40: His Jealous Ex Kept Showing Up…Then The Newlywed Bride Was Found Dead | Sherri Rasmussen

When 27-year-old newlywed Sherri Rasmussen was found beaten, shot, and left dead on the floor of her own home, police believed they were looking at a burglary gone horribly wrong. The crime scene was violent, the evidence was confusing, and for years investigators chased the wrong theory while the case slowly went cold. But Sherri's family never stopped believing there was more to the story. What they didn't know was that the answer may have been hiding in plain sight all along…. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow the show for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases! To watch the video version of this episode, head over to youtube.com/@annieelise. .🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks..🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts | Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify🔴 YouTube🎙️ All Other Platforms.🚩Announcements 🌊Summer Merch is HERE! Snag your favorites before the shop closes on 6/22 ☀️https://annieelise.com/collections/shop-all.📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: @_annieeliseTikTok: @_annieeliseSubstack: @annieeliseFacebook: @10toLife.⭐SponsorsNaturium: Go to http://Naturium.com/10TOLIFE for 10% off your first purchase today. Rula: Visit http://Rula.com/10tolife to get started today..👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon.🫵🏻 Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: www.annieelise.comFor Business Inquiries: [email protected].📚 Episode Sources AP News | All That's Interesting | CBS News | CBS Los Angeles | Justia Law | KTLA 5 News | Los Angeles Magazine | Los Angeles Times | NBC Los Angeles | NBC News | Orchard.ie | Oxygen | Red Circle Interrogations and Confessions | Sentences. | The Atlantic | Vanity Fair | Wikipedia••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hello, I'm Chris Richards, General Manager at Safran Volkswagen Richmond. I'm here to announce an exciting new program that I want you to listen to. Here's my friend Happy.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm Happy Harry Turner, Special Finance Manager at SafranCredit.com. If you're in an open Chapter 13 bankruptcy, recently filed a Chapter 7, or you've been turned down because of credit challenges, don't give up. For nearly 30 years, I've helped people get reliable transportation when others said no. Visit SafranCredit.com. Remember, I'm not happy unless you are.

• 0:30Speaker 02

  A rug shouldn't just fit your room, it should make your home feel finished. Ernesta creates designer-quality rugs, custom-fit to the exact size of your space, so every room feels beautifully pulled together. Explore Ernesta's range of options, all ready to be custom-cut, finished, and delivered to your door in as little as two weeks. Start with five samples for just $10 and get $50 toward your rug when you order. Visit Ernesta.com today. That's E-R-N-E-S-T-A dot com.

• 0:58Speaker 03

  You didn't harm your wife, did you, John?

• 1:01Speaker 03

  She had everything going. Hey, so you...

• 1:06Speaker 04

  I saw her lying on the ground. I knew right away that she was dead.

• 1:12Speaker 03

  John, she's not having any problems with her next boyfriend or you with her next girlfriend.

• 1:20Speaker 05

  As I walked in, I saw Sherry Rasmussen on the ground. She said that the person that was following her had eyes see right through you.

• 1:33Annie Elise?

  As John Rutten pulled into the alley behind his condo, something immediately felt off. His garage door was wide open. Now, at first, his brain probably tried to make sense of it. Maybe his wife Sherry was inside cleaning out her car or carrying groceries upstairs or something like that. But then he noticed that her car was gone, and that didn't make sense either. I mean, Sherry could be forgetful sometimes, yes, okay, little things, forgetting to turn on the answering machine before leaving the house or stuff like that. But leaving the garage door wide open in Los Angeles, in a back alley where random people just walked by all the time? That definitely was not like her.

• 2:17Annie Elise?

  And then, as he pulled his car into the garage, John noticed something else. There was broken glass all over the garage floor. Now I will say, sometimes your brain will protect you from jumping straight to the worst conclusion possible. And I think that that's what was happening here. Because after seeing that, instead of panicking, John just immediately tried rationalizing it. Maybe Sherri accidentally backed into something and shattered one of the back, you know, corners of her taillights or something like that. So he parks his car, gets out, and he walked right past the glass, planning to come back down and then clean it up later. But before he could even walk

• 3:00Annie Elise?

  into the condo, he stopped, dead in his tracks. The door leading into the living room was cracked open. Now, not really stopping to even think about why, John walked inside and he headed toward the lower level living room. And that's when he saw her. Sherri Rasmussen was just lying there, on the floor. She was on her back, and from the second that John saw her, he knew that something horrible had happened. Her face was badly swollen and bruised, covered in blood. Her right eye was completely swollen shut, surrounded by a bright blue bruise. Her left eye was still partially open, but just frozen, staring

• 3:41Annie Elise?

  up at the ceiling. Her mouth was open too, but again, almost frozen with this expression of shock. Worst of all, the robe that she was wearing, it was opened, and it was showing three very distinct bullet holes. So John panicked, of course, started bending down to touch her, check on her, see if she was okay, even though he knew deep down that she probably wasn't alive anymore. She was cold. The blood on her face and blood on other parts of her body had already dried. So the truth was Sherri was dead, and she had likely been dead for hours at this point. Now, just that morning, Sherri's biggest concern had

• 4:22Annie Elise?

  been whether or not she wanted to skip an HR class at work. But now, fast forward, and this 27-year-old newlywed was just lying dead in the middle of her own living room. Hey guys, my name is Annie Elise. This is 10 to Life, and we are gonna jump right in.

