San Diego

Newly discovered evidence in the slaying of sheriff’s trainee Kelly Bazer caused a delay Wednesday in the murder trial of one of the alleged accomplices.

A tape recording of an interview with Ronnie Davis Williams, 20, was discovered this week by the prosecution and defense. The tape was made Jan. 15 at County Jail.

Williams was believed to be with Jesse Lee Stuart, 20, when Stuart shot Bazer, 28, on Jan. 13 after robbing a Safeway store in Spring Valley. Stuart was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced Sept. 11 to 35 years to life in state prison.

Williams’ attorney, Frank Nageotte, said his client asked to speak to a particular San Diego police officer he had dealt with in the past, and the officer and Williams discussed the Bazer slaying on tape two days after his arrest.

The officer didn’t turn over the tape to the prosecution or to the Sheriff’s Department until this week. Neither Nageotte nor Deputy Dist. Atty. Keith Burt would identify the officer.

“Neither Mr. Burt nor I was aware of this tape recording,” Nageotte said to San Diego Superior Court Judge Richard Huffman.

“Why wasn’t it turned over?” Huffman asked.

“The (tape) went into a drawer. . . . I think (the tape) was forgotten about,” answered the prosecutor. “It simply went into the file . . . and sat.”

“It appeared that it wasn’t really thought of as new or different. . . . A request came from the defendant upon his arrest to speak to this officer,” said Burt.

Nageotte said Williams’ statements on the tape were “not that different” from his talk with sheriff’s deputies at his arrest, “but there are some differences.”

Huffman denied Nageotte’s motion to suppress the tape from evidence in Williams’ trial and set a new trial date for Nov. 3. Williams had been scheduled to go to trial Wednesday, but Nageotte said he needed more time to review the tape and a transcript of it.

Bazer, a mother of two from El Cajon, was shot in the back after refusing to hand over her car keys to the gunman, who confronted her near her brother-in-law’s house on St. George Place in Spring Valley.