02-06-2012, 03:33 PM
finally! trial begins.
February 6, 2012
LOS ANGELES (KTLA) -- Opening statements were underway Monday in the murder trial of a former Los Angeles police detective accused of killing her ex-boyfriend's wife.
51-year-old Stephanie Lazarus is charged in the 1986 murder of Sherri Rasmussen.
Rasmussen, a 29-year-old hospital nursing director, was shot to death and brutally beaten in the Van Nuys condo she shared with her husband of a few months, John Ruetten.
Ruetten, who was Lazarus' ex-boyfriend, returned home from work on Feb. 24, 1986 to find Rasmussen dead in the living room.
Investigators say the 29-year-old had been shot three times with a .38-caliber gun, bitten and badly beaten.
On Monday morning, the prosecution told jurors the case boiled down to a bite mark, a bullet, a gun barrel and a broken heart -- key elements involved in Rasmussen's murder.
Prosecutors said her murder was committed by someone with specialized police knowledge, which Lazarus had.
She was trained in lock picking, finger printing (she left none behind) and how to silence a weapon, the prosecution argued.
They said the gun used in the murder was wrapped in a blanket and three shots were fired -- the first of which killed Rasmussen.
Those facts, combined with DNA evidence collected years later, point to Lazarus, the prosecution argued.
For more than 20 years, detectives had presumed Rasmussen was killed during a burglary.
Rasmussen's BMW was stolen, and some electronic equipment was found stacked at the foot of the stairs.
Lazarus was actually mentioned in the original case file because of her involvement with the victim's husband.
She had reportedly threatened Rasmussen at the hospital where she worked and at her home.
However, Lazarus was not pursued as a suspect at the time because investigators believed Rasmussen was killed by the same men who came close to killing another woman two months later in a botched burglary three blocks from her home.
No suspects were found and the case went cold for years.
The path that led detectives to suspect Lazarus began when DNA testing, which came into use in the years after the slaying, was done on the saliva sample collected from the bite mark.
The tests showed it had come from a woman, invalidating the initial theory that two male burglars had killed her.
Homicide detectives reopened the case in 2009 and started the investigation from scratch.
![[Image: 331070980-30083933.jpg]](http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2012-01/331070980-30083933.jpg)
In a video frame grab from her interrogation in 2009, Stephanie Lazarus, left, is asked if she recalled hearing of the death of Sherri Rasmussen, right.
![[Image: 8524446_448x252.jpg]](http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/images/kabc/cms_exf_2007/_video_wn_images/8524446_448x252.jpg)
February 6, 2012
LOS ANGELES (KTLA) -- Opening statements were underway Monday in the murder trial of a former Los Angeles police detective accused of killing her ex-boyfriend's wife.
51-year-old Stephanie Lazarus is charged in the 1986 murder of Sherri Rasmussen.
Rasmussen, a 29-year-old hospital nursing director, was shot to death and brutally beaten in the Van Nuys condo she shared with her husband of a few months, John Ruetten.
Ruetten, who was Lazarus' ex-boyfriend, returned home from work on Feb. 24, 1986 to find Rasmussen dead in the living room.
Investigators say the 29-year-old had been shot three times with a .38-caliber gun, bitten and badly beaten.
On Monday morning, the prosecution told jurors the case boiled down to a bite mark, a bullet, a gun barrel and a broken heart -- key elements involved in Rasmussen's murder.
Prosecutors said her murder was committed by someone with specialized police knowledge, which Lazarus had.
She was trained in lock picking, finger printing (she left none behind) and how to silence a weapon, the prosecution argued.
They said the gun used in the murder was wrapped in a blanket and three shots were fired -- the first of which killed Rasmussen.
Those facts, combined with DNA evidence collected years later, point to Lazarus, the prosecution argued.
For more than 20 years, detectives had presumed Rasmussen was killed during a burglary.
Rasmussen's BMW was stolen, and some electronic equipment was found stacked at the foot of the stairs.
Lazarus was actually mentioned in the original case file because of her involvement with the victim's husband.
She had reportedly threatened Rasmussen at the hospital where she worked and at her home.
However, Lazarus was not pursued as a suspect at the time because investigators believed Rasmussen was killed by the same men who came close to killing another woman two months later in a botched burglary three blocks from her home.
No suspects were found and the case went cold for years.
The path that led detectives to suspect Lazarus began when DNA testing, which came into use in the years after the slaying, was done on the saliva sample collected from the bite mark.
The tests showed it had come from a woman, invalidating the initial theory that two male burglars had killed her.
Homicide detectives reopened the case in 2009 and started the investigation from scratch.
In a video frame grab from her interrogation in 2009, Stephanie Lazarus, left, is asked if she recalled hearing of the death of Sherri Rasmussen, right.