• 4:53Annie Elise?

  Now, really quickly, before we get into the case, I do want to mention this. If you had a little bit of FOMO from CrimeCon because we had exclusive merch there, designs that we only sold there, fear not, because we have officially launched all of that exclusive merch that you can grab right now. However, quantities are very, very limited, so it will probably go incredibly quickly. But we have the exclusive designs that we only had there. We have the very popular and in-demand sweatshirt that says "Heller" in embroidery. Also, the "Not a Detective, Just Nosy" Tumblr. So many new, cute, exclusive, brand-new designs. So, go check that out. Quantities are limited. Go to AnnieElise.com and grab them now.

• 5:34Annie Elise?

  Today's case began on February 24, 1986, in the Van Nuys area of Los Angeles. It was a Monday, and it started off like any other normal weekday. It was chilly in the morning, sunny and warm by the afternoon, and pretty quiet. Now, Sherry had every intention of taking it easy that day. At 27 years old, she was already the Director of Nursing at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, which, I have to say, is incredibly impressive. However, that morning, the last thing that she wanted to do was go supervise some mandatory HR class that she thought was boring and pointless. So, she debated just calling in sick and skipping it altogether.

• 6:16Annie Elise?

  Her husband, 25-year-old John Rutten, even found the whole thing pretty funny. I mean, normally, both of them would have already been gone for work well before 8:00 a.m., usually Sherry even left before he did. But that day was obviously different. So, when John headed out around 7:20 a.m. that morning to his engineering job nearby, Sherry was still back at home, still in bed, just relaxing and taking the day easy. So, at that point, it seemed pretty obvious that she had made the decision to stay home. John thought that she was probably planning on sleeping in, given that she wasn't going to go into work that day. So, he left. He didn't bother calling her that morning the way that he normally does.

• 6:57Annie Elise?

  Normally would have, he didn't want to wake her up, just you know, letting her sleep and just letting her have a chill day. Now, their three-story condo was in a really nicer area in Van Nuys. And on a normal day, the place would have stayed completely empty and locked up until both of them got home from work later that night. But around 9:45 a.m., one of the neighbors noticed something strange. John and Sherri's garage door was just wide open, just completely up, exposed, open, even though neither of their cars were there. Now, yes, it was a gated condo complex, but this still wasn't the kind of area where people just casually left their garages open or doors unlocked or anything like that.

• 7:39Annie Elise?

  Especially because all of the garages faced a back alley where random strangers could just walk in and out and you know, walk through during the day. As the day went on, though, nobody really knew that anything was wrong. John tried calling Sherri throughout the day after he allowed her some time to sleep in, but she didn't return any of his calls. And that wasn't normal at all. Even if she was working, she almost always answered his calls or would call him back as soon as she could. And the truth was, John wasn't the only one trying to get a hold of her. Sherri's sister Teresa also had a habit of calling her every day during the work break, usually around 10 a.m., just to check in, catch up and talk. So that day, Teresa first called Sherri's office,

• 8:22Annie Elise?

  but Sherri's secretary answered and explained that Sherri had called in sick. So Teresa figured, okay, maybe she's just at home resting. But when she tried calling the condo as well, nobody answered there either. Now, at the time, though, none of those little moments, nothing seemed all that alarming on their own, right? The open garage door, the unanswered calls, the answering machine not being turned on. Weird details that we now know of. But some of those details, they wouldn't even fully click into place until much later. For John, he mostly just assumed that Sherri was being forgetful. They had only been married for three months at that point, and he knew that she could sometimes be a little scatterbrained with small things, things like the answering machine.

• 9:07Annie Elise?

