an enormous amount of fraud takes place with the, and in terms of a it quick rich hustle it is at the top of its game perhaps why the president likes it committee seem to be present. well that is it for tonight's nightcap. thank you all for joining me. i wish you all a good night could catch the nightcap again on saturdays at 11:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. for now, we are signing off. from all my colleagues across the networks at msnbc thanks for staying up late. e. close and personal fig ht. while she was down on the ground, ht. three rounds were fired. all of them were hits. he opens the door and sees his wife. she had obviously been killed. what happened? why? josh mankiewicz: when you heard that burglary theory,

that make sense to you? no. teresa lane: i just came to the conclusion it was never going to be solved. cliff shepard: i saw that a bite swab had been collected by the coroner's office. there should be dna. jim nuttall: it indicated the suspect that had bitten sherri rasmussen was actually a female. now it becomes a matter of time. that moment, that call, i'll never forget it. that changed everything. josh mankiewicz: this plays to everybody's favorite conspiracy theory, that cops-- cover for other cops no matter what. you're out of your mind. jim nuttall: we made a determination. we'd never say her name. we referred to her only as number five. nobody would ever know who she was. [music playing] josh mankiewicz: december 1985. for many families, a typical christmas. visit grandma. josh mankiewicz: for the rasmussen family of tucson, arizona, it would be a christmas of firsts

and lasts. woman: ok, sherri. josh mankiewicz: it was the first christmas for 28-year-old sherry rasmussen and john ruetten as husband and wife. it was also a time to celebrate the first child of the next generation, sherri's niece, rachel. rachel: my first christmas, i was told that i had chickenpox. [laughs] so it was not very comfortable. and the only person who could make me happy was my aunt sherri. give me the camera. josh mankiewicz: rachel and her younger sister, jessica, only know their aunt sherri through videos. it's nice and big. josh mankiewicz: photos, and the stories their family told them. jessica: why? why would you take her from such a young age from a very loving family that misses her greatly? josh mankiewicz: baby rachel's first christmas back in 1985 was also her aunt sherri's last christmas on earth. it was great to watch it and to see her. and then at the same time, it hurts,

and it makes me angry, because i feel like, why isn't she here? why did someone have to take her away? josh mankiewicz: the mystery of what happened to sherri rasmussen would take more than two decades to solve while her family waited with a hole in their hearts. teresa was so close to her sister, sherri, she often called her while on her 10:00 am break, like on that monday morning in february 1986. teresa lane: and her secretary said that she was home sick. so i called her at home after that. josh mankiewicz: sherri didn't pick up. and when teresa's phone rang late that night, it wasn't sherri returning her call. i answered the phone and dad told me that she had been killed. and i sat up and screamed in bed.

josh mankiewicz: not just killed. murdered in her own home. the third sister, connie, was next to get the call. it was close to midnight by the time i heard. and then i started screaming. josh mankiewicz: shocked and sleep deprived, the rasmussen family met up at the la airport, and then they went straight to lapd's van nuys station where sherri's case was being handled. did police tell you what they thought had happened? i believe at that time, they told my parents that she was in a fight in her home and had been shot. her injuries were extensive and disturbing. josh mankiewicz: journalist matt mcgough wrote a book about the investigation. matt mcgough: john, sherri's husband, came home from work that night around 6:00 pm and went upstairs and discovered sherri's body. josh mankiewicz: when police got to the scene, they found video and stereo equipment stacked just inside the front door.

as if someone is in the act of burglarizing and suddenly discovered the homeowner is home and there's a confrontation and it goes sideways. josh mankiewicz: john and sherri had been married just three months. matt mcgough: by all accounts, john was distraught that night. josh mankiewicz: too distraught, apparently, to break the news to sherri's family. he didn't call you to tell you that sherri had been murdered. no. he didn't call you? no. he didn't call your parents? no. josh mankiewicz: instead, john had his dad call sherri's parents. nels rasmussen: telling me that sherri had been murdered. and so i told his dad, i want to talk to john. and he said, john doesn't feel like talking. josh mankiewicz: sherri's family says when they finally met with john at the lapd's van nuys station the day after the murder, he still wasn't talking. i thought his behavior was odd, that he was more concerned about himself

than about sherri. how so? connie rasmussen: well, naturally, we had questions, because he had firsthand information, because he found sherri. he wouldn't talk to us. it just was odd. josh mankiewicz: but he did speak with detectives. josh mankiewicz: mayer believed the murder happened sometime between 7:30 and 10:00 am, and john seemed to have an alibi for that time. he said he'd left early that morning for work. and he said sherri was awake then, but still in bed.

josh mankiewicz: the detective asked him point blank. josh mankiewicz: john even agreed 16 days after the murder to take a polygraph. he sat and he was asked questions. it was recorded in the detective's notes as inconclusive, because he was too emotional. josh mankiewicz: sherri's entire family was shattered, and it was only going to get worse. announcer: coming up. josh mankiewicz: inside what seemed like a very good marriage. connie rasmussen: he's tall, he's ambitious. he was an engineer. they enjoyed running, playing tennis. sounds like he's ticking off all the boxes. yes. if you look at the wedding pictures, you can see in my sister's eyes how excited and happy she was. they made a very stunning couple. josh mankiewicz: and later, the trail goes cold.

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josh mankiewicz: in 1986, los angeles saw a spike in murders. everybody hold onto the wall. josh mankiewicz: driven mostly by the intersection of drugs and gangs. subject: we have continual shootings. well, it's just a war zone. josh mankiewicz: by year's end, 834 people in the city of la would die at the hands of another. it was close to a record. the murder of sherri rasmussen that february was number 138. except that doesn't quite tell the story. because in death, as in life, sherri seemed to stand out from the crowd. sherri was the middle child of three daughters.

she was smart, athletic, and tall. by age 16, she was 6 feet. her sisters say sherri's enthusiasm for life swept up their whole family. connie rasmussen: she always pushed us. i would have never learned how to snow ski except for she drove us all to taos, new mexico, to learn how to snow ski. and she would push everybody else to do better. teresa lane: yes. even now that she's gone, i think she forces me to be a better person. you're still living up to that standard. oh, heck yeah. josh mankiewicz: from the very beginning, sherri set the bar high. connie rasmussen: in kindergarten, she was advanced to the place where the teacher would just use her as an assistant. she's five years old. yes. josh mankiewicz: sherri went on to skip two grades and entered nursing school in southern california at 16. it did seem like there was sort of nothing she could not do and not just do, be great at. yeah, well, she couldn't sew. [laughs] josh mankiewicz: so there's that. [laughter] sherri had considered medical school, but even at 16,

she knew a nurse's hours would be more family friendly, because another goal of hers was having a husband and kids. i'm guessing your dad wanted her to become a doctor. yes. yes, he did. and she resisted that? yes. yes. no one told her what to do, even including your parents. that's correct. yep. josh mankiewicz: her parents thought los angeles was a dangerous place and were worried about sherri living there. they also knew they had no say in that either. so they helped her buy a condo in a gated complex with secure parking. sherri couldn't say no to that. she could be stubborn in some ways, but what struck her sisters was sherri's compassion. teresa lane: when she would lose a patient, i could tell when she'd come home how it affected her. she definitely didn't have this emotional wall between herself and the people she was taking care of? oh no, she was right there with them. josh mankiewicz: by 26, she was a nursing supervisor. she knew what she was doing.

