Ex-LAPD Detective Denied Parole Again In Murder Of Ex-Lover’s Wife

LOS ANGELES, CA — A state parole board panel denied parole again Friday for a former Los Angeles Police Department detective who first admitted at a parole hearing in 2023 that she murdered her ex-lover's new wife in the victim's Van Nuys condominium more than 40 years ago.

After a hearing that stretched over portions of four hours along with more than 45 minutes of deliberations by the two-member parole board panel, Commissioner Michael Ruff said Stephanie Lazarus was "still choosing not to be completely honest with this panel."

Lazarus — a 25-year LAPD veteran who worked as an art theft investigator — was sentenced to 27 years to life in state prison as a result of March 2012 conviction for the killing of Rasmussen, who was shot three times on Feb. 24, 1986, 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.

The parole board commissioner noted that Lazarus was a police officer who was "sworn to uphold the law," telling her that she "chose to break the law" and committed a "brutal crime."

Deputy Commissioner Nga Lam noted that the panel "did not see a lot of movement" from a hearing last year in which she was denied parole.

"Push the re-set button ... Start with the truth. End with the truth," Lam said. "Show us you've really changed."

Lam said there was "overwhelming evidence" that the murder was premeditated.

"You were a detective who got away with murder for 23 years," the deputy commissioner said, noting that Lazarus had also been dishonest with her own department for 23 years.

In her final statement to the panel, Lazarus acknowledged that she had broken her oath as a police officer when she "atrociously murdered Sherri" and took away her future.

"I am truly and immensely sorry," the now 66-year-old inmate said from California Institution for Women in Corona, where she is behind bars.

In November 2023, a separate parole board panel had recommended parole for Lazarus, but that recommendation was subsequently rescinded in October 2024 after Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed concerns.

Another parole board panel found Lazarus unsuitable for parole in February 2025, with Commissioner Kevin Chappell explaining then that her testimony about the attack on Rasmussen "does not match up with the evidence used to convict you."

Chappell noted then that Lazarus described the physical assault as a "fight" and had to be corrected because it was clear that "you were the only one engaging in this extreme act of violence."

Lazarus was denied parole last year for three years, but was granted an earlier hearing. She also was denied parole again for three years at Friday's hearing, but can request an earlier date.

At the latest hearing Friday, Greg Stearns, one of the lead detectives on the case, and Paul Nunez, one of the prosecutors in the trial, joined Ruetten and the victim's family members in opposing Lazarus' latest parole bid.

.The victim's husband, who has since remarried, said Lazarus used her police training and concealed the crime while knowing that husbands are prime suspects in murder cases.

He said her decision to plead not guilty and go to trial further increased the suffering of the victims' family members.

Ruetten said he believed it was very clear that Lazarus was just saying what she thought the parole board commissioners wanted to hear, and urged the panel to consider her "uncanny ability to fool people."

"She waited way too long to admit her guilt," he said of her admission during her 2023 parole hearing.

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.

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."

By Terri Vermeulen Keith, City News Service