Deputy’s Surprise Phone Call Supports Delon : Trial: Defense presents 11th-hour evidence that murder defendant’s bruises were worse than presumed.

In surprising evidence allowed after closing arguments had already begun in Kimberly Delon’s murder trial, a sheriff’s deputy said Delon was severely bruised two days after she killed her husband in what she claims was self-defense.

Deputy Joni Hart called Delon’s attorney early Wednesday morning and said she saw bruises on the left side of Delon’s neck in the Las Colinas jail in Santee on Sept. 2, 1991. Hart’s statement was read to the jury Wednesday afternoon.

Hart described the bruises and scratches on Delon’s neck and said one mark was the size of a golf ball.

Although the deputy did not testify, the statement read by Superior Court Judge John Thompson will be considered as evidence by the jury.

The 11-woman, one-man panel was told that Hart came forward after reading newspaper accounts of Delon’s trial.

The deputy also said she saw bruises across Delon’s legs and upper arms. She said the bruises were “much darker and much more visible” than they appear in jailhouse photos of Delon.

It is unusual for attorneys to be allowed to present additional evidence to the jury after both the prosecution and the defense have rested their cases.

The jury had been hearing closing arguments for more than two days. If the jury had received its instructions Tuesday, as originally planned, the panel would not have heard the new evidence.

Defense attorney Charles Goldberg, who received the 6 a.m. phone call, was allowed to present 10 more minutes of closing argument after the jury heard the statement.

“It corroborates Kimberly Delon’s statement,” Goldberg said, referring to a jailhouse interview with prosecutors one week after the stabbing death of her husband.

“Common sense is, when a 200-pound man is on top of a woman and holding her down and pinning her down, that some marks will show up,” Goldberg said.

Delon has maintained that she killed her husband while he was assaulting her Aug. 31. “It shows there was a struggle. She was attacked,” Goldberg said.

Fighting to hold back his excitement over the new evidence, Goldberg thanked the deputy for presenting her statement: “This coming forward at the last second is shocking, it’s wonderful.”

After Goldberg said his last words to the jury, Deputy Dist. Atty. Ann Barber resumed her closing argument, briefly touching on the new evidence.

“I too believe that thanks ought to be had, because it’s rare that this kind of evidence shows up,” Barber said.

But what the deputy saw, Barber said, were bruises caused by a fight two days before the killing that had finally matured on Delon’s neck.

The jury will resume its deliberations today after meeting for 45 minutes Wednesday afternoon.