josh mankiewicz: jayne goldberg was sherri's colleague, and for a while, her roommate. jayne goldberg: she was always calm, always in control. she one day was taking care of a critically ill patient in bed three. and as i walked by, she said very comfortably, jayne, could you give me a hand here? and i looked over and the patient had arrested and she was starting one man cpr. and she said it so calmly at first, it took me a minute to put it all together and went, oh yeah, sure, i'll give you a hand. josh mankiewicz: at 27, sherri had fast tracked into hospital management. i can remember staff saying, you know, when you go to sherri's office, even if there's a problem, you always come out feeling better about yourself. that's a good talent for a manager to have. it really is. josh mankiewicz: jayne says sherri's life was good, a happy, single 20 something. and then sherri met the one.

jayne goldberg: she had gone to a party and came back talking about this guy. and she was sort of smitten and he was tall. which was important to her. which was important. i mean, when you're somebody who's very confident and very tall, there aren't a lot of men who don't feel intimidated. josh mankiewicz: the tall man's name was john ruetten, and he seemed as smitten as sherri. connie rasmussen: he's tall, he's ambitious. he was an engineer. they enjoyed running, playing tennis. sounds like he's ticking off all the boxes. yes. josh mankiewicz: and she was clearly into this guy? you could tell from the way she was talking? yes. and she was happy. yeah, she was happy. you met him first? i met him first, yeah. what did you think? i liked him. i mean, sherri and john looked gorgeous together, i think. they made a very stunning couple. he would dote over her. so that always made me feel good. he seemed like he wanted to have me as a sister, so he treated me as a baby sister, which

was a grand thing for me. so i accepted him instantly. you feel the same way when you met him? yes. i trusted sherri's judgment. and she was happy and in love with him. josh mankiewicz: that's good enough for you? that was good enough for me. josh mankiewicz: november 23, 1985, a little over a year after they met, john and sherri married. how'd she and john seem that day? fantastic. if you look at the wedding pictures, you can see in my sister's eyes how excited and happy she was. josh mankiewicz: john and sherri set up house in her secure condo. sister teresa and her husband visited the newlyweds one sunny la sunday three months after the wedding. teresa lane: we went on a short walk and they were walking in front of us and holding hands and talking. they didn't have a care in the world. teresa lane: no. it was a good day. josh mankiewicz: it was, in fact, the last good day. 24 hours later, sherri rasmussen would be dead.

announcer: coming up. while she was down on the ground, three rounds were fired. all of them were hits. josh mankiewicz: bullets and a bite mark. on her left inner forearm. it was very obvious. it wasn't just small impressions. they were red and raw. this was an up close and personal fight. josh mankiewicz: that handprint of sherri's on the wall is so haunting. leaving that print is probably one of the last things she did on this earth. yes. announcer: when "dateline" continues. (♪♪) from celebration moments... ...to joyride moments. your moments are worth protecting against rsv. rsv is a highly contagious virus if you're 60 or older with certain chronic conditions, you're at higher risk of being hospitalized from rsv. and there are no prescription rsv treatments. you know how to protect against covid and flu. so ask your pharmacist or doctor about scheduling pfizer's rsv vaccine, too. because moments like these matter.

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josh mankiewicz: lapd homicide detective rob bub knows the rasmussen case as well as anybody. now retired, bub agreed to walk us through it from the perspective of the original detectives who arrived on the scene that first night. rob bub: john ruetten returns home after a day of work and the door is ajar, which alarms him.

he opens the door, looks inside, and sees his wife, sherri rasmussen. she's lying on her back in the middle of the living room, wearing essentially what he had left her wearing that morning when he went to work. he went over and checked her and she had obviously been killed. when the police first arrived, they removed john from the scene. josh mankiewicz: the detective in charge back then was a senior homicide guy named lyle mayer. now retired, he declined to talk with us. he's the one who spoke with john ruetten the night of the murder and began the search for sherri's killer or killers. josh mankiewicz: john's grief, along with his work alibi, seemed to rule him out as the killer.

josh mankiewicz: to understand how the murder unfolded, it helps to know the layout of john and sherri's condo. tall and narrow. the first floor is the living room. the second floor is the kitchen dining area. and the third floor, the bedrooms. the original investigating detectives believed the attack started on the second floor where evidence indicated two gunshots were fired. rob bub: there were two holes through a curtain and then through a sliding glass door that led out into the parking area of the townhome. the original detectives thought the two rounds were misses and that a fight ensued down the stairs into the living room area. josh mankiewicz: it was here on the first floor where sherri rasmussen's last minutes were spent in a brutal and bloody fight for her life. whoever attacked sherri used almost

anything as a weapon, even a vase that was smashed over her head. the blunt force trauma injuries were particularly disturbing. the right side of her face, her eye was swollen and blackened. she was actually pistol whipped possibly two times. a stereo speaker had fallen down, was very near her head. there was a finger or two fingernails near the front door and a clothesline or a small, thin rope also near the front door of the apartment. josh mankiewicz: at some point, sherri was bitten. on her left inner forearm. it was very obvious. it wasn't just small impressions. they were red and raw. when the original detectives noticed that she sustained that bite mark to her left forearm, it gave them the knowledge that this was an up close and personal fight. josh mankiewicz: the fight only came to an end when sherri rasmussen was shot. while she was down on the ground, three rounds were fired.

all of them were hits while she was down on the first floor. josh mankiewicz: low on the wall in the entryway, investigators found what seemed to be sherri's bloody handprint. that handprint of sherri's on the wall is so haunting. leaving that print is probably one of the last things she did on this earth. yes. josh mankiewicz: the original detectives also noted what to them appeared to be a major clue. rob bub: there were some stereo components that had been removed from an entertainment center, as if someone were going to pick up all the items that they'd gathered and leave the apartment. there was a drawer that was pulled off from a table in between two sitting chairs in the living room, and that had been dumped. josh mankiewicz: and sherri's purse and car, a brand new bmw 318i, were missing. the whole tableau convinced those 1986 detectives that this was a heist that had gone south. they walked in and they saw what appeared to be a burglary. and so that's what they ran with.

josh mankiewicz: mayer was so certain it began as a burglary, he even shared his theory with john the night of the murder. josh mankiewicz: except sherri had called in sick that day. and when the burglars were taking the stereo equipment, they knocked down one of the shelves and they knocked over one of the speakers, and that those noises from inside the apartment alerted sherri. she came downstairs to confront the burglars. when she did, the struggle ensued. one burglar left, taking their car. the second one fought, killed sherri in the living room area, and then not having that car went down into the sub-basement parking area. steals her car. and steals her car to leave the location. josh mankiewicz: while a bulletin went out for sherri's bmw, crime scene investigators

diligently combed through the house in search of evidence. photos were taken, blood samples collected, and fingerprints dusted. they even collected saliva from the bite wound on sherri's arm. remember, this was 1986, before dna testing changed law enforcement. rob bub: based on the science of the day, if they could get a blood typing from it, it would be a big step in identifying or at least in assisting to identify a suspect later on. josh mankiewicz: mayer believed the apartment was rich with evidence pointing to a botched burglary. so much so he even boasted to john they would soon find the killers. josh mankiewicz: and sure enough, just weeks later, mayer was convinced he was closing

in on sherri's murderers. announcer: coming up. rob bub: a woman had returned to her apartment, surprised two men inside. one ran past her. the second pointed a gun at her. josh mankiewicz: detectives thought it was the same burglars who had killed sherri. sherri's friend thought police were completely on the wrong track. you lived in that condo for three years. yes. you never worried about safety living there? no, i never did. no. it felt very safe. when you heard that burglary theory, did that make sense too you? no. announcer: when "dateline" continues.

