A man finds his bride of three months dead on their living room floor. Was this a robbery gone wrong or something else? Listen to the story of the Sherri Rasmussen murder would take twenty-three years to solve even though her family knew who had done it all along.
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Our story takes place in Van Nuys, California. Van Nuys is a neighborhood located in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles covering 8.99-square-miles. Van Nuys was founded in 1911 and named after one of the area ranchers and town developers, Isaac Newton Van Nuys. The film Fast Times at Ridgemont High used Van Nuys High School. Famous citizens from Van Nuys include actress Cindy Williams from Lavern & Shirley, singer/songwriter Diane Warren, and Olympian Mitch Gaylord. He was the first American gymnast to score a perfect “10.”
Break-In
Around 6:00 pm on February 24, 1986, John Ruetten, an engineer, returned home to the townhouse he shared with his new wife, Sherri Rasmussen. The couple had just married in November 1986 and lived in a gated community on Balboa Boulevard. When John pulled into the two-car garage below their townhome he noticed that it had not been closed and his wife’s silver two-door BMW was gone. He surmised that she must have changed her mind and gone in to work that day. Sherri worked as a critical care nurse in the coronary care unit at Glendale Hospital. She was the director of the critical care unit. Pretty impressive for being just 29-years-old.
Earlier that morning before John left at 7:20 am, Sherri didn’t feel well and planned to call off sick. What surprised John is that when he and her sister tried to reach Sherri throughout the day to check on her there was no answer and the answering machine was not picking up. Their habit was that the last one to leave would turn on the machine while they were both out. Another surprise for John was noticing broken glass near the garage door entrance. This had seemed to come from the shattered sliding glass patio door. John thought at first perhaps Sherri had hit her side mirror pulling out as she had damaged her car antenna a few weeks earlier doing the same thing.
John used the door from the garage to go up into the second-floor living area. Upon entering he saw Sherri lying on the living room floor, dead. She had been shot in the chest still wearing her nightshirt and bathrobe. She also looked to have been severely beaten in the face. John immediately called the police.
Rush to Judgement
When Detective Mayer arrived they found a ransacked scene in the living room, but no forced entry into the home. There was a broken porcelain vase scattered over the living room floor along with a partially collapsed entertainment center. There were documents littering the floor from a dumped-out drawer. Detectives immediately began to form a theory of a botched burglary. They thought Sherri Rasmussen had interrupted the intruders and paid the ultimate price. Backing up this theory was the discarded stereo equipment stacked near the steps leading to the third floor.
Detectives surmised that while one of the burglars was ransacking the living room the other had surprised Sherri upstairs where a ferocious fight began. Sherri was 29-years-old, 6 feet tall and in good shape from working out. She put up a hell of a fight. Sherri was shot by a .38-caliber revolver. A bloody handprint was found near the front door. This suggested that Sherri tried to get out of the unlocked front door or hit the panic button on the alarm panel.
831 Murders in Los Angeles
The living room seemed to be the area where the fight had mostly centered. Detectives theorized that Sherri Rasmussen and her assailant had fought for the gun. At one point Sherri may have gotten her attacker in a headlock, but was unable to hold it. Perhaps due to the bite mark found on the inside of her left forearm. The vase was smashed over her head incapacitating her. Once down the assailant fired the first of three shots hitting Sherri in the chest. The killer then got a quilted blanket off the couch and used that to muffle the sound of two more shots to Sherri’s chest. Two additional shots were taken and shattered the sliding glass door.
Through canvassing the neighborhood after Sherri’s murder, detectives found a housekeeper next door who heard what sounded like a domestic situation in Sherri’s unit. She did not call the police as she had not heard any gunshots. Sherri’s murder would be one of 831 murders to occur in Los Angeles in 1986.
Police found Sherri’s BMW two miles from the couple’s home ten days after her murder. The keys were still in the ignition. The only other item besides Sherri’s car that was stolen was the couple’s marriage license.
Processing
At 2 am, criminalist Lloyd Mahany from the Los Angeles County coroner’s office arrived on the scene. He first looked for any trace evidence on Sherri’s body but found nothing stood out, no hair, fibers, or fluids. He then collected some swabs to rule in or out that a sexual assault may have taken place. Sherri was not sexually assaulted. Next, Mahany swabbed the bite mark on Sherri’s arm. He placed the swab in a six-inch tube with a rubber stopper and labeled it with his initials and the coroner’s case number. As per procedure he then placed the tube inside a 5-by-7 evidence envelope with Sherri’s name, description of contents, and where they were collected. All of Mahany’s evidence was booked into evidence at 10:25 am on February 25, 1986.
