trail of what we were doing. they even gave lazarus a code name. number five. and contrary to police procedure they decided to not tell l.a.p.d. headquarters that their new suspect was a fellow detective. you are doing it to protect her or to protect your investigation from her? dual purpose. it would protect the integrity of the investigation and if she was not involved, then nobody would ever know about it. four cops, knowingly skirted department rules to investigate one of their own. it was a difficult phase of our careers. she was one of us. she worked our unit. had worked side-by-side with the people around us. but nutall and his three fellow detectives did not waiver. they methodically built a case by exhaustively reviewing the original files and interviewing sherry s friends and family. it became clear to them that stephanie lazarus had the means,
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