hi, i am richard lui. $50,000 reward for information relating to the the man who shot and killed ceo brian

thompson. officers say he likely fled the city by bus. president-elect donald trump standing by his pick to run the defense department. in interview with kristen welker trump saying he still has confidence in pete hegseth despite several allegations of mismanagement. for now, back to dateline. dat. john ruetten: there's only one person here who knows what sherri was as a wife. sherri-- josh mankiewicz: four days after sherri rasmussen's murder came a very difficult goodbye. john was a mess. i was talking to him and trying to reassure him. we'll get through this. i don't know how, but we have each other. his color was just ashen. he couldn't stop moving. he couldn't stand still. we had to walk back and forth. his hands were just shaking. if he had been a patient, i would have expected him to go into cardiac arrest. josh mankiewicz: sherri's husband

did pull himself together enough to say a few words. i just want to thank you all for coming, and i want you to know that sherri was the best professional in the world. she was the best wife that anybody could ever have, and she was the best sister, daughter. she wanted to make everybody happy. i was still in this state of shock. but one of the things that did get through the fog was the number of people that love sherri and respected her. it was overwhelming how many people were there. josh mankiewicz: the ripple effect from murder is powerful. for jayne goldberg, the loss of sherri cut deeper than she'd thought possible. jayne goldberg: i was a nurse. i had always dealt with grief. i had to give people the clothing of their beloved after they had died. but i'd never known grief like this. i had no idea what grief was until this happened.

josh mankiewicz: over the weeks after sherri died, as family and friends learned how to live without her, detectives locked onto what they thought was a crucial new lead. another burglary in sherri's neighborhood, just a couple of blocks away. rob bub: a woman had returned to her apartment, surprised two men inside. one ran past her and the second pointed a gun at her. josh mankiewicz: to detectives, this seemed like the same scenario they believed had led to sherri's murder. it's not a giant leap to think these are the same two guys. no, not at all. not with the proximity, the time of day, and basically the same mo. josh mankiewicz: detective lyle mayer held a press conference. we have obtained fingerprints in the crimes. josh mankiewicz: he came with police sketches of the two suspects he thought were responsible for both crimes. knbc, our los angeles station, was there. reporter: detectives asked the public to call van nuys police with any information

that might solve this case before the gunmen strike again. josh mankiewicz: the detectives seemed certain they were onto something. sherri's friend, jayne, was not as sure. you lived in that condo for three years. yes. you never worried about safety living there. no, i never did. no, it felt very safe. when you heard that burglary theory, did it make sense to you? no. my theory is she came down to feed the cat, went into the kitchen. if it had been burglars who were in the living room, the way the condo set up, they could have just leaned against that one wall, waited until she was around the corner in the kitchen, and walked right out the front door. they could have gotten away without her seeing them. exactly. and that's what burglars do. they don't want to confront people. writer matt mcgough points out these burglars didn't seem to know what they were doing. if you're looking for valuables, are you going to look in a junk drawer in the living room? josh mankiewicz: no, you'll go to the bedroom. yes, where sherri had a jewelry box that was undisturbed.

josh mankiewicz: her purse had been taken, but two men found it before nightfall the day of the murder, and gave it to a neighbor. the missing bmw showed up within two weeks. matt mcgough: that car was discovered by an officer who was driving past it and was alert and recognized that matches the description. not taken to some chop shop. left with the keys in the ignition. josh mankiewicz: sherri's family gave the police other leads, such as a nurse at the hospital where sherri worked. after being passed over for a promotion, the nurse started harassing sherri. she wouldn't give her the job. i know that she had the security walk her out to her car for a period of time because of the harassment at work. that's a little ominous. but she stuck to her guns. well, that was sherri. that was. josh mankiewicz: the cops never followed up on that nurse or on the other woman the family told them about, this one an ex-girlfriend of john's.

sherri had told her dad the woman would just show up sometimes, seemingly out of nowhere. nels didn't know the ex-girlfriend's name. and anyway, detectives seemed uninterested. instead, they kept looking for the burglars, but they didn't find them. and before too long, the case of sherri rasmussen began to go very cold. announcer: coming up. our family had a hard time existing as a family again properly. i mean, because we were missing that part. we were always had a sense of needing to protect ourselves and to be safe. josh mankiewicz: loved ones looking for answers. after 15 years, will they finally get one? you come upon the case of sherri rasmussen. yes. josh mankiewicz: 1986 murder not solved. correct. i saw that a bite swab had been collected by the coroner's office. with that swab, there should be dna. announcer: when "dateline" continues.

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deserves puffs indeed. josh mankiewicz: lapd detective lyle mayer and his team kept searching for but not finding the homicidal burglars they were convinced had killed sherri rasmussen. teresa lane: they were going to take a psychic out to see if they could figure out what went on. [laughs] i thought, well, that's odd. a psychic. ok. josh mankiewicz: you probably predicted this, but the psychic didn't sense anything that moved the case forward. with the investigation stalled, a murder's ripple effect continued. teresa lane: our family had a hard time existing as a family again properly. i mean, because we were missing that part. here comes aunt sherri. boop, boop. here's aunt sherri. josh mankiewicz: one of their last intact moments was that christmas, when baby rachel was the focus of all the attention. everybody here thinks there's going to be

a baby ruetten pretty soon. i think they'd better talk to sherri. [laughs] josh mankiewicz: there would never be a baby ruetten for sherri and john. sherri was gone, and her absence reshaped her family in other ways as well. rachel: the loss of my aunt sherri has impacted my entire life. we were always had a sense of needing to protect ourselves and to be safe. josh mankiewicz: sherri's killer was still out there, and her family had no answers. maybe time would make the difference. and maybe it wouldn't. in 1991, five years after sherri's murder, detective mayer retired, and the case was passed on to new detectives working the homicide desk in van nuys. along with their parents, sherri's sisters, connie and teresa, went back again to van nuys station to meet them. connie rasmussen: they put us in an interrogation room and they came in with a little skinny folder about this big.

josh mankiewicz: the family soon realized these new detectives didn't have anything new to offer. detective mayer was gone by then, but the theory was still this was a burglary, and somehow it turned into a murder. connie rasmussen: right. they did meet with us. but it was also more of-- it was like a show. josh mankiewicz: sherri's dad, nels, coped by trying to solve the case himself. connie rasmussen: as a father, he had felt a responsibility to protect her. and the only way that in her death he could protect her was to find out who killed her. he would constantly re-dissect the information that we knew. josh mankiewicz: in 1993, nels read about something new, forensic dna testing. nels rasmussen reading about dna and the advances that that's brought to criminology offers to pay for dna testing, and the department says no. correct. unfortunately, it's not something that our department

is going to accept. it's just not the way the, quote unquote, "business end" of the department works. josh mankiewicz: and so no dna testing was done. the rasmussens went on living their lives without that missing piece. it was a loss felt all the way down to the youngest generation, including sherri's other niece, jessica. every time i would succeed in something, my mother or my grandfather would remind me about how i must have got my athletic build from my aunt sherri. and really feeling that not having the opportunity to bond with her over that commonality of things, it was very sad. josh mankiewicz: and more years passed. then in 2001, 15 years after sherri was killed, a detective supervisor with the lapd proposed a new unit that would harness new technologies to analyze bullets, fingerprints, and the new thing nels had asked about, dna.

we had 6 to 9,000 unsolved murders in the city of los angeles. josh mankiewicz: cliff shepard is now retired. he was one of the first six detectives in that new open unsolved unit. as you're going through those cases, you come upon the case of sherri rasmussen. yes. josh mankiewicz: 1986 murder not solved. correct. what made you include that in the cases you submitted? with her case. i saw that a bite swab had been collected by the coroner's office. and so ok, with that swab, there should be dna. josh mankiewicz: that is, if shepard could find the swab. the coroner's office said they didn't have it. cliff shepard: i checked with our evidence room. they didn't have it. i looked at our property reports. it's not booked. how could that happen? incompetence. josh mankiewicz: that happened a lot? yes. josh mankiewicz: shepard showed us the note he wrote to remind himself back then to follow up on the missing swab.