Sherri Rasmussen Autopsy
Sherri’s autopsy was conducted two days after her murder. The coroner was able to recover three bullets, one under the skin in her back and two from clothing under her back. Two shots to her upper chest area and the third to her upper abdomen. One of the three shots fired had a direct contact wound to her chest. All three shots were considered fatal. Sherri Rasmussen had numerous trauma points on her face. One was consistent with a blow from the muzzle of a gun. She had several lacerations around her right eye, left cheek, and the left side of her throat. There were also marks on her wrists that may indicate that she had been or was attempted to be restrained at some point. This injury was consistent with being tied up with a rope or cord.
Not Right
John was quickly cleared as a suspect. He had a solid alibi and was devastated by his wife’s murder. John and Sherri had met a year-and-half prior and had instantly fallen in love. They were both up-and-coming professionals and were still in the newlywed phase of their life together. John could not think of anyone who would want to hurt Sherri, but some of Sherri’s friends and family did.
Sherri’s parents, Nels and Loretta Rasmussen were notified of their daughter’s death, not from John, but by his father and not the day of, but the next. The Rasmussen’s resided in Arizona where Nels was a dentist and Loretta was his office manager. The Rasmussen’s were a close family and like John were devastated by Sherri’s murder. Nels right away voiced his suspicion as to who had done this to his daughter. He called Detective Mayer and asked if he had checked out John’s ex, “the lady cop.”
Was It a Botched Robbery?
Detective Mayer, however, was sticking to his theory that Sherri’s murder was a result of a botched robbery. To bolster his theory there was a break-in where two Hispanic males had assaulted a female in her home in the same neighborhood not ten days later. Nels however, wasn’t buying it.
Nels reported to the detective that his daughter had called him to complain about John’s ex-girlfriend in the weeks prior to her murder. His daughter told him that this ex-girlfriend, Sherri didn’t give a name, was a Los Angeles police officer.
Detective Mayer wrote down what Nels told him and filed it, but didn’t appear to follow up on that information. John Ruetten also told the detective about his ex-girlfriend two days after the murder during a crime scene walk-through. Years later Detective Mayer would deny ever having been told by either Ruetten or Nels about this ex-girlfriend.
Rassmussen’s Offer Reward
The Rasmussen’s were frustrated by the lack of progress on Sherri’s case. Nels didn’t feel that his information was being taken seriously. Or worse yet, outright ignored because he was pointing a finger at one of their own. Eight months after Sherri’s murder, the Rasmussens offered a $10,000 reward for any information regarding who murdered their daughter.
In 1988, Nels wrote a letter to the Chief of Police Daryl Gates asking him to look into John’s ex-girlfriend to rule her in or out as a suspect. He never got a reply. Nels didn’t give up and continued to call Detective Mayer about John’s ex. He was told that “he watched too much television.” Sherri’s case went cold.
Different Path
Had lead Detective Mayer followed up on Nel’s information about the lady cop perhaps Sherri’s case could have been solved sooner. Besides Sherri’s father asking for John’s ex-girlfriend to be checked out others had concerns about this ex as well. Sherri had also confided to a close friend about an incident where John’s ex, Stephanie Lazarus, had come to her office at the hospital dressed provocatively. She confronted Sherri telling her that if she couldn’t have John then no one could. If their marriage didn’t work out then she would be there to pick up the pieces. Sherri also told her father about this confrontation.
There were other incidents as well leading up to the Roetten’s marriage. Lazarus would show up at their home uninvited asking John to wax her skis for her. Sherri told John not to, but John not wanting things to escalate ended up waxing Lazarus’s skies. She told another friend of being fearful of Lazarus. She kept showing up in places around town that Sherri was also at. Sherri told her dad that she had seen someone dressed as a boy following her and she said that person had wild-looking or crazy eyes.
Sherri also feared that John and Stephanie’s relationship wasn’t truly over. John continually reassured Sherri it was.
Stephanie Lazarus – Beat Cop
Who was Stephanie Lazarus? John met Stephanie when they were both attending UCLA and living in the same dorm on campus. The two hung out with a group of friends and casually hooked up from time to time with their relationship turning intimate after they graduated.
