The Megyn Kelly Show - September 11, 2026


Fatal Attraction： ＂It’s Been a Million Years Ago＂ — Ep. 3 ｜ MK Confidential


Episode Stats


Length

36 minutes

Words per minute

153.58

Word count

5,584

Sentence count

429

Harmful content

Misogyny

19

sentences flagged

Toxicity

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 A woman comes out of a Costco cafe carrying oily pizza on paper plates covered in silver 1.00
00:00:07.960 foil and Pepsi soft drinks. Her daughter is beside her. The little girl is not quite three
00:00:14.080 years old. They step into the courtyard seating area and sit at one of the red and white outdoor
00:00:19.340 tables. About 20 feet away, a Latino man sits alone at a table beside a large trash bin.
00:00:26.660 It is May 28, 2009, in Simi Valley, California.
00:00:32.620 The woman doesn't look at him. 0.98
00:00:34.800 There is no reason she would. 0.77
00:00:36.620 She eats with her daughter, going through napkin after napkin on the greasy pizza. 0.97
00:00:41.860 The woman drinks from a wax-coated cardboard cup through a plastic straw,
00:00:46.520 taking sip after sip as she talks to her daughter.
00:00:49.860 The little girl points and says something, and the woman laughs.
00:00:53.180 Then the woman stands up with the cup still in her hand.
00:00:56.660 There is a trash bin closer to her table. 1.00
00:00:59.260 She walks right past it. 1.00
00:01:01.260 She walks straight at the Latino man,
00:01:03.120 and for a second, he is certain she has spotted him. 0.71
00:01:07.080 She takes one last pull on the straw
00:01:09.040 and drops the cup in the trash bin beside his elbow
00:01:12.320 and keeps walking, holding her daughter's hand.
00:01:16.720 Ten seconds later, the man has the cup out of the trash.
00:01:20.860 Fifteen seconds later, it is in a manila envelope,
00:01:24.020 and the man is moving quickly through the Costco parking lot to his car.
00:01:28.300 The Latino man at the table is a Los Angeles police officer
00:01:31.920 from an undercover unit inside the LAPD
00:01:35.060 where its people are not called detectives.
00:01:37.900 They are called operators.
00:01:40.540 He has been following this woman for more than a week.
00:01:43.960 The woman with the little girl is Stephanie Lazarus.
00:01:47.660 She is an L.A. police detective
00:01:49.640 who has been with the department for more than 26 years.
00:01:53.020 And now her own department is trying to find out whether she murdered Sherry Rasmussen.
00:02:00.160 I'm Megan Kelly, and this is MK Confidential.
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00:03:02.140 Three months earlier, February 2009, inside the homicide unit at the Van Nuys Police Station.
00:03:09.420 Detective Jim Nuttall has reopened a 23-year-old murder.
00:03:12.780 He has DNA from a bite mark on Sherry Rasmussen's arm, and the DNA belongs to a woman.
00:03:20.560 He asked John Rutten, Sherry's husband, whether there were any women in Sherry's life who
00:03:26.220 had a problem with her, and John gave him a name, Stephanie Lazarus.
00:03:31.680 John told Nuttall that Stephanie joined the LAPD before he ever met Sherry, and as far
00:03:37.900 as he knows, Stephanie still works for the LAPD.
00:03:40.840 One of the other detectives, Mark Martinez, runs the name through the police directory.
00:03:46.900 Bingo.
00:03:48.080 Stephanie Lazarus is still on the job. 0.99
00:03:50.800 She's an LAPD detective assigned to the art theft detail.
00:03:55.600 None of the four detectives in that room has ever heard of her.
00:03:59.760 So now they have a person of interest in a murder, and she carries a badge.
00:04:05.500 LAPD policy on that is not ambiguous.
00:04:07.680 Any employee who learns of possible misconduct by another officer
00:04:12.060 must report it immediately up the chain or to internal affairs.
00:04:17.480 Stephanie Lazarus has friends in the department,
00:04:20.400 and Nuttall's team does not yet have her DNA.
00:04:23.840 They do not know whether Stephanie had anything to do with Sherry's murder.
00:04:28.480 So the four detectives make two agreements.
00:04:31.740 They will follow the evidence wherever it goes,
00:04:34.020 and they will never say Stephanie Lazarus' name out loud
00:04:38.000 or write it anywhere another officer might see it.
00:04:42.820 Inside Van Nuys Homicide, Stephanie becomes number five.
00:04:48.340 Their supervisor, Rob Bubb, takes it a step further.
