NOTORIOUS MURDERS > WOMEN WHO KILL

The Murder of Sherri Rae Rasmussen

By Tricia Romano

Introduction

In 1986, Sherri Rae Rasmussen was 29 years old, living in a condominium with her new husband of three months, John Ruetten. In a few short minutes, though, her new, charmed life ended in a vicious brutal murder that would go unsolved for over 20 years.

On the night of February 24, her husband came home to discover his new bride, who had stayed home from work that day after injuring her back doing aerobics, bloodied, beaten and dead from numerous gunshot wounds to the chest.

But with the help of advancing technology, the Los Angeles Police Department's Cold Case squad cracked a case as dramatic as any on television. After running a DNA test on a bite mark on Rasmussen's body, they confronted a new and shocking likelihood: the perpetrator was one of their own, Officer Stephanie Lazarus.

 

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1. Introduction
2. Rising in the Force
3. Robbery Gone Awry
4. "If I can't have John, then nobody else will."
5. Something out of Law and Order
6. Announcing the Cracking of the Cold Case
7. Redemption: "I told you so."
8. New Details
9. On the Other Side of the Thin Blue Line