Top 5 Most Disturbing Details About The Stephanie Lazarus Case — Transcript

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1. 0:00newly wed Sher rasmason was brutally
2. 0:02murdered but it took 23 years for the
3. 0:04LAPD to catch her killer fellow police
4. 0:06officer Stephanie Lazarus if the killer
5. 0:09was in the LAPD all along is that why it
6. 0:11took decades to figure it out on the
7. 0:14evening of February 24th 1986 John ruton
8. 0:17returned from work to the vanise
9. 0:18California condo he shared with his wife
10. 0:20for 3 months inside he found a nightmare
11. 0:23on the floor of the living room amid the
12. 0:25remains of a broken base and an
13. 0:27overturned telephone lay his dead wife
14. 0:2929y Old Cherry rasmon he'd been brutally
15. 0:32beaten and shot three times at the chest
16. 0:35because someone had stacked Electronics
17. 0:37on the floor and the victim's BMW was
18. 0:39missing Los Angeles police quickly
19. 0:41decided rasmusen was the victim of a bot
20. 0:43burglar after that the investigation
21. 0:45went exactly nowhere for 23 years it's
22. 0:49clear that rasmuson had suffered before
23. 0:51Lazarus shot her three times at Point
24. 0:53Blank Range using a thick robe to muffle
25. 0:55the noise there were ligature marks on
26. 0:57her wrists and a cord was found at the
27. 0:58scene indicating that Lazarus had tied
28. 1:00her up at some point Lazarus had also
29. 1:03repeatedly bludgeon the victim in the
30. 1:04head among rasmusen's other wounds were
31. 1:07extensive facial injuries and a bite
32. 1:08mark on her left forarm the as salant or
33. 1:11as salant were grabbing at anything they
34. 1:13could find to make sure this woman
35. 1:15didn't breathe another breath in 1986
36. 1:18with DNA technology still in its early
37. 1:20days the arm wound didn't help
38. 1:22investigators in their search for the
39. 1:23killer but more than 20 years later it
40. 1:25became the key to solving the cold case
41. 1:28but the original investigation was bu
42. 1:29jled from the start brutton and
43. 1:32Stephanie Lazarus first met at UCLA in
44. 1:34the late 1970s and dated casually on and
45. 1:37off for several years Stephanie never
46. 1:39mentioned Sherry to me or the fact that
47. 1:43John was in another relationship that's
48. 1:46because the relationship was mostly
49. 1:47one-sided Stephanie thought of John more
50. 1:49as a boyfriend but he had much more
51. 1:52let's just say casual feelings about her
52. 1:54according to Matthew mof's the Lazarus
53. 1:56files a Cold Case investigation Lazarus
54. 1:58and ruton slept together once after his
55. 2:00engagement after which Lazarus began
56. 2:02harass Ral at work even bragging about
57. 2:05having had an affair with rut in 1989 3
58. 2:07years after rasmus's murder ruton and
59. 2:10Lazarus rekindled their relationship on
60. 2:11a trip to Hawaii before the trip ruton
61. 2:14reportedly contacted detective mayor to
62. 2:16make sure there was no evidence tying
63. 2:17Lazarus to the crime mayor assured him
64. 2:20there wasn't though for a while ruton
65. 2:22was unknowingly having sex again with
66. 2:25his wife's killer eventually the couple
67. 2:27drifted apart ruton remarried and had a
68. 2:29family Lazarus went on to marry a fellow
69. 2:31police officer adopt a daughter and Rise
70. 2:34through the ranks of the LAPD to become
71. 2:35a detective specializing an art theft I
72. 2:38asked detective Lazarus what do you know
73. 2:40about art and her answer was it hangs on
74. 2:43the wall if you're seeing the irony of
75. 2:46the LAPD promoting someone who knows
76. 2:47nothing about art to lead art detective
77. 2:50it probably explains a lot about this
78. 2:52case from the onset the LAPD believed
79. 2:55rasmuson had come home and interrupted a
80. 2:57burglary in their defense this theory
81. 3:00was later bolstered by an armed break-in
82. 3:02in the same neighborhood involving two
83. 3:03unidentified men who were never
84. 3:05apprehended but not everyone was so
85. 3:07convinced detectives ignored the please
86. 3:09of Rasmus and's father Nells to look
87. 3:11into Lazarus as a potential suspect
88. 3:13Lyall mayor the lead detective on the
89. 3:15original case repeatedly denied that
90. 3:17Nels had ever mentioned Lazarus to him
91. 3:19however according to Vanity Fair who
92. 3:21interviewed Nells the first thing Nels
93. 3:23rasmuson asked detective mayor the day
94. 3:25after his daughter was murdered was have
95. 3:27you checked out John's ex-girlfriend the
96. 3:28lady cup he was always diverted he was
