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08-22-2019, 05:48 AM
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LAPD Detective Convicted in Van Nuys Murder (JCS)
Stephanie Lazarus, a Los Angeles Police Department detective, was convicted in March 2012 of the first-degree murder of Sherri Rasmussen, a 28-year-old nurse found beaten and shot in her Van Nuys condominium on February 24, 1986. Lazarus was sentenced to 27 years to life. Rasmussen had recently married John Ruetten, whom Lazarus had dated. Detectives initially treated the killing as a burglary gone wrong, and the case sat for more than two decades. In 2004, a criminalist re-examined a swab from a bite mark on Rasmussen's arm and found female DNA that did not belong to her, but the lead was not pursued. Detective Jim Nuttall reopened the file with his partner Pete Barba in March 2008 and focused on a female suspect. Officers covertly collected a cup Lazarus discarded at a Costco in Simi Valley, and its DNA matched the bite mark. In June 2009, detectives brought Lazarus, then assigned to the department's art-theft detail, to an interview room at Parker Center on the pretext that a man in custody wanted to discuss stolen art. During the interview, she gradually acknowledged having visited the Ruetten condominium and Rasmussen's workplace, accused colleagues of suspecting her, and said she would give a DNA sample. She was arrested after leaving the room. Lazarus was tried in early 2012 and found guilty in March 2012. A California appeals panel upheld the conviction in July 2015, and the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The video is a narrated analysis by JCS - Criminal Psychology and runs about 25 minutes. It covers the June 2009 Parker Center interview, from the art-theft ruse through the arrest, with narration about the suspect's behavior and the detectives' technique over interview-room footage. It is not raw footage.
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