A state parole board hearing panel Wednesday rescinded an earlier recommendation of parole for a former Los Angeles Police Department detective who was convicted in 2012 of shooting and killing her ex-lover’s new wife in the victim’s Van Nuys condominium more than 38 years ago.
Speaking on behalf of the three-member parole board panel, Commissioner Julie Garland said the panel determined that there is “good cause to rescind” Stephanie Lazarus’ parole recommendation and noted that another parole-suitability hearing will be set for the 64-year-old woman within 120 days.
A state panel had recommended last November that Lazarus be paroled, but the parole rescission hearing was subsequently scheduled in response to concerns expressed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Lazarus — a 25-year LAPD veteran who worked as an art theft investigator — is serving a 27-year-to-life term in state prison stemming from her March 2012 conviction for first-degree murder for the Feb. 24, 1986 killing of Sherri Rasmussen, who was shot three times in the Balboa Boulevard condominium she shared with her husband.
Rasmussen had married John Ruetten, Lazarus’ one-time love interest, three months before her death.
At her first parole hearing last November, Lazarus publicly admitted that she had killed the 29-year-old Glendale Adventist Medical Center nursing supervisor.
“It makes me sick to this day that I took an oath to protect and serve people, and I took Sherri Rasmussen’s life from her, a nurse,” Lazarus said, according to a transcript of the November parole hearing. “All I could think about was getting out of there before the police showed up.”
The transcript from her parole hearing last November quotes Lazarus as saying, “I never got comfortable thinking I got away with this. … I didn’t do the right thing because I didn’t want to face the consequences of my actions. I didn’t want to go to prison.”
“… I will never, ever harm an individual like I did on February 24, 1986, when I murdered, callously murdered and heinously murdered Sherri Rasmussen,” the transcript quotes Lazarus as saying.
She said she subsequently threw the gun into a bushy area off the freeway and reported her gun stolen to the Santa Monica Police Department, according to the transcript.
The governor subsequently asked the full parole board to review the parole grant for Lazarus, writing in April that he found that the case “warrants the consideration of the full Board of Parole Hearings to determine whether Ms. Lazarus can be safely released at this time.”
The governor noted that Lazarus had “evaded justice for more than two decades and did not appear to begin taking full accountability for the murder until she was finally caught,” while acknowledging that she “has desisted from violent conduct” since the crime and “participated in and internalized targeted rehabilitative programming, signs that she has made progress in mitigating her risk factors.”
Lazarus’ bid to be released on parole suffered a setback in May, with the parole board ordering the new hearing to determine whether there was good cause to rescind the parole grant for the former LAPD detective.
At the latest hearing Wednesday, former prosecutor Paul Nunez and LAPD Det. Greg Stearns joined the victim’s family members in opposing Lazarus’ parole bid.
“She took no responsibility, pleaded not guilty and exhausted her appeals. She did not admit murdering Sherri Rasmussen until her parole hearing in November 2023,” the LAPD detective said.
The victim’s husband, Ruetten, who referred to Lazarus as “the inmate,” said Lazarus has “exercised her rights to the fullest, but has never done the right thing.”
“This is not a typical criminal rehabilitation,” he said. “I am asking that this grant of parole be reversed.”
One of the victim’s sisters, Teresa Lane, said it took Lazarus “38 years to admit her guilt and remorse.”
“But until it served her purpose, she never took this path,” Lane said. “During her first parole hearing (in) November of last year, was the first and only time she tried to present herself as remorseful and guilty.”
She said her family wants “justice for my sister,” saying that it would be the “greatest injustice of all” if Lazarus were granted parole.
One of the victim’s nieces, Rachel Buck, said Lazarus “a sworn officer of the law, betrayed her duty and callously executed my aunt on February 24, 1986.”
“… The inmate, armed with skills meant to uphold the law, shot my aunt three times and attempted to cover up the murder as a burglary,” the victim’s niece told the panel. “The cover-up that followed is a disgrace to the badge she wore. Her police training allowed her to convincingly stage the scene as a burglary, enabling her to live freely for 23 years before facing justice.”
Meanwhile, Lazarus’ attorney, Tracy Lum, told the panel that there was “no good cause to rescind her parole grant.”
“Ms. Lazarus can be safely released at this time,” Lum said. “She should be released from prison immediately.”
Lazarus also spoke on her own behalf, saying that she began her “rehabilitative process” while in county jail and has obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in “divinity studies” since she’s been behind bars.
“Today I have learned that I cannot control anyone but myself, and I am responsible for my decisions,” she said.
In a statement released on behalf of the victim’s family, their attorney, John Taylor, said the family was pleased with the decision to rescind the earlier parole grant.
“Lazarus had her parole time up front, evading arrest for 23 years after the murder. She has expressed no remorse for the cold-blooded execution of Sherri Rasmussen committed while she was an LAPD officer,” he said. “It’s unfair to the family that she should now go free and enjoy her life while receiving her LAPD pension.”
Lazarus retired from the LAPD after being arrested in June 2009 by Robbery-Homicide Division detectives at the department’s downtown headquarters, largely as a result of DNA evidence taken from a bite mark on Rasmussen’s left forearm.
LAPD detectives had trailed Lazarus to surreptitiously get a DNA sample from her in May 2009 by collecting a drink cup and straw she had thrown in a trash can outside a Costco store.
Rasmussen’s father, Nels, had insisted shortly after his daughter’s killing that police investigate Lazarus, who had been an officer for two years at the time of Rasmussen’s death. But the case went cold until 2004, when investigators with the LAPD’s Cold Case Unit reopened the case and asked the coroner’s office to locate the bite mark tissue sample, which had been stored in a freezer in an evidence room since 1986, according to a 2015 ruling by a three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal that upheld Lazarus’ conviction.
DNA testing determined that the major profile was from a female, and investigators turned their attention toward specific women who might have had reason to harm Rasmussen, according to the appellate court panel’s ruling.
The appellate court panel noted in its ruling that Lazarus’ DNA profile “precisely matched the profile of the person who bit Rasmussen shortly before her death.”
Lazarus had a “compelling motive to kill Rasmussen” because she had been abruptly dropped by Ruetten when he met his future wife, and Lazarus had confronted Rasmussen at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, where the 29-year-old woman worked as a nursing supervisor, the justices noted in the 2015 ruling.
Ruetten and Rasmussen were married in November 1985, a few months after Lazarus wrote Ruetten’s mother that she was “truly in love with John,” the appellate court panel noted.
“The evidence of motive and the circumstantial evidence, combined with the presence of appellant’s DNA on a wound inflicted on the victim during her struggles with her assailant, provided convincing evidence of appellant’s guilt,” Associate Justice Nora Manella wrote on behalf of the panel in its 2015 ruling.
The California Supreme Court refused in October 2015 to review the case against Lazarus.
After the verdict, then-LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called the case “a tragedy on every level” and apologized for how long it took to “solve this case and bring a measure of justice to this tragedy.”