Another bombshell emerged in Amador Superior Court Friday, Nov. 11 regarding the slaying of John O'Sullivan. For nearly three months, media have reported that on the night of the shooting, Ken Zimmerman phoned 911 and told Amador County Sheriff's dispatchers, "You better get here quick before I shoot him" - and then evidently went back outside and, at some point, opened fire on his neighbor.

Now Zimmerman's own defense team says that O'Sullivan had been shot before the 911 call was ever made. In the eyes of O'Sullivan's friends, it shows Zimmerman is dishonest. From the defense's point of view, it throws the whole concept of premeditation out the window. As Zimmerman's preliminary hearing got underway, both sets of attorneys battled hard over how the judge - and the public - would view the meaning of the deadly night in Fiddletown on Aug. 16.

The hearing got under way at 8:15 a.m. as Judge Dave Richmond's courtroom filled with supporters of both the defendant and O'Sullivan. All of the testimony came from two sheriff's deputies and two sheriff's detectives who had been at the crime scene.

The first deputy to respond testified that Zimmerman was waiting at the split between his driveway and O'Sullivan's, standing in front of his Ford truck. The deputy said that Zimmerman admitted he'd "fired shots" at his long-standing enemy, but indicated he didn't know if the rounds had hit. A second deputy eventually located O'Sullivan behind some bushes slouched over his tractor.

Throughout the night, Zimmerman told sheriff's personnel that O'Sullivan had invaded his property on a tractor, smashed his belongings, punched him in the head and then run over his feet with the tractor.

As the prosecution and the defense took turns questioning the detectives, each attempted to leave resonating images for the packed courtroom.

Deputy District Attorney Steve Hermanson appeared to have two major goals during his presentation. The first was to cast doubt on Zimmerman's claims of having been assaulted. "Did you find the pair of glasses that Mr. Zimmerman told you were broken when Mr. O'Sullivan hit him?" Hermanson asked the lead detective.

"No," the detective responded. "We found two pairs of glasses. Neither were broken."

"Did you notice any apparent trauma to Mr. Zimmerman's head or feet?" Hermanson went on.

"No," the detective answered. "I examined both and it didn't look as though there was any sign of trauma to Mr. Zimmerman's head or feet."

Next, Hermanson attempted to portray Zimmerman as having been hate-filled and vicious the night of the shooting. He questioned the same detective about remarks Mr. Zimmerman had made regarding his proximity to O'Sullivan when he fired. "Did he tell you the position of O'Sullivan when he shot?" Hermanson asked.

The detective nodded: "His words to me were that O'Sullivan was 'haulin a** away' from him."

Hermanson then questioned a second detective involved with the case about what O'Sullivan's widow, Krista Clem, said happened when she tried to drive down the road before officers had arrived. The detective recalled that Clem told him Zimmerman had blocked her path, made threatening gestures from his truck and then yelled, "You're f------ dead!"

Hermanson also suggested that a cryptic remark Zimmerman made to detectives about calling his landlord after the shooting implied it was a premeditated act.

When Public Defender Richard Cotta cross-examined the detectives, the first thing he did was attempt to establish that Zimmerman had been attacked. Reading over the lead detective's report, Cotta managed to get the investigator to concede that there appeared to be blood on Zimmerman's shorts when he was arrested. Cotta also drew attention to apparent blood on the carpet inside Zimmerman's home by the landline telephone Zimmerman had used to call 911. Zimmerman was wearing flip-flops during the time he alleges O'Sullivan ran over his feet with the tractor.

Next, Cotta pored over a section of the crime scene report that indicated O'Sullivan had destroyed Zimmerman's front gate with his tractor and rammed into the back of Zimmerman's truck multiple times. "The tailgate of Mr. Zimmerman's truck was damaged," the detective told Cotta. "Mr. O'Sullivan's tractor had a large scoop bucket on its front. The bucket appeared to be covered in paint chips that were consistent with Mr. Zimmerman's tailgate."

Next, Cotta established that Zimmerman told detectives and deputies at the crime scene that he'd been watching television when he suddenly heard the sound of O'Sullivan trashing his truck. He said he'd run outside with his pistol, been engaged in a confrontation with O'Sullivan and fired at him, all before making the 911 call.

In Cotta's closing arguments, he told Richmond that the timing of the call was significant. "Anything Mr. Zimmerman said during that phone call was clearly after the fact," Cotta declared. "And the court can only take into consideration evidence regarding premeditation. Legally, there's no such thing as post-meditation."

Cotta also tried to dispel the idea many have seen as the most damning element of the case - the assertion that Zimmerman shot his neighbor in the back. "We believe the autopsy shows that the first bullet in fact entered the side of Mr. Zimmerman's pectoral muscle. That's not shot in the back, that's shot in the front. The other two went along the lower shoulder of the back, in what we're sure an expert will testify was left-to-right firing trajectory as the tractor passed Mr. Zimmerman. The prosecution keeps saying 'shot in the back' like my client dry-gulched him or bushwhacked him, but that's not what the evidence shows."

At the end of the proceeding, Richmond found enough probable cause to move forward with a trial.