Cold Case
According to an article in The Atlantic in November 2001, entitled The Lazarus File by Matthew McGough, 15 years after Sherri’s murder, the LAPD’s new Cold Case Homicide Unit was started with seven detectives. They combed through over 7,000 cold cases looking for one that had the best chance of being solved especially if there was DNA in evidence. Looking at 1,400 cases from 1960 through 1998 Sherri’s case had the potential they were looking for.
It wasn’t until September 2003 that a request for DNA analysis would be put in by the cold case unit on Sherri’s murder. It would take a year until the LAPD crime lab would start the process due to staffing shortages. Finally, in December 2004, criminalist Jennifer Francis started working on the request.
Analysis
The first step was to analyze a blood swatch taken from Sherri Rasmussen which developed Sherri’s DNA profile. Testing crime-scene evidence collected, a part of a fingernail and a bloodstained towel, only showed to be Sherri’s. Francis noted that there was a bite mark swab taken yet it couldn’t be found. A request was put in for the coroner’s office to locate this missing piece of evidence.
It was finally found over a week later. The 5 by 7 envelope looked pretty beat up. There was a tear on one end through which the red-stopper cap of the tube protruded. The tube itself appeared intact. When analyzed it showed a mixture of two DNA profiles, one was Sherri’s and the other her killer.
There were no hits in CODIS as to the mystery profile, but all was not lost as Francis noticed that this particular profile had an interesting gender marker. Both analyses on Sherri’s bite mark came back as belonging to females, one was Sherri’s and the other an unknown female suspect. Francis’s report was sent to the cold case on February 8, 2005.
Case Goes Dormant
Unfortunately, this new information added to Sherri’s file was not acted upon for a few more years. This was due to California’s Proposition 69 bill. The bill allowed police to collect DNA samples from arrested felony or sex crime individuals and people already incarcerated for such crimes. This ended up overwhelming cold cases with CODIS-based “cold hits.”
In early 2007, Detective Robert Bud took over the cold case unit that had been successful up to that point in solving 40 old murder cases. When they moved the unit to a more spacious location all the old unsolved files were sent back to the divisions they originated from. Sherri’s case was transferred back to Van Nuys. In March 2008, Detective Bud accepted a transfer to the Van Nuys homicide unit. In February 2009 he and a team of three other detectives, Pete Barba, Marc Martinez, and Jim Nuttall, began investigating Sherri’s case again.
Due to the homicide rate dropping significantly in the Van Nuys division from 30 to 40 per year down to 5 to 7 there was time to take a look at unsolved homicides. What stood out to Detective Bud in reviewing Sherri’s DNA analysis report from 2005 and the genetic female marker was that it didn’t match up with the original theory of a robbery interrupted.
Zeroing In
Detectives started from the beginning, but this time looked at it through the lens of a female perpetrator. They went through all the evidence and came up with a list of five names. Stephanie Lazarus was one of them. There was a notation in the original file that noted John Ruetten’s ex-girlfriend’s name with P.O. beside it. Detectives didn’t put it together that P.O. stood for police officer until they had talked with John who told them that his ex worked for the LAPD.
With Stephanie Lazarus on the suspect list, they needed to maintain secrecy lest they damage an exemplary officer’s records. You see, Stephanie Lazurus had spent the last 23 years working her way up the ladder at the LAPD to detective. She had an unblemished record with no complaints or citations for misconduct. She was awarded officer of the year twice. Currently, she was working in the high-profile Art Theft Division. Lazarus was also married to a detective that worked in the same division.
Detectives didn’t want her to be made aware of their investigation so they worked the evidence. Soon they were able to eliminate three of the five suspects. That left Lazurus and a nurse that Sherri Rasmussen had worked with. Detectives surreptitiously worked to obtain the nurse’s DNA and by mid-April, it came back negative. Now they were down to one.
Piecing It Together
Detectives looked at the connection between Lazurus and Sherri which was John Ruetten. Ruetten and Lazarus met at UCLA and casually dated until June 1984. Ruetten met Sherri in June 1984. The couple got engaged in May 1985. Lazarus learned of Ruetten’s engagement in June 1985. This effectively put an end to their casual hook-ups, or did it? John admitted to detectives in a 2009 interview that in June when Lazarus found out that he was going to get married she contacted him extremely upset asking to meet. John went over to Lazurus’s place to talk and tell her that he was set on marrying Sherri. Lazarus begged him to reconsider telling him she loved him and wanted a committed relationship with him. The two ended up having sex. It was after this meet-up that Lazarus confronted Sherri at her place of work.
