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Apologize that it took us over two decades to give them that closure. >> reporter: you feel better? >> the most gratifying moment of my career. >> i was extremely happy. i said, i feel like i knew it all along. >> reporter: back in l.a., the lazarus family also got the news. >> well, it was numbing. >> reporter: i'm guessing one of the things you said or thought was, they got it wrong somehow. this is a mistake. >> absolutely. >> reporter: some error has been made here? >> yes. it will be cleared up by the end of the day, yeah. >> reporter: it didn't happen? >> didn't happen. >> reporter: step...

>> reporter: in february of 2012, nearly 26 years to the days since sherri rasmussen murder, stephanie lazarus would have her day in court. a chance to clear her name and reputation and to show that dna isn't always right and that the los angeles police department had it all work. coming up, about the lapd have it wrong? >> john was -- and stephanie went to tell sherri, look, you guys are getting married, i'm telling him not to call me. >> we, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant stephanie irene lazarus -- >> when "dateline" continues! ws and especially med d savers. se...

To her parents. instead, she told them not to worry. >> she told me, i want to see if i can't work this out myself. >> reporter: that conversation happened during a dinner celebrating sherri's 29th birthday. afterward, her parents should sherri to the airport. >> as she walked around, she turned and gave me a big smile and i've relived that smile for years. >> reporter: less than three weeks later, sherri rasmussen lay dead. the rasmussens insist that early in the investigation, they told the lead lapd detective about sherri's troubling encounters with john's ex-girlfriend. >> i told the detec...

Focusing his attention on that very same woman who also happened to be a member of the lapd. here is josh man ko witnesskiew more of "the smoking gun." >> for two decades the lapd had two theories that she was killed by a botched burglary and science rewrote the script and this cold case suddenly was almost too hoted to hand to han. the prime suspect was a lapd detective stephanie lazarus. as jim newsall went through the murder book he found almost nothing on lazarus even though she was the ex-girlfriend of the husband of sherri rasmussen. there was only one notation in the criminology in 1986...

The los angeles police department's van nuys station. >> i was tired. i was tired. >> he had hosted a super bowl party the night before and the beer had flowed freely. >> that seemed to be a good day to have a cup of coffee and caught up on my reading. >> a couple of aspirin? >> maybe. >> reporter: he reached for a file sitting on his desk for months.hi of sherri rasmussen shot to death in her condo a few miles prosecute where he worked. >> up with of the worst most horrific crimet scenes i've se is this guy met a horrible ending. >> reporter: just asrr troublin sherri rasmussen was murdered a...