parents offered to have the saliva sample the bite mark for dna, and even pay for it, but the lapd declined. she said we don t have a suspect. if we had a suspect we would have something to match. the case sat for another decade. but then in 2004, the lapd was conducting cases on cold cases and one of them was the murder of sherri rasmussen. it took two months to find that saliva sample buried in a refrigeration unit. the envelope was tattered, label torn, but the saliva was still inside and the dna was just enough to blow this case wide open. in that lab report, it indicated that the suspect that had bitten sherri rasmussen
we would really like to know what happened. sherri s parents knew it it was a burglary. weeks before the burglary, sherri had several strange encounters. one as she dined at a restaurant and thought a woman was watching her. she said she has eyes that can see right through you. scary eyes. there was also a run-in at the hospital where sherri worked. she went to sherri s office and said that if she couldn t have john, nobody could. most terrifying, an encounter in sherri s own home. and by now, she knew who the mystery woman was. she heard a noise and she looked up and there was john s ex-girlfriend. how did she get in the house? we have no idea. john s ex-girlfriend appeared to be stalking sherri. yet sherri never mentioned the woman s name to her parents.
yeah. yeah. i may have you know, i m thinking back now. you guys are bringing up all of these old memories. detectives turned up the heat. did you ever fight with her? you mean like fight? yeah. did you ever duke it out with her? no, i don t think so. you d remember that, right? that would be a pretty yeah, i think so. most of us can remember, without much difficulty, the number of fist fights we have had over the course of our lives. but while detective lazarus, at one point, answers no, when asked if she remembers attacking sherri or being attacked, at other points she can t recall if that happened. it doesn t sound familiar. i mean, what are they saying? i fought with her so i i getting the jump of the leap? they are saying, i fought her, so i must have killed her? i mean, come on. after about 45 minutes, lazarus realized she was the prime suspect in sherri s murder. now you re accusing me of this? is that what you re is that what you re saying?
memories fade. evidence has to be relocated. so it s obviously an uphill battle. uphill battle does not begin to describe it. the cold case the detective opened on that bleary-eyed monday morning would lead him on a chase of a lifetime and shake the foundations of the lapd. dates back to 1986 and a battle for the truth by the parents of a young bride. we miss her every day. those parents are nels and loretta rasmussen. doesn t make any difference what day it is. it s a pain that is always there. there s no cure for it. who would want to kill sherri rasmussen? she was hard-working, caring, and popular with her coworkers. trained as a nurse, sherri was director of critical care at a large local hospital.
we are implementing the people difference program. it was a devastating day. she was 29 years old and just in the prime of her career. althea kennedy was sherri s boss at the hospital and had originally hired her. we couldn t believe it. first of all, like how could someone do this? people crying. people upset. i mean, the hospital was like a tomb, you know? so, the loss was real palpable. sherri had just married three months earlier to john ruetten. where the happily married? unusually so. months after the wedding, john found sherri sprawled dead. he might seem a likely suspect, but john was cleared almost immediately. the lapd focused instead on evidence that this was a