00:04:52.060 He creates a generic case number for any evidence they collect,
00:04:55.820 one that has nothing to do with Sherry Rasmussen.
00:04:59.060 Any LAPD detective can look up a case on the department's computers 0.97
00:05:02.720 If Stephanie Lazarus checks the Rasmussen file and sees new evidence being booked,
00:05:08.760 she will know someone is working the case again.
00:05:12.100 It works as well as possible, they think.
00:05:15.280 For four months, four detectives investigate a murder that as far as the department can tell from its own computers,
00:05:22.240 nobody is investigating.
00:05:24.240 That includes even the chief of police, Bill Bratton.
00:05:28.040 By February 10th, 2009, the detectives have a list of five women in Sherry's life they need to eliminate as possible suspects.
00:05:38.340 Not because of motive, but because Sherry knew each of them well enough that she might open her front door for them. 0.98
00:05:45.500 Number one is Sherry's mother, Loretta. 0.85
00:05:48.620 Number two is her sister, Teresa.
00:05:50.880 Three is her friend and former roommate, Jane Goldberg.
00:05:55.240 Number four is Deborah Putnam, a nurse who bitterly resented being passed over for a promotion by Sherry.
00:06:01.860 Number five is Stephanie Lazarus.
00:06:04.720 There is zero evidence of conflict between Sherry and her mother, her sister, or her closest friend.
00:06:11.300 So the first three come off the board.
00:06:13.580 That leaves Deborah Putnam and Stephanie Lazarus.
00:06:17.400 The detectives take Deborah Putnam first. 0.98
00:06:20.260 Sherry had promoted another nurse over Putnam, who believed the job should have been hers.
00:06:25.560 Putnam's boyfriend was the hospital's medical director, and when he tried to intervene, Sherry held her ground.
00:06:32.180 Afterward, Sherry started getting threatening phone calls.
00:06:35.400 Jim Nuttall finds Deborah Putnam, living in Northern California, and asks the local police to collect a DNA sample from her trash without telling her.
00:06:45.640 On March 20th, police get one and FedEx it to Van Nuys homicide.
00:06:51.520 On April 16th, criminalist Jennifer Francis calls with the result.
00:06:56.980 Deborah Putnam is not a match.
00:07:00.020 On April 23rd, Jennifer, who was the first to tell police they are looking for a woman, 0.93
00:07:06.700 drives out to Van Nuys and the detectives give her a full briefing,
00:07:10.720 including that the woman they are looking at is an LAPD detective.
00:07:15.640 Nuttall asks her for extraordinary discretion.
00:07:19.960 That April, Nels and Loretta Rasmussen are in Washington State for their high school reunion.
00:07:25.940 Old classmates keep asking them the same question.
00:07:29.000 Have you heard anything on Sherry's case?
00:07:31.900 They haven't.
00:07:33.560 Back in February, around Sherry's birthday and the anniversary of the murder,
00:07:38.240 Loretta thought about calling the LAPD again.
00:07:40.520 She decided it would do no good.
00:07:43.360 And instead, she prayed.
00:07:46.580 That same month, four detectives in Van Nuys
00:07:49.400 had quietly reopened her daughter's murder.
00:07:52.880 When Nels and Loretta get home to Tucson,
00:07:55.540 there is a message waiting on their answering machine.
00:07:58.840 Nels returns the call on April 28th.
00:08:02.160 Jim Nuttall later tells Dateline
00:08:03.780 that Nels came into that first conversation
00:08:06.280 carrying 23 years of frustration.
00:08:09.620 Nels was upset with me, and he was very animated.
00:08:12.780 It was sort of like, Detective, where have you been for the last two decades?
00:08:17.420 Nuttall asks Nels what he thinks happened to his daughter.
00:08:21.640 Nels tells him there were two problems in Sherry's life. 0.64
00:08:24.800 There was a nurse and a doctor at the hospital, 0.78
00:08:27.160 and there was a woman connected to John.
00:08:30.040 She was a police officer, and she would not leave John and Sherry alone.
00:08:34.920 Then Nels tells Nuttall something else.
00:08:37.680 He says he told the LAPD about all of this back in 1986.
00:08:42.780 Two days later, on April 30th, Detective Mark Martinez runs Stephanie Lazarus through the state firearms database.
00:08:51.840 She has purchased a total of five handguns.
00:08:55.180 Whether she has physical possession of them is a different matter.
