey, hit him in the head with the same hammer that was used on Matthews. She testified that Williamson earlier asked her if she had a hammer because his hubcap was coming off.

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Chesterfield Township Police Officer Darin Johnson testified that he found Guertin and her daughter, Rosie, outside after the pair escaped. He testified that Rosie had a ligature mark on her and had a white cord near her midsection.

Guertin’s testimony was paused for a short time when he said she felt like she was getting sick. She collected herself and continued testifying, sitting just feet away from Williamson, who was at a table with his lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Joan Morgan.

Matthews' brother and sister-in-law and Guertin’s sister and brother-in-law, who are caring for the children, sat in the courtroom, emotional at times during Guertin’s testimony.

“It stays in my head every day,” Joe Nicolai said after the hearing about what his brother went through in the home just across the street from his own.

Assistant Prosecutor Steve Fox, chief of the office’s major crimes unit, said we’re “thoroughly confident in the case,” which remains under investigation and has the potential for additional charges.

District Judge William Hackel III bound Williamson over on all seven charges and didn’t recommend any bond “that’s for sure.”

Williamson is set for arraignment and pretrial in the circuit court March 13.

Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @challreporter.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Man changed in former WWJ anchor slaying to stand trial