[CA] LAPD tricks detective into disarming, then arrests her for murdering her boyfriends wife, Sherri Rasmussen, in '86

LOS ANGELES POLICE DETECTIVE STEPHANIE ILENE LAZARUS
HAS BEEN ARRESTED AND CHARGED WITH KILLING HER FORMER BOYFRIEND'S WIFE,

SHERRI RAE RASMUSSEN

..."This individual was investigated and arrested by L.A. police officers who were going where the truth took them," [LAPD Police Chief William] Bratton said. "It reflects very positively on the department. It doesn't reflect too well on her, in terms of what we allege that she did, but it has no negative reflection on the department, rather it has a very positive reflection on us in the sense that we take our efforts very seriously and we go where the truth takes us. Sometimes it's painful"...

OFFICER CHARGED WITH KILLING RIVAL IN 1986
timesoftheinternet.com
LOS ANGELES, June 5 (UPI) --
[Excerpt] A Los Angeles police detective was charged Friday with killing her former boyfriend's wife in 1986 when she was a young patrol officer. Stephanie Ilene Lazarus, 49, was arrested at Parker Center, the police headquarters building, the Los Angeles Times reported. She allegedly beat and shot Sherri Rae Rasmussen, whose body was found by her husband in their condominium apartment... [Full article here]

LAPD DETECTIVE ACCUSED OF KILLING ROMANTIC RIVAL
Los Angeles Times
June 5, 2009
[Excerpts] Police allege that [Los Angeles Police Department Detective Stephanie Ilene] Lazarus beat and fatally shot Sherri Rae Rasmussen, a hospital nursing director, according to sources familiar with the investigation. "It's very bittersweet. Our goal is to always bring people to justice, but this is somebody we know," said Deputy Chief Charlie Beck, who oversees the detective bureau. Rasmussen's badly beaten body was found by her husband in the living room of the couple's Van Nuys condominium on Feb. 24, 1986. Shortly after the slaying, two men robbed another woman in the area at gun point and homicide detectives came to believe the pair had killed Rasmussen... [Full article here]

LAPD DETECTIVE ARRESTED IN MURDER CASE
She's accused of killing ex-BF's wife in 1986.
myfoxla.com
Text story by City News Service
Posted by: Scott Coppersmith
Friday, 05 Jun 2009
[Excerpts] ...[Sherri Rasmussen] was discovered by her husband, who had a long-term relationship with Lazarus prior to the marriage, according to LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck, who oversees the detective's bureau... "We are going to go where the truth and the facts take us," police Chief William Bratton said... A DNA sample taken from the crime scene - police declined to specify what the sample was or where it was found - was reanalyzed and police detrmined that the killer was a woman, not a man as previously believed. According to the Los Angeles Times, detectives trailed Lazarus last week and obtained a sample of her DNA from a discarded cup or straw, and it conclusively matched the sample taken from the crime scene... "You cannot know a person for 26 years ... you can't know a person for that long, know their family, and not be affected by this," Beck said. "There will still be a period of disbelief and then internal mourning for a lot of people on this." Beck declined to say whether Rasmussen's husband was being investigated by police... "This individual was investigated and arrested by L.A. police officers who were going where the truth took them," Bratton said. "It reflects very positively on the department. It doesn't reflect too well on her, in terms of what we allege that she did, but it has no negative reflection on the department, rather it has a very positive reflection on us in the sense that we take our efforts very seriously and we go where the truth takes us. Sometimes it's painful"... [Full article here]

VETERAN DETECTIVE'S ARREST IN 1986 KILLING STUNS THE LAPD
Police allege Det. Stephanie Lazarus, 49, shot her ex-boyfriend's wife, then harbored the secret for more than two decades.
Los Angeles Times
By Andrew Blankstein andrew.blankstein@latimes.com
and Joel Rubin joel.rubin@latimes.com
June 6, 2009
[Excerpts] Shortly after she sat down at her desk on the third floor of LAPD headquarters Friday morning, Det. Stephanie Lazarus was told a suspect in the basement jail had information on one of her cases. The 25-year police veteran went quickly downstairs. As Lazarus removed her firearm to pass through security, she unknowingly walked into a trap. There was no suspect - only questions about a terrible secret police believe she has been harboring for more than two decades. Now disarmed, Lazarus, 49, was confronted by homicide detectives and arrested on suspicion of the 1986 slaying of a woman who had married Lazarus' ex-boyfriend... To minimize the chances that word of the reopened investigation would leak, only a small circle of detectives and high-ranking officials were made aware of it... Asked at an afternoon news conference whether Lazarus had been either deliberately or mistakenly overlooked because she was a cop, Beck said: "I don't know the answer to that at this poin"... Until her death, [Sherri] Rasmussen was director of critical-care nursing at Glendale Adventist Medical Center. Her slaying stunned colleagues, who referred to her as a vital member of the staff, according to news reports. On the day she was killed, she had reportedly stayed home from work after straining her back in an aerobics class. In an article about the family's reward, her father said Rasmussen had entered college at 16 and had taught for a period at UCLA. "It's safe to say we have some closure," said Ruetten, the victim's husband, when reached at his home in San Diego. "It's been a horrible thing to go through it all again." [Full article here]
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