Detectives discovered a second time that Lazarus confronted Sherri Rasmussen. This information came from Sherri’s father who reported that Sherri told him that one day she found Lazarus standing in her living room in a full police uniform. Sherri had no idea how she had gotten in. This resulted in another verbal altercation that left Sherri scared.
Missing
Next, detectives needed to figure out if Lazurus was on duty the day of the murder. They figured if she did carry out the crime it would have to be a day she had off. Lazarus did not work the day of the murder. Knowing that a .38-caliber gun was used, did Lazarus own a .38? This would have been either a backup or off-duty gun. In 1986, LAPD officers were required to use Federal .38J Plus-P ammunition in their weapons. This was the type of ammunition that was used to kill Sherri Rasmussen. On April 30, 2009, detectives entered Lazarus’s name into the California gun registry. Stephanie Lazarus had reported on March 9, 1986, her registered .38 had been stolen. This was thirteen days after Sherri’s murder.
According to the stolen gun report, Lazarus had reported the theft to the Santa Monica Police Department. She claimed that her car had been broken into and had been parked near the Santa Monica Pier. The thief had broken in on the driver’s side door punching in the lock and stealing her blue gym bag. In that gym bag were clothes, cassette tapes, and her Smith & Wesson .38 revolver. Lazarus made sure to identify herself as a police officer when she was making the report. The two departments, Van Nuys and Santa Monica never put it together and Lazarus bought a different model backup piece on March 19, 1986.
Higher Ups
The Van Nuys Detectives knew that they needed to bring in those higher in command as it was looking more and more as if one of their own had murdered Sherri Rasmussen. The chief of the Valley Bureau was informed of the investigation and allowed Van Nuys to run with it until a DNA sample could be obtained. If it turned out that the sample matched then the case would go to the Robbery-Homicide Division of the LAPD as they were responsible for handling high-profile cases.
On May 27, 2009, plainclothes detectives surveilled Lazarus as she was running errands. After observing Lazarus and her daughter eating lunch, they collected a discarded cup and straw from the trash. On May 29th a confirmed match was made, Lazarus’s saliva matched the saliva from the bite mark left on Sherri’s arm. There was a 1.7 sextillion chance of it belonging to someone other than Lazarus. That’s 17 followed by 20 zeros that it could be someone else.
Case Transferred to Robbery-Homicide
Sherri’s case was transferred to Robbery-Homicide and two new detectives, Sterns and Jaramillo, were brought up to speed. Afterward, they met with the prosecutor who would be assigned to prosecute Stephanie Lazarus. There were constant concerns about the case leaking out. So for the next week detectives worked out of the prosecutor’s office instead of right across the hall from the Art Theft Division in the Parker Center.
Two of the detectives from Van Nuys traveled to Arizona to talk with Sherri’s family. They wanted to get on the record statements from them. Not being able to tell Sherri’s family that they were close to making an arrest they asked the family to be patient with them a little longer. They had waited over 23 years could they wait for a little more?
Lazarus is Finally Interviewed
Detectives next planned how they were going to interview and ultimately arrest Lazarus without putting anyone in jeopardy as she had a firearm. It was decided that they would do the interview in the jail at the Parker Center as cops had to turn over their guns before entering. Under the guise of wanting Lazarus’s assistance with a case, detectives met with her on the morning of Friday, June 5th.
While detectives were meeting with Lazarus, Detective Nuttall returned to Arizona. He arranged another meeting with the Rasmussens for Friday morning. He wanted to be on hand to be the first to tell them immediately after Lazarus’s arrest.
After Lazarus arrived in the interrogation room detectives started talking to her about a case involving an ex-boyfriend and the murder of his wife. For more than an hour, detectives questioned Lazarus on her relationship with John Ruetten and if she had ever met Sherri Rasmussen, and if the two ever had an argument.
At first, Lazarus claimed that she couldn’t even remember Ruetten’s wife’s name or if they had ever met, but eventually, she said she thought they had, but they never had been in an argument. She told the detectives that Ruetten was a close friend and they dated casually but was evasive when it came to how long or when she had last spoken to him.
