Thornton’s Suicide Note Read at Trial

Five weeks before allegedly killing Westlake nurse Kellie O’Sullivan, Mark Scott Thornton wrote a suicide letter in which he said he would be “better off dead” because everyone in his life--everyone he loved--had given up on him.

The emotionally powerful letter, read Wednesday to the Superior Court jury hearing Thornton’s murder trial, provides the first extensive glimpse into Thornton’s state of mind in the weeks leading up to the nurse’s death.

“I can’t handle this place we call Earth or California. It’s hell here, so all I have to say is goodbuy everyone and may god BE with you,” the defendant, then 19, wrote in the letter of Aug. 12, 1993.

“So, I’m going to go to where I don’t need anything: Six feet under the ground to sleep.”

But instead of taking his own life, prosecutors say that Thornton kidnaped and killed O’Sullivan on Sept. 14. The slaying occurred at a remote spot in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Prosecutors say he stole the nurse’s small black truck, using the vehicle to abduct Stephanie Campbell, his 16-year-old estranged girlfriend who had refused to date him any longer.

When apprehended five days later in Reno, Thornton still had O’Sullivan’s truck, as well as the murder weapon, a .38-caliber revolver, according to court testimony.

Several witnesses in his trial, which wrapped up its fourth week of testimony Wednesday, have alluded to Thornton’s suicidal state of mind. Two of his former girlfriends, including Campbell, have testified that suicide was a frequent topic for Thornton during their relationships.

And Thornton’s lawyers have also said their client initially tried to provoke police officers in Reno into shooting him. The officers testified that Thornton had a gun in his hand when he was arrested and at first refused to drop it.

But the reading of the letter--entitled “My Last Words”--marked the first time the jury had heard about Thornton’s suicidal tendencies in the defendant’s own words. The letter was read by Ventura County Sheriff’s Sgt. Noel Brown, who testified that he found the letter inside a backpack in a room Thornton had rented from a Thousand Oaks couple.

“I had to do this because I have no one. Everyone has left me to die. And that is what’s going to happen in the next couple of days,” the letter states.

“I’m about to lose my one and only person I really care for. And that is Stephanie Cambell. I have no more money to do anything IN my life or enof confidence IN myself to go on with my life. So I am going to go WERE I don’t need anything.

“I love my family and especialy my sister Chantal Sarrazin. . . . Don’t (worry) about me. I’m better off dead,” the letter continues. “I am going to sleep now to rest forever. Love Mark Scott Sarrazin.”

Sarrazin is Thornton’s mother’s married name.

Weeks before he wrote the letter, Thornton had been kicked out of his mother’s home.