Jury to Be Selected in Murder Case : Courts: Mark Scott Thornton is accused of killing nurse Kellie O’Sullivan. Panel won’t hear of search for her.

Exactly one year after Westlake nurse Kellie O’Sullivan was abducted and slain, a Ventura County judge on Wednesday wrapped up the final pretrial hearing in the murder case against her accused killer and ordered jury selection to begin Monday.

Before commencing Wednesday’s evidentiary hearing in the case against 20-year-old Mark Scott Thornton, Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath issued a ruling that prevents prosecutors from telling the jury that O’Sullivan’s badly decomposed body was found after a massive search.

During the search, as many as 275 civilian volunteers and 35 Ventura County Sheriff’s Department personnel spread out over 170 square miles of rugged countryside around Thousand Oaks.

In another ruling Wednesday, the judge gave prosecutors permission to allow one of Thornton’s ex-girlfriends to testify against him.

The woman, identified in court only as “Erika,” will tell the jury how the defendant once took her to the Santa Monica Mountains and bragged of a place that “I can take you that people will never find you again,” according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors believe that statement is significant because O’Sullivan’s body was discovered in a brush-choked region of the mountains.

Thornton’s attorneys criticized the judge after the hearing, saying McGrath should not have allowed the ex-girlfriend’s statement into evidence. Deputy Public Defender Susan R. Olson said that after the alleged incident, Thornton immediately drove the girl home.

“The evidence regarding the year-old incident with Erika should not have been allowed,” Olson said. “I don’t think it’s relevant. It’s a situation where she requested to go home, (and) she was taken home. It was not a kidnaping. And so I don’t see how it would be relevant to this case.”

Lawyers from both sides met privately with McGrath in his chambers after the hearing to hash out the final details of jury selection, which is expected to last about four weeks. Lawyers are hoping to select 12 regular jurors and four alternates from a panel of 275 people.

Police say Thornton kidnaped O’Sullivan around 2 in the afternoon of Sept. 14, 1993, and shot her three times--twice in the back and once in the chest.

He then drove off in her 1991 Ford Explorer, they say. Eight hours after she was last seen, Thornton arrived at the house of another ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Campbell, authorities say.

He kidnaped Campbell, shot at her mother and drove to Reno, where he was arrested five days later at the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino, authorities say. Six days after that, two civilians participating in the massive land-and-air search found O’Sullivan’s decomposed body.

Prosecutors believe information on the search would show the jury that Thornton wanted O’Sullivan out of the way so that no one would notice that her truck was missing. That way, the defendant would have time to kidnap Campbell in the truck before police started looking for the vehicle, Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris told the judge.

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“He didn’t want the theft of the vehicle reported. He needed some time,” Kossoris said. “. . . . He didn’t want her found or it known that she was kidnaped or shot to death.”

But Deputy Public Defender Howard J. Asher suggested that no one made an attempt to hide O’Sullivan’s body. He noted, for example, that her body was not buried or camouflaged in any way.

McGrath sided with defense attorneys on the issue. He said information on the search appears to have no relevance to issues of guilt or innocence in the case.