00:08:58.900 One of the guns is a Smith & Wesson Model 49, a .38 caliber revolver with a two-inch barrel,
00:09:06.400 the kind of gun LAPD officers commonly carried as a backup weapon in the 1980s.
00:09:11.720 Stephanie bought it on February 29, 1984, from the gun shop at the police academy.
00:09:19.060 On March 9, 1986, she reported it stolen, 13 days after Sherry Rasmussen was murdered.
00:09:28.280 For 23 years, the information that Stephanie Lazarus had reported her .38 revolver stolen shortly after Sherry was killed with .38 caliber bullets
00:09:39.460 sat in a state database any LAPD detective could search.
00:09:44.680 So far as anyone can tell, no one working Sherry's case ever looked.
00:09:50.500 On May 2nd, Nuttall emails criminalist Jennifer Francis, quote,
00:09:55.020 Candidate number five reported .38 caliber handguns stolen in Santa Monica within days of the 187.
00:10:03.500 A 187 is a murder.
00:10:06.760 The next problem, DNA.
00:10:09.460 They need Stephanie's, and they need to get it without letting her know they are looking at her.
00:10:14.100 But first, they have to find her.
00:10:16.800 The address on her LAPD emergency contact form belongs to her mother.
00:10:22.660 Detective Rob Bubb searches other databases and comes up with three more addresses, all in Simi Valley.
00:10:29.020 He and Nuttall drive out early one morning and check them one by one.
00:10:33.540 Two are shuttered businesses.
00:10:35.740 The third is a mailbox rental store.
00:10:38.260 On the drive back to Van Nuys, Nuttall has to give her credit.
00:10:42.500 She's good. She kicked our asses today. 0.99
00:10:45.660 The search keeps going. 0.99
00:10:48.120 On May 4th, the fourth detective in the unit, Pete Barba,
00:10:51.300 is looking for Stephanie's house when he finds her husband instead, Scott Young.
00:10:57.320 He is also an LAPD detective assigned to the Van Nuys station.
00:11:02.020 The four detectives do not know him by name but recognize his face.
00:11:05.940 In the Van Nuys locker room, Young's locker is only a few down from Nuttall's.
00:11:11.440 The next morning, May 5th, Bub makes another trip to Simi Valley.
00:11:16.320 Four addresses have led nowhere.
00:11:19.240 At the next one, Bub pulls up to a one-story house with an attached garage and a pool.
00:11:25.840 A silver Toyota pickup is parked in the driveway.
00:11:29.020 Its license plate reads, 5-STEPH.
00:11:33.220 Bub keeps driving.
00:11:35.320 Now they know where she lives.
00:11:37.460 On May 6th, Nuttall calls Nels back, this time on a recorded line,
00:11:42.400 and asks him to go through all of it again from the beginning.
00:11:45.820 Nels walks him through the months before the murder
00:11:47.800 and everything that happened in the years after.
00:11:50.700 Quote, if one of our officers is responsible for this, Nuttall tells him,
00:11:54.980 we are on the same page you are.
00:11:57.560 It's an investigation that is moving forward.
00:11:59.740 What we're waiting on now is a DNA sample,
00:12:02.260 and that has to be done with the utmost discretion
00:12:04.920 because as you can imagine, we can't walk down
00:12:07.820 and knock on somebody's door and say, 0.97
00:12:10.420 I realize that, interjects Nels.
00:12:13.120 Before they hang up, Nels says one more thing.
00:12:16.260 If you want to make $100,000, bet me it's not her.
00:12:21.040 Not all laughs.
00:12:21.940 The four detectives discuss going through Stephanie's garbage
00:12:25.200 to get a sample of her DNA, but Bub kills the idea.
00:12:29.540 Too many variables, too many ways for the sample
00:12:31.940 to be contaminated or challenged. Too many ways it goes wrong. So on May 12th, they take another
00:12:38.820 route. The request goes up the chain to a lieutenant, to a captain, and then to Deputy
00:12:43.880 Chief Michael Moore, who authorizes the Internal Surveillance Unit, aka the operators. Some of
00:12:51.440 them know Stephanie Lazarus. Not one asks to be taken off the case. Surveillance starts on May
00:12:58.080 20th. Two undercover teams trade shifts around the clock, following Stephanie and waiting for
00:13:04.300 her to throw away something that might carry her DNA. Her neighborhood makes surveillance difficult.
00:13:10.980 It is quiet with little traffic, and the only place to park is across the street from Stephanie's
00:13:15.980 house, which is directly outside a separate LAPD officer's home. On a previous surveillance job,
