A former Los Angeles Police Department detective bludgeoned, bit and shot her ex-boyfriend’s wife in a jealous rage 26 years ago and staged the crime scene to look like a botched burglary, prosecutors said Monday. 

The murder case sat unsolved for decades, until police matched the DNA of Detective Stephanie Lazarus to a saliva sample collected from a bite mark on the slain Sherri Rasmussen’s forearm. 

“Justice has waited a long time for this day,” said Deputy District Attorney Paul Nunez in an emotional closing argument. “Twenty-six years ago, the defendant thought she’d gotten away with it, thought she’d committed the perfect murder.”

Prosecutors said Lazarus was obsessed with her alleged victim’s husband, John Ruetten. They pointed to some of Lazarus’ journal entries that reveal her despair over Ruetten’s new marriage and a letter she sent to Ruetten’s mother, proclaiming her unrequited love and saying, “I don’t think I’ll ever understand John’s decision.”

Graphic images of Rasmussen’s bludgeoned face and bullet-ridden chest were shown to the crowded courtroom.

Throughout the day, Lazarus, 51, sat stoic but attentive, staring ahead with fingers interlocked, head occasionally swaying back and forth as evidence was presented.

Lazarus’ attorney, Mark Overland, encouraged members of the eight-woman, four-man jury to suppress their emotions when reaching a verdict. 

“Just like the court told you to turn off your cell phones, those emotions need to be turned off,” Overland said. “It’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s what you took an oath to do.”

Overland urged jurors to consider the trial's unanswered questions he argues cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution’s case.

“A car without brakes is very dangerous,” Overland told the jury. “It’s up to all of us to apply these brakes to the justice system.”

The prosecution’s case hinges on the DNA evidence connecting Lazarus to the Rasmussen murder. A prosecution expert said various analyses concluded that there was a 1 in 1.7 sextillion chance that the DNA found at the crime scene came from someone besides Lazarus. 

Lazarus’ lawyer contends the DNA sample was contaminated or perhaps tampered with in the decades it sat in storage. The defense showed during the trial that the bite-mark DNA was collected from an unsealed tube in a torn envelope, and was lost at one point in the investigation.

“The centerpiece of the prosecution’s case cannot be trusted," Overland said, "because its integrity has been compromised."

Prosecutors reject that argument. 

“Degraded DNA doesn’t turn into someone else’s DNA,” Nunez said.

Another key point in the prosecution’s case is ballistic evidence, which shows the murder weapon to be a 5-shot, 2-inch barrel, .38 caliber revolver loaded with high-pressure, LAPD-policy federal bullets. Lazarus owned this gun, prosecutors say, and it was reported lost 13 days after Rasmussen’s murder. 

Detectives in 1986 concluded that Rasmussen’s killing in a Van Nuys condo was the result of a botched burglary by a man that had committed a robbery nearby. 

At the time of the slaying, Lazarus was a patrol officer who had been with the LAPD for two years. In the more than 20 years that followed, she went on to become a much-admired detective investigating high-profile art thefts and forgeries.

Cold case detectives reopened the unsolved homicide when DNA analysis of the saliva sample indicated Rasmussen’s killer was a woman. They learned of Lazarus’ connection to the victim’s husband, began tailing their fellow LAPD detective and collected a sample of her saliva from a discarded Costco cup. Lazarus was arrested in June 2009 when police determined her DNA matched that found at the crime scene.

Transcripts from the tense interrogation preceding her arrest reveal how police detectives lured Lazarus into an interrogation room under false pretenses and cautiously questioned their unsuspecting colleague. 

Lazarus has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder in the 1986 death of Rasmussen, the 29-year-old nursing director and new bride of John Ruetten. Throughout the month-long trial, prosecutors portrayed Lazarus as a jilted lover who killed Rasmussen out of romantic rivalry.  

Earlier in the trial, Ruetten testified that he had a sexual relationship with Lazarus that lasted a few years and recalled a sexual encounter with a distraught Lazarus that occurred while he was engaged to Rasmussen. On Monday, Ruetten sat—with eyes closed and hands clasped—beside the family of his deceased wife while the prosecution described Lazarus’ romantic obsession. 

Closing arguments will continue tomorrow, before Lazarus’ fate is handed over to the jury. If convicted, Lazarus faces up to life in prison.

 

 

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Reach contributor Aaron Schrank here.