look at an old lead. he just said it s a match a person no one would hav ever suspected of murder we were going to end this was suddenly suspect number one. perfect murder. almost hello welcome to dateline . she was a new bride marrie just three months, then she wa found murdered what happened to her remained mystery for decades partly because police told us the thief must have killed her during a break-in gone bad they discovered it wasn t murder, but a suspect whos trail right to their own front door here is josh mankiewicz with the smoking gun. february 1st, 2009. the detective arrived before dawn at the los angeles police department s van nuys station. i was tired i was tired. he had hosted a super bow party the night before and the beer had flowed freely that seemed to be a good da to have a cup of coffee an caught up on my reading. a couple of aspirin maybe he reached for a file sitting on his desk for months the file of sherri rasmu
the initial theory of this crime, that, in fact, it was a burglary and that there was a woma involved in the burglary that there was a woma involved in the burglary looking back now in hindsight, it was an opportunity that may have slipped through our hands as an organization but now nuttall took closer look at the crime scene photos and began to develop hi own very different theory. remember, sherri rasmussen was shot at point blank range afte a violent struggle, and despit the stereo equipment stacked b the front door, very little wa actually stolen. the suspect made it appea to look like a burglary. the staged it to mislead the investigation in 1986. she was executed in other words, someone had wanted sherri rasmussen dead so now, nuttall dug deeper through the file looking for names, female names. we had five women that woul have had access to sherri an perhaps at least some of the
that the girlfriend s name was stephanie lazarus. but he di know something else about her. something very important and b this time, detective nuttall knew it too. he was very cautious of wha he said. but he said that we would be hearing more from him nuttall had ample reason to be cautious. because he learne that stephanie lazarus wore th same badge he did. we now have a los angeles police officer as a person o interest in a murder case. and you thought, i ve bitte off more than i can chew toto, we are not in kansa any more. that changed everything coming up - a top secret investigation, as detectives go after one of their own. we would never leave a pape trail of what we were doing. she worked our unit. when dateline continues
may have had a motive to har her. three of them w eliminated almost immediatel for insufficient motive. but there were still tw names left. one of them was coworker a woman named debra tha worked with sherri rasmussen i the glendale hospital. thi person of interest was later placed by sherri rasmussen i an official capacity and problems followed almost immediately after that so, there was bad blood between them there was a motive. debra had moved to northern california. nuttall asked loca law enforcement to watch her and secretly try to snag a sample of her dna fo comparison testing. in the meantime, nuttall learned more about the second woman. he contacted john ruetten sherri s former husband and no remarried and living in sa diego. john involved he had been involved in a dating relationship with stephani lazarus. stephanie lazarus that was the other name on the shor list of suspects. nuttal
so, nuttall finally brought lapd s internal affair detectives into the loop hoping they could close th deal by somehow secretly obtaining lazarus dna. she was tailed for days, as undercover cops waited for her to leave some small piece of hersel behind. finally, at a retail store it happened. lazarus ordered a soft drink and drank it. a trace of her saliva wa on the straw, which she then tossed in the trash. it wa more than enough for testing two dna samples separated by two decades. 48 hours later, jim nuttall got call from hi supervisor it was real simple. he just said, it s a match. good feeling, bad feeling both surreal. that moment, tha call, i ll never forget it but stephanie lazarus was still free and had no clue after 23 years, her department was on her tail for murder