actually, would appear that she ises trying to go out the door or make it to the alarm box where there s a panic button. and at that point, we believe that sherry went down in the foyer due to the fact that you could see marks in the as with well as broken finger nails from her hands. reporter: so there s a tremendous fight going on. yes, the killer is dragging her back in the area and then the killer takes a vase and hits her in the head with it. knocking her out and grabs a blanket and muzzels the gun and puts a contact shot in the victim. reporter: so that s an execution. that would be correct. reporter: as for motive, it seemed to be in plain sight. a few feet are from her body. they found a vcr and disk player that was stacked up one on top the other, near the front door. reporter: as if they were stealing it. as if it was a burglary or
we really would like to know what happened. reporter: sherry s parents never thought it was a burglary. they knew that just weeks before the murder, sherry had several strange encounters. one as she dined in a restaurant, and thought a woman was watching her. she said, she has eyes that can see right through you. scary eyes. reporter: there was a run-in at the hospital where sherry worked. she went to sherry s office and said that if she could not is have john nobody could. reporter: most terrifying an encounter in sherry s own home and by now, she knew who the mystery woman was. she heard a noise and looked up and there was john s ex-girlfriend. reporter: how did she get in the house? we have no idea. reporter: john s ex-girlfriend appeared to be stalking sherry. yet sherry never mentioned the
for a two-bit burglary. reporter: it just seemed a little like overkill. sherry s boss at the hospital, althea kennedy had to review sherry s autopsy report for insurance reasons and she was struck by what she saw. i thought, wow, she really put up one heck of a fight, which was not really surprising because sherry was tall, athletic, and i m sure would not go down easily. reporter: the l.a.p.d. theory back then was that there were two men robbing the house. and so, she d have fought with two guys. does that sound like sherry? well, that part didn t make a lot of sense to me. because i thought if there were two men and they had a gun, i, that just seemed a little weird. reporter: because sherry would not begin a fight with two guys who were armed? i would not think so. reporter: what about with a woman? well, i think she d have taken on a woman.
with crazy eyes. the ex-girlfriend of sherry s husband. nell s had never known that the girlfriend s name was stephanie lazarus. but he did know something else about her . something very important. and by this time, detective nutall knew it too. he was very cautious with what he said, but he said that we would be hearing more from him. nutall had reason to be cautious, he learned that stephanie lazarus wore the same badge he did. you now have a los angeles police officer as a person of interest in a murder case. reporter: and you thought i have bitten off more than i can chew. we are not this kansas anymore. detectives go after one of their own. we would never leave a paper trail of what we were doing. she worked our unit. when dateline continues.
problems. you had the proliferation of the high powered weapons. you had crack cocaine hitting the streets. all the forces had a tremendous homicide rate and the officers were overwhelmed. reporter: and now, the cops had their hands full with a heinous crime in the san fernando valley. sherry ras sympt amprassmussen in her home and then, a few weeks later, a possible lead. former crime scene investigator, yolanda mclarry was a consultant for nbc news. in the same vicinity, another woman was approached at her residence by two males at gunpoint, and involved a home invasion situation robbery. so, police early on thought the it was a possibility the two men may have something to do with the murders. reporter: a sketch was released of the two men. but still, detectives had no