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look at an old lead. >> he just said it's a match >> a person no one would hav ever suspected of murder >> we were going to end this >> was suddenly suspect number one. >> perfect murder. almost ♪ ♪ ♪ >> hello welcome to "dateline". she was a new bride marrie just three months, then she wa found murdered what happened to her remained mystery for decades partly because police told us the thief must have killed her during a break-in gone bad they discovered it wasn't murder, but a suspect whos trail right to their own front door here is josh mankiewicz with " the smoking gun. " >...

>> one of the most extraordinary cases in lapd history. >> toto, were not in kansas anymore. >> a newlywed murdered months after her wedding. >> as she walked away, she gave me a big smile and and i lived in that smile for years. >> and all the time episode the killer was hiding in plain sight. >> no indication she was ever spoken to? >> no. >> then a new detective took a look at an old lead. >> he just said it's 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. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> ...

Northern california tracked down debra and secretly scooped up a sample of her trash which contained dna. it was sent to the crime lab in l.a. for analysis and 72 hours later, came an answer. >> she was not the donor of the dna profile from the bite. >> that left just one possible suspect, number five on the list, john ruetten's ex-girlfriend, stephanie lazarus. nuttall called the rasmussens. >> 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. i thought it was just another false hope. >> this is detective nuttall? >> ...

Perhaps at least some of them may have had a motive to harm her. three of them we eliminated almost immediately for insufficient motive. >> but there were still two names left. one of them was a coworker. >> a woman named debra that worked with sherri rasmussen in the glendale hospital. this person of interest was later placed 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. >> debra had moved to northern california. nuttall asked local law enforcement to watch her and secretly try t...

Relationship with stephanie lazarus. >> stephanie lazarus -- that was the other name on the short list of suspects. nuttall pressed ruetten for more on their relationship which had started when they were both students at u.c.l.a.. they dated on and off until john got engaged to sherri. but even then... >> even though you're convinced the relationship that john had with stephanie lazarus overlapped with the relationship he had with his wife? >> we know from john that there was at least on one occasion where he was engaged that he was intimate with stephanie lazarus. there was a love triangle an...