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 bowl party the night before and the beer had flowed freely. that seemed to be a good day to have a cup of coffee and 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 rasmussen. shot to death in her condo a few miles from where he worked. it was one of the most horrific crime scenes. i said this guy met a horrible ending. just as troubling, sherri rasmussen was murdered a generation ago. february, 1986. meaning the odds of catching her killer were slim to none.
mishandled and improperly stored and sealed which compromised the sample. the vile was protruding, rather than being inside the envelope and sealed in order to protect the integrity of the evidence. you can t rely on the scientific results. overland said that hair, blood, fingerprints found at the crime scene did not come from lazarus. as for the weapon the fired the fatal shots? he insisted several other types of guns besides stephanie that could have fired those bullets. as for motive? the defense argued there was no evidence that stephanie lazarus was obsessessed with sherri s husband, john. john was still calling her. and stephanie went to tell sherri, look, you guys are getting married, i d tell him not to call me. after five weeks, it was up to the jury. loretta and nels
instead, she told them not to worry. she told me, i want to see if i can t work this out myself. that conversation happened during a dinner celebrating sherri s 29th birthday. afterward, her parents should sherri to the airport. as she walked away, she turned and gave me a big smile, and i ve relived that smile for years. less than three weeks later, sherri rasmussen lay dead. the rasmussens insist that early in the investigation, they told the lead lapd detective about sherri s troubling encounters with john s ex-girlfriend. i told the detective not once, but probably 15 to 20 times. and he said, the trouble with you is you ve been watching too much tv. coming up old evidence offers new clues. the suspect made it appear
pressed ruetten for more on their relationship which had started when they were both students at u.c.l.a.. they dated on and off until john got engaged to sherri. but even then. even though you re convinced the relationship that john had with stephanie lazarus overlapped with the relationship he had with his wife? we know from john that there was at least on one occasion where he was engaged that he was intimate with stephanie lazarus. there was a love triangle and stephanie lazarus had deep feelings for john ruetten, and may have had a motive to harm sherri rasmussen. was sherri s killer a scorned lover or a jealous coworker? we had two women on the list who, in our opinion, had a motive to harm her. debra, the nurse, and stephanie lazarus? correct. a few weeks later, cops in northern california tracked down debra and secretly scooped
here is what s happening. the san jose 13 space council returned to earth with astronauts after spending months aboard the country s new space tension. became the first chinese woman to walk in space. and in less than an hour, pope francis will celebrate easter s sunday on a massive event there. this year s celebration at the vatican will include larger crowds. including reduced restrictions due to the pandemic. e to the pandemic. welcome back to dateline. i m natalie morales. sherri rasmussen had been murdered in los angeles back in the 1980s. from the outset, her parents told the investigators about several runs sherri had with her husband s ex. now decades later, a cold case detective was focusing his attention on that very same woman, who also happened to be a member of the