When Sherri Rasmussen was found dead in her Van Nuys townhouse in February 1986, he was violently beaten and shot three times, which detectives said was a theft, a disastrous conclusion that had not been encountered in decades.

Rasmussen, 29, is newly married and is the popular director of nursing at Glendale Adventist Medical Center. Her new husband, John Ruetteten, gets married with some dangerous dangers: a depressed former lover who doesn't surpass him.

This is Stephanie Lazarus, a 25-year-old patrolman at the Los Angeles Police Department, and in retrospect, the reason for doubting her seems obvious. She had appeared in the victim's workplace to harass her, and Rasmussen expressed concerns about being followed.

More importantly, the bullets found by LAPD in the body were the kind of bullets fired at the officers, and in the weeks after the murder, Lazarus reported that her backup gun was a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver, stole from her car.

But for years, she has not been questioned by the suspect. To be precise, it took LAPD 23 years to arrest Lazarus (by that time he had already formed a family and advanced to a high-profile detective position) and never got an answer.

"I don't know we will always know the real answer to what's wrong," said Connie Rasmussen, 71, one of the victims' sisters.

She remembers her mother running a dental clinic in the Arizona family, she kept the original detective’s business card on her desk and called the update ruthlessly.

When she thinks about the details of the murder, the evidence of personal hatred seems clear, as well as evidence of the crime being mature. Her sister was smashed on her head with a vase. She shot three times at close range, tangling the sound around the blanket of the gun.

When the case was in trouble, her father wrote to then-Rapd chief Daryl Gates, pleading for his intervention. But the agency got rid of the family. Detectives have always insisted that crime is suitable for residential burglary mode rather than love triangles. Stereo equipment has been stacked near the stairs, as if the thief was interrupted at work. Two armed robbers were in another house near the vicinity soon after.

Perhaps it is investigative tunnel vision. Perhaps it was the workload of the murders in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s. Maybe this could be one of their own possibilities. Perhaps, Rasmussen's sister still wants to know that someone inside LAPD helped Lazarus in the process.

“I believe,” Connie Rasmussen said. "I can't prove it, but yes, I do."

There is no evidence to support the intentional cover-up. The Rasmussen family filed a lawsuit, hoping that the lawsuit will bring an answer. The judge litigated the case based on regulatory restrictions. Rasmussen's parents lived long enough to see Lazarus arrested and convicted, but died without knowing why it took a quarter of a century.

Stephanie Lazarus keeps her badge and secrets when the case is shaped and the family feels sad. She has built a solid career at LAPD. Prosecutors described her as C-Plus Cop.

She promoted Dare Anti-Prog initiatives for Chief Dare Anti-Prog. She became a detective for art theft details, which gave her a high public reputation. She appeared with Brass in the photo OP. She joked with the reporter. She engages in "family hatred." She married another policeman and adopted a girl.

By the early 2000s, detectives were exploring cold cases, but evidence of the Rasmussen killing mysteriously disappeared from the coroner's office. Whether Lazarus stole it was never proven, but she could have accessed it. As a detective in Van Nuys' office, she also has access to case files, the so-called murder book.

"If it has disappeared, it's hard to know what would be missing," said Matthew McGough, who wrote a 595-page account called the "Lazarus Archives."

The case may not be resolved, except for a single evidence. In a refrigerator in the coroner’s office, samples of saliva from Rasmussen’s forearm were stored separately. In 2005, DNA tests decades ago showed that it came from a woman, destroying the burglary theory of two people.

But LAPD failed to take positive action on the new information, and four years later, before a Van Nuys detective asked an obvious question: Does the victim have female enemies? This led to Lazarus, whose DNA matched the saliva sample.

When she arrived in the city center in early June 2009 to work, the detective used a trick to lure Lazarus into the prison facility downstairs where she would be armed. At first, Lazarus told investigators that she didn't remember whether she had met Rasmussen, but her memory quickly recovered.

"I probably have spoken to her once or twice or more," she said. She was cumbersome when it became clear that she was a suspect in the murder. "Do you blame me? ... Am I on the 'candid camera' or something? It's crazy."

She went on to deny her guilt at the 2012 trial, and jurors saw a letter she wrote to Rasmusen’s husband, a man she met at college, who fell into obsession. She wrote that her engagement shocked her. She didn't understand why he chose another woman.

"I really fell in love with John," Lazarus wrote. "This year it made me tear apart."

When Ruiten himself testified, he described the obvious asymmetry. He said he and Lazarus had become UCLA friends and they had slept together for years, but he didn't think she was his girlfriend. He said he slept with Rasmussen after getting engaged to her and then begged Rasmussen for forgiveness.

Lazarus, 51, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 27 years in jail. It is possible to frame the beliefs, as the LAPD’s redemption story, a new generation of police officers have made modifications to the mistakes of their ex.

However, the internal investigations promised by department leaders (an exploration of delays and errors) seem to be nowhere to go.

“It’s a fake investigation,” McGough said, who spent nine years studying his book. "They quietly shut it down. It's police culture. It's a 'this looks bad and we're not going there.'"

The Rasmussen family was shocked when they were ruled by the parole group to release Lazarus after 11 years in prison in November 2023. She took an anger management course, which was considered a low risk of re-offending. This decision is reversed, but Lazarus has new opportunities in every new hearing.

The admission of someone who might be favoring her, after years of denial, she killed Rasmussen. At a hearing in February 2025, she talked about falling in love with Ruetten and her loneliness when she learned of his engagement.

"I can't keep the relationship going, I feel desperate," she said. "I think, I just want to have something else."

She would call him, hang up, just listen to him say hello. "It comforted me," she said.

Through her account, she called his home on the morning of February 1986 and was angry when Rasmussen answered. She decided to visit. She found the address in the police database. She held a gun and a rope.

"I'm going there and hoping to see him," she said. "I'm angry that if she gets in the way of meeting John, I'll strangle her."

Rasmussen responded, she "breaks in" and finds herself struggling with her "a hell-like bar battle." She tied Rasmussen's wrist with a rope and explained, "She's getting in the way of seeing John."

"How will her wrist restraint let you enter to meet John?" the commissioner asked.

Lazarus replied, “It makes no sense.”

Paul Nunez, one of the prosecutors who were tried by Lazarus, said she was still lying and was admitted to win parole while underestimating her culprit. He did not think Rasmussen would open the door to acknowledge Lazarus. In his opinion, she was more likely to choose the lock. He considered it an insult to the victims of Lazarus, describing the attack as fighting each other. She must have known that Ruiten was working and that his wife would be alone.

"You can't give half of the murder and blame some of the blame on the victim," Nunes said in a recent interview.

"It's a predator, she's in the cage with her prey. She has total control over everything. She has weapons. She has received tactical grab training from the academy. She's in good health. She's in the law enforcement Olympics."

She went on so smoothly at the crime scene that it apparently threw the detective out of her track for decades.

"She is still a long way from admitting all the actions she has shown in this crime," Nunes said.

At one point during the parole hearing, Lazarus admitted that she had escaped the revolver that killed Rasmussen and reported the stolen. She knew the detective had her name and thought they would have questions.

"I think they're here and want to see my gun," she said.