as it happened, jennifer francis, a criminalist in the lapd crime lab, saw his note and set out to find that swab herself, which she did. the envelope was torn, the writing was faded, but the tube containing the swab was still there and intact. now we have the swab. and suddenly you're in business. well, you think so. josh mankiewicz: cold cases are not the priority in the crime lab. today's murders are. it took about a year before francis called shepard with the results of the dna test. and the finding when it did come was a major surprise. cliff shepard: she called me and said, hey, this is an unknown female's dna. that is not what i was expecting. because the theory had been these were two male burglars. correct. but now it turns out she was bitten by a woman. a woman. josh mankiewicz: that changed the police theory, but only a little. given the violence at the crime scene,

shepard did not see it as a woman acting alone. things were overturned, knocked over. there's blood smears on the wall, broken glass. that was one heck of a fight. i believed that, ok, there was a woman, and then there's a man, that sherri had been clubbed from behind, knocked down or unconscious, and then somebody stood over her and shot her. it still could be a man and a woman. obviously, the woman was involved in the fight. she bit sherri in the back of the arm, left her dna. but that woman was not in codis. josh mankiewicz: codis, the national dna database. cliff shepard: my belief was that if there was a male involved and they were burglarizing sherri's residence, then he probably would be in codis. more likely that he would have been a career criminal than the woman. yes, that was my belief. josh mankiewicz: just like the original case detective,

shepard thought it had to be a burglary turned violent. sherri's family had always doubted that theory, but none of their concerns made it into the official case file, known as the murder book. when you first look at that murder book, was there anything in it that suggested to you that the original detectives had been going down the wrong trail? no. josh mankiewicz: so now shepard started looking for male female burglar teams, but he didn't get very far. a serial killer on the loose in south la took priority. cliff shepard: when i came in the next day, i had learned that i'm now going to go to a task force to try to catch this guy. this has nothing to do with the murder of sherri rasmussen. no. no. except that i'm now told that all my other murders i'm not supposed to work on. josh mankiewicz: and cliff shepard says he never reached out to the rasmussens. i didn't want to build up their hopes and then crush them. josh mankiewicz: he also didn't think the family would have any useful information because they

lived so far away. cliff shepard: my belief was living in arizona, they didn't know day to day things going on in their daughter's life. but you would have been wrong about that. i would have been very wrong. josh mankiewicz: the murder book was shipped back to van nuys station, where it sat on the shelf for a few more years until yet another detective picked it up and found the key that unlocked a mystery. announcer: coming up. jim nuttall: we come in early, 0 dark 30, and i was tired. it was the perfect day to have a cup of coffee and then do some reading. josh mankiewicz: a new detective. jim nuttall: for me, everything changed with that blood on that stereo equipment. josh mankiewicz: and a new theory of the crime. murder was the main goal, not the burglary. announcer: when "dateline" continues. go-friends, gather! keke! chris! jason! boop! friends. let's go, let's go, friends! hold onto your dice. woohoo!!

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craig here pays too much for verizon wireless. so he sublet half his real estate office... support up to seven brain health indicators, including memory. [ bird squawks loudly ] to a pet shop. meg's moving company uses t-mobile. so she scaled down her fleet to save money. and don's paying so much for at&t, he's been waiting to update his equipment! there's a smarter way to save. comcast business mobile. you could save up to an incredible 70% on your wireless bill. so you don't have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities. josh mankiewicz: super bowl sunday, 2009. lapd homicide detective jim nuttall spent the day

like millions of other americans, watching the game with a house full of friends and a fridge full of beer. jim nuttall: super bowl sunday is like a holiday to me. so we were having a good time and we were up late. josh mankiewicz: which left not all beat and bleary eyed when he dragged himself into work the following morning. jim nuttall: we came in early, 0 dark 30, and i was tired. it was the perfect day to have a cup of coffee and then do some reading. josh mankiewicz: in 2009, nuttall worked homicide out of the lapd's van nuys station, where sherri rasmussen's murder investigation began. that's where nuttall randomly waded into it that hungover monday morning. by that time, this was already a cold case and nearly ready for cold storage. was there a point where the department just kind of gave up on this case? repeatedly. we closed it in 1986. we closed it in 1993. we closed it in 1999.

and we closed it again in 2005. at that point, it sat on a shelf. and in 2008, it was sent to us for archives. josh mankiewicz: archive, meaning deep storage, a death sentence for the rasmussen case. before that happened, though, nuttall had to give the murder books one last read. rob bub: it was four books, four volumes deep. josh mankiewicz: nuttall knew nothing about the rasmussen case before that day. but midway through volume one, he was hooked, taken in by sherri rasmussen's strength and tenacity as she fought for her life. life and death struggle. sherri is doing whatever she can do to get out of that house or get help. josh mankiewicz: everything nuttall read and saw fit the narrative that this was a burglary that had turned horribly violent. at least that's what he thought, until he noticed a peculiar detail in mayer's report. that stereo equipment police found stacked near the door

of the condo had blood on it. sherri's blood. that was noted, but never closely photographed. for me, everything changed with that blood on that stereo equipment. josh mankiewicz: to nuttall, that meant sherri's attacker or attackers moved the stereo to the entryway after things got bloody, after the fight, not before, as the original theory went. meaning that maybe this wasn't simply a burglary that had gone off the rails. she's dead or dying. and if you wanted that stereo equipment, you had every opportunity in the world to walk out the door with it. why stack it and leave it? at that point, you start to draw the conclusion that murder was the main goal, not the burglary. josh mankiewicz: nuttall began to think the original investigation was seriously flawed. his supervisor, detective rob bub, came to think so as well. i think the original detectives, there were some oversights, especially in the area of interviews. but if you assume that sherri is simply

the victim of a burglary, then her past, her other relationships, what's going on with her and her husband, none of that matters. no, it doesn't. if you are focused, if you are that sure that it was a burglary, the rest of that doesn't play. josh mankiewicz: bub also had a problem with the collection of evidence. that blood on the stereo, for example. in the middle of it was a fingerprint. unfortunately, it was never recovered. that print never gets lifted. never gets tested. no one lifted it. no one tested it. no one booked the stereo component into evidence. it was lost for time. josh mankiewicz: bub and nuttall also paid attention to what looked like ligature marks around sherri's wrists. it appeared the suspect, suspects, brought that ligature into the home to restrain a potential victim. that doesn't really sound like a burglary. does not sound like a burglary. josh mankiewicz: as far nuttall and bub were concerned, the whole burglary gone wrong theory that investigators had worked for the past 23 years

was no longer viable. so then what? they didn't have an alternate theory until nuttall got to this entry in the murder book. a lab report nuttall had never seen before. that dna profile taken from the saliva found in the bite mark on sherri's arm. we had a woman responsible or involved with this crime. josh mankiewicz: when detective cliff shepard had seen that report four years earlier, he started looking for a male female burglar team and got nowhere. now, with his new theory of the crime, jim nuttall went in another direction. he started looking for a lone female killer, a woman with a reason to target sherri rasmussen. jim nuttall: once you debunk the burglary theory and you have a female dna profile, now this case becomes manageable. now it becomes a matter of time.

