Prosecutor Urges Death for Thornton

Arguing that Mark Scott Thornton is worse than a wild animal who hunts random prey, a prosecutor Tuesday urged a jury to sentence the 20-year-old convicted killer to death.

“He has in him this dark, black coldness, this evil to do this,” said Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael K. Frawley, kicking off closing arguments in one of the county’s biggest murder trials in years.

Frawley wasted no time in telling the jury why the district attorney’s office decided to seek the death penalty against Thornton. It was the way he murdered Westlake nurse Kellie O’Sullivan.

The prosecutor said the woman was kidnaped, held in fear for her life for 25 minutes, forced to her knees in an alcove in the Santa Monica Mountains and shot three times, including twice in the back “for good measure.”

It was, Frawley argued, no less than predatory.

“You know that she must have been pleading for her life, telling him, ‘I’ve got to get my son! I’ve got to get my son!’ ” Frawley said of the victim, who was kidnaped on her way to picking up her 5-year-old son from day care.

But a defense attorney countered that portrayal in his argument, saying the prosecution has no proof of what O’Sullivan said or did before she was murdered.

Deputy Public Defender Howard J. Asher called the murder heinous, but argued that a sentence of life in prison without parole would be more than enough punishment for his client.

He then listed the kinds of people for whom he believes the death penalty should be reserved.

“We’re not talking about good versus bad acts. We’re talking about the worst of the bad acts,” Asher said.

“Ted Bundy. Serial killer from the Northwest. Richard Ramirez. The Night Stalker. Theodore Frank. The child sexual predator who killed Amy Sue Sietz in this county.”

Pointing to Thornton, sitting calmly at the defense table with his chin on his left hand, Asher proclaimed: “This young man is not in their class.”

The jury heard from only two of the four attorneys working the case Tuesday. And Asher did not finish his argument.

After he completes his remarks today, the jury will hear from the lead prosecutor and the lead defense attorney, respectively.

The jury spent two months deciding Thornton’s guilt and another seven weeks hearing evidence on whether he should receive the death penalty or life in prison without parole. The panel should begin deliberating Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath has said.

Frawley argued that, in addition to the way Thornton killed the Westlake nurse, prosecutors had other reasons for seeking the death penalty against the young defendant.

Primarily, Frawley cited a handful of physical and sexual attacks Thornton had committed against former girlfriends.

During one alleged incident, Thornton kidnaped a former girlfriend, hit her in the face and then sexually assaulted her.

“It’s that guy over there who did this, and that’s why I’m pointing to him,” Frawley said, staring at the defendant.

Still, Frawley encouraged the jury not to forget about the victim in the murder case. He speculated that she probably begged Thornton profusely not to kill her.

“You know Kellie O’Sullivan was pleading for her life,” he said, “not just for her but so she could raise her 5-year-old son.”

“Now, who is asking you for mercy?”

Then, he tried to strike a chord with the jurors.

“You have to remember that the circumstances of this crime could have happened to anybody just going about errands, at 2 in the afternoon,” Frawley said.

What’s worse, he argued, is that Thornton killed the nurse only to buy time after stealing her truck.

“You don’t have to kill somebody to steal a car,” he declared. “But if your value on human life is so little, you go ahead and kill someone. That’s all Kellie O’Sullivan died for: is for Mr. Thornton to buy him some extra time.”

Frawley also took issue with the strategy the defense put forth during the seven-week death penalty hearing. Defense attorneys contended that Thornton is learning-disabled and was raised by unfit parents.

But Frawley stated emphatically: “He was not raised to be a monster. He was not raised by monsters.”

He said that Thornton’s parents testified about their neglectful conduct simply because they don’t want to see their son put to death.

As for a clinical diagnosis that Thornton has an abnormal brain, Frawley said there is no evidence of that--other than the testimony of doctors hired by the defense.

On Thornton’s behalf, Asher said life in prison might be worse punishment than the death penalty for someone Thornton’s age.

He also said that Thornton has no prior felony convictions, a factor that should receive heavy weight as the jurors decide the case.

Mostly, Asher tried to remind the jurors why they were chosen to hear the case. They all said during jury selection that they could be fair and give a verdict consistent with the law, which does not allow Thornton to be killed simply because he took a life, Asher said.

“It’s not just so simple that he killed, so he must die,” Asher told the jurors.

The jurors, he said, also told lawyers during the selection process that the death penalty should apply to defendants who kill children, who rape and murder, who commit serial or mass murders.

“Well, does any of that conduct exist in this case?” Asher asked.