One of the most extraordinary cases. A murder just months after her wedding. She gave me a big smile and i remembered that smile for years. All the time the killer was hiding in plain sight. No indication she was ever spoken to . No. And then a new detective took a look at an old lead. He said its a match. A person no one would have ever suspected of murder. We were going to end this. Was suddenly suspect Number One. Perfect murder. Almost. Hello and welcome to dateline. She was found murdered and what happened to her remained a nightmare. But when detectives reopened the case, they discovered it wasnt a burglar, but a suspect that led to their own front door with the Smoking Gun. Arriving before dawn at the police departments police station. I was tired. Reporter he hosted a super Bowl Party the night before, and the beer flowed freely. That is a good way of spending the day, getting caught up on my reading with a couple of aspirins, maybe. Reporter he reached for a file that had been sitting on his desk for months. The murder of sherry rasmussen. Just as troubling, sherri was murdered a generation ago. February, 1986. Meaning the odds of catching her killer were slim to none. Memories would fade, so it is obviously an Uphill Battle. Reporter the Uphill Battle does not begin to the Monday Morning would lead him on the chase of the lifetime. It would shake the foundation of the lapd. And for the truth of the parents of the young pride. Lazarus its a pain that is always there and there is no cure for it. Who would want to kill Sherri Rasmussen . Trained as a nurse. Sherri was director of critical care at a large local hospital. So we are implementing the program. And it was a devastating day. Reporter kennedy was Sherris Boss at the hospital and originally hired her. We couldnt believe it, first of all. It was like how could someone do this . People crying, people upset. I mean the hospital was just like a tomb. So the loss was real pal papable. Sherri married john. But just months after the wedding, john found sherri sprawled dead on the floor of their home. He might seem a likely suspect, but john was cleared immediately. Focused instead on evidence that turned violence. A retired crime Scene Investigator and was a consultant to date line. Shots are fired in close range. We return to the actual apartment, where sherri was found murdered to try to understand what happened. Rutten they assumed the killer had just walked in. There was a struggle here. Not just a struggle, but shots fired at this point. We have one shot that goes through the backslider and another shot that went through sherri and then back out through the slider also. And so sherri is now wounded and she tries to go back downstairs . That is correct. She is bleeding, she gets down these steps. It appears she is trying to make it to the Alarm Box with a panic button. At that point, we believe sherri went down in this foyer area, due to the fact you could see marks in this as well as broken fingernails from her hand. And the killer is dragging her back into this area and then takes a vase and hits her in had the head with it and muzzles the gun and does a Contact Shot into the victim. So thats an execution . That would be correct. The motive seemed to be in plain sight. They found a Disc Player stacked up on top of Each Other as if they were about to steal them . Yeah, that this was a Burglary Or Home invasion gone wrong. There was no sign of the Murder Weapon, but detectives recovered two. 38 caliber slugs. And there was something else that caught detectives attention. On the inside of her left arm, they found a Bite Mark, a crime Scene Analyst at the time went ahead and swabbed the mark for any possible saliva that could possibly belong to the killer. Saliva that would contain dna from whoever bit sherri. Remember this was 1986, years before Dna Testing Technology would arrive, linking a suspect to a sample like this one. Back then the Dna Wasnt much help. But the swab was packaged with all the other evidence. For now they did not have much to work with, no eyewitnesses, no usable fingerprints. And by the level of violence that occurred in this residence that it was two men or a man that had gone completely wrong, and then fled. Gone wrong because they shot her and then fled. The theory seemed to make sense and no one who would want to kill her or so they thought. Coming up. They went to her office and said if she couldnt have john, nobody could, when dateline continues. Up to 50 of people with graves could develop a different condition called thyroid eye disease, which should be treated by a different doctor. See an expert. Find a ted Eye Specialist at isitted. Com nexium 24hr prevents Heartburn Acid before it begins. 