josh mankiewicz: with a new perspective, nuttall, detective rob bub, and two more homicide detectives started working the rasmussen investigation together as if it were fresh off the blotter. we started looking at the bite mark, the blunt force trauma, in addition to the gunshots and the setup of the apartment. and it occurred to us that this might be a more personal murder situation for that type of violence to occur. josh mankiewicz: which meant taking a new and much tougher look at sherri's family and friends. you start inward and you work outward. that's homicide 101. we tend to harm the ones that we know. and you start asking, who benefited or who gained from sherri's death? absolutely. which is a question you ask in every homicide investigation. absolutely. who wanted that person dead? standard operating procedure. they didn't do that back in '86. doesn't appear so, sir. josh mankiewicz: so nuttall and bub flagged all the women mentioned

over the course of the rasmussen investigation. and just like that, the list of persons of interest had shrunk to a number low enough to be counted on one hand. we had five women that we felt were close to sherri that would have had access to sherri, and perhaps at least some of them may have had a motive to harm her. josh mankiewicz: soon, detective nuttall and his team would learn that sherri had enemies. announcer: coming up. rob bub: there were a number of things that were done at the hospital that actually caused sherri to make a complaint. josh mankiewicz: a hospital co-worker nursing a grudge. jim nuttall: and now we had a motive. workplace jealousy. workplace issue. looked like a good suspect. a viable option. yes, sir. announcer: when "dateline" continues.

narrator: detective jim nuttall was convinced sherri rasmussen was not killed by random burglars, but by someone who wanted

it to look like a burglary. now, he and his team were focused on five women in sherri's life. the first two on the list, sherri's mom and her sister, teresa, who were both more than happy to cooperate if it meant the case was really being reopened. it was surreal. my parents were so excited. i mean, for someone is finally, you know, actively listening. narrator: not surprisingly, her sister and mother's dna did not match that of sherri's killer. next on the list, woman number three, sherri's friend and former roommate, jane goldberg. the detective came to our house, and my husband said, oh, she's at work. and he said, oh, i don't want to bother her there. and my husband said, no, go. she'd love to see you. she wants to move this investigation along. and he showed up at my work, and i gave him a sample. narrator: jane, too, was eliminated, which brought

nuttall and bub to woman number four, someone sherri's sisters had mentioned back in 1986. she was a nurse that had worked for sherri rasmussen. narrator: she'd been passed over for a promotion. soon after, sherri said she started receiving obscene phone calls at work. and later, her car was keyed in the hospital parking lot. there were a number of things that were done at the hospital that actually caused sherri to make a complaint, which their internal security investigated. there was a female profile, and now we had a motive. workplace jealousy. workplace issue. looked like a good suspect. a viable option, yes, sir. narrator: nuttall and bub learned the nurse was now living near san francisco. so they asked for an assist from the local sheriff's department. we had contacted the contra costa county sheriffs and asked them to do a surreptitious dna run for us, which basically, in vice terms, we used to call it a dumpster dive.

so they went out to the house, went through, picked out certain items of-- wait a minute. the contra costa cops go to her house and start filtering through her trash? yeah, there's lots of court cases having to do with abandoning items that can then be legally obtained. once you throw things out, they don't belong to you anymore? correct. once they're mixed in with the common trash, they can be recovered. so they obtained some items from her trash, sent them to the lab for comparison. narrator: they waited a week for the results and-- it was not a match. narrator: so that left woman number five, an ex-girlfriend of sherri's husband, john ruetten. none of the family's suspicions about her were mentioned in the murder book. jim nuttall only learned of her when he first called sherri's parents. nels was upset with me, and he was very animated. it was sort of like, detective, where have you been for the last two decades?

i have explained this to your organization. i have explained this to your investigators. and why are we having this conversation now? and he laid out an alarming scenario. alarming how? he had been explaining to the lapd that he had a person of interest, somebody that needed to be spoken to, a woman that had been involved in a dating relationship with john. he had told us what he had told the original detectives way in the beginning, when the murder first occurred, that john had an ex-girlfriend that had issue with sherri, but he didn't know her name. narrator: so nuttall and bub contacted john ruetten to help fill in the blanks. ruetten confirmed there was a woman he sort of dated while at ucla and continued to see on and off until his marriage. the woman's name-- stephanie lazarus. it was a name that didn't mean anything to the detectives until ruetten told them what lazarus did for a living. the last he knew, she was employed by the los

angeles police department. did you check to see if she was still employed? that night. that night, i turned to-- a moment i'll never forget. i turned to one of the members of our unit and i said, check a name for me in the directory. and he accessed the lapd directory and explained to me that she was currently a detective in the lapd. and you thought? toto, we're not in kansas anymore. that changed everything. narrator: coming up-- you probably do not become a homicide investigator because you wanted to investigate other police officers. never in my life did i think this would happen. she was one of us. narrator: a most unlikely suspect. her reputation within the department was stellar. narrator: when "dateline" continues. (♪♪) from celebration moments... ...to joyride moments. your moments are worth protecting against rsv. rsv is a highly contagious virus if you're 60 or older with certain chronic conditions, you're at higher risk of being hospitalized from rsv.

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stephanie lazarus, a well respected los angeles police officer for 26 years, was now at the center of a cold case murder investigation. you probably do not become a homicide investigator because you wanted to investigate other police officers. never in my life did i think this would happen. she was one of us. narrator: that said, detective nuttall and his team had a job to do, beginning with digging into lazarus' background. she'd come onto the force in the early 1980s, part of a wave of female officers who began joining the lapd after a court order required the department

to hire more women. what was it like to be a woman on the lapd back then? well, it-- it was-- it was not easy. narrator: in 1983, nina acosta graduated from the los angeles police academy and started as a probationary officer at hollywood station. for me, it was a perfect kind of a job, but you couldn't go into it blindly. there was a culture that women didn't belong in law enforcement. so for the most part, you had to prove yourself over and over again every day, every month, to whoever you were working with. so it wasn't easy, but it was worth it. narrator: hollywood station is where she got to know another female cop, stephanie lazarus. stephanie was a lot like me. we liked the camaraderie. we liked the-- every day was different, something new, the excitement. narrator: lazarus grew up in southern california, the oldest of three children. in 1978, she started college at ucla, where she joined

the j.v. basketball team. john ruetten was a year ahead of her. matt mcgough: they were dormmates and, you know, became friends. a lot of their friends at ucla knew that stephanie wanted a relationship with john and that he didn't feel as strongly about her as she did about him. narrator: after graduation, lazarus made what was at the time an unusual choice, joining the lapd. so there's like a pattern of, you know, well, women don't do that. women don't play team sports. stephanie's-- that-- that's what i'm going to do. women don't become police officers. she could have chosen any career. i mean, there's an aspect of i'm going to prove you wrong that seems to animate a lot of her life choices from adolescence into adulthood. narrator: she brought her basketball skills to the lapd's women's team. what was she like on the basketball court? competitive? very competitive. she was aggressive.

she was a very good athlete, somebody i admired. she was very lean, pretty tall, and took her fitness very seriously. narrator: according to her friend, nina, lazarus always presented well in uniform. she was very sharp in appearance. she always looked perfect. narrator: right down to her special bulletproof vest. the ones that we were issued were pretty-- pretty much unisex. and especially for women, we looked like a sack of potatoes in them. so she-- she bought her own vest at her own expense, which, at that time, was a lot of money, several hundred dollars, and looked like a million bucks. narrator: men were interested. but nina says her friend didn't seem interested in dating guys on the force. she never really talked about her relationships, and i didn't get the sense from her that her personal life was going the way that she wanted it to, but nothing specific. narrator: after a year at hollywood station, lazarus moved to a less hectic division in the san fernando valley, called devonshire.

