Girl Tells Thornton Jury of Her Kidnaping : Crime: At murder trial, witness Stephanie Campbell testifies that she feared for her life throughout the five days of her abduction.

She did not know if she would live or die after being kidnaped last year by accused Thousand Oaks murderer Mark Scott Thornton, Stephanie Campbell told a Ventura County jury Monday.

So for the five days of her abduction she pretended to be happy and hoped for the best.

“I thought he might hurt me or either kill me,” Campbell said softly, speaking of the young man who had taken her to the movies and the mall just weeks before the kidnaping.

In their first face-to-face encounter since Campbell slipped away from Thornton in a Reno casino last September and notified authorities that she was a kidnap victim, the 17-year-old witness said she had no inkling the defendant might have committed murder before kidnaping her.

But she said he showed a violent streak even while they were on the road to Reno.

In San Francisco, Thornton fired a shot after a motorist cut him off on the highway, she testified. And when a police officer there stopped him for running a red light, she added, Thornton contemplated shooting the officer before driving off and escaping arrest.

Prosecutors say that before he snatched Campbell from outside her house, shooting at the girl’s mother in the process, Thornton had abducted and killed Westlake nurse Kellie O’Sullivan.

He then stole the 33-year-old nurse’s truck, which he used to abduct Campbell and go on a five-day trek to Northern California and Reno before being arrested at a casino there, they add.

In addition to robbery and kidnaping, Thornton has been charged with murder and a special circumstance that could send him to the gas chamber if convicted.

The guilt phase of his trial, which began last week, is expected to last three to four more weeks. If he is found guilty of first-degree murder, then the jury would weigh a possible death sentence.

Campbell was the first witness to take the stand Monday as the prosecution began presenting the second week of its case to the jury in front of Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath.

Answering questions from Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris with poise and composure, Campbell stayed calm even when the questions surrounded her apparent decision not to try to escape.

Defense attorneys have conceded that Thornton kidnaped Campbell. But they also said that she was free to go at any time during the five-day ordeal. Prosecutors disagree with that assessment.

Campbell testified that Thornton kidnaped her as soon as she arrived home from work around 11 a.m. on Sept. 4, 1993. As she approached the front door of her family’s townhouse, the defendant appeared suddenly and grabbed her arm.

“He said, ‘Come with me. I have a gun,’ ” Campbell said.

As he pulled her away, Thornton shot at her mother, Linda Campbell, she said. He then forced Stephanie Campbell into O’Sullivan’s truck--banging her head against the top of the vehicle in the process--and told her she would die if she tried to get away from him, she testified.

That night, they stayed in a room at a Bakersfield Econo Lodge, she said. Thornton slept in the bed with his gun under his pillow and she slept on the floor. She thought about trying to get away, Campbell testified, but she was never sure her abductor was asleep.

“He tossed and turned. I didn’t think he was asleep.”

The next morning, around 11, they got back on the road. She said she asked him where he got the truck.

“He told me that one of his friends had sold it to him,” Campbell said. He told her that the truck belonged to his friend’s mother, who was out of town, she said.

They made their way to San Francisco by their second night together, stopping along the way at some stores to buy clothing and a sleeping bag. Even though she was allowed to go in the dressing rooms at these places, such as K mart, she said Thornton always stood close by with his gun tucked in his waistband.

Campbell said she kept asking Thornton to allow her to phone her parents. He said he would, she said, but never kept his promise and seemed to grow angry at her requests.

He reiterated his order that she not try to escape and threatened to starve her, she said: “He told me he would tie me up and not feed me if I tried to escape.”

Over the next four days, Campbell said she just decided to cooperate, as the two of them slept in the back of O’Sullivan’s truck at various campgrounds.

“I was scared,” she said in response to one question from Kossoris on what was going through her mind. “But I was acting content, like everything was fine.”

Campbell said she believes that is how she was finally able to persuade Thornton to travel to Reno, and not Oregon, which is where he wanted to go.

She said he had maps and she quickly focused on Circus Circus in Reno. “I told him that I would like to go there . . . because I knew there were a lot of people there and a lot of security in a casino.”

She said they were at the casino for about an hour when, at midnight, she slipped away and told a security guard that she had been kidnaped.

“I started crying, and I told him I was from Los Angeles, and I had been kidnaped,” she said.

The guard “was in shock,” she said. He took her to a security room, where she was allowed to call her mother. Thornton was arrested in the casino.

Campbell said her family moved to Thousand Oaks from Fresno in July, 1993, when her father, who is in the Army, received a transfer. Until their home was ready, the family--which included Stephanie, her younger sister and parents--stayed at the Econo Lodge motel in the city.

The witness said she met Thornton at the motel pool and that they began dating. Her mother would drive the two of them to the movies, to the mall and to fast-food restaurants, she said. Things seemed to be going well and the defendant appeared at ease with her, Campbell said.

He told her that he was staying at the motel because he and his mother did not get along well, Campbell testified. Eventually, however, the Campbells moved into a home, and Stephanie said she got a job at a yogurt shop.

That is also when she broke off their relationship.

Thornton continued trying to see her, she said, once grabbing her outside the yogurt shop. Campbell said she called the police, who already had a warrant for his arrest but had not been pursuing him.

With the new complaint, they started an active search. That prompted Thornton, prosecutors say, to begin his desperate plans for a getaway--plans they say led him to steal Kellie O’Sullivan’s truck, kill the Westlake nurse and kidnap Campbell.