Thornton Does Not Deserve Sympathy, Prosecutor Tells Jury : Trial: ‘Cold, callous’ manner of Westlake nurse’s murder is emphasized. But deputy public defender favorably compares the convicted killer to his own sons.

Saving their most explosive arguments for last, prosecutors made a final plea to send convicted killer Mark Scott Thornton to his death, imploring the jury to render justice for the victim’s family.

In a scathing attack, Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris said Thornton savagely murdered Westlake nurse Kellie O’Sullivan in the most “cold, callous, cruel, vicious manner you can imagine.”

“He doesn’t deserve your sympathy,” argued Kossoris, who mocked a defense theory that Thornton is a victim of his upbringing.

“He is essentially a crybaby,” the prosecutor said.

Defense attorneys, who will make their final arguments today, predicted the Ventura County Superior Court jury would get the high-profile case for deliberations this afternoon.

At the very latest, the panel should start deciding by Friday whether to sentence the 20-year-old Thousand Oaks man to death or to life in prison without parole.

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The jury convicted Thornton of first-degree murder and a special circumstance of premeditation in December, making him eligible for the death penalty. The jury has heard four months of evidence in the guilt and penalty phases of the capital trial.

Most of the day Wednesday was devoted to arguments by Kossoris, the veteran prosecutor trying his sixth death-penalty case.

But before Kossoris addressed the panel, Deputy Public Defender Howard J. Asher finished a closing argument that he had begun the previous day.

Trying to mitigate a prosecution contention that Thornton is devoid of any redeeming qualities, Asher favorably compared the defendant to his own two young sons.

He told the jury that Thornton would not have killed O’Sullivan had the defendant’s mother raised him properly. Thornton’s mother regularly used drugs and neglected her son, according to testimony.

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But even more than playing up the long-held defense theory that Thornton is a victim of his upbringing and is learning disabled, Asher pleaded with individual jurors to consider those factors in reaching their conclusions.

“It takes all 12 of you to vote for Mark’s death,” he said. “If anyone of you feel that it’s wrong, if you feel it in your soul, then there won’t be a sentence of death.

“This decision whether to execute someone is your decision, and your decision alone,” he added. “It can be discussed, but it can’t be shared. One vote, any vote, your vote, and Mark Thornton won’t end up on death row.”

Kossoris spent more than two hours going over what he termed the aggravating circumstances of O’Sullivan’s murder. Reiterating statements made a day earlier by another prosecutor in the case, Kossoris said the nurse was held captive for 25 minutes before being driven to the Santa Monica Mountains on Sept. 14, 1993, ordered to her knees and shot three times.

He advised the jury not to show the defendant any pity, saying he has never displayed any remorse for his fatal deed.

“You don’t give mercy to everyone who asks for it,” Kossoris argued. “You give mercy when it is just, when it is deserved.

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“I think the surviving relatives have a right to expect justice,” he said, mentioning O’Sullivan’s 6-year-old son, her mother and her fiance.

Kossoris also reminded the jury of the 12-day search that went on before two volunteers found O’Sullivan’s badly decomposed body, conducted as Thornton refused to admit to the murder or tell authorities where the body was located.

“Twelve days of pure hell for her family and friends, not knowing what happened to her and knowing she died in the most excruciating manner.

“Just because he’s young and looks young, doesn’t tell you what’s in his soul,” Kossoris said.

“He deserves the death penalty, and that is the just verdict in this case.”