that's where she was working when john married sherri in november, 1985, and when sherri was murdered three months later. in the years that followed, lazarus rose through the ranks at the lapd, from patrol officer to detective. she set her mind on doing something, and she achieved it. narrator: here she is alongside then-police chief daryl gates in 1989, while working on the anti-drug project d.a.r.e. the department, they would send officers into schools to teach about anti-drug message. so that really makes her the public face of the department in some places. oh, yeah. her reputation within the department was stellar. narrator: in 1996, she was chosen to work at internal affairs, investigating other officers accused of wrongdoing or corruption. and in 2006, came a cushy assignment when she was moved to the lapd's art theft unit, where she settled into the prime of her career.

that's how writer matt mcgough first met detective stephanie lazarus in the spring of 2008. i was working as a writer for "law and order" on nbc and read that the lapd had the only art theft detectives full-time in the country. i sat down with stephanie and her partner at the time and interviewed them. and tell me your-- your full name again. stephanie lazarus: stephanie, s-t-e-p-h-a-n-i-e. matt mcgough: yeah. stephanie lazarus: l-a-z-a-r-u-s. stephanie was very cordial, even helpful. stephanie lazarus: we went up to this museum that-- where they had stolen a bunch of-- like five or six-- in an armed robbery takeover. the lapd has had an art theft detail since the '70s or the '80s. and it was one detective who sort of kept that unit going for a long time. and i think he brought stephanie in sort of to groom her to take over from him when he retired. so she was in a pretty-- pretty plum position.

narrator: her personal life was in a great place too. in 1996, lazarus had married another lapd detective. [cheering] and they adopted a baby daughter. both at home and on the job, stephanie lazarus' life had never seemed better. then came the winter of 2009, and unbeknownst to this high achieving cop, she was now the focus of a murder investigation, one that would have to be done in secret. you don't get to choose your suspects. you don't get to choose your victims. but you can choose to solve the case. and that's what we tried to do. narrator: coming up. narrator: was sherri's husband still carrying a torch for stephanie? stephanie lazarus and john ruetten end up going on vacation together to hawaii. that's got to make you sort of sit up and lean

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ask your eczema specialist for more than two decades, stephanie lazarus had worked her way up through the ranks of the lapd, even made a name for herself a couple of times. but by 2009, when four lapd homicide detectives, working in secret, spoke of lazarus, it was only in code.

we made a determination among each other we'd never say her name. we referred to her only as-- as number five. number five. number five. nobody would ever know who she was. narrator: because stephanie lazarus was the fifth and, by now, only remaining person of interest in a homicide investigation conducted by members of her very own police department. so it would protect the integrity of the investigation. and if she was not involved, then nobody would ever know about it. narrator: the four detectives were mindful that lazarus had many friends on the force. her husband, also an lapd detective, worked in the same building they did. james nuttall: we were going to work behind closed doors. we were going to work after hours. we would never leave a paper trail of what we were doing. narrator: the new team in van nuys did something sherri's family said the original detectives didn't do. they listened to family and friends. that's how the new detectives learned that before her death,

sherri told her father she was being followed by a woman dressed as a boy. she said she has eyes that can see right through you. narrator: sherri also told her father about a woman john knew from college, a woman she said had appeared uninvited inside her home. she was sitting at her dining room table, and she heard a noise, and she looked up. and-- and there was john's ex-girlfriend-- in the house? --standing there in the living room. and she got up, and she told her to get out. narrator: and sherri told her friend jane how john's ex had confronted her at the hospital where she worked. she told me that-- that john's ex-girlfriend had come to her office and said,

i just want you to know that if this marriage doesn't work out, i'm going to be waiting to pick up the pieces. she said she was dressed sort of provocatively, like to show off her figure. narrator: it seemed as if the only person who didn't have a story about john ruetten's ex-girlfriend was john ruetten. there was nothing in the police records from 1986 that indicated sherri's husband had mentioned any suspicions about stephanie lazarus to detectives. to the contrary-- he was specifically asked if sherri had any problem with an ex-boyfriend or if she-- he had a problem with an ex-girlfriend. and he emphatically answered no to both those questions. narrator: and so in 2009, 23 years after sherri's murder, the detectives breathing new life into this case were eager to ask some old questions of john ruetten.

they sat him down for an interview. narrator: john told them how he and lazarus met in the dorms at ucla and how, at first, they were just friends. narrator: today, we'd probably call it friends with benefits. narrator: a problem, he says, became clear after his engagement to sherri. that's when ruetten says he got a call from a devastated stephanie lazarus,

who insisted on seeing him. narrator: not long after, sherri came home from work upset and told him about lazarus confronting her at the hospital. narrator: so then why didn't john mention any of this to police in 1986? well, john told the new detectives he did mention it. narrator: john said he didn't tell the original detectives about how sherri thought she was being followed or how lazarus had shown up at the house

for one simple reason. john said he didn't know those things had happened. narrator: he said her dad never told him either. narrator: but sherri's sisters say it was john who had held back information. they say that when he spoke with detectives in '86, he downplayed his relationship with stephanie. he tried to protect himself by sort of diverting the information about stephanie. it wasn't-- disclosed. --disclosed 100%. narrator: they say that if john had told the whole truth from the beginning, this case would have gone differently. you hold john responsible for what he didn't do, what he didn't say. absolutely.

absolutely. he didn't behave as a husband that loved sherri should have be-- should have behaved. narrator: they also wonder. why didn't john cut off his relationship with stephanie lazarus? he should have been frank with her, instead of leading her on and kept putting fuel to the fire. narrator: in his 2009 interview, john said he even followed up with police about lazarus. and there was one note in the case chronology made nearly two years after sherri's murder. "john ruetten called, verified stephanie lazarus, p/o, was former girlfriend." narrator: maybe that's why just a couple of years after his wife's murder, he reached out to stephanie lazarus again, even met up with her in hawaii.

stephanie lazarus and john ruetten end up going on vacation together to hawaii. that's got to make you sort of sit up and lean forward a little bit. yes, yeah. narrator: we wanted to ask john ruetten what he remembers telling the original investigators about his relationship with stephanie lazarus, but he declined to speak with us. in his 2009 interview with detectives, ruetten seemed certain lazarus had nothing to do with sherri's murder. narrator: maybe john ruetten was right. maybe stephanie lazarus had nothing to do with sherri rasmussen's death, and maybe he was wrong. there was one sure way to find out. coming up-- detective: have a seat. narrator: --stephanie lazarus is asked to help interrogate a suspect, only to discover

she's the suspect. they're saying, ok, i fought with her, so i must have killed her. i mean, come on. narrator: when "dateline" continues.

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hi, i am richard lui with a news update. a panel of appeal court judges rule unanimously friday to uphold a law that could potentially ban tiktok in the united states. this law signed enable requires tiktok's chinese owner, bytedance to sell by january 19th or face a ban. south korea's president apologized saturday for declaring martial law earlier this week, but he did not say he would resign as he faces an impeachment vote over the fallout of his extreme order. for now, back to "dateline." "" had, thankfully, left a little bit of herself

behind in a bite mark on the victim. detectives had a dna profile of the killer. and now they had a prime suspect, their own colleague at the lapd, stephanie lazarus. would her dna match the sample kept on ice all those years? you guys have to be thinking, if you get the dna and it's not her, you're back to zero. that's absolutely correct. this is the last ditch. we have exhausted every other lead, every other suspect. if it does not turn out to be stephanie lazarus, the book goes back on the shelf until maybe some other scientific advent affects investigations. narrator: in late may, 2009, a specialized lapd surveillance unit was sent to watch lazarus' every move, in order to collect some discarded dna. the surveillance team followed lazarus and her daughter

