Although Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry claimed in court last week that Nicollette Sheridan’s character was killed off because of budget restraints resulting from a decline in the show’s ratings and not because the he and Sheridan had a falling out, Sheridan’s attorney presented the court with a surprise voicemail from a “low-level ABC employee” who claimed to have “mistakenly received an email indicating that ABC was going to wipe all the hard drives clean to erase evidence of their intention to kill off her character Edie Britt on the show.” Dun dun DUN! Radar Online says:

[The voicemail said]: “I’m an employee of Desperate Housewives. I received an email soon after Nicollette filed suit; I think it was meant for a much narrower distribution, but it regarded having IT come in and wipe clean the hard drives of the producers in response to the correspondence that they’ve had email wise about firing Nicollette.

“Um, I think I got it by mistake; I believe they were going to have the Disney IT person come in to do the sweeping of the hard drive… that’s about all I know; you obviously can check this number and figure out who I am but I really don’t want to get involved.”

Mark and his partner Patrick Maloney want to have the employee called in as a witness, but the ABC lawyers contended this was “the first we’d heard of this,” to Judge Elizabeth Allen White and Tuesday is supposed to be the last day in the trial.

“I’m a real low level employee there and I shouldn’t have got that email, I’m on the general email list,” the staffer continued on the voicemail.

“But there was definitely a conspiracy to cover up the correspondence on email wise in regards to Nicollette.”

Last minute surprise witnesses? Dramatic court re-enactments? I’m still not entirely sure this isn’t just the script from season finale.

Leaving court with her attorney: