The Megyn Kelly Show - ＂Fatal Attraction＂ - The Murder of Sherri Rasmussen： The FULL MK Confidential Series

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00:00:30.760 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:42.440 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show in our weekend mega episode.

00:00:47.420 Oh, this is a good one today. It's our full series on the Sherry Rasmussen story,

00:00:52.680 which we are calling Fatal Attraction. I've gotten so many text messages about this case.

00:00:57.640 friends who have seen this story told elsewhere, who learned so many brand new facts. Our crack

00:01:03.100 research team does such a good job finding the obscure but interesting things around stories

00:01:09.260 like this. So we're going to get into the murder, the arrest after the case had gone cold, and an

00:01:14.940 exclusive interview with two of Sherry's sisters. Well, she only had two, and they're both with us.

00:01:20.120 Enjoy, and we will see you Monday.

00:01:26.060 It is around 12 o'clock on a Monday in Van Nuys, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, 1986.

00:01:34.400 Retiree Anastasia Volanaitis is at home in her condo, where she and her husband Gus have lived for many years just doing chores, enjoying her day.

00:01:44.140 She looks up and sees out the window two Hispanic men in work clothes crossing the driveway.

00:01:50.120 coming toward her house. They look like gardeners. The men knock on her door, and when she answers, 0.99

00:01:56.800 Anastasia sees one of them is carrying a brown leather woman's purse. The men don't speak any

00:02:03.140 English, only Spanish. After a few attempts to communicate, one of the men just hands Anastasia

00:02:09.760 the purse. She looks inside of it, finds a wallet, and in the wallet, a driver's license. Anastasia

00:02:16.780 knows the face in the picture. The young woman from unit 205, directly across their shared

00:02:23.460 driveway. Her name is Sherry something. Her eyes dart over to the name on the license.

00:02:29.920 Sherry Rasmussen, 29 years old. Right, the nurse. She's a newlywed. Anastasia hands the purse back 0.74

00:02:38.940 to the Hispanic man and points him towards Sherry's condo just across the way. Within five minutes,

00:02:44.520 the men are back, purse still in hand. No one answered at Unit 205. Anastasia takes the purse

00:02:51.980 from the men. She can return it later when her neighbor is home. But her neighbor is home.

00:02:59.000 Sherry has been lying in her favorite bathrobe on her living room floor, dead, since earlier that

00:03:04.700 morning, her face beaten and smeared with blood. Six more hours pass before anyone finds Sherry.

00:03:12.520 Outside, the condo complex moves through a normal Monday.

00:03:16.060 Cars come and go through the gate.

00:03:18.100 Neighbors leave and return.

00:03:19.860 School pickups, groceries, a stop at the pharmacy.

00:03:23.920 Inside Sherry's home, the refrigerator hums, clicks off, and starts again.

00:03:28.760 On a chair nearby sits a quilt Sherry's grandmother made for her,

00:03:32.420 with sleeves sewn into it so she could wear it around the house when she got cold.

00:03:37.060 Then the phone rings.

00:03:38.280 It is Sherry's sister, Teresa, calling during her break at work.

00:03:43.080 Teresa leaves a message and says she'll try again later.

00:03:46.740 At 5 p.m., Sherry's husband, John, leaves work.

00:03:50.000 On the way home, he stops for the dry cleaning and picks up a package at UPS.

00:03:54.360 Ordinary errands at the end of what he thinks is an ordinary Monday.

00:03:59.480 And all this time, Sherry is there, lying alone on the living room floor,

00:04:05.140 One eye open and unblinking, the other swollen shut.

00:04:09.880 At 6 o'clock, John arrives home.

00:04:12.920 Later that night, he tells police what he saw when he walked inside.

00:04:16.820 I mean, it's right in front of me.

00:04:18.020 When I walk in the door, I saw her lying on the ground.

00:04:21.320 I knew right away that she was dead.

00:04:25.000 Before the night is over, a Los Angeles police detective will stand in John and Sherry's living room

00:04:30.260 and decide he knows exactly what happened there.

00:04:33.060 he will write it down and he will be very wrong. The truth will remain hidden for 23 years.

00:04:41.760 I'm Megan Kelly and this is MK Confidential.

00:04:46.960 Let's go back to the start of the day Sherry is killed. Monday, February 24th, 1986. John Rutten

00:04:53.800 wakes a little before seven in the Van Nuys condo he shares with his wife of three months, Sherry.

00:04:59.160 She has lived there for more than five years.

00:05:02.000 John moved in last summer.

00:05:04.100 That morning, Sherry stays in bed.

00:05:06.240 She's thinking of calling in sick, and she asks John to call her later in the day.

00:05:11.280 John showers, dresses, and takes the stairs inside the condo down to their garage.

00:05:17.240 720 is when I left.

00:05:18.840 I got to work about 10 to 8.

00:05:22.780 John slides into his new Mazda RX-7 coupe,

00:05:26.000 backs out of the garage, and watches the door come down behind him.

00:05:30.720 Sherry's silver BMW, a 1985 318i, is still parked inside.

00:05:37.200 That is the last time John Rutten sees his wife alive.

00:05:41.680 Across the shared driveway, Anastasia Volonitis and her husband Gus pull out around 8.30 a.m.

00:05:48.180 They are true Angelenos and drive a few miles to a golf course to then take their walk.

00:05:54.180 On the way out, the couple pass Unit 205. The garage door is closed. About an hour later,

00:06:01.340 around 9.30 a.m., Gus drops Anastasia off near a neighbor's house for an errand. And as Anastasia

00:06:08.520 walks back to her condo, she passes Unit 205. She notices the garage door is now open. An hour

00:06:16.320 earlier, Sherry's silver BMW was inside. Now the garage is empty. It's 9.45 in the morning.

00:06:24.180 In Unit 206, on the other side of Sherry's wall, a housekeeper is cleaning.

00:06:29.940 She has cleaned this unit every Monday for about two years.

00:06:34.040 A few hours into the morning, the housekeeper hears a heavy thud through the wall.

00:06:38.780 She goes to a window and looks outside.

00:06:41.300 Nothing seems wrong.

00:06:43.320 As she turns away, the thud comes again.

00:06:46.580 Then a scream tears through the wall.

00:06:49.040 No words, just one long sound.

00:06:52.220 Then it stops.

00:06:53.700 She checks another window, still nothing.

00:06:57.300 She shrugs to herself and goes back to work.

00:07:01.040 All day, people who love her try to reach Sherry.

00:07:04.540 At 10 a.m., her younger sister Teresa takes a break at work and calls Sherry's office, as she often does.

00:07:10.960 In 2020, she told Dateline what happened on this particular Monday.

00:07:15.460 And her secretary said that she was homesick, so I called her at home after that.

00:07:23.000 Sherry's answering machine picks up.

00:07:25.160 Teresa leaves a message. 0.81

00:07:27.440 The two Hispanic men bring Sherry's purse to Anastasia around noon.

00:07:32.140 Anastasia takes it, planning to return it later.

00:07:35.420 That afternoon, John calls the hospital and cannot reach Sherry or her secretary.

00:07:40.140 He's not worried, just mildly annoyed.

00:07:42.740 He assumes she went in late and forgot to call him back.

00:07:46.060 Later, Peggy Daly, a head nurse and one of Sherry's closest friends, calls her house.

00:07:52.200 She also gets the machine.

00:07:54.920 At 5.30, Teresa gets home from work and calls her mother in Tucson.

00:07:59.920 Has anyone heard from Sherry?

00:08:01.800 At 6 o'clock p.m., John Rutten comes home.

00:08:06.260 The garage door is all the way up.

00:08:08.940 Sherry's car is gone.

00:08:10.660 Broken glass lies across the pavement outside.

00:08:14.200 John parks, lifts the dry cleaning from the passenger seat,

00:08:17.280 and starts up the short staircase from the garage.

00:08:19.660 At the top of the stairs is the door into the condo with a push-button lock.

00:08:25.300 That morning, John had pushed the button and heard the door catch behind him.

00:08:30.020 Now it is open.

00:08:32.340 There are flecks of blood on the wall beside the stairs, but John does not see them.

00:08:37.240 At the top, he steps into the tiled entryway, and he sees Sherry on the living room floor.

00:08:45.300 Rob Bubb is a retired LAPD homicide detective.

00:08:49.660 He comes to the case more than 20 years later and reconstructs what John saw when he came through that door.

00:08:55.800 He opens the door, looks inside and sees his wife, Sherry Rasmussen.

00:09:01.760 She's lying on her back in the middle of the living room, wearing essentially what he had left her wearing that morning when he went to work. 0.91

00:09:09.660 The living room is a disaster.

00:09:12.520 A shelf has come down from the entertainment unit.

00:09:15.320 A corded phone and pieces of a broken vase lie on the carpet near her.

00:09:19.660 A drawer from an end table has been pulled out and emptied onto the floor.

00:09:24.980 John touches Sherry's calf.

00:09:27.320 It is cold.

00:09:28.800 He feels for a pulse.

00:09:30.700 Nothing.

00:09:32.260 Sherry's face is so badly injured that John does not notice the three gunshot wounds in her chest or the bite mark on her arm.

00:09:41.280 He calls 911.

00:09:43.160 Then John takes a hand towel and covers his wife's face.

00:09:46.860 He cannot bear to look at her this way.

00:09:49.440 Paramedics arrive and pronounce Sherry dead at 6.10 p.m.

00:09:53.920 In Tucson, Sherry's parents are asleep when the phone rings.

00:09:57.680 It is close to one in the morning.

00:09:59.640 They will later express their resentment that John did not call them sooner.

00:10:04.680 Sherry's father, Nels, gets out of bed and answers.

00:10:08.420 It is John's father calling him.

00:10:11.380 John does not deliver the news himself.

00:10:14.200 Nels begins calling his daughters.

00:10:16.980 First Teresa, then Connie.

00:10:19.080 Both remembered the calls to NBC in 2020.

00:10:22.380 Answered the phone and dad told me that she had been killed.

00:10:35.200 And I sat up and screamed in bed.

00:10:38.540 It was close to midnight by the time I heard.

00:10:41.420 And then I started screaming.

00:10:43.800 By morning, they are all on their way to Los Angeles.

00:10:47.760 Sherry Rasmussen was the middle kid of three girls.

00:10:50.880 She grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where her father, Nels, had a dental practice and her mother, Loretta, ran the front office.

00:10:57.500 As a little girl, Sherry was what her dad called a mama's girl.

00:11:01.340 Nels could promise her anything and she would not get in that car unless Loretta was coming too. 0.80

00:11:06.800 Then Sherry got to school. 1.00

00:11:09.160 Her sister Teresa says that Sherry was so ahead of her class

00:11:12.360 that her kindergarten teacher used to use her as an assistant at just five years old.

00:11:18.360 Sherry skipped seventh grade.

00:11:20.640 By the end of her junior year of high school, she had finished the classes needed to graduate.

00:11:25.740 So at 16, she left Tucson for Loma Linda University in California.

00:11:30.640 By 23, she had a master's degree in nursing from UCLA.

00:11:35.700 At 26, she was supervising an 80-bed critical care division at UCLA Medical Center.

00:11:42.080 A year later, Glendale Adventist Medical Center hired her to run critical care nursing.

00:11:47.700 She was 27 years old, younger than most of the nurses she supervised.

00:11:52.980 At Glendale Adventist, Sherry was management now.

00:11:56.860 She wore business clothes to work, but still put a white lab coat over them.

00:12:01.820 Her dad had wanted her to go to medical school.

00:12:04.760 Nels told Sherry more than once she would make a phenomenal doctor.

00:12:09.200 Sherry thought seriously about medical school,

00:12:11.560 but she told her younger sister, Teresa, there was something else she wanted more, a family.

00:12:17.740 She worried becoming a doctor might mean giving that up.

00:12:21.680 Sherry's priority was always her family. 0.98

00:12:24.620 She was the middle, a sister, and she was a clown. 0.98

00:12:30.740 If everything got too serious, she would make everybody laugh. 0.90

00:12:33.920 She had a very unique little giggle.

00:12:36.920 Sherry was all about family.

00:12:39.920 Sherry was our glue.

00:12:42.920 She kept us all together.

00:12:45.920 She always wished us.

00:12:46.920 I would have never learned how to snow ski,

00:12:48.920 except for she drug us all to Taos, New Mexico, 0.96

00:12:51.920 to learn how to snow ski.

00:12:53.920 Even now that she's gone,

00:12:54.920 I think she forces me to be a better person.

00:12:58.920 Sherry Rasmussen turned 29 on February 7th, 1986.

00:13:04.600 17 days later, she is dead on her living room floor.

00:13:09.580 She has been shot three times in the chest.

00:13:12.720 One of the shots is fired with the muzzle pressed against her body.

00:13:16.000 The skin around the wound is blistered.

00:13:18.620 There is black soot inside it.

00:13:21.020 One of her fingers has black soot on it too, 0.87

00:13:23.760 indicating she may have tried to block the gun.

00:13:27.440 Her face has been badly beaten.

00:13:30.440 And on the inside of her left forearm is an oval bite mark,

00:13:34.900 deep and distinct enough that a forensic dentist believes

00:13:37.920 it could be compared to the teeth of a suspect.

00:13:41.520 Here's retired LAPD homicide detective Rob Bubb,

00:13:45.280 who later reconstructed the scene talking with Dateline in 2020.

00:13:49.040 The blunt force trauma injuries were particularly disturbing.

00:13:54.140 The right side of her face, her eye, was swollen and blackened.

00:13:58.180 She was actually pistol-whipped possibly two times.

00:14:01.660 A stereo speaker had fallen down, was very near her head.

00:14:05.840 There were two fingernails near the front door and a clothesline or a small, thin rope also near the front door of the apartment.

00:14:15.020 On her left inner forearm, it was very obvious.

00:14:18.280 It wasn't just small impressions.

00:14:19.820 They were red and raw. 0.59

00:14:21.960 Later, the medical examiner will find marks on Sherry's wrists consistent with that rope.

00:14:27.680 It looks like someone tried to bind her.

00:14:30.700 There are smears of blood across the entryway wall, up the closet door, on the light switch, over the floor, and the door leading down to the garage as well.

00:14:40.580 Low on the wall beside that door is a bloody handprint, 13 inches off the floor.

00:14:47.760 The palm is lower than the fingers.

00:14:50.160 Three days later, a fingerprint analyst photographs that handprint.

00:14:53.980 A week after that, the analysis confirms.

00:14:56.780 It matches Sherry's left hand.

00:14:59.860 Upstairs, off the kitchen, two bullets have passed through a floor-length white drape

00:15:05.000 and shattered the sliding glass door behind it.

00:15:08.360 Most of the glass fell onto the balcony.

00:15:10.940 Some dropped to the driveway below.

00:15:13.140 That's the broken glass John saw when he came home.

00:15:15.980 Beyond the bullet holes on the second floor and the chaotic mess on the first,

00:15:21.760 detectives find a few specific items that explain the lead-up to the violence.

00:15:26.360 At the base of the stairs in the entryway, directly facing the front door,

00:15:30.600 lies a VCR with a disc player stacked on top.

00:15:34.840 The power cords for both lay haphazardly on the floor.

00:15:38.400 They look like someone put them together for a quick carry-out,

00:15:41.640 but left before they got the chance.

00:15:44.820 Rodney Forrest is one of the first LAPD officers to arrive at the condo.

00:15:50.380 The stacked up electronics immediately stand out, as he later tells ABC.

00:15:55.780 I do remember there was electronic stereo equipment right here that I saw when I came in.

00:16:03.020 And that suggested to me that it was possibly a burglary and a burglary interrupted.

00:16:10.160 I put this together with the stereo equipment stacked over here, and it seemed to me that she could have struggled with the burglar, and she obviously lost that fight.

00:16:24.980 Sherry's purse is missing and everything in it.

00:16:28.380 So is her new BMW.

00:16:30.800 Within 30 minutes of John discovering Sherry's body, the LAPD assigns two detectives to the case.

00:16:37.940 The first is homicide detective and Medal of Valor recipient Lyle Mayer.

00:16:44.000 Earlier in his career, Mayer broke down a hotel room door to save a man from burning to death.

00:16:49.760 The LAPD awarded him with its highest honor for his actions.

00:16:53.880 By the time he's called to the Sherry Rasmussen case, Mayer has been investigating homicides for 10 years, with more than 20 served in the LAPD.

00:17:03.900 Mayer's regular partner is off-duty the day Sherry is found,

00:17:07.800 so he's joined by a young burglary detective, Steve Hooks.

00:17:11.980 Hooks has led roughly 150 burglary investigations in his eight years on the force.

00:17:17.440 As for homicide, he's assisted on a few.

00:17:21.360 This is the first case Mayer and Hooks will work together.

00:17:25.060 When Mayer and Hooks arrive at John and Sherry's condo,

00:17:28.600 John is standing outside.

00:17:30.620 Mayer spends about an hour examining the crime scene,

00:17:34.100 then asks John to come down to the Van Nuys police station for an interview.

00:17:38.720 John agrees.

00:17:40.220 At 9 o'clock p.m., Mayer starts a tape recorder.

00:17:44.120 John is the first to discover Sherry's body and likely the last to see her alive,

00:17:48.800 aside from whoever killed her.

00:17:51.180 Mayer needs to know whether they can eliminate John as a suspect.

00:17:54.920 As they go through the interview,

00:17:56.540 mayor tells john that he's usually a pretty good judge of character and is fairly certain that john

00:18:02.820 has absolutely nothing to do with this and he gives john his explanation for what happened to

00:18:09.360 sherry i believe your house was burglarized today sometime before 10 a.m i believe they got in your

00:18:18.180 front door by prying open the front door i believe they were trying to steal your stereo on probably

00:18:24.480 some other items mayor says he believes the burglars did not know sherry was home she hears

00:18:30.560 the commotion comes down to the kitchen and surprises them one of them does run the other

00:18:37.040 fights they fight down the stairs into the entryway and into the living room there he kills her

00:18:44.080 shoots her mayor says then with his getaway driver gone sherry's killer leaves the electronics

00:18:50.640 and makes off with her engagement gift from her husband the bmw mayor's theory comes from more

00:18:57.200 than just the condo los angeles is experiencing a massive murder surge sherry rasmussen is

00:19:04.640 murdered in february by the end of december 1986 more than 800 people will have been killed within

00:19:11.760 la city limits and the police can feel it one officer retired lapd captain anita ortega

00:19:19.440 Describe the atmosphere to ABC in 2024.

00:19:22.980 Anyone that worked in the city of Los Angeles, they knew that they were going to have their hands filled.

00:19:27.500 It was out of control.

00:19:29.100 The city had spent the previous summer under the threat of a serial killer known as the Night Stalker,

00:19:35.020 who invaded homes and brutalized the women inside, killing more than a dozen.

00:19:40.500 Here's journalist Leo Stallworth, also to ABC.

00:19:44.380 It was a dark period in our history.

00:19:47.280 People were terrified to leave their homes.

00:19:50.340 Detective Lyle Mayer has been working homicides in this city for over a decade

00:19:54.380 and has seen the rising chaos.

00:19:57.320 In this environment, the idea that Sherry died at the hands of a surprise burglar

00:20:01.080 makes perfect sense.

00:20:03.440 That does not make it true.

00:20:06.060 One piece of physical evidence flies in the face of the burglary theory.

00:20:11.220 On top of the electronics stacked at the base of the stairs near the front door

00:20:14.900 is a fingerprint, a bloody fingerprint. The blood is the first key. Whoever left it touched the disc

00:20:23.400 player after the fight with Sherry. Given the intensity of the fight and that the disc player

00:20:29.640 is intact, not smashed like the vase, this must have happened after Sherry was killed.

00:20:36.000 At that point, why would a burglar grab the disc player and likely the VCR with it

00:20:40.400 and then leave them behind.

00:20:42.960 Burglars caught in the act typically drop what they're holding and run.

00:20:46.320 This one stayed to fight, then abandoned the prize.

00:20:50.760 The blood suggests a sequence of events that does not line up with the burglary.

00:20:55.500 And the fingerprint?

00:20:57.260 According to Detective Rob Bubb, the print itself never enters the case.

00:21:03.060 He explains to Dateline NBC in 2020.

00:21:06.680 Unfortunately, it was never recovered.

00:21:09.100 No one lifted it, no one tested it, no one booked the stereo component into evidence.

00:21:14.460 It was lost for time.

00:21:16.700 The bloody fingerprint is not even closely photographed.

00:21:20.440 The blood is not sampled.

00:21:21.980 It's unclear why.

00:21:24.020 The bloody fingerprint is noted in reports and remembered by responding officers, but that's it.

00:21:30.540 The disc player and the VCR are left at the scene.

00:21:34.500 Some of the strongest physical evidence against the burglar theory does not enter evidence at all.

00:21:40.960 Responding officer Forrest sees a different issue with the burglar theory, this one based on target selection.

00:21:48.380 He shares his concerns with ABC in 2024.

00:21:51.200 I thought to myself, this is a burglar?

00:21:57.060 Burglars don't usually pick a place to buy condos from the street.

00:22:01.680 they want to get away they pick something next to the street they don't want to be seen

00:22:08.560 it's just strange that they would pick this place author and journalist matthew mcguff

00:22:16.240 who covered the case for more than a decade says the burglars ransacked odd places and ignored the

00:22:22.960 obvious ones here he is speaking to dateline in 2020. if you're looking for valuables are you

00:22:30.000 Are you going to look in a junk drawer in the living room?

00:22:33.180 Sherry had a jewelry box that was undisturbed.

00:22:37.460 Sherry's purse, one of the few items of value actually missing from the home,

00:22:42.100 is returned to neighbor Anastasia Volanaitis the same day she is murdered.

00:22:47.720 On the night of the 24th, her BMW is still missing.

00:22:51.680 Police find her BMW 11 days later,

00:22:55.460 unlocked and abandoned on a residential street with the keys in the ignition.

00:23:01.180 The car's radio and other parts still intact, and it seemed totally undamaged.

00:23:07.440 Mayer described the neighborhood where it is found as, quote,

00:23:10.220 a very, very, very bad old area.

00:23:13.400 The detectives working the case take the car's location as further support for the burglar theory,

00:23:17.580 but the obvious questions about it being intact and undisturbed go unanswered.

00:23:24.880 Police never find out where the car had been for those 11 days since Sherry was murdered.

00:23:31.360 Tuesday, February 25th, the morning after his wife is shot,

00:23:36.780 John Rutten arrives at the Van Nuys police station for a 10 a.m. interview.

00:23:41.660 It is not recorded and earns a single line in the day of report,

00:23:46.240 re-interviewed deceased's husband.

00:23:49.760 Three months later, the detectives expand on that in a follow-up report, quote,

00:23:53.680 There were no changes in his account of what happened.

00:23:57.440 It appeared as though John was truthful and he obviously was still in shock over the death of his wife.

00:24:03.380 At 10.30 on day two, Mayor and Hooks take John back to the condo to see what, if anything, is missing.

00:24:11.280 Sherry's body is gone.

00:24:13.140 The bloodstain is still in the living room carpet.

00:24:16.780 Upstairs, the shattered glass door has not been repaired and is still wide open to the air.

00:24:21.340 no cardboard, no duct tape, nothing. The walkthrough of the crime scene is not recorded.

00:24:27.940 Three months later, the three-ring binder that LAPD detectives use to document a homicide

00:24:33.400 investigation known as a murder book gives it a single line summary. John could identify nothing

00:24:40.780 missing inside the condo except Sherry's purse and its contents. Also missing is their marriage

00:24:48.380 license. While John is back inside the condo with Mayer and Hooks that Tuesday morning,

00:24:54.740 Sherry's parents, Nels and Loretta Rasmussen, are still trying to get to Los Angeles.

00:24:59.880 They have been awake all night. They take the first flight they can get out of Tucson.

00:25:04.040 It stops in Phoenix. After takeoff, something goes wrong with an engine and the plane turns

00:25:09.520 back for an emergency landing. Nels and Loretta barely notice. When the plane lands and everyone

00:25:16.400 is ordered off they remain sitting in their seats until a flight attendant comes down the aisle to

00:25:21.040 get them they just want to get to los angeles the flight attendant walks them to another gate

00:25:26.720 and nels and loretta make the next flight at lax they meet their daughter connie rent a car

00:25:32.880 skip the hotel and drive straight to van nuys by around noon they are at the police station

00:25:39.360 roughly 18 hours have passed since john found sherry's body and her family knows almost nothing

00:25:45.840 about what the police have found nels and loretta give their names at the front desk

00:25:50.880 an officer calls upstairs to homicide they wait finally a man comes out of an interview room and

00:25:58.080 john is behind him the man is detective lyle mayor later when mayor finishes meeting with

00:26:04.320 nelson loretta he gives sherry's sister theresa his business card and tells her to call him if

00:26:09.680 she has any questions or any information that might help the family keeps detective mayor's card

00:26:16.400 for years they remember it going soft at the edges from being handled so often from the beginning

00:26:23.440 mayor had made a promise he made it to john on tape that first night we're going to catch these

00:26:29.600 persons or this person current you got to have a little faith in me we're very successful at what

00:26:35.680 we do very very successful they do not catch anyone not that year not that decade not for 23

00:26:45.600 years before we leave the night sherry died there is one more thing to see it is just after midnight

00:26:53.920 john rutton's first interview with detectives is over he sits in the hallway and waits he sobs

00:27:00.480 quietly. Around him, radio dispatchers call out addresses and codes. Phones ring and ring until

00:27:07.500 whoever is calling gives up. John's parents are driving up from San Diego. Sherry's parents still

00:27:14.480 do not know. John cannot bring himself to make the call to tell them their daughter is dead.

00:27:21.480 Back at the condo, Sherry is still lying on the living room floor. Two men from the Los Angeles

00:27:27.520 County Coroner's Office pull up at the condo and walk in with their evidence kits. Walter Rainey

00:27:33.180 is an investigator. Lloyd Mahaney is a senior criminalist. This is their second homicide of

00:27:40.260 the night. Their first was a woman found dead in the back seat of a locked yellow Ford Pinto

00:27:46.000 in a Panorama City parking lot. Mahaney and Rainey are working that scene when word comes

00:27:52.840 another body is waiting in Van Nuys. Lloyd Mahaney has a reputation at the coroner's office.

00:27:59.940 He does not improvise. He collects evidence in the same order every time and writes down every step.

00:28:07.580 Trace evidence first. Fibers from Sherry's robe. Hairs from around her neck. Each sample goes into

00:28:15.100 its own envelope labeled by hand, sealed with evidence tape and Mahaney's initials written

00:28:20.780 across the seal. Mahaney opens a sexual assault kit, lays out its contents neatly on the carpet

00:28:27.940 near Sherry's head. Swab tubes, slide envelopes, a coroner's checklist. He works through it one

00:28:35.540 item at a time. Then Mahaney sees something on the inside of Sherry's left forearm, a bite mark.

00:28:44.760 Mahaney carries spare swabs for exactly this purpose. If he sees a bite, he swabs it.

00:28:50.780 Blood might belong to the victim.

00:28:53.760 Saliva left behind in a bite mark probably does not.

00:28:58.480 He reaches into his kit.

00:29:00.880 The tube he takes out is clear plastic, roughly the size and thickness of a cigar.

00:29:06.200 A red cap screws onto the top.

00:29:09.020 Attached beneath it are two cotton-tipped wooden sticks.

00:29:13.280 Tiny holes in the bottom of the tube allow the swabs to air dry.

00:29:17.360 Mahaney wets them with distilled water,

00:29:20.120 then runs one across the upper teeth impression,

00:29:22.660 the other across the lower.

00:29:25.400 He screws the red cap back on and labels the tube.

00:29:29.840 Left arm, bite mark, his initials, and the date.

00:29:35.100 Case number 86-2676.

00:29:39.640 Then the tube goes into a fresh evidence envelope.

00:29:43.520 On the front, Rasmussen Sherry.

00:29:46.520 swabbed bite mark left arm and the time 206 am lloyd mahaney seals it no one in that room knows

00:29:55.640 what this swab will one day be able to tell them in 1986 dna testing is not yet available to criminal

00:30:03.480 investigators saliva can be tested for blood type useful for excluding someone maybe for

00:30:10.280 narrowing the field, but nothing close to what DNA will eventually make possible.

00:30:16.280 Mahaney's envelope reaches the coroner's evidence room on the morning of February 25th.

00:30:21.720 Bikemark swabs have their own rule. 1.00

00:30:24.400 Keep them frozen, filed by case number in a secure basement room. 1.00

00:30:29.200 So the envelope marked Rasmussen Sherry goes downstairs into a freezer.

00:30:35.360 Case number 86-2676, stuck between evidence from other people's cases.

00:30:43.160 Lloyd Mahaney never knew Sherry Rasmussen.

00:30:46.320 He spent a few hours in her home that night and followed his procedure.

00:30:51.100 He wet two swabs, labeled a tube, sealed an envelope.

00:30:54.620 And because he did, something from the person who bit Sherry is preserved.

00:31:00.620 In 1986, no one knows how to read it.

00:31:05.660 One day, they will.

00:31:08.320 But not for nearly 19 years.

00:31:11.400 And that ability will change everything about this case.

00:31:16.660 I'm Megan Kelly.

00:31:18.660 Next time on MK Confidential.

00:31:21.260 Sherry's family keeps pushing for answers.

00:31:24.160 Evidence disappears.

00:31:25.440 And investigators begin to ask,

00:31:27.860 was the burglary theory wrong from the start?

00:31:40.920 In the fall of 2004, a fledgling criminalist named Jennifer Francis

00:31:47.120 gets to pick her next case from a stack on a colleague's desk.

00:31:52.440 She has just been cleared to perform DNA analysis on her own.

00:31:56.840 The stack holds DNA requests from detectives all over the Los Angeles Police Department.

00:32:02.680 Jennifer is the newest analyst in the unit and the only one without a backlog.

00:32:07.820 She goes through the stack looking for something simple.

00:32:11.080 She finds a request on a 1986 murder in Van Nuys, a nurse.

00:32:16.260 The detective who submitted it wrote that the victim's blood type was O

00:32:20.360 and that type A blood had been recovered inside her home,

00:32:24.900 blood that could not have been hers.

00:32:27.220 Jennifer reads that and thinks, this one is easy.

00:32:30.200 Pick a type A stain, pull the suspect's profile,

00:32:33.740 run it against the national database,

00:32:35.640 compare it to the victim, close the file. 0.96

00:32:38.040 She takes the Sherry Rasmussen case. 0.97

00:32:41.280 The request Jennifer picked up

00:32:43.120 has been waiting for more than a year.

00:32:46.280 Cliff Shepard, a cold case detective,

00:32:48.580 submitted it on September 19th, 2003,

00:32:51.980 17 years after the murder.

00:32:54.340 Shepard works in a unit the LAPD created in 2001 to go back through murders the

00:33:00.380 city never solved, between six and nine thousand of them. Detectives spent a year

00:33:06.860 just cutting that list down to the ones that still had evidence someone could

00:33:10.760 test. Sherry Rasmussen's case made that list because of one line in a report from 1.00

00:33:17.520 1986. Years later, Detective Shepard pointed it out to Dateline.

00:33:22.820 I saw that a bite swab had been collected by the coroner's office.

00:33:28.480 I said, okay, with that swab, there should be DNA.

00:33:32.380 Shepard attached two documents to his request.

00:33:35.860 Detective Lyle Mayer's follow-up report from 1986 and the property log,

00:33:41.600 meaning every item the LAPD booked into evidence in Sherry's case.

00:33:47.500 The property log contains 29 items.

00:33:50.700 The bite mark swab is not one of them.

00:33:54.040 So Cliff Shepard goes looking.

00:33:56.220 The coroner's office tells him they do not have it.

00:33:59.420 I checked with our evidence room.

00:34:01.600 They didn't have it.

00:34:03.020 I looked at our property reports.

00:34:05.720 It's not booked.

00:34:06.840 How could that happen?

00:34:08.240 Incompetence.

00:34:09.240 That happened a lot?

00:34:10.140 Yes.

00:34:11.240 In 2003, Shepard takes a yellow highlighter to the sentence in Mayer's report

00:34:16.420 describing the bite swab and writes a note in the margin asking where it is. It is that handwritten

00:34:24.560 note that newbie criminalist Jennifer Francis finds when she picks up the Sherry Rasmussen case

00:34:30.280 for DNA analysis and reads Shepard's request. Jennifer calls Shepard herself and asks whether

00:34:37.900 she can see some crime scene photographs. It's a normal request. Shepard offers her the murder

00:34:43.800 book instead. This is not normal. A murder book is the complete case file. There is only that one

00:34:51.700 binder. It's irreplaceable. Detectives usually stay while an analyst reads it and then take it

00:34:57.580 back. But Shepard tells Jennifer to keep it as long as she needs. A few days later, she comes

00:35:04.480 back from lunch, and it is sitting on the center table of the lab. A blue three-ring binder.

00:35:11.360 Jennifer shows a co-worker, check it out, she says, a real-life murder book.

00:35:16.080 Then she starts reading it.

00:35:18.500 Inside, Jennifer finds a security report from Glendale Adventist Medical Center,

00:35:24.160 the hospital where Sherry Rasmussen worked.

00:35:27.040 It describes a nurse Sherry turned down for a promotion.

00:35:30.660 It says the hospital disciplined that nurse, and her boyfriend too, a doctor,

00:35:35.620 after they made harassing phone calls to Sherry.

00:35:38.880 By December 22nd, 2004,

00:35:41.960 Jennifer has finished testing the items

00:35:44.000 Shepard submitted for DNA analysis.

00:35:47.260 Every sample comes back as belonging to Sherry Rasmussen.

00:35:52.040 Three weeks of work,

00:35:53.620 and all Jennifer has is the DNA profile 0.93

00:35:56.220 of a woman everyone already knows is dead.

00:36:00.560 Frustrated, she thinks about the bite mark

00:36:02.660 she has seen mentioned in this murder book,

00:36:05.500 but not in the case's property log.

00:36:07.940 If any evidence in this case carries the killer's DNA, it is that swab.

00:36:12.900 People do not bite themselves.

00:36:15.440 Jennifer goes back to LAPD property, which contains the 29 items listed on the log,

00:36:21.240 and checks out the sexual assault kit from 1986.

00:36:25.700 There are swabs and slides inside, but not one is labeled bite mark.

00:36:32.560 Tracking down evidence is a detective's job.

00:36:35.900 Frances is a civilian scientist with no contacts at the coroner's office,

00:36:40.360 but she calls anyway because that's where evidence like this might be.

00:36:45.260 A woman answers.

00:36:47.300 Jennifer introduces herself, says she's calling from the LAPD crime lab,

00:36:52.040 and reads off the coroner's case number.

00:36:54.540 She is looking for a bite mark swab.

00:36:57.760 The woman puts her on hold.

00:36:59.820 Ten seconds later, she comes back on and says,

00:37:02.340 there is no evidence booked under that number.

00:37:05.300 Jennifer hangs up, wondering whether the woman typed a digit wrong.

00:37:10.040 She calls the coroner's office again the next day, hoping someone else picks up.

00:37:15.140 A man answers and tells her the same thing.

00:37:18.480 Nothing here.

00:37:20.400 Jennifer considers calling a third time, hoping to reach someone who remembers how evidence was stored before everything went into a computer.

00:37:28.800 One of the other criminalists tells her to stop.

00:37:31.900 You're done, she says. 1.00

00:37:33.540 you don't want to get the reputation of being a pain in the ass. 1.00

00:37:36.900 You're brand new at this. You've already called twice. 1.00

00:37:39.840 Jennifer knows she's probably right.

00:37:42.820 So she goes back to Mayer's 1986 report and reads it one more time,

00:37:48.200 looking for anything she's missed.

00:37:50.760 And she finds a name.

00:37:53.500 The man from the coroner's office who collected the swab in the first place.

00:37:58.580 Senior criminalist Lloyd Mahaney.

00:38:01.220 Jennifer does the math. Almost 19 years. What are the odds this man is still on the job?

00:38:10.180 She calls the coroner's office and asks for Lloyd Mahaney by name. He picks up.

00:38:17.120 Jennifer asks him one question. If you swabbed a bite mark in 1986,

00:38:22.900 what would you have called it? Mahaney says, bite mark swab. Jennifer tells him nobody can find it.

00:38:31.220 The coroner's office says they don't have it, and neither does the LAPD.

00:38:36.500 Mahaney is not surprised.

00:38:38.740 When the coroner's office moved to computers, some of the old cases never made it in.

00:38:44.680 To find something from 1986, you would have to pull the coroner's evidence log on microfiche.

00:38:51.360 It would be a big job, and Mahaney is leaving on vacation.

00:38:56.080 Then Lloyd Mahaney tells her this.

00:38:58.140 we would never get rid of a bite mark swab.

00:39:02.000 We don't keep clothing forever,

00:39:04.120 but a bite mark swab, we would not throw that away.

00:39:08.280 Jennifer tells him there's no rush,

00:39:10.580 just see if he can find it when he gets back.

00:39:13.160 Before they hang up, she says one more thing.

00:39:16.540 Don't forget about me, Lloyd.

00:39:18.920 Lloyd Mahaney sealed that envelope

00:39:21.620 at six minutes past two in the morning

00:39:24.220 on February 25th, 1986,

00:39:27.060 and sent it downstairs into a freezer.

00:39:30.940 The bite-mark swab has been there ever since,

00:39:34.100 almost 19 years.

00:39:36.700 It isn't gone.

00:39:38.160 It is still there somewhere,

00:39:39.940 but no one can find it.

00:39:42.700 I'm Megan Kelly, and this is MK Confidential.

00:39:47.860 Let's go back to 1986

00:39:49.620 and what the L.A. Police Department was doing

00:39:52.560 while that envelope sat untouched in the coroner's freezer.

00:39:55.840 It is April 10th, seven weeks after Sherry Rasmussen was killed.

00:40:01.660 Two blocks from Sherry's condo, a woman named Lisa Revali comes home to find two men inside

00:40:07.860 her apartment. 0.99

00:40:09.300 One runs past her and out the door.

00:40:11.560 The other points a gun at her, backs away, and disappears out the door.

00:40:16.480 Detective Lyle Mayer hears about it the next morning.

00:40:19.500 Revali walks him through her place.

00:40:21.140 It is laid out almost exactly like Sherry's, and the burglars had stacked her stereo equipment by the door.

00:40:28.180 To Mayer, the resemblance is enough.

00:40:30.980 He connects the two cases.

00:40:33.060 Years later, retired LAPD homicide detective Rob Bubb tells Dateline why it was not a stretch to call the two cases related.

00:40:41.500 No, not at all. Not with the proximity, the time of day, and basically the same M.O.

00:40:47.860 Mayer calls a press conference and brings composite sketches of two men.

00:40:51.760 We have obtained fingerprints in the crimes.

00:40:58.940 We are of the opinion at this point that the suspects may be illegal aliens.

00:41:05.180 Nobody is ever charged in the burglary from April 10th.

00:41:09.140 Mayer would say years later that his detectives arrested around 20 people

00:41:12.940 and ran every one of their fingerprints against the crime scene.

00:41:17.200 none of them matched. On April 7th, 1987, one year and six weeks after Sherry's murder,

00:41:25.280 Lyle Mayer files a progress report on the Rasmussen investigation. Its conclusion is one sentence.

00:41:32.960 No additional leads have developed in this case. In Tucson, Sherry's parents, Nels and Loretta

00:41:40.400 rasmussen keep pushing in october 1986 they put up a ten thousand dollar reward and fly to los

00:41:48.160 angeles for a press conference the la times runs sherry's photograph beside composite sketches

00:41:54.240 of the two men police believe killed her local radio picks it up so does the evening news

00:42:00.400 a year later in november 1987 nelson loretta do it again another press conference another round

00:42:08.080 of coverage. The reward leads nowhere. Loretta telephones the Van Nuys detectives many times

00:42:15.280 over the years. The calls are brief and she often comes away feeling like the detectives

00:42:20.380 just want her off the phone. In August 1990, Nels writes to the television program America's Most

00:42:27.820 Wanted, quote, we feel this case has not been thoroughly investigated and we would appreciate

00:42:33.220 any help in this matter. Unquote. The letter produces nothing. Nels keeps going anyway.

00:42:40.540 Years later, Connie remembers to NBC how relentless her father became. As a father,

00:42:46.340 he had felt a responsibility to protect her. And the only way that in her death he could protect

00:42:52.080 her was to find out who killed her. He would constantly re-dissect the information that we knew.

00:43:00.440 In 1991, Lyle Mayer retires from the L.A. Police Department,

00:43:05.200 and Sherry's case passes to whoever is running the homicide desk in Vinay's.

00:43:10.500 Around 1992, Sherry's longtime friend, Donna Robison,

00:43:14.700 tells the family she has a relative who can arrange an exciting new analysis called DNA testing.

00:43:22.400 Sometime in 1992 or 1993, Nels and Loretta fly to Los Angeles with their daughter, Connie,

00:43:29.160 and drive to Van Nuys Station to ask the LAPD about DNA tests of the evidence in Sherry's case.

00:43:36.980 The Rasmussons remember it this way.

00:43:39.720 Nels goes in and asks the officer at the front desk where they should park.

00:43:44.380 Anywhere on the street outside, the officer says.

00:43:47.660 Loretta had called ahead and made an appointment.

00:43:50.600 Upstairs, the three of them are put in a small room and left there.

00:43:54.200 It looks like the kind of room where police interview suspects.

00:43:58.280 They wait for more than an hour.

00:44:00.700 They had expected to meet with Lyle Mayer.

00:44:03.480 Instead, the detective who finally comes in is someone they have never seen before.

00:44:08.320 His name is Steve Fisk.

00:44:10.680 Mayer has retired, Fisk tells them, and he has taken over Sherry's case.

00:44:16.440 Fisk sets a thin folder on the table between them.

00:44:19.620 It stays closed.

00:44:21.020 He never opens it and never takes a note.

00:44:25.620 Connie looks at that folder and thinks,

00:44:27.720 If the LAPD were working my sister's case, it would be thicker than that.

00:44:32.980 What do you want to know, he asks.

00:44:35.880 The family asks about the fingerprints from Sherry's case.

00:44:39.320 Have they been run through the FBI database?

00:44:42.320 Fisk tells them they're still working on it.

00:44:45.740 By this time, Sherry has been dead more than six years.

00:44:50.040 Fisk tells them it is a cold case with no leads, and that if anything changes, he'll let them know.

00:44:56.340 Then Nels asks him a question.

00:44:58.800 Have you run the DNA?

00:45:00.940 Fisk tells him DNA testing is expensive

00:45:03.320 and that the LAPD's budget cannot cover it in Sherry's case.

00:45:08.240 Nels says, fine, I'll pay for it.

00:45:10.060 I even have a person who would do it.

00:45:12.400 Fisk tells him that would do no good.

00:45:14.840 They have no suspect and he says they need one

00:45:17.220 before they can run DNA.

00:45:19.460 The detective asks whether Nels is still suspicious of John Rutten.

00:45:25.060 Nels says he does not believe his son-in-law killed Sherry.

00:45:29.340 However, he does believe John knows something,

00:45:32.760 that he's holding back something.

00:45:35.980 Nels points to the closed folder on the interrogation room table

00:45:39.440 and tells Fisk that what matters is already in there,

00:45:43.200 in the LAPD's own records.

00:45:45.940 Fisk does not even look at it.

00:45:48.780 Connie gets the distinct sense that he wants her and her family to leave

00:45:53.700 After less than an hour, they do.

00:45:56.020 They did meet with us, but it was also more of a, it was like a show.

00:46:00.820 They walk out of the Van Nuys police station to find a parking ticket on their windshield.

00:46:06.300 Nels goes back inside and says the police told him to park there.

00:46:10.260 He is met with an instruction that he will have to pay it anyway.

00:46:13.660 After meeting with Fisk, the Rasmussons call Sherry's friend Donna

00:46:19.000 and tell her the police turned down Nels' offer to pay for DNA testing.

00:46:24.120 Donna's memory is the only record outside of the family

00:46:27.460 that the conversation with LAPD ever happened at all.

00:46:32.380 There is no reference to the meeting in the LAPD murder book.

00:46:37.140 The next entries in the case log come in October 1993

00:46:41.160 when detectives run latent or barely visible fingerprints

00:46:44.740 from the crime scene against databases in California and other Western states.

00:46:50.500 No hits.

00:46:51.680 They also pull lists of nearby police interactions

00:46:54.440 and state prison parolees from around the time Sherry was murdered.

00:46:58.480 These, too, will come up empty.

00:47:00.100 Then, on October 11th, a detective named Phil Morritt

00:47:03.940 goes to the L.A. County Coroner's Office

00:47:06.140 and signs out the trace or transfer evidence from Sherry's case.

00:47:11.160 This is the evidence that the coroner's criminalist, Lloyd Mahaney, collected the night Sherry died.

00:47:17.140 There are two teams that collect evidence at an L.A. murder scene.

00:47:21.560 One is the coroner's office.

00:47:23.660 They collect the body and everything touching it.

00:47:25.960 In Sherry's case, this includes fibers found on her robe and loose hairs from her neck.

00:47:32.680 The LAPD has its own team of criminalists in its Scientific Investigations Division.

00:47:38.820 They collect the evidence that is not directly touching the body.

00:47:43.440 Bullet casings, fingerprints, bloodstains on the walls, that sort of thing.

00:47:48.500 That evidence was booked into LAPD property.

00:47:52.560 One day, Jennifer Francis will test it and find only Sherry's DNA.

00:47:58.820 The trace evidence from the body went into the coroner's property room the morning after Sherry died.

00:48:04.980 At this point in our story, it has sat undisturbed for seven years.

00:48:11.160 At 12.25 p.m., for reasons unknown, Morit signs out all of that coroner's trace evidence.

00:48:20.060 From there, it vanishes.

00:48:23.200 There is no record that this evidence was ever returned to the coroner.

00:48:28.300 No record of what happened to it at all.

00:48:31.320 Some of the most critical evidence in the case, which could positively ID a suspect,

00:48:36.920 gets checked out and is never returned.

00:48:40.660 No one knows where it went.

00:48:42.580 It simply disappears.

00:48:45.160 There is no mention of any of this in the murder book.

00:48:48.580 In fact, there's no entry for anything from October 11th.

00:48:52.100 Years later, detectives working Sherry's case show Morit the signature from the county coroner's office.

00:48:58.660 He confirms that it is his.

00:49:00.620 but tells them he does not remember picking up the evidence,

00:49:04.300 nor ever even working the Rasmussen case.

00:49:07.640 And yet, there is one piece of evidence that Morit left behind at the coroner.

00:49:12.860 It is hidden away in a basement freezer, and its label is fading.

00:49:18.280 It would be tough to find one tiny cigar-sized test tube

00:49:22.860 that will remain hidden for another 12 years.

00:49:26.680 The bite mark swab from Sherry's left arm.

00:49:28.920 It is still in the freezer, where it has been since the morning after the murder seven years ago.

00:49:36.520 Fast forward now to January 2005, and criminalist Jennifer Francis, the new DNA analyst looking for her next task,

00:49:45.380 here's the phone ring in the LAPD crime lab she picks up.

00:49:49.660 It's been a week since she spoke with Lloyd Mahaney about the bite mark and asked him not to forget about her.

00:49:55.360 The call is from a supervisor at the L.A. County Coroner's Office.

00:50:00.040 We found your bite mark swab.

00:50:02.820 He and his team had just spent six hours in the freezer hunting for it.

00:50:07.560 Jennifer calls Detective Shepard from the cold case unit with the news.

00:50:11.440 We found the swab.

00:50:13.920 Shepard asks why they missed it when he asked,

00:50:16.880 and Jennifer tells him about the newfangled computer system.

00:50:20.020 When the swab arrives in mid-January, she sees another reason,

00:50:24.160 and why it took several hours in the cold to find.

00:50:27.600 The evidence envelope is in rough shape,

00:50:30.460 worn by years of being shuffled around the freezer

00:50:32.880 as other evidence was crammed in and out around it.

00:50:36.940 Mahaney's handwriting on Sherry's name is so faded,

00:50:40.580 Jennifer can barely read it to confirm.

00:50:43.020 There is a hole in the top right corner of the envelope.

00:50:47.180 The red cap of the plastic sample tube peeks out.

00:50:51.080 At some point, it pierced clean through the envelope,

00:50:53.480 Right where Mahaney had written the case number, what remains of it is illegible.

00:50:59.740 Bite mark swabs are filed by case number.

00:51:02.460 With no legible case number on the envelope, finding the swab required a bit of detective work of its own.

00:51:09.280 But the tape sealing the envelope is intact.

00:51:12.900 The tube is intact.

00:51:14.760 And so are the two swabs inside.

00:51:17.620 So on January 27, 2005,

00:51:20.820 Jennifer Francis puts a sample of cells from the swab under a microscope.

00:51:25.820 It looks like saliva.

00:51:27.800 This is a good sign.

00:51:29.940 She starts the sample through DNA analysis. 0.89

00:51:33.180 As the computer runs, it draws the profile as a row of peaks across her screen.

00:51:38.080 It draws big, tall spikes, meaning the sample is strong.

00:51:43.280 Another good sign.

00:51:45.020 The whole process takes 30 minutes.

00:51:47.760 The profile reaches the sex marker,

00:51:50.240 the part that shows whether the DNA came from a man or a woman,

00:51:54.640 X, Y, or X, X.

00:51:57.120 Jennifer expects a male result.

00:51:59.720 She remembers the investigators' prevailing theory from the murder book

00:52:03.000 about two burglars.

00:52:04.900 Besides that, most murders are committed by men.

00:52:08.020 She stares at the computer screen, waiting. 0.64

00:52:10.960 An XY reading would cause the line to peak again.

00:52:16.140 It stays flat.

00:52:18.040 Jennifer looks at the flat line.

00:52:19.780 Wait.

00:52:20.720 Her first thought is Sherry.

00:52:23.220 Is the computer showing Sherry's DNA?

00:52:26.320 Maybe the bite broke the skin and the swab picked up some of Sherry's blood. 0.92

00:52:30.700 That would explain a female result. 1.00

00:52:33.000 When the computer finishes, Jennifer takes the final profile and puts it side by side with Sherry's. 0.53

00:52:39.480 They do not match.

00:52:41.840 There is another woman's DNA in the bite mark from Sherry's arm.

00:52:46.360 A woman bit Sherry Rasmussen.

00:52:49.820 Jennifer has read the murder book,

00:52:51.780 and her mind goes straight to the nurse from the hospital security report, 0.60

00:52:55.580 the one who harassed Sherry after missing out on a promotion.

00:52:59.640 However, Jennifer does not suggest this idea, even as a theory. 0.95

00:53:03.540 She is expected to stay in her lane as a criminalist,

00:53:07.420 analyze the evidence, let detectives come up with the theories.

00:53:10.960 and so she does on february 8 2005 jennifer sends her report to detective shepherd the result 0.99

00:53:19.440 catches him off guard she called me and said hey this is an unknown female's dna uh that

00:53:27.360 is not what i was expecting but the surprise does not change his basic theory of the crime

00:53:33.440 shepherd now looks for a male female burglary team the violence at the scene still makes him think

00:53:39.760 A man had to be involved.

00:53:42.260 He explained that reasoning to Dateline in 2020.

00:53:45.740 I believed that, okay, there's a woman, and then there's a man.

00:53:50.520 That Sherry had been clubbed from behind, knocked down or unconscious,

00:53:55.520 and then somebody stood over her and shot her.

00:53:57.840 Jennifer does not understand why Shepard fixates on a burglary

00:54:01.420 in light of this new DNA evidence.

00:54:04.080 She thinks the personal motive is at least worth a look,

00:54:07.360 But it's Shepard's case, and she is only a criminalist.

00:54:12.460 No arrest follows.

00:54:14.240 No suspect is identified.

00:54:16.660 Jennifer moves on to other cases.

00:54:19.380 Sherry's case goes quiet again.

00:54:22.620 Fast forward three years to March 2008.

00:54:27.120 Van Nuys homicide, where Sherry's case started more than two decades earlier, is moving offices.

00:54:32.720 Someone plunks a box of files next to Jim Nuttall's desk.

00:54:37.360 Nuttall is a three-year homicide detective. He has spent all three of those years in Van Nuys.

00:54:43.720 He is not thrilled to see this box. Two detectives are about to retire, and Nuttall's wife is eight

00:54:49.540 and a half months pregnant. He's taking time off next month, trying to button up loose ends before

00:54:55.340 the baby comes. He's also got no idea who left the box beside his desk. Inside it are two faded

00:55:02.780 blue binders, murder books from cases waiting to be solved. Nuttall came up under an old-fashioned

00:55:09.360 supervisor who believed that reading old unsolved cases is the best way to learn. So Nuttall has

00:55:15.800 read and he has learned. He does not recognize the books in his newly acquired file box.

00:55:23.440 Catherine Braley killed in Van Nuys in 1988. The other, Sherry Rasmussen, 1986.

00:55:30.240 Jim Nuttall has tried his hand at investigating exactly one cold case

00:55:35.680 The murder of a biker and bookie who went by Sid the Squid

00:55:39.840 He read the murder book, spoke to witnesses

00:55:42.480 And eventually arrived at a final suspect

00:55:45.160 A fellow biker who beat Sid the Squid to death over money

00:55:48.940 However, Nuttall hit a brick wall at the DA's office

00:55:52.700 He had only circumstantial evidence connecting his suspect to the murder

00:55:56.700 Nothing physical

00:55:58.780 He presented his case and the DA turned it down.

00:56:02.060 No arrest, no charges.

00:56:04.400 The blue book goes back with the others, unsolved.

00:56:08.120 Jim comes away convinced that solving a cold case requires physical evidence,

00:56:13.040 no matter how compelling the argument a detective makes.

00:56:17.580 The homicide unit moves locations.

00:56:20.640 He drops the box on the empty desk next to his own in the new office space.

00:56:25.240 His baby comes.

00:56:26.100 He takes his leave and returns and tackles other cases.

00:56:31.180 The box sits there undisturbed for nearly a year.

00:56:35.500 Super Bowl Sunday 2009.

00:56:38.140 The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Arizona Cardinals 27-23 on a touchdown with 35 seconds left.

00:56:45.380 Nuttall watches with a house full of friends and a fridge full of beer.

00:56:49.220 Nuttall later describes that Sunday to NBC's Dateline.

00:56:52.720 Super Bowl Sunday is like a holiday to me, so we were having a good time.

00:56:56.100 and we were up late.

00:56:58.040 The next morning is Monday, February 2nd.

00:57:01.000 Nuttall comes in tired and a little worse for the wear,

00:57:03.940 as he later tells NBC.

00:57:05.940 We come in early 0-dark-30, and I was tired.

00:57:08.980 It was the perfect day to have a cup of coffee

00:57:11.120 and then do some reading.

00:57:12.740 Nuttall gets coffee and opens the four-volume

00:57:15.460 Rasmussen murder book.

00:57:17.440 He reads about a 29-year-old nurse

00:57:19.900 fighting for her life inside her own home.

00:57:23.500 Shots fired upstairs. 0.55

00:57:25.280 A struggle over the gun.

00:57:27.220 They fight their way downstairs.

00:57:29.240 A vase breaks.

00:57:30.680 Sherry is hit again.

00:57:32.520 Someone bites down hard enough on her arm to leave a full set of teeth marks.

00:57:37.220 And then three bullets to the chest.

00:57:40.220 And somewhere in the middle of volume one, Jim stops.

00:57:44.720 The stereo components stacked by the front door.

00:57:48.880 The stack the original detectives had read as evidence of a burglary had blood on them.

00:57:54.880 He tells Dateline NBC this was a turning point.

00:57:58.420 For me, everything changed with that blood on that stereo equipment.

00:58:02.360 If there was blood on the stereo components, the components were moved after someone, likely Sherry, was bleeding.

00:58:10.720 To Nuttall, that means the stack by the front door was built after the fight, not before it.

00:58:16.480 She's dead or dying.

00:58:18.020 And if you wanted that stereo equipment,

00:58:20.140 you had every opportunity in the world to walk out the door with it.

00:58:23.260 Why stack it and leave it?

00:58:25.100 At that point, you start to draw the conclusion that murder was the main goal, not the burglary.

00:58:30.500 Then Nuttall turns a page and finds a four-year-old lab report.

00:58:35.200 It has Jennifer Francis' name on it.

00:58:38.240 He keeps reading.

00:58:39.500 The major DNA profile from the bite mark swab is female.

00:58:45.440 Sherry Rasmussen is excluded as the source.

00:58:49.360 Nuttall reads it twice.

00:58:51.080 Then it hits him. 1.00

00:58:52.980 Oh, shit. 1.00

00:58:54.260 Not only do I have DNA, I've got female DNA. 1.00

00:58:59.100 We had a woman responsible or involved with this crime.

00:59:02.240 The female DNA profile had been uploaded to the FBI's national database in 2005

00:59:08.600 after Jennifer Francis found and processed it,

00:59:12.080 but was never matched to anyone.

00:59:14.540 The detectives will have to build a list of female suspects themselves.

00:59:19.600 Nuttall tells Dateline that suddenly, 23 years after the murder, this cold case seemed solvable.

00:59:26.600 Once you debunk the burglary theory and you have a female DNA profile, now this case becomes manageable.

00:59:35.220 Now it becomes a matter of time.

00:59:37.080 Within days, Nuttall calls the crime lab about the DNA work from 2005.

00:59:42.440 Jennifer Francis calls him back that same day.

00:59:45.780 They have never spoken before.

00:59:47.860 Each is trying to figure out how much the other knows.

00:59:51.480 One of the first things she tells him is,

00:59:53.500 Detective, I'm not telling you how to do your job,

00:59:56.760 but I don't think this was a burglary.

00:59:59.620 Not all is taken aback.

01:00:01.220 He thinks, I know that, but how do you know that?

01:00:05.800 Jennifer does not tell him, not yet.

01:00:08.800 Fueled by the female DNA discovery, Jim Nuttall, his supervisor Rob Bubb, and two other Van Nuys

01:00:15.760 detectives start Sherry Rasmussen's case over from scratch. Whoever this killer is,

01:00:22.540 she bit Sherry Rasmussen hard enough to leave tooth marks and saliva on her arm.

01:00:28.400 So the question is no longer which burglars were inside the condo, but rather who were the women

01:00:34.560 in Sherry's life. Women she knew well enough that if one rang her doorbell, she might open the door.

01:00:41.880 Nuttall is determined to find out. The next day, February 10th, he calls John Rutten.

01:00:49.060 Nuttall asks him, were there any women in your past that Sherry had a problem with?

01:00:55.000 John gives him a name, Stephanie Lazarus. John says he was involved with Stephanie for years

01:01:02.000 before he married Sherry.

01:01:03.900 On and off, he says.

01:01:05.960 He says that Stephanie joined

01:01:07.600 the Los Angeles Police Department

01:01:09.800 before he ever met Sherry.

01:01:12.480 And as far as John knows,

01:01:14.180 she still works for the department.

01:01:16.560 Nuttall turns to another detective in the room.

01:01:19.440 He tells Dateline he will never forget

01:01:21.700 what happened next.

01:01:23.440 I turned to one of the members of our unit

01:01:24.700 and I said, check a name for me in the directory.

01:01:27.860 And he accessed the LAPD directory

01:01:30.040 and explaining to me that she was currently a detective in the LAPD.

01:01:35.220 Stephanie Lazarus, Commercial Crimes Division, Parker Center,

01:01:39.360 Los Angeles Police Department headquarters, downtown.

01:01:43.740 Nuttall understands immediately, this case has changed.

01:01:48.080 Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

01:01:50.280 I'm Megan Kelly.

01:01:52.200 Next time on MK Confidential,

01:01:54.540 four Van Nuys detectives must decide what to do

01:01:57.500 when their murder suspect is one of their own.

01:02:07.620 A woman comes out of a Costco cafe 0.89

01:02:10.280 carrying oily pizza on paper plates 1.00

01:02:13.140 covered in silver foil and Pepsi soft drinks.

01:02:16.640 Her daughter is beside her.

01:02:18.660 The little girl is not quite three years old.

01:02:21.600 They step into the courtyard seating area

01:02:23.660 and sit at one of the red and white outdoor tables.

01:02:26.820 About 20 feet away, a Latino man sits alone at a table beside a large trash bin.

01:02:33.760 It is May 28, 2009, in Simi Valley, California.

01:02:38.860 The woman doesn't look at him. 0.98

01:02:41.040 There is no reason she would. 0.77

01:02:42.860 She eats with her daughter, going through napkin after napkin on the greasy pizza. 0.97

01:02:47.720 The woman drinks from a wax-coated cardboard cup through a plastic straw,

01:02:52.780 taking sip after sip as she talks to her daughter.

01:02:56.060 the little girl points and says something and the woman laughs then the woman stands up with 1.00

01:03:00.940 the cup still in her hand there is a trash bin closer to her table she walks right past it she

01:03:07.580 walks straight at the latino man and for a second he is certain she has spotted him she takes one

01:03:14.060 last pull on the straw and drops the cup in the trash bin beside his elbow and keeps walking

01:03:20.540 holding her daughter's hand 10 seconds later the man has the cup out of the trash 15 seconds later

01:03:28.300 it is in a manila envelope and the man is moving quickly through the costco parking lot to his car

01:03:34.380 the latino man at the table is a los angeles police officer from an undercover unit inside

01:03:40.220 the lapd where its people are not called detectives they are called operators he has

01:03:47.020 has been following this woman for more than a week. The woman with the little girl is Stephanie

01:03:52.680 Lazarus. She is an L.A. police detective who has been with the department for more than 26 years,

01:03:59.540 and now her own department is trying to find out whether she murdered Sherry Rasmussen.

01:04:06.380 I'm Megan Kelly, and this is MK Confidential.

01:04:09.500 three months earlier february 2009 inside the homicide unit at the van nuys police station

01:04:19.680 detective jim nuttall has reopened a 23 year old murder he has dna from a bite mark on sherry

01:04:27.400 rasmussen's arm and the dna belongs to a woman he asked john rutton sherry's husband whether

01:04:34.520 there were any women in Sherry's life who had a problem with her, and John gave him a name,

01:04:40.960 Stephanie Lazarus. John told Nuttall that Stephanie joined the LAPD before he ever met

01:04:47.400 Sherry, and as far as he knows, Stephanie still works for the LAPD. One of the other detectives,

01:04:53.940 Mark Martinez, runs the name through the police directory. Bingo. Stephanie Lazarus is still on

01:05:00.860 the job. She's an LAPD detective assigned to the art theft detail. None of the four detectives in

01:05:07.860 that room has ever heard of her. So now they have a person of interest in a murder and she carries

01:05:14.740 a badge. LAPD policy on that is not ambiguous. Any employee who learns of possible misconduct

01:05:21.900 by another officer must report it immediately up the chain or to internal affairs. Stephanie

01:05:28.820 Lazarus has friends in the department and Nuttall's team does not yet have her DNA. They do not know

01:05:35.760 whether Stephanie had anything to do with Sherry's murder. So the four detectives make two agreements.

01:05:42.780 They will follow the evidence wherever it goes and they will never say Stephanie Lazarus's name

01:05:48.260 out loud or write it anywhere another officer might see it. Inside Van Nuys Homicide,

01:05:55.320 Stephanie becomes number five. Their supervisor, Rob Bubb, takes it a step further. He creates a

01:06:03.760 generic case number for any evidence they collect, one that has nothing to do with Sherry Rasmussen.

01:06:09.940 Any LAPD detective can look up a case on the department's computers. If Stephanie Lazarus 0.87

01:06:15.800 checks the Rasmussen file and sees new evidence being booked, she will know someone is working

01:06:21.500 the case again. It works as well as possible, they think. For four months, four detectives

01:06:28.240 investigating murder that as far as the department can tell from its own computers,

01:06:33.280 nobody is investigating. That includes even the chief of police, Bill Bratton. By February 10th,

01:06:41.380 2009, the detectives have a list of five women in Sherry's life they need to eliminate as possible

01:06:48.400 suspects, not because of motive, but because Sherry knew each of them well enough that she

01:06:53.960 might open her front door for them. Number one is Sherry's mother, Loretta. Number two is her 0.99

01:07:00.500 sister, Teresa. Three is her friend and former roommate, Jane Goldberg. Number four is Deborah

01:07:07.500 Putnam, a nurse who bitterly resented being passed over for a promotion by Sherry. Number five is 1.00

01:07:14.440 Stephanie Lazarus. There is zero evidence of conflict between Sherry and her mother,

01:07:19.980 her sister, or her closest friend, so the first three come off the board. That leaves Deborah

01:07:25.740 Putnam and Stephanie Lazarus. The detectives take Deborah Putnam first. Sherry had promoted

01:07:32.060 another nurse over Putnam, who believed the job should have been hers. Putnam's boyfriend was

01:07:37.640 the hospital's medical director, and when he tried to intervene, Sherry held her ground.

01:07:43.220 Afterward, Sherry started getting threatening phone calls.

01:07:46.960 Jim Nuttall finds Deborah Putnam living in Northern California

01:07:50.560 and asks the local police to collect a DNA sample from her trash without telling her.

01:07:56.880 On March 20th, police get one and FedEx it to Van Nuys homicide.

01:08:02.580 On April 16th, criminalist Jennifer Francis calls with the result.

01:08:08.020 Deborah Putnam is not a match.

01:08:09.980 On April 23rd, Jennifer, who was the first to tell police they are looking for a woman, drives out to Van Nuys and the detectives give her a full briefing, including that the woman they are looking at is an LAPD detective.

01:08:26.740 Nuttall asks her for extraordinary discretion.

01:08:30.920 That April, Nels and Loretta Rasmussen are in Washington State for their high school reunion.

01:08:36.500 Old classmates keep asking them the same question.

01:08:39.980 have you heard anything on Sherry's case? They haven't. Back in February, around Sherry's birthday

01:08:46.760 and the anniversary of the murder, Loretta thought about calling the LAPD again. She decided it would

01:08:53.760 do no good. And instead, she prayed. That same month, four detectives in Van Nuys had quietly

01:09:01.120 reopened her daughter's murder. When Nels and Loretta get home to Tucson, there is a message

01:09:07.380 waiting on their answering machine. Nels returns the call on April 28th. Jim Nuttall later tells

01:09:14.360 Dateline that Nels came into that first conversation carrying 23 years of frustration.

01:09:20.680 Nels was upset with me and he was very animated. It was sort of like,

01:09:25.380 Detective, where have you been for the last two decades?

01:09:28.460 Nuttall asks Nels what he thinks happened to his daughter. Nels tells him there were two

01:09:33.980 problems in Sherry's life. There was a nurse and a doctor at the hospital, and there was a woman 1.00

01:09:39.360 connected to John. She was a police officer, and she would not leave John and Sherry alone.

01:09:46.120 Then Nels tells Nuttall something else. He says he told the LAPD about all of this back in 1986.

01:09:54.360 Two days later, on April 30th, Detective Mark Martinez runs Stephanie Lazarus through the

01:10:00.760 state firearms database. She has purchased a total of five handguns. Whether she has physical

01:10:07.320 possession of them is a different matter. One of the guns is a Smith & Wesson Model 49,

01:10:13.940 a .38 caliber revolver with a two-inch barrel, the kind of gun LAPD officers commonly carried

01:10:20.060 as a backup weapon in the 1980s. Stephanie bought it on February 29, 1984, from the gun shop at the

01:10:28.380 Police Academy. On March 9th, 1986, she reported it stolen, 13 days after Sherry Rasmussen was

01:10:38.140 murdered. For 23 years, the information that Stephanie Lazarus had reported her .38 revolver

01:10:45.620 stolen shortly after Sherry was killed with .38 caliber bullets sat in a state database any LAPD

01:10:53.940 detective could search. So far as anyone can tell, no one working Sherry's case ever looked.

01:11:01.560 On May 2nd, Nuttall emails criminalist Jennifer Francis, quote, candidate number five reported

01:11:08.280 38 caliber handguns stolen in Santa Monica within days of the 187. A 187 is a murder.

01:11:17.780 The next problem, DNA. They need Stephanie's and they need to get it without letting her know they

01:11:23.900 are looking at her. But first, they have to find her. The address on her LAPD emergency contact

01:11:31.120 form belongs to her mother. Detective Rob Bubb searches other databases and comes up with three

01:11:37.260 more addresses, all in Simi Valley. He and Nuttall drive out early one morning and check them one by

01:11:43.340 one. Two are shuttered businesses. The third is a mailbox rental store. On the drive back to Van

01:11:51.380 Van Nuys, Nuttall has to give her credit.

01:11:53.540 She's good. She kicked our asses today. 0.99

01:11:56.700 The search keeps going. 0.99

01:11:59.160 On May 4th, the fourth detective in the unit, Pete Barba,

01:12:02.320 is looking for Stephanie's house when he finds her husband instead, Scott Young.

01:12:08.340 He is also an LAPD detective assigned to the Van Nuys station.

01:12:13.060 The four detectives do not know him by name but recognize his face.

01:12:17.780 In the Van Nuys locker room, Young's locker is only a few down from Nuttall's.

01:12:22.440 The next morning, May 5th, Bub makes another trip to Simi Valley.

01:12:27.340 Four addresses have led nowhere.

01:12:30.260 At the next one, Bub pulls up to a one-story house with an attached garage and a pool.

01:12:36.840 A silver Toyota pickup is parked in the driveway.

01:12:40.060 Its license plate reads, 5-STEPH.

01:12:44.300 Bub keeps driving.

01:12:46.340 Now they know where she lives.

01:12:48.480 On May 6th, Nuttall calls Nell's back,

01:12:51.700 this time on a recorded line,

01:12:53.440 and asks him to go through all of it again from the beginning.

01:12:56.860 Nell's walks him through the months before the murder

01:12:58.840 and everything that happened in the years after.

01:13:01.740 Quote,

01:13:02.480 If one of our officers is responsible for this, Nuttall tells him,

01:13:06.000 we are on the same page you are.

01:13:08.600 It's an investigation that is moving forward.

01:13:10.780 What we're waiting on now is a DNA sample,

01:13:13.280 and that has to be done with the utmost discretion

01:13:15.960 because as you can imagine,

01:13:17.860 we can't walk down and knock on somebody's door 0.97

01:13:20.420 and say, I realize that, interjects Nels.

01:13:24.160 Before they hang up, Nels says one more thing.

01:13:27.280 If you want to make $100,000, bet me it's not her.

01:13:32.100 Not all laughs.

01:13:33.440 The four detectives discuss going through Stephanie's garbage

01:13:36.220 to get a sample of her DNA, but Bub kills the idea.

01:13:40.560 Too many variables, too many ways for the sample

01:13:42.960 to be contaminated or challenged. Too many ways it goes wrong. So on May 12th, they take another

01:13:49.860 route. The request goes up the chain to a lieutenant, to a captain, and then to Deputy

01:13:54.920 Chief Michael Moore, who authorizes the Internal Surveillance Unit, aka the operators. Some of

01:14:02.480 them know Stephanie Lazarus. Not one asks to be taken off the case. Surveillance starts on May

01:14:09.120 20th. Two undercover teams trade shifts around the clock, following Stephanie and waiting for

01:14:15.320 her to throw away something that might carry her DNA. Her neighborhood makes surveillance difficult.

01:14:21.920 It is quiet with little traffic, and the only place to park is across the street from Stephanie's

01:14:27.020 house, which is directly outside a separate LAPD officer's home. On a previous surveillance job,

01:14:33.500 that officer had confronted an undercover unit parked there and asked what they were doing.

01:14:37.980 so they learn Stephanie's routine. At five in the morning, she comes out for the newspaper

01:14:44.960 and she drives to the Simi Valley train station and takes the train downtown.

01:14:49.500 She reads the paper along the way and throws it out before she walks into Parker Center 0.80

01:14:53.680 where she works as an LAPD art theft detective. The first things they collect are the newspapers

01:15:00.080 then a cellophane muffin wrapper she lifts to her mouth with each bite. All of it goes to the lab,

01:15:07.300 None of it carries enough DNA to give them a profile.

01:15:10.820 The operators also learn something else about Stephanie's routine.

01:15:14.940 If she does not come out at 5 a.m., she is off that day.

01:15:19.700 On Thursday, May 20th, she does not come outside at 5 a.m.

01:15:24.580 A few hours later, the garage door goes up and a van backs out.

01:15:29.000 She's driving and her young daughter is in the back seat.

01:15:32.280 Stephanie stops for gas, then she drives to a Costco in Simi Valley.

01:15:36.940 That is where Stephanie drops the Pepsi cup and plastic straw into a trash bin beside the waiting undercover operator.

01:15:45.220 Within seconds, he has the cup out of the trash and inside a manila envelope.

01:15:49.920 Fifteen seconds later, he is moving it toward the crime lab.

01:15:53.760 The next day, Friday, May 29th, the call finally comes.

01:15:58.900 Jennifer Francis' team tells Bub and Jim Nuttall

01:16:01.780 that the DNA on the straw is the same DNA

01:16:05.200 that was in the bite mark on Sherry Rasmussen's arm.

01:16:10.020 23 years after Sherry was murdered,

01:16:13.180 detectives have their match.

01:16:16.160 Within hours, Bub and Nuttall are downtown,

01:16:19.200 handing their four-month-old investigation to Robbery Homicide,

01:16:22.320 the LAPD unit that handles its most serious murder cases.

01:16:27.280 Before the end of the day, Van Nuys' four homicide detectives are no longer running the investigation.

01:16:34.040 Robbery homicide has the case.

01:16:36.980 Robbery homicide sits on the third floor at Parker Center. 0.97

01:16:40.960 So does the art theft detail where Stephanie Lazarus works.

01:16:45.020 The two units sit across the hall from one another, sharing a water cooler.

01:16:50.040 Stephanie sometimes walks into the robbery homicide squad room just to fill her water bottle.

01:16:55.020 The two detectives assigned to arrest Stephanie are Greg Stearns and Dan Jaramillo.

01:17:01.300 They need to get her somewhere controlled, away from her desk and away from her gun.

01:17:06.560 They choose the jail division on the second floor of Parker Center.

01:17:10.980 Anyone entering the jail has to check their weapon at the door,

01:17:14.220 and even for an LAPD detective, there is nothing unusual about that.

01:17:19.140 Friday morning, June 5th, 2009.

01:17:22.420 Stephanie is followed to work.

01:17:24.960 A few minutes after she sits down at her desk, Jaramillo comes over.

01:17:29.720 He tells her they've picked up an extortion suspect who said something about stolen art

01:17:34.480 and that he could use a second opinion.

01:17:37.100 You can kind of talk to him, he says.

01:17:38.900 You can see if he's for real.

01:17:40.740 Sure, she says.

01:17:42.360 They go down together.

01:17:44.200 At the jail door, Jaramillo checks his gun.

01:17:46.860 Stephanie tells him she left hers upstairs at her desk.

01:17:50.520 He walks her to an interview room.

01:17:53.260 Greg Stearns is waiting inside.

01:17:55.600 There is no extortion suspect.

01:17:58.020 They ask Stephanie to sit down.

01:18:00.660 On the table between them is a three-ring binder

01:18:03.020 with a tiny video camera hidden inside.

01:18:06.780 I don't want to bring this up in your squad room.

01:18:10.660 We've been assigned a case that we've been looking at.

01:18:12.520 It's a new case, and revealing the case,

01:18:15.440 there's some notes to see as far as your name being mentioned.

01:18:19.420 Do you know John Rudin?

01:18:21.820 John Bruton.

01:18:24.120 John Rutten?

01:18:25.680 Rutten.

01:18:26.780 Oh, yeah, I went to school with him.

01:18:28.180 He says the name wrong, and Stephanie corrects him.

01:18:31.940 She knows exactly who John Rutten is.

01:18:34.920 But over the next hour and a half, the details around John begin to blur.

01:18:40.000 Whether she ever met the woman he married.

01:18:42.360 When she last saw John, what happened when.

01:18:45.840 She may remember, she may not.

01:18:47.860 It was a long time ago.

01:18:49.360 You know, God, that's been a million years ago. I mean, you know, what year is it now? 2009? I mean, I graduated in 82.

01:19:00.180 Stephanie says it was a million years ago, five times, every time she is talking about John.

01:19:07.120 More than once, when she cannot remember something, she tells the detectives she would have to look at her pictures to know for sure.

01:19:13.320 She keeps about 10,000 photographs.

01:19:17.000 The woman sitting across from Stearns and Jaramillo is now 49 years old and has been an LAPD officer for 26 years.

01:19:26.000 She spent 18 months in internal affairs investigating other police officers.

01:19:31.600 Her husband is also an LAPD detective.

01:19:34.100 And her daughter is the little girl who sat beside her at Costco that afternoon,

01:19:39.420 eating lunch with her mom while detectives waited for Stephanie to throw something in the trash.

01:19:45.940 The detectives ask about Stephanie's relationship with John.

01:19:50.000 Let's go back to Los Angeles, 1978, at UCLA.

01:19:55.080 Stephanie Lazarus and John Rutten live on the 10th floor of Dykstra Hall,

01:19:59.820 part of a group of friends who stay close long after college.

01:20:03.740 Stephanie takes photographs constantly.

01:20:06.360 One of them is of John, asleep in his dorm room, wearing only his underwear.

01:20:12.000 She writes a caption on the photo,

01:20:14.100 John Rutten, 1979, Dykstra Hall.

01:20:17.540 I snuck in room and took the picture.

01:20:20.860 She keeps that photograph for 30 years.

01:20:24.140 John says that their relationship became sexual in the summer of 1981.

01:20:29.280 He estimates they had sex between 25 and 30 times over the next three years,

01:20:34.200 while each of them dated other people.

01:20:36.760 He does not describe Stephanie as his girlfriend.

01:20:39.740 His friends will later be shocked to hear it turned sexual at all.

01:20:44.000 John never talked that way about Stephanie,

01:20:46.580 though it was clear to all that she wanted more from John.

01:20:50.260 By the time they are out of college,

01:20:52.080 the relationship means more to Stephanie than it does to John.

01:20:55.560 Here's how she describes it.

01:20:57.000 It was kind of a weird relationship. I mean, we dated. I can't say that he was my boyfriend. I don't know that he would consider me his girlfriend. We dated. We did things. I played sports in college. He played basketball. It just didn't work out. I mean, I don't know what to tell you.

01:21:17.340 By 1984, Stephanie is out of college and about to become an LAPD officer.

01:21:23.220 On February 29th, 1984, Stephanie buys a backup gun.

01:21:28.740 It's common practice at the time for L.A. cops to carry a second firearm,

01:21:32.700 and Stephanie is two days away from graduation.

01:21:35.600 She picks up a five-shot .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver,

01:21:40.080 snub-nosed, easy to conceal, even in an ankle holster.

01:21:44.800 Stephanie fills out a standard federal form to buy the handgun.

01:21:48.180 No one will give it a second thought for more than 25 years.

01:21:52.040 In the summer of 1984, John Rutten meets Sherry Rasmussen at a party.

01:21:58.500 He falls for her instantly.

01:22:00.800 Before long, they're an item.

01:22:02.960 In May of 1985, John asks Sherry to marry him, and she says yes.

01:22:08.840 A few weeks later, Stephanie calls John crying on the phone and asks him to come over.

01:22:13.800 He goes without telling Sherry.

01:22:17.380 Stephanie tells him she loves him, that she wants to be with him.

01:22:21.180 John tells her he is going to marry Sherry.

01:22:24.200 She asks him to sleep with her one last time.

01:22:27.940 John has sex with Stephanie that night and unleashes an obsession in her that will haunt many families for the rest of their lives.

01:22:36.780 A few weeks later, John moves in with Sherry at the condo on Balboa Boulevard.

01:22:42.000 He does not tell her about his interlude with Stephanie.

01:22:46.060 Shortly afterward, Stephanie begins crossing a new level of boundaries.

01:22:51.080 She goes to the hospital where Sherry works.

01:22:54.400 And yeah, I may have met her at a hospital.

01:22:56.880 I may have talked to her once or twice.

01:23:00.920 At a hospital?

01:23:02.320 Or more. I mean, that's kind of sounding familiar.

01:23:05.640 It should. 0.92

01:23:06.360 Stephanie walks into Glendale Adventist Medical Center around lunchtime and approaches the desk 0.99

01:23:12.480 of Sherry's secretary, an older woman named Sylvia Nielsen. She asks for Sherry but does 0.86

01:23:18.200 not give her own name. Sylvia tells her Sherry's at lunch. Stephanie says she'll wait and sits down

01:23:24.820 in front of Sylvia. After a few minutes, Stephanie gets up and walks around and then out into the

01:23:30.900 hallway. She comes back with Sherry, and they go into Sherry's office, and Sherry closes the door.

01:23:38.200 When it opens again, Stephanie walks out. Sherry follows, and she's clearly been crying. She goes

01:23:44.900 home in the middle of the workday. That evening, Sherry calls her parents in Tucson. It is the

01:23:51.040 first time she has ever mentioned John's ex-girlfriend to them. Nell says his daughter

01:23:56.560 told him that the woman came to Sherry's office uninvited, dressed in a tight tube top and tight 0.60

01:24:02.200 short shorts, that she was in excellent shape. And what the woman said to Sherry's face was that if

01:24:09.380 she could not have John, no one could, including Sherry. When John gets home that night, Sherry is

01:24:17.020 waiting for him. She tells him Stephanie came to her workplace and told her that the two of them

01:24:22.840 had sex just weeks ago. That she had known John a long time and knew what he wanted. And that if

01:24:29.060 the marriage failed, she would be waiting to pick up the pieces. And then Sherry tells John what she

01:24:34.940 said back. Don't worry, we won't be needing your services. John Rutten tells his fiance the truth.

01:24:43.360 That Stephanie called him crying. That he went to her place. That they did have sex. He tells her he

01:24:49.680 made a terrible mistake and asks Sherry to forgive him. She does. They talk late into the night.

01:24:57.780 By the time they go to bed, the wedding is still on, but a trail of destruction is heading their

01:25:03.300 way. John makes a decision about the other woman. He will not call her and ask why she went to his

01:25:10.060 fiance's workplace or tell her she was out of line or ask her to leave Sherry alone. He will

01:25:16.220 avoid her, ignore her. He tells Sherry to let it lie. He tells her it's done. Sherry does,

01:25:24.340 but her mother and father know Stephanie has threatened Sherry, but they do not know her name.

01:25:30.340 Sherry, worried about her father's opinion of John, does not tell him about the cheating.

01:25:35.720 On August 4th, 1985, Stephanie Lazarus writes a letter to John's mother, who had sent her some

01:25:43.300 photographs. It opens with an apology. The reason it has taken me so long to respond is because I

01:25:50.500 had to build up my courage. I don't know when or if I'll ever see you and your family again.

01:25:56.540 I'm truly in love with John, and this past year has really torn me up. I don't think I'll ever

01:26:01.900 understand John's decision. She mails the letter two days later. In November, Sherry Rasmussen

01:26:09.060 marries John Rutten. Three weeks later, Stephanie Lazarus receives a card from John's mother.

01:26:17.180 She writes in her diary, unfortunately, I got a card from Mrs. Rutten. This made me very, very,

01:26:23.580 very sad. Stephanie does not say what the card from Mrs. Rutten communicated. On December 16th,

01:26:31.560 John and Sherry have a burglar alarm installed at their condo. Sherry's father is surprised,

01:26:36.740 but does not ask her why before leaving for her honeymoon sherry shows her friend jane the alarm

01:26:43.380 panel by the front door and punches in the code one one two three well that's not very clever

01:26:50.820 says jane jane it's our wedding anniversary the next month in january 1986 sherry tells her parents

01:27:00.020 that john's ex-girlfriend entered their home uninvited sherry worked from home that morning

01:27:06.420 came downstairs and found the woman standing in her living room she does not know how she got inside

01:27:13.780 nels says sherry should involve john that he should tell his ex-girlfriend no sherry responds

01:27:20.740 john doesn't have the will to stand up to her nels is getting concerned on february 24th in

01:27:27.860 that same living room sherry rasmussen is beaten bitten and shot three times in the chest her purse

01:27:35.620 is stolen and later returned with one item missing her marriage license the next morning february 25th

01:27:44.100 1986. by their own accounts sherry's husband and father both tell detectives to look into john's 0.96

01:27:51.700 ex-girlfriend, the one with the LAPD. Nels later says he mentions her at least three times and

01:27:58.780 that Mayer finally snaps at him. There's nothing there. When detectives walk John through the

01:28:04.100 crime scene, he says they mention a bite mark on Sherry's arm. They mention that it could be from

01:28:09.740 a woman. Women bite, a detective says. He tells them Stephanie's name and that she had confronted 0.63

01:28:16.240 Sherry at the hospital. Here is John Rutten describing that conversation.

01:28:21.480 I know that she went to go see Sherry, and I know that she was upset, you know, that we weren't going

01:28:26.420 to have the relationship. That's the reason for identifying her. Sort of, that's the reason I

01:28:30.640 identified her 23 years ago. One of my concerns is that that was never, you know, appears to be

01:28:36.840 recorded. John gives police two interviews on the 25th. Neither one is taped. Neither leads to a

01:28:44.600 note in the murder book that mentions Stephanie Lazarus. Years later, John will say he asked the

01:28:50.860 police about Stephanie again and received a curt response. He says, quote, they said we've eliminated

01:28:58.580 that possibility, something to that effect. Detective Lyle Mayer disputes all of this.

01:29:05.580 He says he would have followed up on Stephanie's name if he had it. He retired still believing

01:29:11.200 Sherry was killed by burglars. Nell says he raised it. Repeatedly. And John says he told

01:29:18.140 police that Sherry had found his ex-girlfriend standing in their living room. Mayer disputes

01:29:22.580 that as well. Quote, that is an absolute bullshit lie. He never told me that. No way. We'd have been 1.00

01:29:30.040 all over her. We'd have arrested her for burglary. That would have been the greatest clue going. 1.00

01:29:35.660 So, is an embarrassed detective lying?

01:29:38.880 Or is a family embellishing the leads they gave police?

01:29:42.780 The day Sherry Rasmussen is killed is Stephanie's fourth straight day off from work.

01:29:49.480 She reports for duty at 7.30 a.m. on Tuesday, the 25th.

01:29:53.920 There is no way to know, years later, if she had any visible scratches or injuries on her.

01:30:00.640 Twelve days after that, she reports her backup gun stolen in Santa Monica.

01:30:04.780 She buys a replacement just over a week later, another .38 from the same gun store.

01:30:11.040 Sherry Rasmussen was shot with a .38.

01:30:14.540 In November of 1987, more than a year and a half after the murder,

01:30:19.880 Stephanie's name appears in the murder book.

01:30:23.520 There is a note in the case log dated November 19th.

01:30:27.680 John Rutten called, verified Stephanie Lazarus, P.O., was former girlfriend.

01:30:33.580 The note is sandwiched between details about press conferences with the Rasmussen family.

01:30:40.000 It is the only written mention of Stephanie Lazarus for decades.

01:30:44.700 Lyle Mayer retires from the LAPD in September of 1991.

01:30:50.120 Steve Fisk takes up the case.

01:30:52.520 He does not recall ever speaking with Mayer about it.

01:30:56.400 Sherry's family says they speak with Fisk at the Van Nuys station in the early 90s.

01:31:00.620 They ask for DNA testing and pay a parking ticket.

01:31:05.300 Fisk does not note this meeting in the case log.

01:31:08.780 He does note that he contacts the Rasmussons in 1997.

01:31:12.880 When detectives show him that entry years later, Fisk tells them, quote,

01:31:17.500 there was no mention of an involved police officer.

01:31:20.420 Absolutely no mention.

01:31:22.320 Bells and whistles would have gone off.

01:31:24.100 That would have been a big deal.

01:31:25.920 In February 2009, Jim Nuttall finds the November 1987 entry referencing Stephanie's name in the murder book.

01:31:36.300 He does not know what P.O. stands for.

01:31:39.760 He finds out on February 10th when John Rutten says out loud that Stephanie Lazarus is a Los Angeles police officer.

01:31:49.320 June 5th, the jail interview room at Parker Center.

01:31:53.620 Jaramillo asks Stephanie Lazarus a housekeeping question.

01:31:57.660 Did the detectives ever reach out to you?

01:32:00.440 No, no one's ever talked to me.

01:32:02.000 I don't think anybody ever talked to me about him.

01:32:04.980 It seems like that thing you would have been in.

01:32:06.440 Well, I'm thinking that I did talk to a detective.

01:32:15.100 God.

01:32:17.020 Well, what division was it?

01:32:19.480 In Van Nuys?

01:32:22.640 And where was I working?

01:32:26.540 In 1986?

01:32:28.460 I would have been working in Devonshire.

01:32:32.380 You know, I'm thinking that I did speak to somebody.

01:32:35.400 Oh, really?

01:32:35.920 I couldn't tell you who it was.

01:32:38.500 Because it doesn't say anything.

01:32:39.920 It was probably on the phone.

01:32:42.660 Would it have been somebody in regards to this?

01:32:45.520 Yeah.

01:32:46.440 There is no record in Sherry Rasmussen's murder book

01:32:49.440 that any detective ever contacted Stephanie Lazarus.

01:32:53.360 For decades, there was only Stephanie's name one time and P.O.

01:32:59.260 Detective Greg Stearns asks about Stephanie's cars.

01:33:02.800 Has she ever had one stolen?

01:33:05.000 I don't think any of my cars had ever been stolen.

01:33:07.060 No.

01:33:08.500 My cars haven't been stolen.

01:33:11.540 Broken into.

01:33:14.360 None of that, huh?

01:33:15.800 Oh, yeah.

01:33:16.400 My cars have been broken into.

01:33:18.020 Did you ever lose anything?

01:33:21.020 Yeah. Now that you mention it, let's see.

01:33:26.820 I had a gun that was stolen. I had other stuff that was stolen.

01:33:31.940 Not your duty gun, was it?

01:33:33.640 No.

01:33:34.480 That's good.

01:33:36.180 Has it ever recovered?

01:33:38.260 I don't know. No, I don't think so. Not that I know of.

01:33:41.520 She brings up the gun herself. No one has asked about it.

01:33:45.680 the 38 revolver she reported stolen in 1986 has never been recovered an hour and a half into the

01:33:53.820 interview haramio tells stephanie that sherry's friends remember trouble between the two women

01:33:59.240 he asks whether she ever fought with sherry and he asks her for a dna swab maybe because now

01:34:08.700 now now because now i'm thinking i probably need to talk to a lawyer okay i mean well i because i

01:34:17.240 know how this stuff works okay don't get me wrong you're right i have been doing this a long time

01:34:20.520 and i wish i had been recording this because because now it sounds like you know there's

01:34:25.780 you know you're selling these people say i'm fighting with her and now it sounds like you're

01:34:30.740 trying to you know i've been doing this a long time yeah we know okay and and now it almost

01:34:35.740 sounds like you're trying to pin something on me. Now I got that sense. Jaramillo tells her they may

01:34:41.080 have DNA from the crime scene and that her name is in the murder book. They have to look. Twice

01:34:48.520 the detectives tell Stephanie she's free to leave. She stays. I just can't even believe it. I mean

01:34:55.480 it's just I mean I'm shocked. I'm really shocked that somebody would be saying that I did this. I

01:35:01.720 I mean, we had a fight, and so I went and killed her. 0.99

01:35:03.860 I mean, come on. 0.99

01:35:05.380 Then Stephanie Lazarus stands up,

01:35:08.180 thanks the two detectives for their courtesy,

01:35:10.400 and walks out of the room.

01:35:12.280 She gets as far as the hallway.

01:35:15.540 This is absolutely crazy.

01:35:17.600 Let me see, Stephanie.

01:35:20.280 This is insane.

01:35:21.420 Okay.

01:35:22.460 Okay.

01:35:24.160 Stephanie, you know you have the right to remain silent.

01:35:26.120 Do you understand?

01:35:26.740 Yes.

01:35:27.780 Anything you say may be used against you in court.

01:35:29.940 Do you understand?

01:35:30.580 Yes.

01:35:31.720 Do you want to talk to us right now?

01:35:33.000 No.

01:35:34.640 This is crazy.

01:35:37.000 This is happening.

01:35:38.360 I'm like in shock.

01:35:39.980 I'm totally in shock.

01:35:41.900 They had the DNA match a week before she sat down.

01:35:46.620 23 years after Sherry Rasmussen is murdered, the police have their woman.

01:35:52.700 Stephanie Lazarus is under arrest.

01:35:55.200 Now they have to convince a jury that she's responsible.

01:35:59.720 I'm Megan Kelly. 0.99

01:36:00.860 Next time on MK Confidential, Stephanie Lazarus goes on trial for murder while drawing an LAPD pension.

01:36:10.100 And after a jury answers who killed Sherry Rasmussen, another question remains.

01:36:15.440 Why did the police take 23 years to find her?

01:36:18.920 We'll be right back.

01:36:48.920 side of the video screen, Sherry Rasmussen's two sisters, Connie and Teresa, are watching.

01:36:53.980 So are Sherry's two nieces and John Rutten, Sherry's husband. The man Stephanie killed

01:37:00.180 Sherry over and still lost. A parole commissioner named Kevin Chappelle asks Stephanie about

01:37:07.840 a phone call she made on a February morning in 1986. Sherry had answered. Chappelle asks

01:37:15.340 what Stephanie felt when she heard Sherry's voice. Yes, sir, I was enraged. Stephanie says

01:37:22.500 she went down the stairs of her condominium and took a cord off of her workbench. Chappelle asks

01:37:28.580 her why she brought that cord with her to John and Sherry's home. Because I was so angry that

01:37:34.220 if she got in my way to see John, I was going to strangle her. Chappelle asks what she was thinking

01:37:40.880 by the time she reached Sherry Rasmussen's front door. 0.98

01:37:44.540 I'm going to kill her if I don't see John.

01:37:48.680 Sherry's younger sister, Teresa, watches her screen, 0.99

01:37:51.780 listening to Stephanie talk about murdering Sherry.

01:37:55.280 At these parole hearings, Teresa makes a point of staying visible.

01:37:59.600 She told us why.

01:38:00.720 Personally, I make a effort to be sure that I'm on the screen the whole time.

01:38:07.400 So she has to, if she looks up, she has to see me.

01:38:12.520 But she never looks up.

01:38:14.300 Stephanie says she barged into Sherry's home, asking for John.

01:38:18.560 And from there, she describes what happened as a hellacious fight.

01:38:23.960 Kevin Chappelle stops her.

01:38:25.600 Why are you calling it a fight?

01:38:27.980 Stephanie thinks about this.

01:38:30.140 I invaded her home.

01:38:31.860 I was an intruder.

01:38:33.420 So maybe it was just a fight on my part.

01:38:35.520 Her trying to maybe defend herself would be a better description of the situation.

01:38:41.180 Chappelle offers a different word.

01:38:42.860 What about assault?

01:38:44.620 And Stephanie agrees with that. 0.57

01:38:46.720 Stephanie describes a violent struggle, hitting Sherry in the face with her gun, 0.97

01:38:51.340 then biting her and smashing a vase over her head.

01:38:55.500 And Stephanie says she picks up a blanket from the floor, 0.94

01:38:59.000 wraps it around her gun, and fires three times into Sherry's chest.

01:39:04.140 Chappelle comes back to that.

01:39:05.940 When I think of someone in a rage, they're just out of it.

01:39:09.720 They're not thinking about, well, I need to wrap this up.

01:39:13.100 Why did you wrap the gun up? 0.57

01:39:15.540 Stephanie shifts her eyes and answers to deaden the sound.

01:39:20.580 I'm Megan Kelly, and this is MK Confidential.

01:39:23.380 13 years earlier, in 2012, Stephanie Lazarus is singing a very different tune.

01:39:36.840 She is on trial for Sherry Rasmussen's murder.

01:39:40.340 Stephanie was arrested in June 2009.

01:39:43.460 Over the next 32 months, through preliminary hearings, motions, and other pretrial proceedings,

01:39:48.960 she comes to court shackled in an orange jail jumpsuit.

01:39:53.380 Then on February 6th, 2012, the first day of her trial, she appears dressed in black.

01:40:00.140 She pleads not guilty.

01:40:02.240 She will not testify.

01:40:04.420 Prosecutors tell the jury that Stephanie Lazarus killed Sherry Rasmussen because of a love triangle.

01:40:10.460 John Rutten chose Sherry instead of her.

01:40:14.000 They put the old evidence back on the table.

01:40:16.240 The swabs from Sherry's arm, the .38 caliber revolver that Lazarus reported stolen after the murder,

01:40:23.380 and Stephanie's own words about John preserved in letters, diary entries, and photographs.

01:40:29.900 And then they call John Rutten to the stand.

01:40:33.520 John is 53.

01:40:35.560 A reporter in the courtroom watches him choke up several times

01:40:38.880 and reach for a box of Kleenex when he is asked about the day his Sherry died.

01:40:44.680 The prosecution begins with the relationship.

01:40:47.860 John testifies that he and Stephanie Lazarus slept together

01:40:51.480 somewhere between 25 and 30 times over roughly three years beginning the summer after he

01:40:58.120 graduated from UCLA. Just as Stephanie herself predicted when questioned by robbery homicide

01:41:04.560 in their surprise interview, John says he did not consider Stephanie his girlfriend.

01:41:10.260 John says that in the summer of 1985, weeks after he asked Sherry to marry him,

01:41:16.820 Stephanie called him crying, asking to see him.

01:41:20.120 So he went over, and they had sex.

01:41:23.580 Asked to explain it, he says, quote,

01:41:25.260 Basically, she had no closure.

01:41:27.980 She was upset. I felt bad.

01:41:30.220 I was a stupid and young man. 1.00

01:41:32.980 Sherry's younger sister, Teresa Lane, is in the courtroom. 1.00

01:41:36.260 She's hearing for the first time that John slept with Stephanie

01:41:39.860 after he and Sherry were engaged.

01:41:43.080 When we spoke with Teresa for this series,

01:41:44.900 she still remembered what that moment felt like.

01:41:48.980 I was devastated.

01:41:56.420 Sorry, it's hard.

01:41:58.460 Sherry's older sister, Connie Wilkinson, is in the courtroom too.

01:42:02.520 John's behavior after the murder has bothered Connie for years, as she told us.

01:42:07.940 It wasn't as difficult for me to hear it because John's, in my opinion,

01:42:14.560 John's behavior around Sherry's death was suspect to me.

01:42:20.560 He delayed notifying my parents

01:42:23.560 until after they couldn't get a flight out of Tucson.

01:42:27.560 And my parents weren't notified

01:42:30.560 until his parents were there to support him.

01:42:32.560 Also, when my dad asked him,

01:42:34.560 how did you know Sherry was dead?

01:42:36.560 He goes that he used his foot and touched her with his foot

01:42:41.560 And that, you know, and she didn't move.

01:42:44.660 Those are behaviors I don't see as a loving, caring, loving husband.

01:42:52.020 Teresa, who says she's still in touch with John, sees him differently.

01:42:57.100 Sherry knew about the incident with Stephanie before they got married.

01:43:03.580 Did he do wrong? Hell yes.

01:43:05.260 but my sister was still willing to walk down that aisle and say i do

01:43:11.640 so i am going to support my sister in that then stephanie lazarus's defense attorney mark overland

01:43:19.860 gets his turn to cross-examine john overland argues that it was john not stephanie who could

01:43:27.280 not let the relationship go john is already dabbing at his eyes when overland takes him

01:43:32.580 back to the night he had sex with Stephanie after becoming engaged to Sherry and to whether John

01:43:38.680 tried to clean up before going home. The attorney asks, did you take a shower before leaving Miss

01:43:45.440 Lazarus's place? John Rutten looks down. I don't recall that. The defense attacks the bite mark

01:43:53.200 evidence. Overland points to that hole in the corner of the evidence envelope, which poked

01:43:58.680 straight through the case number and argues that someone could have used it to remove the tube and

01:44:03.900 tamper with the swab. There is a second swab inside that tube. An independent lab tests the

01:44:10.960 second swab with a defense representative in the room. It too comes back with the same DNA profile

01:44:17.340 as the first, Stephanie Lazarus. The odds that the 15 DNA markers belong to anyone other than

01:44:25.600 Stephanie Lazarus, are about

01:44:27.600 one in 1.7 1.00

01:44:29.520 sextillion.

01:44:31.760 17 days after the trial

01:44:33.440 begins, on March 8th,

01:44:35.500 the jury comes back with a verdict.

01:44:38.200 We, the jury, in above

01:44:39.500 entitled action, find an amendment,

01:44:41.560 Stephanie, I mean Lazarus, 1.00

01:44:43.760 guilty of the crime of 1.00

01:44:44.760 Sherry Raskin's school.

01:44:48.060 Teresa watches Stephanie

01:44:49.540 as the verdict is read.

01:44:51.680 She showed nothing. 1.00

01:44:53.620 I mean, a woman that, I mean,

01:44:55.320 you have to have i assume people have feelings i think the best of people that she did not

01:45:05.340 shudder she didn't do anything she didn't even blink she looked forward and there was nothing

01:45:15.180 left in her soul nels and loretta rasmussen stay in their seats in the second row sobbing

01:45:23.620 Two months later, on May 11, 2012, 0.98

01:45:27.300 Stephanie Lazarus is back in the same courthouse for sentencing.

01:45:31.780 She gets 27 years to life.

01:45:35.260 Sherry's family stands one by one

01:45:37.320 and tells the court what her murder has done to them.

01:45:41.640 John Rutten speaks, too.

01:45:44.900 The fact that Sherry's death occurred because she met and married me

01:45:48.800 brings me to my knees.

01:45:50.320 I have resigned myself to trying to endure the daydreams about a world where Sherry is still with us.

01:45:59.480 And this pointless tragedy never occurred.

01:46:03.260 Teresa remembers watching Stephanie while John spoke.

01:46:06.840 I remember him standing up there and talking and Stephanie did not move, flinch, blink or anything. 0.58

01:46:15.820 That woman has no soul at all.

01:46:19.260 Stephanie Lazarus says nothing.

01:46:22.080 For Connie and Teresa, it feels like the end of the story.

01:46:25.800 It was relief that finally that she will pay for what she did.

01:46:32.440 Unrealistic, but it was like, OK, now we can close the book.

01:46:36.020 But it's the book is never closed.

01:46:38.540 You learned that after the verdict.

01:46:41.300 I thought it was going to be closed.

01:46:42.940 I thought it would be a done deal that she would be there for the 25 years.

01:46:46.220 It hasn't stopped. After the verdict, it hasn't. I mean, we don't get arrests.

01:46:53.520 Sherry Rasmussen was murdered in February of 1986. Stephanie Lazarus was arrested in June 2009.

01:47:02.080 23 years. The question of what's taking so long has haunted this case from the very beginning.

01:47:10.280 Connie says their father, Nels Rasmussen, who was tortured by the fact that he could not protect his daughter in life, became determined to avenge her in death.

01:47:20.700 He began doing his own detective work the day after Sherry died.

01:47:24.900 The way that dad coped with the loss of Sherry was to be very analytical and go over every detail and everything that she had said to him.

01:47:37.780 So he did have a short list.

01:47:40.160 Stephanie was on the list.

01:47:41.540 Of course, we didn't know her name. 0.55

01:47:42.780 We just knew that an ex-girlfriend that was a police officer.

01:47:46.160 According to Connie, Nels Rasmussen gave the detectives two leads back in 1986.

01:47:51.280 A woman at the hospital who had been passed over for a promotion

01:47:54.540 and had been making calls to Sherry and the police officer.

01:47:59.960 In his book, The Lazarus Files, author Matthew McGuff reports that Nels early on tried repeatedly

01:48:06.960 to raise the possibility of John's ex and her involvement to no avail.

01:48:13.420 Nels also discussed with Mayer the two bullets recovered during Sherry's autopsy.

01:48:18.100 In his 2009 LAPD interview, Nels recounted,

01:48:22.440 I mentioned to Lyle the fact that they were similar, if not the same, as what police are issued.

01:48:28.200 According to Nels, Mayer never acknowledged what Nels said about the bullets.

01:48:32.660 He never acknowledged.

01:48:33.720 As things went along with Mayer, day by day that week, Nels became ever more insistent

01:48:39.800 and emotional about bringing up the subject that seemed to irritate Mayer the most, John's

01:48:45.240 ex-girlfriend, the female cop. Nels felt Mayer was on his case from Wednesday on.

01:48:51.320 After a certain point, according to Nels, whenever he met with Mayer, Mayer got loud

01:48:56.180 with him. Mayer was not afraid to let Nels know he didn't want his input.

01:49:01.300 Lyle Mayer, the lead detective, says none of that ever happened.

01:49:05.420 No one from the family told him about a police officer, he says, not even one time.

01:49:09.920 And if they had, he would have run the lead down.

01:49:13.280 According to Nels, Mayer responded to his theories with,

01:49:16.480 you've been watching too much television.

01:49:19.040 I asked Connie and Teresa how they reconciled those two accounts

01:49:22.620 and what they believe kept the investigation from moving.

01:49:26.480 Here's a critical question.

01:49:27.880 Do you believe that Lyle Mayer didn't want to talk about the police officer who John used to date because he wanted to back the blue and cover up for a fellow police officer or because he had tunnel vision on his burglar theory?

01:49:47.060 Connie, I'll start with you on that.

01:49:48.140 I believe he had tunnel vision because if you look at the murder book and the first entry when they come to the to the site, he already had labeled it as a burglary.

01:50:01.540 So he was not open to discussing any other theories or alternatives.

01:50:09.020 And what about Mayer's denial?

01:50:12.140 I don't believe that. I don't believe anything that Lyle Mayer says.

01:50:16.640 I know my brother-in-law has told me that he said to the police when he was first questioned after Sherry died that he had a girlfriend that was in the police department.

01:50:26.860 And John has told me that.

01:50:29.780 And my dad followed up.

01:50:32.500 The sisters agree that the Los Angeles Police Department failed to seriously investigate Stephanie Lazarus.

01:50:38.900 They are less certain about why.

01:50:41.600 I was naive at the time.

01:50:43.140 I was very young.

01:50:43.940 and I believe that the police were doing everything they could

01:50:48.200 and they were pursuing it with an honest heart

01:50:52.840 and I don't believe that happened

01:50:55.880 and that's sort of as distressing to me.

01:50:59.100 On March 12th, 1986, 16 days after the murder,

01:51:02.520 the LAPD gives John Rutten a polygraph exam.

01:51:06.540 The result is inconclusive.

01:51:08.920 According to the murder book,

01:51:10.280 Rutten was too emotional to give an accurate reading.

01:51:13.940 Mayer says the two key questions were, are you personally involved?

01:51:18.280 And do you personally know who killed her?

01:51:21.020 On both of those, he was deemed credible.

01:51:24.020 There are seven questions listed for the exam.

01:51:27.080 Not one of them is about Stephanie Lazarus.

01:51:30.320 20 months later, on November 19th, 1987,

01:51:34.280 someone writes one line at the bottom of page 18 of the murder book chronology.

01:51:39.640 John Rutten called, verified Stephanie Lazarus-P.O. was former girlfriend.

01:51:47.280 Her name is in the murder book.

01:51:49.740 Her job is in the murder book.

01:51:52.120 Her relationship to the husband is in the murder book.

01:51:56.400 Exactly once.

01:51:58.340 That one line is the only time Stephanie Lazarus appears in the file for the next 22 years.

01:52:05.120 The handwriting has never been identified.

01:52:08.200 The detectives are no closer to finding her.

01:52:11.820 Then, sometime in 1992 or 1993, Nels and Loretta and Connie drive to Van Nuys trying to restart the case.

01:52:20.660 Nels asks whether anyone had run DNA and offers to pay for it himself.

01:52:25.060 The detective who tells him no is Steve Fisk, who runs Van Nuys homicide.

01:52:30.620 He sets a thin manila folder on the table between them.

01:52:33.940 A tiny case file.

01:52:36.000 According to Matthew McGuff's book on the case, Fisk says there is no point in running DNA without a suspect.

01:52:42.540 Nell's points at the manila folder, quote, I think it's in your record there about John's ex-girlfriend.

01:52:49.840 Fisk says nothing.

01:52:51.920 Connie later says he seemed eager for them to leave.

01:52:55.900 Early Monday afternoon, October 11th, 1993.

01:52:59.420 A homicide detective from Van Nuys drives to the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, about 30 minutes from the station.

01:53:07.220 His name is Phil Morit. He works under Steve Fisk.

01:53:11.720 Morit is listed as the signatory, taking out all trace evidence collected from Sherry Rasmussen's body.

01:53:18.600 It is never seen again. It disappears from the record entirely.

01:53:24.360 Years later, Maura acknowledges the signature on the paperwork appears to be his,

01:53:30.060 but says he does not remember taking the evidence and says he never worked on Sherry's case.

01:53:36.380 There is no mention of this removal in the murder book.

01:53:40.320 No one tells the Rasmussen family.

01:53:42.660 Sherry's sister Connie has been trying to make sense of it ever since.

01:53:46.820 One thing we do know is that Stephanie Lazarus was stationed at the Van Nuys Police Division during the 90s.

01:53:57.560 So I don't know if she had a relationship or worked with that detective.

01:54:04.080 Or she may have done and moved the items herself and put his signature.

01:54:09.000 Who knows?

01:54:10.520 All we know is that it's gone.

01:54:12.460 Stephanie Lazarus is transferred to Van Nuys in March of 1995, which is a year and a half

01:54:19.560 after the trace evidence leaves the coroner's office. She works out of that station on and

01:54:25.860 off for the rest of the decade. Sherry Rasmussen's murder book is in the building, unsecured the

01:54:32.680 entire time Stephanie is there. She often volunteers to work the morning shift, a time

01:54:38.320 when the building is mostly empty, particularly of higher ranks. Whether she ever cracked it open

01:54:44.320 or altered what was inside, no one can say for sure. I asked Teresa for her opinion.

01:54:52.080 I don't see why she wouldn't have, because if you look at her track record from the day she 0.83

01:54:58.680 killed my sister to 26 years later, she has, everything is self-serving. So she has no regards 0.89

01:55:10.860 for anybody else. I hate to think the worst of people, to tell you the truth, but if you look

01:55:17.200 at her life and how she dealt with her family during the trial and lied that she didn't kill

01:55:22.220 my sister. She has no conscious about other people. I mean, her only thing is her well-being

01:55:34.720 and what she wants to accomplish in her life and her goal. That evidence is not the only thing

01:55:40.820 missing from the investigation. The original handwritten log of the first three months after

01:55:46.400 Sherry died, disappears from the murder book sometime between 1986 and 2008. No one knows

01:55:53.640 when, who took it, or why. It is the only real-time record of what the detectives did to track down

01:56:00.960 her murderer, including possible meetings with family members and various leads. Only a copy

01:56:07.640 of the log, prepared on a typewriter by someone, survives. It is dated three months after the

01:56:14.940 murder, and it is attached to the 60-day report. It is supposed to be word-for-word accurate.

01:56:21.860 Without the original, there is no way to verify that. John Rutten's name is misspelled as

01:56:28.360 Rudder throughout. The break in the case comes from a piece of evidence Phil Morit left behind

01:56:35.360 at the coroner. A bite mark swab from Sherry's left arm, tucked away in the basement freezer,

01:56:40.880 but it only comes after the case changes hands.

01:56:45.080 Mayer has retired.

01:56:46.460 Steve Fisk moves on.

01:56:48.660 Cliff Shepard is now in charge,

01:56:50.920 an LAPD cold case detective

01:56:52.560 from the respected Robbery Homicide Division.

01:56:55.660 When criminalist Jennifer Francis

01:56:57.560 finds female DNA in saliva from the bite mark,

01:57:01.400 it is because Cliff Shepard first asked

01:57:03.760 for a fresh look at the forensics.

01:57:06.180 But Shepard does not respond meaningfully to the news

01:57:09.360 that the bite mark was from a woman, Jennifer's discovery.

01:57:14.600 Jennifer calls Shepard a few weeks later.

01:57:16.940 She asks him about the Rasmussen case and the other woman.

01:57:21.320 She means that nurse who the murder book says harassed Sherry at work.

01:57:26.700 Shepard's reply surprises her.

01:57:29.020 Oh, you mean the LAPD detective?

01:57:31.160 She was not a part of this.

01:57:33.140 He does not say that detective's name,

01:57:35.640 and Jennifer Francis does not ask how she has supposedly been ruled out.

01:57:41.200 That ruled out female detective's name is in the binder on her desk.

01:57:46.600 Just one line, page 18, written in 1987. 0.96

01:57:50.860 Stephanie Lazarus, P.O., former girlfriend.

01:57:54.740 Francis had read right past it.

01:57:57.600 Four more years pass with no movement.

01:58:00.280 Then Jim Nuttall is handed the murder book and starts over.

01:58:06.640 Friday, June 5th, 2009.

01:58:10.180 Sherry's little sister, Teresa Lane, is living in Sierra Vista, Arizona.

01:58:14.040 She receives an urgent, cryptic message from her parents.

01:58:17.680 And then they called me and they said, you need to be up here today.

01:58:23.640 And I said, okay.

01:58:25.880 Which was, you know, sort of a nice thing and a worsen thing at the same time.

01:58:32.320 The family gathers at Nell's and Loretta's home in Tucson, and LAPD detectives are already there.

01:58:39.500 They will not say why.

01:58:41.320 We were sitting around in my parents' family room, and my dad was questioning the detectives to see what was going on.

01:58:51.500 They said they couldn't say anything until the arrest was made.

01:58:54.900 And then once the arrest was made, they came in and told us that they arrested. 0.74

01:59:03.100 Stephanie Lazarus has just been taken into custody for murder off the DNA from a Costco cup.

01:59:11.300 Teresa remembers hearing the news.

01:59:14.000 It was a relief, but it was just a new starting point.

01:59:18.360 After Stephanie's arrest, the Rasmussons file a two-part claim against the city of Los Angeles.

01:59:24.840 First, alleging that Stephanie Lazarus used her position as an officer to commit and cover up her crime, literally, to get away with murder.

01:59:34.280 Second, that the LAPD protected Stephanie Lazarus and helped cover for her through fraud, negligence, and other wrongful acts.

01:59:45.120 A judge dismisses the lawsuit before discovery begins, primarily on the grounds of governmental immunity.

01:59:53.360 No witness is ever questioned under oath.

01:59:56.160 No police documents are ever handed over.

01:59:59.360 No court will ever decide whether the LAPD covered or one of its own.

02:00:05.080 On February 6th, 2012, Stephanie Lazarus pleads not guilty.

02:00:11.340 She does not testify at her trial.

02:00:13.840 After being found guilty, she says nothing at her sentencing.

02:00:17.580 She appeals her conviction and loses, then appeals again and loses.

02:00:24.380 Lazarus never publicly admits to killing Sherry Rasmussen.

02:00:28.080 That is, until doing so could work to her advantage.

02:00:33.100 November 16th, 2023.

02:00:35.720 The California Institution for Women near Chino, California.

02:00:39.880 Stephanie Lazarus' parole hearing.

02:00:43.040 Two commissioners, Lazarus and her lawyer, are present.

02:00:46.300 The Rasmussen family joins on a video screen.

02:00:50.120 Connie, Teresa, two nieces, John Rutten, and LAPD detective Greg Stearns.

02:00:56.140 Stearns is one of the detectives who interrogated Lazarus before her arrest in 2009.

02:01:02.540 A California law makes offenders who were younger than 26 when they committed their crime

02:01:07.960 eligible for parole earlier than usual. 0.56

02:01:12.360 Stephanie Lazarus was 25 years, 9 months, and 20 days old when she murdered Sherry Rasmussen.

02:01:20.160 The board asks Stephanie what she did.

02:01:23.460 She describes driving over to the condominium and barging in asking for John.

02:01:28.820 She mentions the cord she brought and the vase.

02:01:31.960 Then she says the gun came out of her fanny pack and she and Sherry struggled over it.

02:01:38.820 Two shots went into the sliding glass door upstairs.

02:01:42.120 Lazarus regained control of her weapon.

02:01:45.200 The hearing is not recorded on video, but it is transcribed.

02:01:48.760 And here is some of what Lazarus said word for word.

02:01:52.260 She stumbles throughout.

02:01:54.360 Quote,

02:01:55.260 At some point, she had me in a chokehold, and I couldn't get out of the chokehold. 1.00

02:01:59.840 I hit her several times to the right side of her face with my gun.

02:02:03.440 I still couldn't get out. 0.98

02:02:05.120 Eventually, I bit her.

02:02:07.820 She continues,

02:02:08.660 I picked up a blanket or a robe, something off the floor. 0.99

02:02:11.760 I wrapped it around my gun, and I shot her three times to the chest. 0.96

02:02:17.340 Stephanie adds, quote, 0.94

02:02:18.560 What I didn't do is I didn't check her pulse.

02:02:21.660 I didn't give her CPR.

02:02:23.300 I didn't call 911.

02:02:25.080 All I cared about was my selfish self to get out of there.

02:02:30.040 The presiding commissioner, Patricia Cassidy, asks,

02:02:33.120 Why would you give her CPR when you were trying to kill her?

02:02:37.540 Stephanie backpedals and stammers.

02:02:39.920 She's just saying that she could have, and that she went to the condo to talk to John.

02:02:44.960 Sherry was just in her way.

02:02:47.520 Lazarus admits to the board that she staged the scene to look like a burglary and drove off in Sherry's car.

02:02:53.900 She says that after the murder, John Rutten mentioned that he had given her name to the police.

02:02:59.860 Lazarus threw the revolver she had used to kill Sherry off a freeway.

02:03:04.040 Then she reported the gun stolen to the Santa Monica Police Department 0.81

02:03:07.200 because she was certain the LAPD would come and ask her for it.

02:03:12.240 No one ever did.

02:03:14.760 For 37 years, Connie and Teresa had waited for Stephanie Lazarus to say the words.

02:03:21.660 Connie remembers hearing them.

02:03:23.980 The first time that we heard that she admitted that she was murdered, Sherry,

02:03:30.580 was at the first parole hearing.

02:03:34.600 Up to that, she exercised every appeal

02:03:37.120 and every way possible to get out of prison.

02:03:42.580 But she is still lying.

02:03:45.860 Every parole hearing, it's not the whole truth.

02:03:49.900 It's a portion of the truth,

02:03:52.380 maybe enough to get paroled. 0.62

02:03:55.620 It works.

02:03:57.200 That day, the board finds Stephanie Lazarus

02:03:59.880 suitable for parole after serving just 11 and a half years of a 27-year sentence.

02:04:07.180 After the board's decision, L.A. Police Chief Michael Moore writes to the governor of California,

02:04:12.300 Gavin Newsom, and asks him to intervene. Moore writes that Lazarus continues to pose an

02:04:18.400 unreasonable risk to the public. Newsom formally recommends a second look. He sends the decision

02:04:25.040 back to the full Board of Parole hearings to reconsider and they schedule a hearing.

02:04:30.500 October 2nd, 2024. The board has no questions for Lazarus. It will decide based on the record

02:04:37.400 from the last one and will allow statements. Stephanie speaks for seven minutes about the

02:04:43.460 programs she has completed in prison. Greg Stearns is there in support of John Rutten.

02:04:50.580 Stearns describes the crime to the board and makes the case that the young offender's law

02:04:55.340 should not apply to Stephanie. In his view, this is a clearly premeditated and thoughtful crime,

02:05:01.200 quote, Stephanie Lazarus stalked her victim. She chose a time and a place when she knew that she

02:05:07.200 would have the victim alone. She brought cordage to bind her, used an improvised suppressor to 0.98

02:05:12.960 execute her, staged a burglary. Those are not the hallmarks of youthful offense. They are the

02:05:19.320 hallmarks of criminal sophistication and maturity.

02:05:23.580 John Rutten speaks as well, quote,

02:05:26.600 every day she went to work as a police officer was a lie.

02:05:30.860 The inmate has exercised her rights to the fullest,

02:05:33.740 but never, has never done the right thing.

02:05:37.640 The full board rescinds the grant for Stephanie's parole.

02:05:41.720 She stays behind bars for now.

02:05:44.700 Which brings us back to where this episode began.

02:05:48.440 February 12th, 2025.

02:05:51.420 This is the hearing where Parole Commissioner Chappelle 0.69

02:05:53.920 will not let Stephanie Lazarus call the killing a fight.

02:05:57.580 It is also where he asks her how she found Sherry's address. 0.99

02:06:02.520 That's a good question, Stephanie seems to stall. 0.99

02:06:06.160 I would say that I probably accessed LAPD records 1.00

02:06:10.260 to obtain where she lived.

02:06:12.640 Later, Lazarus' own attorney takes her back to the morning of the murder

02:06:16.320 and asks what her plan was when she left her house.

02:06:20.600 She responds, quote,

02:06:22.300 to murder Sherry Rasmussen.

02:06:24.740 And there it is for the first time, clearly.

02:06:28.500 Beyond the murder confession,

02:06:30.380 Detective Greg Stearns calls out another crime for the board to consider.

02:06:34.180 For the first time today, Ms. Lazarus admitted what we long suspected,

02:06:37.920 that she utilized police databases in order to obtain the address of John and Sherry.

02:06:42.980 That's a felony in the state of California.

02:06:46.320 Parole is denied. She will soon be eligible again.

02:06:51.520 Sherry's sister, Teresa Lane, was in the room that February.

02:06:55.380 She says the pattern is always the same.

02:06:58.640 Every parole hearing we've done with Stephanie, she adds a little more details about the crime.

02:07:07.640 She'll add a little tidbit here and there.

02:07:09.940 She never tells the whole story.

02:07:11.620 So I assume this next parole hearing, she's going to add a little bit more information.

02:07:17.420 The next parole board hearing is almost here.

02:07:21.000 October 9th, 2026.

02:07:23.780 The same prison dialing in on the same video screen.

02:07:28.380 Connie is confident they will be prepared.

02:07:31.500 We have an excellent team.

02:07:33.200 I can say that we are blessed.

02:07:36.600 I asked Connie whether there was something specific.

02:07:38.980 in the years since 1986 that she wished her sister Sherry had been there for.

02:07:46.540 When mom was critically ill and passed away,

02:07:50.740 I would have liked to have, would have liked to have Sherry there 0.52

02:07:54.740 in their process and caring for my mom. 1.00

02:07:58.380 Yeah, especially as a nurse.

02:08:00.180 Well, we're both nurses, but sometimes it helps to bounce your ideas

02:08:04.180 and the symptoms you're seeing off with someone else

02:08:09.060 and talk it through.

02:08:10.680 There are two people who will not be logging on

02:08:13.580 for the next parole hearing.

02:08:15.920 After the sentencing in 2012,

02:08:18.480 Nels and Loretta Rasmussen sat down in front of a camera

02:08:21.520 and recorded victim impact statements

02:08:24.100 about the loss of their daughter.

02:08:26.600 They did so just in case they were gone

02:08:28.900 by the time Stephanie Lazarus came up for parole, 0.91

02:08:31.780 which turned out to be prescient. 0.70

02:08:34.180 Nels died in the summer of 2020. Loretta followed in 2022. At the 2023 hearing, the family asks to 0.99

02:08:43.960 play those recordings. The video files are too large for the state's system and they will not

02:08:49.820 play in the room. So one of the granddaughters, Rachel Buck, asks to read the transcripts aloud.

02:08:58.300 Rachel tells the commissioner her grandparents would rest better knowing their words had been

02:09:02.520 heard. The commissioner agrees. Greg Stearns finds a copy, and Rachel reads her grandparent's

02:09:09.620 statements into the record. Here is part of what Sherry's mother, Loretta, recorded in her statement

02:09:15.400 about Sherry. For a hearing she knew she might not attend, Loretta, who loved Sherry so much,

02:09:22.480 was always described as the soft one. Quote, she fought so hard to live, and it always worried me

02:09:30.140 what she must have gone through.

02:09:31.980 I would just like to say to the parole board,

02:09:34.300 I beg you not to let this person out.

02:09:38.540 Sherry's father echoed his wife

02:09:40.260 first about the murder and Stephanie Lazarus.

02:09:43.920 Quote,

02:09:44.720 I've been able to stand up to many problems in life,

02:09:47.500 but this one has put me on the ground

02:09:49.500 because I think of such a senseless killing.

02:09:52.640 The selfishness that took place is just beyond me.

02:09:57.160 He continued,

02:09:57.780 We have grandchildren and great-grandchildren now,

02:10:01.020 and not only do we miss Sherry,

02:10:03.200 but we miss the children that she would bring into this world.

02:10:07.040 And knowing Sherry, she would have been a terrific mother,

02:10:09.720 and her children would have been tremendous kids.

02:10:13.520 John Rutten remarried and stayed in California.

02:10:17.140 He now has two sons and a granddaughter.

02:10:20.380 Teresa Lane tells me that the trial for her sister Sherry's murder

02:10:23.620 reached John's second family, too.

02:10:27.000 He's told me this many times that the trial came about when his sons were in high school.

02:10:31.840 You know, it was very publicized.

02:10:34.560 And also they realized their dad cheated on his wife.

02:10:39.280 They have a good life, but, you know, it affects them as much as it affects us daily.

02:10:45.520 Teresa has remained friends with John Rutten.

02:10:48.240 Connie has not.

02:10:50.320 But Connie is careful to say this.

02:10:52.080 John has been a very strong advocate and has really showed up for Sherry in regards to the parole hearing.

02:10:59.500 So I appreciate that.

02:11:01.460 I asked Connie what she really thinks led to her sister's murder.

02:11:06.220 Do you think this was a fatal attraction where she was just obsessed with John and could not have him be married to another woman, Connie?

02:11:16.900 Yes, I do.

02:11:17.920 Her perception of the relationship and then how John describes their relationship is very different.

02:11:25.000 He considers her an acquaintance where she considers him her boyfriend.

02:11:32.920 So I think she had in her mind what she wanted and she was going to get it no matter what. 0.96

02:11:41.180 Sherry never got to have the children she so badly wanted. 1.00

02:11:45.360 Stephanie Lazarus made sure of that.

02:11:47.920 But Sherry's own family never stopped loving or fighting for her.

02:11:52.540 When she went off to California, Nels wrote to her, quote,

02:11:56.600 We all need a friend from time to time to talk to.

02:11:59.360 I hope I will always qualify.

02:12:02.080 He modeled the importance of a family first life,

02:12:05.680 showing his children how to never lose touch and never give up.

02:12:10.480 Now Connie and Teresa appear at every parole board hearing

02:12:14.420 and do media around them to keep the pressure on officials not to release their sister's killer.

02:12:21.460 When I asked them one last question about Sherry,

02:12:25.600 the sisters who lived with, learned from, and loved her so much told me this.

02:12:32.820 I don't know if you're religious people, if you believe in heaven, a God,

02:12:37.700 but I wonder if you do, what do you think Sherry's going to say to you

02:12:42.660 when you see her again?

02:12:45.140 Well, I think she's going to be proud of us

02:12:47.080 for fighting for her.

02:12:49.580 And she's going to be really excited to see us.

02:12:53.060 Now, hopefully we're not as old as we are right now

02:12:55.300 when we see her, but...

02:12:56.880 Yeah, not too soon.

02:12:58.360 I think she'd be so grateful to both of you.

02:13:00.600 You've been just true warriors.

02:13:02.380 Every sister should be so lucky

02:13:03.880 as to have two sisters like you.

02:13:05.160 Thank you for telling her story and yours.

02:13:08.580 Thank you.

02:13:10.180 I'm Megan Kelly.

02:13:11.300 This is MK Confidential.

The Megyn Kelly Show - September 20, 2026

＂Fatal Attraction＂ - The Murder of Sherri Rasmussen： The FULL MK Confidential Series

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