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Background

Stephanie Lazarus and John Ruetten met at UCLA and hooked up a few dozen times in the early 1980s.

Lazarus was in love, but Ruetten didn’t feel the same way. He never saw Lazarus as a girlfriend, and he messed around with other women.

Ruetten eventually met Sherri Rasmussen. He knew she was the one and decided to marry her in 1985.

The LAPD officer Lazarus was enraged by this turn of events and eventually decided to get rid of her rival.

Crime

The 25-year-old went to the Van Nuys, California, home Rasmussen and Ruetten shared on February 24th, 1986, when she knew Ruetten would not be home.

Lazarus beat 29-year-old Rasmussen and shot her three times, killing her. Then she made it look like a burglary and left with Rasmussen’s car. Rasmussen’s father suspected Lazarus and pointed to her as someone that detectives should look at.

Since Lazarus was one of their own, investigators didn’t bother to follow up on the father’s suggestion, and the case went cold.

Life went on for Lazarus, and she got married in 1996. Her career prospered over the years, and she eventually became a detective.

She thought she had gotten away with it, but the case was reopened in 2009, and the investigation quickly focused on her.

Detectives collected a cup that Lazarus tossed out, and they matched her DNA from the cup to the DNA from a bite mark on Rasmussen’s body.

In 2009, Lazarus was interrogated and then arrested for murder and a gun charge. Instead of firing her, the LAPD let her retire. She is said to receive a pension of almost $65,000 per year.

She went to trial in 2012 and was convicted of first-degree murder and the gun charge and sentenced to 27 years to life on May 11th, 2012.

Life in prison

She has been locked up at the California Institution for Women in Chino. The facility houses nearly 1,300 people, including Betty Broderick, who killed her husband and his new wife in 1985, and Brenda Ann Spencer, who shot at school in 1979 because she didn’t like Mondays.

While in prison, Lazarus stayed out of trouble, mentored other inmates, and started a nonprofit.

She had her first parole hearing in November 2023 after serving just 14 years. This is because of a California youthful offender law passed in 2023, allowing people who committed a crime under the age of 26 to get parole early.

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the law was put in place in 2014 to “establish a parole eligibility mechanism that provides a person serving a sentence for crimes that he or she committed as a juvenile the opportunity to obtain release when he or she has shown that he or she has been rehabilitated and gained maturity.”

It was also intended to “create a process by which growth and maturity of youthful offenders can be assessed and a meaningful opportunity for release established.”

When it was first introduced, it applied only to people who were under 18 at the time their crime was committed.

In 2016, changes were made to include people 23 or older at the time their crime was committed.

In 2018, they made additional changes to include people who were under 26 at the time of their crime.

This benefited Lazarus as she was 25 years old when she killed Rasmussen.

At the parole hearing in November 2023, Lazarus finally admitted to being behind the crime, saying, “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.”

The panel of 2 or 3 people recommended that she be released. Rasmussen’s family was outraged and felt the convicted killer was getting special treatment because of her law enforcement past.

They also felt that Lazarus was not genuinely remorseful as she didn’t apologize. She also downplayed the coldness of the crime, claiming the murder was not planned and she only went to the home that day to talk with her ex.

In April 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom asked the entire parole board to review things.

The board met in May 2024. Lazarus wasn’t there, but justice reform advocates spoke in favor of her release. One woman who served time with Lazarus said, “I saw many women who talked a big talk about giving back to the community. Stephanie actually accomplished it.”

Rasmussen’s family showed up at the meeting and said Lazarus should remain locked up for the horrific crime.

One of Rasmussen’s nieces stated, “She had 23 years to lie and to hide the evidence and to go on with her life when she could have turned herself in.”

Rasmussen’s widower, Rutten, stated, “She lied for decades until her only option was to pursue parole.”

They also said the youthful offender law should not have applied to Lazarus, as she was a sophisticated killer who used her police training to get away with the murder.

In October 2024, Lazarus’s parole was rescinded. She had another parole hearing on February 12th, 2025, but she was denied release.

Her next parole hearing is in February 2028.