LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus ordered to stand trial in 1986 murder, won't face death penalty

LAPD Detective Stephanie Lazarus was ordered to stand trial today in the 1986 slaying of a hospital nursing director who was married to Lazarus' onetime boyfriend.

Lazarus will not face the death penalty after Judge Robert J. Perry rejected prosecutors' argument that the slaying was committed in the course of a robbery and that Lazarus was lying in wait.

On Wednesday, an LAPD criminalist testified that the odds that DNA found in the wound of a slaying victim belonged to anyone other than Lazarus were 1 in 400 quadrillion.

Calling it an apparent "crime of passion,"  authorities allege that  Lazarus beat and fatally shot Sherri  Rasmussen, a 29-year-old hospital nursing director, two years after joining the department.

Three months after they were married, Rasmussen's husband returned to their Van Nuys condominium on the evening of Feb. 24, 1986, to discover his wife's badly beaten body on the floor of the living room. She had been shot several times, police officials said.

Days after the slaying, two men robbed another woman in the area at gunpoint. Homicide detectives suspected that the pair also had killed Rasmussen when she came upon them burglarizing her home, according to news reports at the time. Rasmussen's parents, newspapers reported, offered a $10,000 reward for the men's capture.

The search for the men led nowhere. Like thousands of other homicides from the period, the case remained open and collected dust on storage shelves as detectives struggled to keep pace with L.A.'s dramatic surge in violent crimes.

This year, cold-case detectives took a new look at the case and began to focus on Lazarus. The break came when they linked DNA found at the scene to the detective.

Defense attorney Mark Overland argued that the LAPD didn't properly handle and store DNA evidence.

-- Andrew Blankstein

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Comments

[A Concerned American]

Another one of L.A.'s finest??

[August]

"LAPD didn't properly handle and store DNA evidence"

So, what they are really saying is that after 20 + years the original DNA morphed into Ms. Lazarus' DNA.....That's amazing science!

[Griffith Park Wayist]

This photo of Lazarus is absolutely haunting.

I assume a crime of passion is not a death-penalty case, but didn't Lazarus plan and execute the deed? That goes beyond a crime of passion.

[retired guy]

Dont let obama see that word-----QUADRILLION

[lil boku]

looks like i've seen those eyes before...in photos of charles manson!!!

[Billy]

This has all the fixin's of a mistrial!! How interesting!And there already blaming someone else for serving the LEO that killed himself on his motorcycle, it had to be someone else's fault, Right!! Will he be cited for VC Homicide! No it's not a joke!!And I'm not laughing!! The poor Wife and children, will they be set for life or is his insurance Null and Void because he was being ABOVE THE LAW!! Where were the other LEO's when he decided to Drive Drunk? After all he was at the Police Academy! Maybe they should take the Blame for this one. Oh yeah they were right there with him doing the same thing! Please DON"T PROTECT ME OR SERVE ME, I'm fine on my own. Please all have sympathy for the family!!! God Bless Them.

[Satan's little helper]

man, that chick looks NUTS!

[Chet]

Leave it up to "retired guy" to bring up our great president with this news story. The fact of the matter is, this recession was caused by the republicans, this huge deficit was caused by the republicans and the republicans started a war based on complete lies.

[Josh]

So when did CAPS and !!! become the way for crazy people to comment?

[Billy]

JOSH, You must be The Po Po!!!

[Your boss]

@Satan's little helper; Dude....OR Dudess, what kind of satanic helper are you anyway, not to finesse your statement with more clarity?
Take another look at those eyes, that Lazarus IS a full blown, Texas Chainsaw style, psycho-killer, beyond "nuts".
From my perspective those eyes don’t do much to convince me that Lazarus is anywhere near done serving your acknowledged master.
You think twelve jurors are going to let that walk after making first eye contact?
I wonder if they'll let her wear very dark shades during the trial?

[O.J. Simpson]

Hey don't sweat it Detective Lazarus! I'm rooting for you!If I can get away with double homicide, so could you! After twenty three years of gathering dust on your homicide case, there is more than a 50 percent chance you can get aquittal like myself. With flawed DNA evidence, flawed evidence gathering, lost memories, retired detectives and, a jury of seven or eight women sympathetic to you, you could be home before Easter Sunday, alleluia! The question is, just how many more department employees who have unknown criminal records working the beat?

[EJ]

Sorry, I call bull-dung on this one!!!! I am an LAPD police officer and I think this murderous tart needs to face the death penalty! Her victim didn't get a pass, and neither should this menace. I don't care that she was a police officer, as a matter of fact I think it is worse that she was, and yet still did what she did! I say, hang her high!

[FoolsGold]

It was not that the dna was linked to the specific suspect that was the turning point in the investigation. It was that the dna was determined to be that of a female and a review of the file showed only one female as a potential suspect. Once that happened the formal linking of the dna to the detective was simply a time-consuming matter.

[Lee]

"Leave it up to "retired guy" to bring up our great president with this news story. The fact of the matter is, this recession was caused by the republicans, this huge deficit was caused by the republicans and the republicans started a war based on complete lies. "

Neither political party is to blame for the recession. Both parties are to blame for the deficit , but the Dems have done a lot to make it worse as of late. The war against islamofascism was not started by any political party, unless of course you consider Al Qaeda to be one.

That being said, the Dems are working as fast as they can to ruin this country because they know that their window of opportunity will be very brief. When leftists con their way into power in this country by pretending to be centrists, voter backlash tends to be very swift and very severe.