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So, i didnt think i needed swiffer, until, i saw how easily it picked up my hair. Every time i dried it it only takes a minute. Look at that the heavy duty cloths are extra thick, for amazing trap lock. Even for his hair. Wow. Youll love swiffer or your money back. The year was 1986. Crack was hitting Los Angeles and the City Of Angels to become a violent place. The Murder Rate would hit 831 killings that year. Nearly three times the amount 30 years later. And the lapd was stretched very thin. This is a time when homicide was booming in Los Angeles. Reporter Miles Corwin is a best selling author. It is a perfect problem with the gangs, creating the tremendous homicide rates. And now in february of that year, cops have their handsful in the city sprawling the san fernando valley. Brutally beaten and shot in her own home. And then a possible lead. Former crime Scene Investigator was a consultant for nbc news. Another woman was approached by two males at gunpoint involved in this situation. So police early on thought there was a possibility that they might have something to do with the murder. A sketch was made of these two men and they had no Murder Weapon connecting them or anyone else to her murder. Now the dna collected at the Crime Scene was useless. You are not going to leave it behind, so it was great on their behalf to recover it. And that was recovered, sherris car, just a mile away from the Crime Scene with the keys still in it. The only orating misses, sherri and her husbands marriage license. It seemed an odd thing to steal. Cash, computers, Jewelry Werent touched. But that wasnt the only thing that struck Sherris Family and colleagues as strange. But was especially violent for a burglary. It just seemed a little like overkill. Reporter Sherris Boss at the hospital had to review Sherris Autopsy Report for insurance reasons. She was struck by what she saw. I thought wow, she really put up one heck of a fight, which wasnt real surprising because she was tall, athletic, and wouldnt go down easily. And the theory that there were two men robbing the house, so she would have fought with two guys. Does that sound like sherri . If there were two men and they what gun, that just seems a little weird. Because she would not get in a fight with two guys who were armed . I wouldnt think so. Yoshi she would have taken on a woman. They never thought it was a burglary. And she had several strange encounters. One as she dined at a restaurant and thought a woman was watching her. She said she has eyes that could see right through you. Scary eyes. Reporter also a runin at the hospital where she worked. She went to Sherris Office and said that if she couldnt have john, nobody could. Most terrifying, an encounter in sherris own home. By now, she knew who the Mystery Woman was. She heard a noise and she looked up. There was johns exgirlfriend. How did she get in the house . We have no idea. Reporter johns Ex Girlfriend appeared to be Stalking Sherri, yet sherri never mentioned the Womans Name to her parents. Instead she told them not to worry. She told me i want to see if i Cant Work this out myself. Reporter that conversation happened during a dinner celebrating sherris 29th birthday. Afterwards her parents took her to the airport. She turned and gave me a big smile and i relive that smile for years. Less than three weeks later, she laid dead. They insist they told the detective about her troubling encounters. I told the detectives not once, but probably 15 to 20 times, and he said the trouble with you, youve been watching too much tv. Offering new clues where they staged it to mislead the investigation in 1986. She was executed. Reporter when dateline continues. Could these be Warning Signs of something bigger . Thank goodness we called his cardiologist because these were signs of attrcm, a rare and serious disease. That gets worse over time. If you see any of the Warning Signs, dont wait, ask your cardiologist about attrcm today. Years had passed and no arrests were made. Sherri rasmussen killed in her Los Angeles condo. In 1983, sherris parents offered to have the Saliva Sample from that Bite Mark tested for dna. They would even pay for it, but the lapd declined. They said we dont have a suspect. But if we have their dna, then we have something to match. The Case Sat for another decade. But then in 2004, conducting Dna Tests and one of them was the murder of Sherri Rasmussen. The envelope was tattered. The label torn. And the vile was poking out. But the saliva was still inside. The dna was just enough to blow this case wide open. And now the court indicated that the suspect that had bitten Sherri Rasmussen during the struggle was actually a female. A woman, not two male burglars as the original detectives had suspected all those years. But it would take a few more years