00:13:22.600 that officer had confronted an undercover unit parked there and asked what they were doing.
00:13:26.960 so they learn Stephanie's routine. At 5 in the morning she comes out for the
00:13:33.500 newspaper and she drives to the Simi Valley train station and takes the train
00:13:37.580 downtown. She reads the paper along the way and throws it out before she walks 0.88
00:13:41.780 into Parker Center where she works as an LAPD art theft detective. The first
00:13:47.360 things they collect are the newspapers, then a cellophane muffin wrapper she
00:13:51.620 lifts to her mouth with each bite. All of it goes to the lab, none of it
00:13:56.660 carries enough DNA to give them a profile. The operators also learn something else about
00:14:02.300 Stephanie's routine. If she does not come out at 5 a.m., she is off that day. On Thursday,
00:14:09.440 May 20th, she does not come outside at 5 a.m. A few hours later, the garage door goes up and
00:14:16.380 a van backs out. She's driving and her young daughter is in the back seat. Stephanie stops
00:14:22.060 for gas, then she drives to a Costco in Simi Valley. That is where Stephanie drops the Pepsi
00:14:27.880 cup and plastic straw into a trash bin beside the waiting undercover operator. Within seconds, 0.99
00:14:34.960 he has the cup out of the trash and inside a manila envelope. 15 seconds later, he is moving
00:14:40.780 it toward the crime lab. The next day, Friday, May 29th, the call finally comes. Jennifer Francis's
00:14:48.780 team tells Bub and Jim Nuttall that the DNA on the straw is the same DNA that was in the bite
00:14:55.720 mark on Sherry Rasmussen's arm. Twenty-three years after Sherry was murdered, detectives have their
00:15:03.440 match. Within hours, Bub and Nuttall are downtown, handing their four-month-old investigation to
00:15:10.240 Robbery Homicide, the LAPD unit that handles its most serious murder cases. Before the end of the
00:15:17.100 Today, Van Nuys' four homicide detectives are no longer running the investigation.
00:15:23.020 Robbery homicide has the case.
00:15:25.960 Robbery homicide sits on the third floor at Parker Center. 0.97
00:15:29.940 So does the art theft detail where Stephanie Lazarus works.
00:15:34.020 The two units sit across the hall from one another, sharing a water cooler.
00:15:38.980 Stephanie sometimes walks into the robbery homicide squad room just to fill her water bottle.
00:15:43.980 The two detectives assigned to arrest Stephanie are Greg Stearns and Dan Jaramillo.
00:15:50.260 They need to get her somewhere controlled, away from her desk and away from her gun.
00:15:55.520 They choose the jail division on the second floor of Parker Center.
00:15:59.940 Anyone entering the jail has to check their weapon at the door,
00:16:03.200 and even for an LAPD detective, there is nothing unusual about that.
00:16:08.120 Friday morning, June 5, 2009.
00:16:11.380 Stephanie is followed to work.
00:16:13.140 A few minutes after she sits down at her desk, Jaramillo comes over.
00:16:18.840 He tells her they've picked up an extortion suspect who said something about stolen art
00:16:23.440 and that he could use a second opinion.
00:16:26.140 You can kind of talk to him, he says.
00:16:27.880 You can see if he's for real.
00:16:29.700 Sure, she says.
00:16:31.260 They go down together.
00:16:33.160 At the jail door, Jaramillo checks his gun.
00:16:36.100 Stephanie tells him she left hers upstairs at her desk.
00:16:39.640 He walks her to an interview room.
00:16:42.220 Greg Stearns is waiting inside.
00:16:44.560 There is no extortion suspect.
00:16:46.980 They ask Stephanie to sit down.
00:16:49.620 On the table between them is a three-ring binder
00:16:51.980 with a tiny video camera hidden inside.
00:16:55.720 I don't want to bring this up in your squadron.
00:16:59.600 We've been assigned a case that we've been looking at.
00:17:01.480 It's a new case, and revealing the case,
00:17:04.400 there's some notes to see as far as your name being mentioned.
00:17:08.380 Do you know John Bruton?
00:17:09.780 John Bruton. John Rutten? Rutten. Oh yeah, I went to school with him. He says the name wrong
00:17:18.240 and Stephanie corrects him. She knows exactly who John Rutten is. But over the next hour and a half,
00:17:26.120 the details around John begin to blur. Whether she ever met the woman he married, when she last saw
00:17:32.660 John, what happened when. She may remember, she may not. It was a long time ago. Yeah,
00:17:39.420 oh, God, that's been a million years ago.
00:17:41.160 I mean, you know, what year is it now?
00:17:46.280 2009? I mean, I graduated in 82.
00:17:49.160 Stephanie says it was a million years ago,
00:17:51.520 five times every time she is talking about John.
00:17:56.100 More than once, when she cannot remember something,
00:17:58.600 she tells the detectives she would have to look at her pictures
00:18:01.420 to know for sure.
00:18:02.860 She keeps about 10,000 photographs.
00:18:05.820 The woman sitting across from Stearns and Jaramillo
00:18:08.760 is now 49 years old and has been an LAPD officer for 26 years.
00:18:14.960 She spent 18 months in internal affairs
00:18:17.720 investigating other police officers.
00:18:20.540 Her husband is also an LAPD detective.
00:18:23.700 And her daughter is the little girl
00:18:25.340 who sat beside her at Costco that afternoon
00:18:27.800 eating lunch with her mom
00:18:29.580 while detectives waited for Stephanie
00:18:31.940 to throw something in the trash.
00:18:34.880 The detectives ask about Stephanie's relationship with John.
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00:19:52.620 Let's go back to Los Angeles, 1978, at UCLA.
00:19:57.680 Stephanie Lazarus and John Rutten live on the 10th floor of Dykstra Hall,
00:20:02.420 part of a group of friends who stay close long after college.
00:20:06.360 Stephanie takes photographs constantly.
00:20:08.960 One of them is of John, asleep in his dorm room, wearing only his underwear.
00:20:14.560 She writes a caption on the photo,
00:20:16.060 John Rutten, 1979, Dykstra Hall.
00:20:19.640 I snuck in room and took the picture.
00:20:23.200 She keeps that photograph for 30 years.
00:20:27.240 John says that their relationship became sexual in the summer of 1981.
00:20:31.900 He estimates they had sex between 25 and 30 times over the next three years,
00:20:36.820 while each of them dated other people.
00:20:39.360 He does not describe Stephanie as his girlfriend.
00:20:42.340 His friends will later be shocked to hear it turned sexual at all.
00:20:46.620 John never talked that way about Stephanie,
00:20:49.080 though it was clear to all that she wanted more from John.
00:20:52.940 By the time they are out of college,
00:20:54.900 the relationship means more to Stephanie than it does to John.
00:20:58.180 Here's how she describes it.
00:21:00.180 It was kind of a weird relationship.
00:21:02.240 I mean, we dated.
00:21:05.200 I can't say that he was my boyfriend.
00:21:07.160 I don't know that he would consider me his girlfriend.
00:21:10.240 We just, we dated.
00:21:11.780 We did things.
00:21:12.480 I played sports in college.
00:21:13.660 He played basketball.
00:21:14.520 it just didn't work out. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. By 1984, Stephanie is out of
00:21:22.600 college and about to become an LAPD officer. On February 29th, 1984, Stephanie buys a backup gun. 0.90
00:21:31.340 It's common practice at the time for LA cops to carry a second firearm, and Stephanie is two days
00:21:36.500 away from graduation. She picks up a five-shot .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, snub-nosed,
00:21:43.320 easy to conceal, even in an ankle holster. Stephanie fills out a standard federal form
00:21:49.400 to buy the handgun. No one will give it a second thought for more than 25 years.
00:21:54.760 In the summer of 1984, John Rutten meets Sherry Rasmussen at a party. He falls for her instantly.
00:22:03.400 Before long, they're an item. In May of 1985, John asks Sherry to marry him, and she says yes.
00:22:10.500 A few weeks later, Stephanie calls John crying on the phone and asks him to come over.
00:22:17.020 He goes without telling Sherry.
00:22:19.960 Stephanie tells him she loves him, that she wants to be with him.
00:22:23.780 John tells her he is going to marry Sherry.
00:22:26.820 She asks him to sleep with her one last time.
00:22:30.540 John has sex with Stephanie that night and unleashes an obsession in her that will haunt many families for the rest of their lives.
00:22:38.580 A few weeks later, John moves in with Sherry at the condo on Balboa Boulevard.
00:22:45.400 He does not tell her about his interlude with Stephanie.
00:22:48.700 Shortly afterward, Stephanie begins crossing a new level of boundaries.
00:22:53.720 She goes to the hospital where Sherry works.
00:22:57.020 And yeah, I may have met her at a hospital.
00:22:59.540 I may have talked to her once or twice.
00:23:03.580 At a hospital?
00:23:04.700 Or more. I mean, that's kind of sounding familiar.
00:23:07.360 It should. Stephanie walks into Glendale Adventist Medical Center around lunchtime
00:23:14.020 and approaches the desk of Sherry's secretary, an older woman named Sylvia Nielsen. She asks
00:23:19.800 for Sherry but does not give her own name. Sylvia tells her Sherry's at lunch. Stephanie says she'll
00:23:25.880 wait and sits down in front of Sylvia. After a few minutes, Stephanie gets up and walks around and
00:23:32.380 then out into the hallway. She comes back with Sherry and they go into Sherry's office and Sherry
00:23:39.040 closes the door. When it opens again, Stephanie walks out. Sherry follows. She's clearly been 0.67
00:23:46.060 crying. She goes home in the middle of the workday. That evening, Sherry calls her parents
00:23:52.000 in Tucson. It is the first time she has ever mentioned John's ex-girlfriend to them.
00:23:57.880 Nell says his daughter told him that the woman came to Sherry's office uninvited,
00:24:02.560 dressed in a tight tube top and tight short shorts, that she was in excellent shape.
00:24:08.360 And what the woman said to Sherry's face was that if she could not have John, no one could, including Sherry.
00:24:17.120 When John gets home that night, Sherry is waiting for him.
00:24:21.060 She tells him Stephanie came to her workplace
00:24:23.520 and told her that the two of them had sex just weeks ago,
00:24:27.780 that she had known John a long time and knew what he wanted,
00:24:31.240 and that if the marriage failed,
00:24:32.680 she would be waiting to pick up the pieces.
00:24:35.340 And then Sherry tells John what she said back.
00:24:38.840 Don't worry, we won't be needing your services.
00:24:42.380 John Rutten tells his fiancée the truth,
00:24:45.860 that Stephanie called him crying,
00:24:47.400 that he went to her place, that they did have sex.
00:24:51.660 He tells her he made a terrible mistake and asks Sherry to forgive him.
00:24:56.640 She does.
00:24:58.040 They talk late into the night.
00:25:00.400 By the time they go to bed, the wedding is still on,
00:25:03.580 but a trail of destruction is heading their way.
00:25:06.980 John makes a decision about the other woman.
00:25:09.640 He will not call her and ask why she went to his fiancée's workplace
00:25:13.520 or tell her she was out of line or ask her to leave Sherry alone.
00:25:18.460 He will avoid her, ignore her.
00:25:22.120 He tells Sherry to let it lie.
00:25:24.200 He tells her it's done.
00:25:26.140 Sherry does, but her mother and father know Stephanie has threatened Sherry,
00:25:30.140 but they do not know her name.
00:25:32.980 Sherry, worried about her father's opinion of John,
00:25:35.620 does not tell him about the cheating.
00:25:37.280 on august 4th 1985 stephanie lazarus writes a letter to john's mother who had sent her some
00:25:45.900 photographs it opens with an apology the reason it has taken me so long to respond
00:25:52.100 is because i had to build up my courage i don't know when or if i'll ever see you and your family
00:25:58.260 again i'm truly in love with john and this past year has really torn me up i don't think i'll
00:26:04.280 ever understand John's decision. She mails the letter two days later. In November, Sherry
00:26:11.100 Rasmussen marries John Rutten. Three weeks later, Stephanie Lazarus receives a card from John's
00:26:18.840 mother. She writes in her diary, unfortunately, I got a card from Mrs. Rutten. This made me very,
00:26:25.860 very, very sad. Stephanie does not say what the card from Mrs. Rutten communicated. On December
00:26:32.920 16th john and sherry have a burglar alarm installed at their condo sherry's father is surprised but
00:26:39.720 does not ask her why before leaving for her honeymoon sherry shows her friend jane the
00:26:45.560 alarm panel by the front door and punches in the code one one two three well that's not very clever
00:26:53.400 says jane jane it's our wedding anniversary the next month in january 1986 sherry tells her parents
00:27:02.600 that john's ex-girlfriend entered their home uninvited sherry worked from home that morning
00:27:09.080 came downstairs and found the woman standing in her living room she does not know how she