to a costco, where she ordered a soft drink. and they watched her drink it, watched her walk over and throw the empty cup in a garbage can. and they recovered that cup and straw. narrator: off that trash went to the dna lab for comparison with the swab from sherri's arm. two dna samples separated by 23 years-- if they were a match, it could mean solving a cold case murder. if not, the case would likely go back to collecting dust on a shelf. 48 hours after the samples went out for testing, detective rob bub's cell phone rang. and he said, just to let you know, it's a match. and just like that, you guys solved a 23-year-old murder. yeah, kind of hard to believe. narrator: the next step was to interview stephanie lazarus. she had no idea she was even under investigation. she still had her badge and gun,

which made the prospect of questioning her a little nerve wracking. you'd have three detectives with-- each with a gun. and the the potential for disaster was very high. and they didn't want it to end in someone being shot. narrator: deputy district attorney shannon presby joined the investigation once the dna results on lazarus came back. so they used this ruse. they essentially played on her vanity, and they said, hey, we've got this guy. we're investigating him. and he says he knows something about art theft, but we don't know anything about art theft. will you come down and help us? and she said, sure. and, oh, he's down in the jail division. narrator: a place where firearms are not allowed. unarmed and unsuspecting, stephanie lazarus didn't realize she was being recorded by a camera hidden in a briefcase. detective: stephanie, i don't know if you know my partner. detective: hey, great. stephanie lazarus: hi. detective: stephanie, it's nice to meet you. stephanie lazarus: good to see you guys. detective: how's it going? stephanie lazarus: good.

detective: just move it around. well, have a seat. you'd think that somebody like stephanie would know what was happening, now being on the other side of the table. well, i think it speaks to every suspect believes that they're smart enough to talk their way out of it. you know? stephanie didn't know that they had already put all the pieces together. she didn't know they had her dna. no. she is dead to rights before she even walked in. narrator: the detectives told lazarus her name had come up in connection with a case involving someone from her past. detective: do you know john ruten? stephanie lazarus: john ruten? john ruetten? detective: ruetten. stephanie lazarus: oh, yeah. i went to school with him. detective: was there any relationship or anything that developed between you guys? stephanie lazarus: yeah, i mean, we dated. you know. i mean, what's this all about? detective: well, it's relating to his wife. stephanie lazarus: ok. detective: how long did you guys date? i mean-- what? are you guys-- is this something--

i mean, you said i was going to interview somebody about art. and now you-- i don't understand why you're talking about some guy i dated a million years ago. detective: well, do you know what happened to his wife? yeah, i know she got killed. narrator: stephanie lazarus seemed uncomfortable and vague in her answers, especially when detectives asked about sherri rasmussen. detective: do you remember the first name? shelly, sherri. i don't know something, maybe. you know, like i said, it's been so many years. narrator: at first, lazarus seemed to have trouble remembering whether she'd ever met or spoken with sherri. i mean, i may have. you know, i may have talked to her. narrator: if she did talk to her, she said that meeting might have taken place at a hospital. i think she worked at a hospital somewhere. and yeah, i may have met her at a hospital. i may have talked to her once or twice. narrator: why speak with sherri? lazarus said it could have been to tell sherri to get

john to leave her alone. i may have gone to her and say, hey, you know what? you know what? is he dating you? he's-- he's bothering me. and so i'm thinking that we had a conversation about that one or two, maybe. you know, it could have been three. she made admissions having to do with the meeting at the hospital, which, up until that time, was really, truly it was hearsay. and now you have stephanie actually admitting-- admitting. --yeah, i did go see her at the hospital. right. and so you've got admissions that really advanced the case. narrator: lazarus had now placed herself at the hospital with sherri as many as three times, confirming the story sherri had told her friend jane. and she didn't rule out having been to the condo either. i don't think i've ever gone there. that's what i'm saying, i don't-- i don't want to say no, i've never gone there, and then you say, oh, i was at a party. narrator: while lazarus admitted

to meeting with sherri or maybe meeting with her, she somehow couldn't say whether things had gotten heated. detective: did you ever fight with her? you mean like we fought? detective: yeah, did you ever duke it out with her? no, i don't think so. i mean-- you'd remember that, right? that would be pretty-- yeah, i would think so. narrator: most of us can remember without much difficulty the number of fistfights we've had over the course of our lives. not so easy for stephanie lazarus. it just doesn't sound familiar. i mean-- i mean, what are they saying, so i fought with her, so-- so now, i mean, i-- i-- i'm getting the jump. they're saying, ok, i fought with her, so i must have killed her. i mean, come on. narrator: about 45 minutes into the interview, it seemed reality was sinking in. i mean, if you guys are claiming that i'm a suspect, then, you know, i got a problem with-- you know, with that. detective: ok. now you're accusing me of this. is that what you're-- is that what you're saying? narrator: coming up, closing in.

but why so many missed steps? why do you think it was that detectives didn't look at john's ex-girlfriend? i think it was because she was a police officer. this plays to everybody's favorite conspiracy theory that cops-- cover for other cops. no matter what. you're out of your mind. narrator: when "dateline" continues. can neuriva support your brain health? mary. janet. hey! eddie. no! fraser. frank. frank. fred. how are you? support up to seven brain health indicators, including memory. when you need to remember, remember neuriva. incoming dishes. —ahhh! —duck! dawn powerwash flies through 99% of grease and grime in half the time. yeah, it absorbs grease five times faster. even replaces multiple cleaning products. ooh, those suds got game. dawn powerwash. the better grease getter.

dawn powerwash. detective: we're trying to figure out what happened, stephanie. narrator: lapd detective stephanie lazarus had been grilled for more than an hour by members of her own department. i-- i don't even know that i knew where they lived. it looked to us like she thought she was going to be able to talk her way out of that interview.

matt mcgough: at some point, lazarus seemed to realize all that talking wasn't working. now i'm thinking i probably need to talk to a lawyer. because i know how this stuff works, don't get me wrong. you're right. i have been doing this a long time. she elects to end the interview and stand up and walk out. and so once she walked out, she was greeted by other members of the los angeles police department who placed her in handcuffs, brought her back in. stephanie lazarus: this is absolutely crazy. she was read her rights, and she declined to talk from that point on. detective: ok. stephanie, you know you have the right to remain silent. do you understand? - yes. narrator: the arrest came as welcome news to the rasmussens. i think for my dad, it was like a-- a weight had been lifted from him. so i think for her-- for my parents, finally getting some gratification that they were right all along, and it was finally able to resolve, that was a joyous day.

narrator: there were other emotions as well. for more than two decades, sherri's family had harbored suspicions about the lapd. did you think police were going to solve this? no. no. you had no confidence in them right from the beginning. - no. - no. because you didn't buy the burglary theory or because they didn't seem to be listening to you? both. i came to the conclusion in my life that it was never going to be solved. i don't think they cared to solve it. narrator: they'd become convinced that detectives back in '86 were set on proving that burglars killed sherri, while ignoring evidence and witnesses that might lead elsewhere. you lived in that condo for a couple of years with sherri, and you knew her, and you knew her relationship with john. you'd seen it begin. you knew that neighborhood and what it was like to live there. how long until police came to speak with you? never. they never did? they never, never, never. i kept waiting, and i kept thinking, well,

they'll do their job. you know, they're working on this. narrator: were they really? back then, sherri's family says it was impossible to tell. my mom had lyle mayer's business card that he had given her and said call anytime, and we'll update you. my mom wore that card. it's frayed. she's handled it so many times, calling, and getting no information. narrator: sherri's dad, nels, told me the detectives ignored his tips from day one. i told the police that they should look into john's ex-girlfriend. did you tell the detectives that john's ex-girlfriend was a member of the lapd? well, that's how i identified her. i said john's ex-girlfriend that's in lapd. you didn't know her name? i didn't know her name. and they said, what? the trouble with you is you've been watching too much tv. narrator: remember john ruetten also said he told detective mayer, his ex-girlfriend, stephanie

lazarus, was with the lapd. kind of something that-- that, as a detective, that should make your ears perk up. if you're investigating this case, i'm thinking you want to talk with stephanie lazarus. one, because she's on your job and carrying the same badge you are. and you can say, hey, you know this guy, john ruetten? what do you know about him? what do you know about the two of them and that marriage? and you know, how did they get along? and also, like, what was your relationship with him? correct narrator: people get tunnel vision, of course. even seasoned detectives can get so hung up on one theory that they ignore others. sherri's father believed something else was going on. why do you think it was that detectives didn't look at john's ex-girlfriend? i think it was because she was a police officer. why can't that just be sloppy police work? why does that have to be a cover-up? why can't that be just sort of tunnel vision and a rush to judgment? they're more intelligent than that. you've got to give them more credit than that.

