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Sherri Rasmussen was the victim of an infamous murder case that remained unsolved for 23 years. She was well-liked by her peers and came back from her honeymoon with her husband John Ruetten before being found brutally murdered in her apartment in California.
Sherri was murdered in 1986 and the case was closed as a case of a botched burglary attempt. However, the murderer was found 23 years later, and surprisingly it was a very respected detective of the Los Angeles Police Department named Stephanie Ilene Lazarus.
The Rasmussen murder case is discussed in Episode 5 of the second season of People Magazine Investigates on ID. The synopsis of the episode titled Once Bitten reads:
"Sherri Rasmussen and John Ruetten are enjoying newlywed life until one morning when Sherri calls into work sick; that night, John returns home to find his wife murdered; years later, detectives discover Sherri's killer was too close for comfort."
The second season of People Magazine Investigates originally premiered in 2017 and the episode regarding Sherri Rasmussen will be re-aired on ID on May 6, 2024, at 11.00 pm EST.
How Sherri Rasmussen's murder was solved 23 years after the incident
Sherri Rasmussen was found brutally murdered in the apartment she shared with her husband, in February 1986. She was a Van Nuys, California resident and had called in sick from work to stay home that day.
Sherri had returned from a wonderful honeymoon with her husband John Ruetten, who was looking forward to seeing her after getting home from work. However, he found her dead on the living room floor. Initial investigations and evidence from the crime scene confirmed that she had been shot thrice with a .38 handgun and also beaten up. There were signs of struggle and evidence also suggested she was involved in a tussle with whoever murdered her.
The case was deemed to be a burglary case, and the police also pinned her murder on the burglar who attempted to rob the house. However, people close to Sherri Rasmussen suspected foul play involved in her murder.
The following is a timeline of how Sherri's murder was eventually solved after more than two decades of being considered a cold case.
2004 - A minor lead surfaced in 2004 when a criminalist named Jennifer Francis analyzed saliva found from bite marks on Sherri's body. It turned out to be female saliva. This undermined the burglary theory. Jennifer Francis also uncovered that Sherri had previously been harassed at her job by Stephanie. The police, however, brushed off any links to Stephanie since she was a detective herself.
2009 - Two detectives, Jim Nuttall and Pete Barba, reviewed the Sherri Rasmussen case file and reopened it based on the new lead, attributing to Jennifer Francis' saliva testing reports.
They treated the case as a murder case and further ruled out the burglary angle since it was committed in broad daylight. They reviewed the details of the crime scene to discover that nothing of importance was stolen. The detectives realized that the crime scene was staged, pointing further towards a murder.
They strongly believed that Stephanie Lazarus, a detective, was someone who could have perfectly staged the crime. The detectives also learned that Lazarus was involved in an on-and-off s*xual relationship with John Ruetten before he was married to Sherri.
The breakthrough in the case emerged when Detective Nuttall was informed of Lazarus' ongoing communication with Sherri before she was murdered. The information provided by Nels Rasmussen made Lazarus the prime suspect.
A discarded voluntary DNA sample of Stephanie Lazarus was obtained by the detectives and a sample extracted from it corresponded with Sherri Rasmussen's bite mark DNA.
Stephanie Lazarus was arrested on the charges of the murder of Sherri Rasmussen in 2009. Her trial took place in 2012, after which she has been serving a life sentence in a California prison.
Catch all the details about Sherri Rasmussen's murder on the upcoming re-air of Season 2 Episode 5 of People Magazine Investigates on ID.
