Defense Admits That Thornton Killed Nurse

Giving in to what they described as overwhelming evidence, defense attorneys Thursday admitted for the first time that Mark Scott Thornton kidnaped and fatally shot Westlake nurse Kellie O’Sullivan last year.

But lawyers for the 20-year-old defendant claimed the nurse’s shooting was unintentional and perhaps even the result of her own attempt to escape from Thornton, who they say panicked and fired the three fatal shots.

“Mark Thornton is responsible for the death of Kellie O’Sullivan,” Deputy Public Defender Howard J. Asher conceded somberly during final arguments in Ventura County Superior Court. “You’ve heard very solid, very reliable evidence of that.”

The concession is significant because Thornton steadfastly had denied murdering the 33-year-old nurse, who was shot once in the chest and twice in the back Sept. 14, 1993, at a desolate area of the Santa Monica Mountains.

In addition, the defense team had declined to deny or admit his involvement in the slaying during six weeks of testimony at his trial, which concluded Monday.

But by admitting Thursday that Thornton shot O’Sullivan, the defense camp hoped to convince the jury that he pulled the trigger without thinking and therefore is not guilty of a special charge that could lead to a possible death sentence.

They told the jury that Thornton is guilty of first-degree murder, but not of planning the killing as part of the kidnaping--the special allegation with which he is charged.

In addition to reaching a verdict of first-degree murder, the jury would have to find Thornton guilty of killing the nurse while trying to further either a kidnaping or robbery in order for him to be eligible for death.

Prosecutors refused to comment outside court on the turn of events Thursday. Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris will deliver a rebuttal to the defense arguments this afternoon.

While not specifically providing his own theory of the slaying, Asher repeatedly told jurors that the nurse was shot “in a rash manner” by a panicked Thornton.

In an interview outside court, Asher said he did not know specifically how she died.

“My theory is that Kellie O’Sullivan made some unexpected, rash move, probably to disarm Mark, and he panicked, and he shot her,” Asher said. “And he didn’t shoot her for any reason.

“I’m not saying it was an accidental shooting. I’m saying it was unintentional.”

Prosecutors say Thornton kidnaped O’Sullivan outside a Thousand Oaks pet store and forced her to the mountain. Once there, he made her crawl into a brushy grotto, turn and face him, and then shot the kneeling nurse once in the chest and, as she slumped over, twice in the back, they say.

To support their contention, prosecutors took the jury out to the scene of the crime off Mulholland Highway. In court, they re-created the crime using a mannequin dressed in the nurse’s bullet-riddled uniform. A ballistics expert and forensic pathologist, two of the more than 60 prosecution witnesses, also testified that the scenario of the compliant, kneeling nurse was the most logical recreation of the slaying.

The defense did its best to pick that theory apart, attacking prosecution witnesses as being not credible and inconsistent.

“There are so many other ways that Kellie O’Sullivan could have been killed out there in that ravine that it’s just pure speculation and conjecture to rely on just one,” Asher told the jury.

“If she was shot in a rash manner, not in furtherance of a felony, then there is no special circumstance,” he told the panel.

First to argue Thursday, Deputy Public Defender Susan R. Olson made it clear from her opening remarks that the defense was ready to admit Thornton’s culpability in O’Sullivan’s death. “This is basically a felony murder,” Olson told the jurors, who did not show much reaction to the admission. “This is a murder that occurred during another felony.”

Olson also acknowledged that prosecutors had proved that Thornton was trying to find a car with keys in it to leave town. But she denied that they had proved that he overtook O’Sullivan violently outside the pet store or heaped any other physical harm on the nurse prior to her death.

She chastised Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael K. Frawley for referring to the murder in his closing statements the day before as an execution. “Mr. Frawley can talk all he wants about this being an execution,” Olson said. “But unless he has evidence of it, it’s not a premeditated murder.”

That is a theme the defense stressed most of the day.

Asher and Olson both described Thornton as being immature and not capable of thinking through an event as complicated as a murder. Thornton showed little emotion throughout the proceeding.

On the other hand, the defense portrayed O’Sullivan as aggressive. Asher, for instance, said it was possible that she precipitated her own death by lunging at Thornton, who did not know what to do except to shoot her.

Asher reminded the jury of testimony that O’Sullivan was an athletic person who was into running and scuba diving. He said she would not have stood by idly while someone led her to her death.

“We do know that she has never acted like a wallflower,” he said.