narrator: well, maybe not. the very first interview he conducted with john ruetten suggests detective lyle mayer was already convinced burglars killed sherri. mayer even shared that theory with john the night of the murder. narrator: remember, this is long before there was any talk of john's ex-girlfriend. there's a couple of possibilities here. matt mcgough, author of the book "the lazarus files," took a hard look at the investigation. he says there's no simple explanation for what went wrong. at one end of the spectrum is incompetence. and the other end of the spectrum is-- is willful cover-up. right? so it's somewhere along this spectrum. does that make sense to you that they would have started instantly covering up or deliberately looking away from somebody who they only knew as a fellow member

of the department? ok. you just said covering up or deliberately looking away. covering up makes it sound like there's something active is required of those detectives to cover something up. a cover-up doesn't require anything active. a cover-up requires refusing to investigate what is obvious you have a responsibility to investigate. narrator: lyle mayer did not respond to our request for an interview. he has previously denied that there was any cover-up and says the rasmussen family never asked him to investigate john's ex-girlfriend. cliff shepard the cold case detective who took over the investigation in 2005, and who also pursued the burglary theory, completely rejects the idea that there was a cover-up, passive or otherwise. is there any way you would have looked away from a murder case involving a fellow police officer?

no. why? what motivation? well, this plays to everybody's favorite conspiracy theory that cops-- cover for other cops no matter what. you're out of your mind. narrator: shepard said if he really wanted to engage in a thorough cover-up, he could have just dumped the murder books and stopped working on the case. that would have not been a problem. just don't include it in the case-- throw the case away. throw it in the trash. take it home with me. throw it down the freeway. nobody else was looking. no. that would have been the time for you to put the kibosh on this case. if-- right at the beginning. if i truly wanted to destroy something, yes. instead, you put it in with the rest of them and submitted it for testing. yeah. narrator: shepard concedes he does have second thoughts about how he investigated the rasmussen case. oh, i do, lots of regrets. i suspect had i talked to john ruetten again, he would have told me about his relationship with stephanie lazarus. narrator: officially, the lapd declined our request

for a comment on this case. it looked like they had worked the case hard, but in the wrong direction. narrator: prosecutor shannon presby acknowledges there may have been mistakes in 1986. but he says, once he, nuttall and bub saw the evidence pointing to stephanie lazarus, they followed it, regardless of the badge she wore. our focus was the evidence, who does that show was the killer, and trying to bring that killer to justice. narrator: even if it meant putting a cop on trial for murder. coming up, sherri's husband makes a painful admission. i didn't know that until the trial. no defense for that. you're not that charitable. no, that hurt. narrator: when "dateline" continues. money is tight, so we must make sacrifices. i give up my bespoke shaving subscription. and i'll stop ordering everything that's trending on instagram.

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february 6, 2012, more than a quarter century after sherri rasmussen's murder, the trial of stephanie lazarus began. the prosecution made an overwhelming case. the day sherri rasmussen was murdered, stephanie lazarus was off work and had no alibi. lazarus' dna was in the bite mark on sherri's arm. the bullets that killed sherri were the type used by lapd officers at the time. and lazarus reported her gun stolen shortly after the murder.

it's the combination of all the evidence together. and who does that point to? so we have only one person in the world, basically, that we were able to determine had any motive to harm sherri rasmussen, and that was stephanie lazarus. narrator: there was evidence of that motive, written in lazarus' very own hand. when police searched her home, they found a 600-page journal. buried deep in the mundane details of her early years on the force, there were some telling references to john ruetten, like this passage from eight months before the murder. "i really didn't feel like working. i found out that john is getting married. i was very depressed. this is very bad. my concentration was negative 10." we knew from her journal that she was fixated on john, that she wanted john. narrator: also found during the search of lazarus' house, this photo she took in college of a sleeping john ruetten.

the writing on the back reads, "i snuck in at 1:00 am and took the picture." lazarus held onto this photo for more than 30 years. the prosecution called the focus of her affection to the witness stand. 26 years after his wife sherri's murder, john ruetten told the jury sherri came to him after lazarus confronted her at the hospital. and then he admitted there was something else. when lazarus called him devastated about the engagement, he went to her place. john said on the witness stand that they ended up having sex that night. narrator: that's why sherri was so upset after the hospital visit. lazarus told her she and john had sex. so he truthfully said, i told her, yes, i had slept with lazarus after we got engaged. it was a horrible mistake.

i love you, sherri. i don't love lazarus. please don't let that mistake of mine derail our plans. i want to go forward with our marriage. and they talked basically all night long, and sherri forgave him. narrator: it was all painful for sherri's sisters to hear. i didn't know that until the trial, and i heard that come out of his mouth. so when you want somebody to go away, you sleep with them. really? no defense for that. you're not that charitable. no. that hurt. narrator: if lazarus did kill sherri, though, she never did claim her prize, john ruetten, after the murder. the prosecutor told the jury that didn't mean lazarus stopped thinking about john. a search warrant of her home and devices told that story. and we found that she was doing internet searches for john ruetten even 10, 15 years later. narrator: stephanie lazarus did not testify at her trial.

we may never know exactly what sequence of events led to violence on that particular february day. maybe lazarus was sneaking into the condo, thinking she'd be alone, and was surprised to find sherri there. or maybe lazarus planned to kidnap sherri. that would explain the rope found at the scene. the jury didn't need to answer those questions. they only needed to answer one. did stephanie lazarus kill sherri rasmussen? it didn't take them long to decide. we, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant, stephanie eileen lazarus, guilty of the crime of murder of sherri rasmussen. narrator: stephanie lazarus was sentenced to 27 years to life. john ruetten spoke at the sentencing hearing. --and the fact that sherri's death occurred because she met and married me brings me to my knees. narrator: for sherri's loved ones,

the questions linger and so does the pain. you angry about how long this took? i am. i'm angry that they didn't treat people better, that they didn't listen to us. the other side of that is god waited long enough for us to really be able to prove that she did it and then put her in prison, away from those people that she loves. although, she still got a better deal than sherri did. narrator: in fact, it's a better deal than you might have expected. because of her lengthy service to the lapd, stephanie lazarus continues to receive her department pension, even though she's locked up. it comes to just more than $75,000 a year. how skinny we all were. narrator: sherri's sisters focus on keeping her memory alive. i see it in my daughters, and i see it in my grandkids. you see sherri? yes. it gives you comfort to know that she's carrying on.

she was a dedicated nurse. she cared for people deeply. she was such a people person and was so kind. i think that's a big part of my life and my family's life in trying to help others and be there for them. [baby cooing] narrator: so many years after that last christmas, baby rachel still feels her aunt's embrace. i've always felt that she's watching over us, that you can talk to her whenever and know that she is there with you and loves you. kiewicz: it was a vibrant, young church with a vital young pastor-- you just were awestruck by this guy. josh mankiewicz: --and his lovely, lonely wife.