Despite a campaign by justice reform advocates, the California Board of Parole Hearings revoked plans to release the former LAPD detective. Stephanie Lazarus was released from prison after hearing emotional testimony from family and friends who said she “lied for decades” and used her police training to cover up the 1986 murder of her ex-boyfriend's wife.
The decision marks another chapter in a notorious murder case that shook the Los Angeles Police Department. It overturns a November recommendation by a parole panel that the 64-year-old woman should be released after serving 15 years of her life sentence and that a new hearing should be held to review evidence in the case. The governor's office had asked the board in April to review the plan to parole Lazarus.
A tear ran down John Ruetten's cheek Monday as he recalled the “brutal murder” of his wife, Sherri Rasmussen, at the hands of a jealous Lazarus, who finally confessed to the crime last year at a parole panel.
“We are not here today, 38 years after Sherri's brutal murder, reliving the horror, due to an impulsive act. [It was] skillful deception and complete disregard for the suffering of others. The inmate used her police training to cover up the crime,” Ruetten told the parole board, which was considering releasing Lazarus as early as July.
“She lied for decades until her only option was to apply for parole,” he added, noting Lazarus' denial of the crime when she was arrested in 2009, during her trial three years later and through repeated appeals.
Lazarus was a detective with 25 years on the force when homicide investigators reopened Rasmussen's cold case and analyzed DNA from a bite mark on the victim. The 2009 examination led to Lazarus' arrest in the death of the 29-year-old director of nursing.
Three years later, Lazarus was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 27 years to life in prison at the California Institution for Women in Chino.
On Monday, Rasmussen's friends and family, including two sisters and two nieces, begged the parole board to keep Lazarus locked up, saying she is a cold, calculating killer who works in the know-it-all system as an ex. police.
Connie Rasmussen said that far from being a “juvenile offender” (as justice reform advocates have described Lazurus, who was 25 at the time of the murder), her sister's killer was an educated police officer who graduated from the UCLA and committed a “well-planned and executed attack.” murder.”
In contrast, justice reform advocates, formerly incarcerated people, and a wrongly convicted inmate told stories about Lazarus' prison leadership and his work in educational programs, religious advocacy, consoling dying inmates, and even purchasing books for others.
“Stephanie is kind, compassionate and a dedicated person. She has taken full responsibility for her actions,” said Jane Dorotik of the Los Angeles Innocence Project, who served 12 years alongside Lazarus before her own murder conviction was overturned. “I saw a lot of women who talked a lot about giving back to the community. “Stephanie really nailed it.”
A nun, two university professors, and several formerly incarcerated people called Lazarus a “transformed person” who “worked tirelessly to better himself” and others. One former inmate described how Lazarus helped turn her life around in prison as her “personal mentor,” allowing her to graduate from college.
Lazarus did not appear before the board on Monday, but spoke before the panel in November.
“It sickens me to this day to have taken an oath to protect and serve the people, and to have taken the life of Sherri Rasmussen, a nurse,” Lazarus said, according to a transcript of the hearing. “The only thing I could think about was getting out of there before the police showed up.”
Ruetten, however, told parole commissioners Monday that the “inmate” — as he called Lazarus — is a master of deception.
“Sherri's parents lost their son and her sisters lost a dear friend and confidant because Sherri loved me and married me,” he said, his voice shaking. “For me, the reality of pain never diminishes.”
Ruetten and Lazarus met when they were students at UCLA in the 1970s. Although the two dated casually for a few years after graduating, Ruetten testified at trial that he never considered Lazarus his girlfriend.
She later met Rasmussen and they became engaged. Shortly afterward, Ruetten said, he was confronted by Lazarus, then an LAPD patrol officer, who begged him not to marry. Ruetten and Rasmussen married in 1985.
The following year, Ruetten returned home from work to find Rasmussen severely beaten and with three gunshot wounds to the chest. The initial investigation determined that Rasmussen was killed during a robbery by two men at the home, but no arrests were made.
The case was reopened in 2009 and DNA was analyzed from a saliva sample taken as evidence of a bite mark on Rasmussen's arm. The sample was found to have come from a woman. Undercover agents collected Lazarus' DNA and, after comparing it to evidence from her bite marks, she was arrested.
Greg Stearns, a veteran LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division detective who made the arrest, told the parole board on Monday that Lazarus does not deserve to be released.
“Stephanie Lazarus stalked her victim, choosing a time and place where she knew she would have her alone. “She brought ropes to tie her up, she used a makeshift silencer to execute her, she staged a robbery and then disposed of the murder weapon and filed a false police report with an outside agency to explain the absence of that weapon,” she told the panel. “Those are not the characteristics of the youth offense. They are the distinctive characteristics of criminal sophistication and maturity.”
He said that if anyone comes between what Lazarus wants, “she is capable of that level of savagery and violence” again.