00:27:14.840 got inside nels says sherry should involve john that he should tell his ex-girlfriend no sherry
00:27:22.840 responds john doesn't have the will to stand up to her nels is getting concerned on february 24th
00:27:30.360 in that same living room sherry rasmussen is beaten bitten and shot three times in the chest
00:27:37.480 her purse is stolen and later returned with one item missing her marriage license
00:27:44.280 the next morning february 25th 1986 by their own accounts sherry's husband and father both
00:27:52.280 tell detectives to look into john's ex-girlfriend the one with the lapd nels later says he mentions
00:27:59.160 her at least three times and that mayor finally snaps at him there's nothing there when detectives
00:28:05.640 walk john through the crime scene he says they mention a bite mark on sherry's arm they mention
00:28:11.480 that it could be from a woman women bite a detective says he tells them stephanie's name
00:28:17.720 and that she had confronted sherry at the hospital here is john rutton describing that conversation
00:28:24.280 i know that she went to go see sherry and i know that she was upset you know that we weren't going
00:28:28.920 to have the relationship that's the reason for identifying her so that's the reason i identified
00:28:33.720 her 23 years ago one of my concerns is that that was never you know appears to be recorded john
00:28:41.160 gives police two interviews on the 25th neither one is taped neither leads to a note in the murder
00:28:47.880 book that mentions stephanie lazarus years later john will say he asked the police about stephanie
00:28:54.680 again and received a curt response. He says, quote, they said we've eliminated that possibility,
00:29:02.680 something to that effect. Detective Lyle Mayer disputes all of this. He says he would have
00:29:09.480 followed up on Stephanie's name if he had it. He retired still believing Sherry was killed by
00:29:15.020 burglars. Nell says he raised it repeatedly. And John says he told police that Sherry had found
00:29:22.000 his ex-girlfriend standing in their living room. Mayer disputes that as well. Quote,
00:29:27.000 that is an absolute bullshit lie. He never told me that. No way. We'd have been all over her. 1.00
00:29:33.740 We'd have arrested her for burglary. That would have been the greatest clue going.
00:29:38.260 So is an embarrassed detective lying or is a family embellishing the leads they gave police?
00:29:45.760 The day Sherry Rasmussen is killed is Stephanie's fourth straight day off from work.
00:29:52.000 She reports for duty at 7.30 a.m. on Tuesday, the 25th.
00:29:56.540 There is no way to know, years later, if she had any visible scratches or injuries on her.
00:30:02.980 Twelve days after that, she reports her backup gun stolen in Santa Monica.
00:30:07.940 She buys a replacement just over a week later, another .38 from the same gun store.
00:30:13.680 Sherry Rasmussen was shot with a .38.
00:30:16.080 in November of 1987 more than a year and a half after the murder Stephanie's name appears in the
00:30:24.840 murder book there is a note in the case log dated November 19th John Rutten called verified Stephanie
00:30:33.120 Lazarus PO was former girlfriend the note is sandwiched between details about press conferences
00:30:40.440 with the Rasmussen family.
00:30:42.600 It is the only written mention of Stephanie Lazarus
00:30:45.100 for decades.
00:30:47.300 Lyle Mayer retires from the LAPD in September of 1991.
00:30:52.720 Steve Fisk takes up the case.
00:30:55.140 He does not recall ever speaking with Mayer about it.
00:30:59.000 Sherry's family says they speak with Fisk
00:31:00.900 at the Van Nuys station in the early 90s.
00:31:03.360 They ask for DNA testing and pay a parking ticket.
00:31:07.900 Fisk does not note this meeting in the case log.
00:31:11.140 He does note that he contacts the Rasmussons in 1997.
00:31:15.400 When detectives show him that entry years later, Fisk tells them, quote,
00:31:19.540 there was no mention of an involved police officer.
00:31:23.040 Absolutely no mention.
00:31:24.900 Bells and whistles would have gone off.
00:31:26.880 That would have been a big deal.
00:31:29.680 In February 2009, Jim Nuttall finds the November 1987 entry
00:31:35.320 referencing Stephanie's name in the murder book.
00:31:38.120 He does not know what P.O. stands for.