before investigators began to understand what that crucial Dna Test Result meant. It was now 2009, and the case was cold. No apparent leads, no suspect, no answers for the Rasmussen Family. Then came that monday after the super bowl when the detective started picking through the old Case File and made a remarkable discovery. The Dna Test that had been conducted on that Bite Mark back in 2004. And once they realized that a woman was involved, why did it take four years until you finally picked it up . What were they doing . From what it appears, investigators may have followed the initial theory of this crime that, in fact, it was a barry and there was a woman involved in the burglary . A woman involved in the burglary. Looking back it was an opportunity that may have slipped through our hands as an organization. And now they took a closer look at the Crime Scene photos. Now remember she was shot after a violent struggle. Very little was actually stolen. The suspect staged it to mislead the original investigation in 1986. Someone had wanted Sherri Rasmussen dead. So they were looking for female names. Five women would have access to sherri. Three of them we eliminated immediately for insufficient motive. And there were still two names left. One was a coworker. A woman named deborah that worked with Sherri Rasmussen at glenday hospital. This Person Of Interest was replaced by Sherri Rasmussen in an official capacity. And problems followed almost immediately after that. So there was bad blood between them . There was a motive. Deborah had moved to northern california. And asking them to watch her and secretly try to snag a sample of her dna for comparison testing. In the meantime learning more about the second woman. He contacted John Ruetten, sherris former husband, now remarried and living in san diego. John explained he was involved in a relationship with Stephanie Lazarus. Stephanie lazarus. That was the other name still on the short list of suspects. He pressed ruetten for more when it started when they were both students at uclla. But youre convinced the relationship that john had with Stephanie Lazarus was overlapped with the relationship he had with his wife . We know from john there was at least on one occasion when he was engaged that he was intimate with Stephanie Lazarus. There was a love triangle. Stephanie lazarus had deep feelings for John Ruetten, and may have had a motive to hunt Sherri Rasmussen. Was her killer a scorned lover or a jealous coworker . We had two women on the list who in our opinion had a Motive To Harmer had. Deborah, a nurse, and Stephanie Husband russian . Correct. Reporter cops Tracked Down Deborah and secretly scooped up a sample of her trash, which contained dna. It was sent to the Crime Lab in l. A. For analysis. 72 hours later came an answer. She was knocking on the door with a bite. Reporter that left one possible suspect, number five on the list. John ruettens exgirlfriend, Stephanie Lazarus. We came home and there was a message on our phone from a detective that they wanted to talk to us. I thought oh yeah right. So i thought it was just another false hope. This is the detective . Right. They said were opening an investigation. And it was sort of deck ittive, where have you been for the last two decades . And they explained it all. Telling detectives that someone was stalking his daughter, sherri. A woman with crazy eyes. The exgirlfriend of sherris husband. And they never knew the Girlfriends Name was Stephanie Lazarus, but he did know something else about her. Something very important. By this time, the detective knew it too. He was very cautious of what he said, but he said that we would be hearing more from him. He had ample reason to be cautious because he learned that Stephanie Lazarus wore the same badge he did. And we now have a Los Angeles Police Officer as a Person Of Interest in a murder case. And you thought . We are not in kansas anymore. That changed everything. Coming up. A Top Secret Investigation as detectives go after their own. We would never leave a Paper Trail. She worked our unit. Everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. Those with weakened Immune Systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. The most common Side Effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. Arexvy is Number One in Rsv Vaccine shots. Rsv . Make it arexvy. Emergenc Crystals Pop and fizz when you throw them back. And who doesnt love a good throwback . Now with Vitamin D for the dark days of winter. Upset Stomach Iberogast Indigestion Iberogast Bloating iberogast thanks to a unique combination of herbs, iberogast helps relieve six digestive symptoms to help you feel better. Six digestive symptoms. The power of nature. Iberogast. 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