97. 3:32told repeatedly that he'd been watching
98. 3:35too much TV John ruton was also
99. 3:38concerned about Lazarus and
100. 3:39investigators never interviewed
101. 3:40Witnesses who'd seen Lazarus harassing
102. 3:42rasmusen at the hospital where she
103. 3:44worked not long before the murder
104. 3:46obviously ruton was convinced enough of
105. 3:48her innocence to rekindle that
106. 3:49relationship for a brief time but you
107. 3:51have to wonder did he ever think about
108. 3:53all the evidence that pointed to Lazarus
109. 3:55turns out there wasn't that much there's
110. 3:58a lot of evidence in the case that that
111. 4:00went missing over the years including
112. 4:03trace evidence collected from sher's
113. 4:05body later interviews from ruton and
114. 4:07Nels rasm also went missing from police
115. 4:10files on the surface the electronics on
116. 4:13the floor and rasmus's missing car
117. 4:14seemed to support the burglary Theory
118. 4:16but there were other elements that
119. 4:18didn't fit that scenario for one no
120. 4:20other rooms had been looted according to
121. 4:22the Los Angeles Times Mark saffick a
122. 4:25former FBI criminal profiler who
123. 4:27testified at lazarus's trial explained
124. 4:29what I saw was an attempt to create an
125. 4:31illusion according to prosecutors in
126. 4:332023 what actually happened was a
127. 4:35premeditated attack by Lazarus who was
128. 4:37Furious that her former lover who never
129. 4:40actually considered her his girlfriend
130. 4:41married somebody else the evidence that
131. 4:44finally nailed Lazarus came from a bite
132. 4:46mark she left on rasmusen's left arm in
133. 4:492005 Jennifer Francis from the Cold Case
134. 4:51unit looked at the files and realized
135. 4:53the swab taken from the bite mark was
136. 4:54missing she tracked it down to a
137. 4:56Corner's freezer where she learned that
138. 4:58the bite had come from a woman a brand
139. 5:00new clue in a 20-year-old C case but
140. 5:02even then when she brought the
141. 5:04development to her colleagues they
142. 5:05didn't think it was reason enough to
143. 5:06reopen the case it wasn't until 2009
144. 5:09during another CT case review that a
145. 5:11different set of detectives decided that
146. 5:12the fact that the bite mark came from a
147. 5:14female meant the case was worth
148. 5:16revisiting the lab was able to extract a
149. 5:18usable amount of DNA from traces of
150. 5:20saliva taken from the wound even though
151. 5:22it had been sitting in storage for more
152. 5:23than two decades and around the same
153. 5:26time the detectives noticed that Lazarus
154. 5:28a colleague whose office was right down
155. 5:29the hall was listed in the case files as
156. 5:32a former girlfriend of ruton that was
157. 5:34enough for them to open a covert
158. 5:35investigation of their coworker
159. 5:37recovering her DNA from cup and straw
160. 5:39she'd thrown away the DNA matched and in
161. 5:422009 Lazarus was taken into custody at
162. 5:44LAPD headquarters I'm really shocked
163. 5:47that somebody would be blame saying that
164. 5:49I did this I mean we had a fight and so
165. 5:51I went and killed her I mean come on
166. 5:53Steve kie the LA County DA at the time
167. 5:55of lazarus's arrest and conviction told
168. 5:57the Associated Press had it not been
169. 5:59been for DNA the case might not have
170. 6:01been solved in 2012 following a 5-we
171. 6:04trial a jury took less than a day to
172. 6:06find Lazarus guilty of first free murder
173. 6:09a judge sentenced her to 27 years to
174. 6:11life in prison in November 2023 Lazarus
175. 6:14finally admitted to killing raspon but
176. 6:16said she hadn't been planning to do it
177. 6:17when she went to the condo that day
178. 6:19Lazarus didn't feel a need to apologize
179. 6:21to the family the fact that Sherry's
180. 6:24death occurred because she met and
181. 6:25married me brings me to my knees Lazarus
182. 6:28is currently serving her sentence at the
183. 6:30California Institution for Women in
184. 6:32Corona initially set to be paroled in
185. 6:34November 2023 a state parole panel
186. 6:37blocked her release her next parole
187. 6:39hearing is tentatively set for February
188. 6:412025 what's the most disturbing part of
189. 6:44the Stephanie Lazarus case I guess
190. 6:46depends on your take Who removed all the
191. 6:48evidence was it just sloppy police work
192. 6:50or was it the murderer who had access to
193. 6:52the files why did the case get
194. 6:54stonewalled in 2005 there are a few
195. 6:57mysteries in this case we'll never solve
196. 7:02[Music]