Von Bulow Watched Wife’s Coma Deepen, Lover Says

Claus von Bulow watched his wealthy wife sink deeper and deeper into her first coma and waited until she was on “the verge of dying” before he made a call and “saved her life,” his former mistress testified today.

Alexandra Isles, a former soap-opera actress flown in from a European hideaway to testify, began detailing her relationship to the Danish-born jet-setter after telling the judge at Von Bulow’s attempted murder retrial that she had damaging new testimony to offer.

Isles said she received a call in early January, 1980, from Von Bulow concerning his wife’s first coma on Dec. 27, 1979.

Long Argument

“He told me what had happened in more detail that led to Mrs. Von Bulow’s coma,” Isles said. “He said they had had a long argument (about divorce).”

Von Bulow told Isles that his wife “had drunk a great deal of eggnog,” she testified.

“Then he said, ‘I saw her take the Seconal,’ ” Isles said, referring to the sedative drug.

“He said he watched her knowing she was in a bad way. He watched her and watched her. Finally, when she was on the verge of dying, he called and saved her life,” Isles said, apparently referring to a call Von Bulow made to get medical help.

Testifying about Martha (Sunny) von Bulow’s second coma in May, 1980, Isles testified that Von Bulow said “hypoglycemia had caused the coma and it didn’t have anything to do with anything she had taken herself.”

Von Bulow is charged with twice trying to kill his wife, in 1979 and 1980, by injecting her with insulin to aggravate her hypoglycemia, or chronic low blood sugar.

Earlier, Isles retraced her 1982 testimony, in which she said she told Von Bulow in April, 1979, that she wanted them to be together as a couple by Christmas of that year.

She testified that the subject of marriage came up repeatedly, nearly every time they met.

“I didn’t want to go out with him if he didn’t move out (from his family),” she said. “It was my wish and hope that we could be together as a couple by Christmas.”

Isles told the judge earlier in the absence of the jury that it was Von Bulow’s “behavior that troubled me.”

“I didn’t want to recognize it for what it implied,” Isles, dubbed the “mystery woman” while she was in hiding in Europe, told Superior Court Judge Corinne Grande.

Tried to Stop Testimony

Von Bulow’s attorneys tried to prevent Isles from testifying at the retrial but Grande denied their motion. She also rejected a defense motion to have Isles’ testimony limited to what she had said at Von Bulow’s first trial in 1982.

Assistant Atty. Gen. Marc DeSisto asked Isles if she had additional testimony to present this time that she did not tell the jury in Von Bulow’s first trial in 1982. She said she did.

Asked why she had not mentioned the information, Isles said, “I wasn’t asked.”