00:31:42.400 He finds out on February 10th when John Rutten says out loud that Stephanie Lazarus is a Los Angeles police officer.
00:31:51.940 June 5th, the jail interview room at Parker Center.
00:31:56.260 Jaramillo asks Stephanie Lazarus a housekeeping question.
00:32:00.300 Did the detectives ever reach out to you?
00:32:03.200 No, no one's ever talked to me. I don't think anybody ever talked to me about about him.
00:32:07.080 It seems like back then you would have been in it.
00:32:09.080 Well, I'm thinking that I did talk to a detective.
00:32:17.740 God.
00:32:19.660 Well, what division was it?
00:32:22.100 In Van Nuys.
00:32:25.400 And where was I working?
00:32:29.360 1986.
00:32:30.840 I would have been working in Devonshire.
00:32:32.360 you know i'm thinking that i did speak to somebody oh really i couldn't tell you who it
00:32:39.980 was because it doesn't it doesn't say it was probably on the phone um would it have been
00:32:46.060 somebody in regards to this or just yeah there is no record in sherry rasmussen's murder book
00:32:52.060 that any detective ever contacted stephanie lazarus for decades there was only stephanie's
00:32:58.620 name one time and P.O. Detective Greg Stearns asks about Stephanie's cars. Has she ever had one
00:33:06.320 stolen? Hey, I don't think any of my cars had ever been stolen. No. My cars haven't been stolen.
00:33:14.180 Broken into. None of that, huh? Oh, yeah. My cars have been broken into.
00:33:20.640 Did you ever lose anything? Yeah. Now that you mention it, let's see.
00:33:29.400 I had a gun that was stolen. I had other stuff that was stolen.
00:33:34.560 Not your duty gun, was it? No.
00:33:37.100 That's good. Has it ever recovered?
00:33:40.860 I don't know. No, I don't think so. Not that I know of.
00:33:44.160 She brings up the gun herself. No one has asked about it.
00:33:48.300 The .38 revolver she reported stolen in 1986 has never been recovered.
00:33:54.900 An hour and a half into the interview, Jaramillo tells Stephanie that Sherry's friends remember trouble between the two women.
00:34:02.480 He asks whether she ever fought with Sherry, and he asks her for a DNA swab.
00:34:08.740 Maybe, because now, now, now, now I'm thinking I probably need to talk to a lawyer.
00:34:16.160 okay I mean well I because I know how this stuff works okay don't get me wrong you're right I have
00:34:22.120 been doing this a long time yeah and I wish I had been recording this because because now it sounds
00:34:26.880 like you know there's you know you're selling these people say I'm fighting with her and now
00:34:32.340 it sounds like you're trying to you know I've been doing this a long time yeah we know okay
00:34:36.940 and and now it almost sounds like you're trying to pin something on me now I got that sense
00:34:42.140 Jaramillo tells her they may have DNA from the crime scene
00:34:45.360 and that her name is in the murder book.
00:34:48.800 They have to look.
00:34:50.680 Twice the detectives tell Stephanie she's free to leave.
00:34:54.280 She stays.
00:34:55.680 I just can't even believe it.
00:34:57.800 I mean, it's just, I mean, I'm shocked.
00:35:00.700 I'm really shocked that somebody would be saying that I did this. 0.96
00:35:04.300 I mean, we had a fight, so I went and killed her. 0.98
00:35:06.480 I mean, come on. 0.94
00:35:08.000 Then Stephanie Lazarus stands up. 0.98
00:35:10.100 thanks the two detectives for their courtesy and walks out of the room she
00:35:15.340 gets as far as the hallway okay okay Stephanie you know you have the right
00:35:28.020 to remain silent do you understand yes anything you say may be used against you
00:35:32.220 in court do you understand yes you want to talk to us right now all right okay
00:35:37.980 This is crazy. This is happening.
00:35:40.980 I'm like in shock. I'm totally in shock.
00:35:44.520 They had the DNA match a week before she sat down.
00:35:49.240 23 years after Sherry Rasmussen is murdered,
00:35:52.640 the police have their woman.
00:35:55.360 Stephanie Lazarus is under arrest.
00:35:58.220 Now they have to convince a jury that she's responsible.
00:36:02.300 I'm Megan Kelly.
00:36:03.780 Next time on MK Confidential, 0.99
00:36:06.880 Stephanie Lazarus goes on trial for murder while drawing an LAPD pension.
00:36:12.600 And after a jury answers who killed Sherry Rasmussen, another question remains.
00:36:17.520 Why did the police take 23 years to find her?