The interview ended when detectives asked if Lazarus was willing to give a DNA sample and she told them she wanted a lawyer. Once Lazarus was in the hallway she was placed under arrest by Robbery-Homicide detectives and put in handcuffs.
Bail is Denied for Lazarus
Lazarus was transported to the Los Angeles County Jail for females in Lynwood. On June 9, 2009, Stephanie Lazarus was charged with the first-degree murder of Sherri Rasmussen. Her bail was set at $10 million which was pretty shocking given that around this same time Phil Spector’s bail was only $1 million.
Stephanie Lazarus went on trial in early 2012. Prosecutors painted a portrait of a jealous obsessed woman who couldn’t get over the fact that John Ruetten was going to marry someone else. Prosector Shannon Presby told the jury that “a bite, a bullet, a gun barrel and a broken heart” were the motives for Sherri’s murder.
Lazarus’s own diary entries were placed into evidence to back up this theory. These diaries covered the period between November 1984 and August 1986. The prosecution even showed that Lazarus had written to Ruetten’s mother in August 1985 telling her she was “truly in love with John.” Lazarus would note in her diary that she received a letter back from Ruetten’s mother that made her “very, very, very sad.”
Could Lazarus Really Have Done It?
The prosecution called on former friends and academy cadets to testify as to Lazarus’s ability to commit such a crime. Michael Hargreaves, a friend, and former roommate, as well as, a former police officer testified that Lazarus had an “outstanding” fitness level. Her strength with respect to other female officers was “superior.” Hargreaves also testified that Lazarus was an “expert” shooter.
Jayme Weaver, mentioned in the appeal, claimed that sometime between 1985 and 1987, Lazarus had shown them lock picking tools and told them she learned how to use them. During a search of Lazarus’s home when her diaries were found detectives also uncovered a daily planner where Lazarus mentioned two books on locksmithing and lock picking. Those books were not found.
Stephanie Lazarus Defense
The defense, led by attorney Mark Overland, told the jury that the initial investigation into Sherri’s murder was botched as was the DNA evidence that was presented. The defense put on witnesses that testified as to Lazarus’s character and never witnessed any violent behavior on or off duty. Initially, the defense wanted to present evidence of the burglary theory, but the court excluded it. The defense wanted to bring into evidence the April 11, 1986 burglary that occurred just over a mile from Sherri’s condominium.
This was also a daytime burglary with stereo equipment being involved, as well as, a gun. The court stated that is where the similarities ended. In this second burglary, the perpetrators forced their way into the home. There was no forced entry into Sherri’s residence. The April burglary involved the ransacking of the occupant’s bedroom with jewelry stolen. There was no jewelry stolen from Sherri Rasmussen, just the car and marriage certificate. Finally, when the burglars were discovered by the homeowner they ran and never discharged their weapons. In Sherri’s case, she was badly beaten, bitten, and fired upon.
On March 8, 2012, twenty-five years after Sherri Rasmussen was brutally murdered, Stephanie Lazarus was found guilty. She was sentenced in May 2012 to twenty-seven years to life. John Ruetten spoke at Lazarus’s sentencing stating, “the fact that Sherri’s death occurred because she met me and married me brings me to my knees.” Stepanie Lazarus will be eligible for parole in 2039.
Final Act
Nels and Loretta Rasmussen filed a wrongful death suit against Stephanie Lazrus in July 2010. This was before her trial. Their case was still in pre-trial proceedings after Lazarus was convicted. The case was eventually heard and the Rasmussens won a $10 million settlement. Lazarus appealed because the statute of limitations had expired for the Rasmussen to file suit. She lost and was ordered to pay the original settlement and the Rasmussen’s appeal court costs.
Resources
- Van Nuys – Wikipedia
- Birth Place Matching “Van Nuys, California, USA” (Sorted by Popularity Ascending) – IMDb
- Murder of Sherri Rasmussen – Wikipedia
- The Lazarus File – The Atlantic
- Stephanie Lazarus | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers
- PEOPLE v. LAZARUS | FindLaw
- 48 Hours Mystery: One of Their Own
- NELS RASMUSSEN v. STEPHANIE LAZARUS | FindLaw
- Sherri Rasmussen’s Murder: Tracing the Shocking Resolution to a 23-Year-Old Cold Case | Vanity Fair