WESTLAKE : Thornton’s Doctor Testifies on Abuse

A pediatrician who cared for convicted murderer Mark Scott Thornton as a child testified Wednesday that he had concerns that Thornton might have been suffering from child abuse and malnutrition, but never reported his suspicions.

Dr. Carter Wright, taking the stand at Thornton’s death-penalty trial, said Thornton had bruises on his legs as an infant. He also said that Thornton’s family seemed unstable and chaotic.

“Some of the behavior that I observed made me think of the Addams Family,” testified the Los Angeles physician.

A Superior Court jury is deciding whether Thornton, 20, should die for the September, 1993, killing of Westlake nurse Kellie O’Sullivan.

The panel, which convicted Thornton of first-degree murder in December, also has the option of sentencing him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The defense has contended that Thornton, who killed the nurse during a carjacking, turned to a criminal lifestyle because his mother and every other adult who influenced him had such tendencies.

Supporting that theory, his mother, stepfather and grandmother have testified that they were not good role models for him.

Thornton’s mother, Markita Sarrazin, received thousands of dollars in fraudulent welfare benefits from 1973 to 1988, testified Charles Nasser, a Los Angeles County welfare-fraud investigator.

And Wright testified that Thornton, as an infant, appeared to suffer from malnutrition. At birth, he weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces, putting him in the 90th percentile of infants. But five months later, he had dropped to the fifth percentile, weighing just 12 pounds, 14 ounces, the pediatrician testified.

Defense attorneys have suggested that he was neglected. They said such neglect could have caused Thornton to suffer brain damage, a factor contributing to his decision to kill the nurse.