  They had this mutual agreement that whenever either one of them left the house, they would turn the answering machine on, which for anybody listening who didn't grow up in, you know, the olden days like myself, it's basically exactly what it sounds like. It's a machine with a cassette tape that you turn on that acts like a voicemail. Okay. And then when you get home, you press play and it plays your messages. So in this case though, even though they had their agreement to always turn it on when they left, when John realized that it wasn't on earlier that day, he just initially thought that she had, you know, eventually woke up, gotten up, went into work after all, and probably forgot to turn the machine on. And forgetting to turn the machine on, it wasn't exactly unheard of for her, especially

• 9:49Annie Elise?

  if she had rushed out the door after sleeping in later than she normally would. So by the time John got off work and then ran a couple of errands, stopping at the dry cleaner and UPS, he then had that weird feeling of why haven't I talked to Sherri or why wasn't the answering machine connected? It kind of faded into the background. He was busy. That is until he got home and he saw that the garage door was still standing open. Also until he went inside and he found Sherri. The way that her body had been left on the floor in her own home, covered in blood, I mean, that was bad enough, but the crime scene itself was also horrific. I mentioned the injuries on Sherri, the ones that John saw just from this quick glance,

• 10:32Annie Elise?

  but the truth is, her injuries were even more extensive. Once investigators began processing the scene, it became obvious very quickly that Sherri had fought for her life. She fought hard. She had multiple defensive wounds on her body. Two of her fingernails had even been completely ripped off. They were later found near the front door of the condo. The injuries to her face were also so severe that investigators believed that she had likely been pistol whipped with the same gun that was used to kill her. And they think she probably was pistol whipped more than once. There was also a bite mark on the inside of her left forearm, which that detail, it really stood out to the investigators later on.

• 11:17Annie Elise?

  The condo itself also showed clear signs of a violent struggle. Two large speakers had been completely knocked over near Sherri's body. A ceramic vase that was nearby was shattered across the floor. The sliding glass doors leading to the second floor balcony had also been broken. I mean, the living room was a disaster, but interestingly, the rest of the condo wasn't. And that detail mattered because maybe this wasn't some random burglary gone wrong. It looked more personal than that, almost like Sherri herself had been the target. And whenever a woman is murdered, investigators almost always start by looking closely at the husband or the boyfriend first. We know that. I mean statistically, that's usually where the answers are.

• 12:02Annie Elise?

  They know the routines, they know the schedules, and, and in some cases, they have the most to gain or lose. So naturally, investigators started digging into John and Sherri's relationship. And on the surface, everything looked good, really good, actually. They were newlyweds. They had only gotten married a few months earlier in November of 1985. That was after meeting about a year and a half prior to that at a party in June of 1984. And the attraction between the two of them, it was almost immediate. John was tall, muscular, charming, had thick dark hair. In Sherri's eyes, he looked like a model.

• 12:42Annie Elise?

  And Sherri absolutely stood out as well. She was lean, athletic, had beautiful light brown hair, high cheekbones, and at six feet tall, people definitely noticed the second she walked into any room. But according to the people who knew them, it wasn't just physical attraction that pulled them together. John was very outgoing and talkative, and Sherri was smart, compassionate, and deeply driven. She, in fact, she had dedicated her entire career to helping people. And pretty quickly, they both realized that this wasn't just casual dating. They stopped seeing other people almost immediately because they genuinely believed that they had found their future together.

• 13:23Annie Elise?

  Sherri's family later said that more than anything, she wanted two things in life. A loving marriage and eventually a family of her own. So when she met John, who seemed to want those exact same things, she fell hard and she fell fast. By June of the following year, they were engaged. And not long after that, in November of 1985, Sherri and John officially became husband and wife. From the outside, their marriage looked happy, really happy. Their wedding had been full of love, excitement, both families coming together, I mean, all of it. And as far as anyone knew around them, there weren't any obvious signs of marital problems, not in the least.

• 14:07Annie Elise?

  Which is exactly why investigators had to ask the very uncomfortable question pretty early on. Could a guy like John actually have a reason to murder his wife? Because the truth was, there was one detail still inside the condo that immediately raised eyebrows. And it's one of those details that sounds small at first, until you really stop and think about it. The only thing that investigators could confirm was missing from the condo wasn't jewelry, it wasn't expensive electronics, it wasn't cash, but it was John and Sherri's marriage license. And look, I don't have a full inventory of everything that they owned back then, but Sherri was a director of nursing and John worked at an engineering company.

• 14:51Annie Elise?

  They were doing very well financially. They absolutely had nicer valuables that someone could have stolen and capitalized on, and not a piece of paper, not a marriage license. So the fact that somebody took this marriage license out of all things, it felt personal. And I think that the investigators saw it the same way. Because what does a marriage license stand to offer anyone? I mean, think about it, what does a marriage license represent? It represents the marriage itself. So naturally detectives started side eyeing John just a little bit, a little bit harder. Had the two of them rushed into things? Was the marriage already falling apart behind closed doors? Was there something that people around them didn't know yet?

• 15:36Annie Elise?

  And then the investigators learned another detail. A detail that pointed back toward John. Remember when John got home and he saw the garage door was just, you know, standing wide open? I mentioned this, but Sherri's BMW was gone. And this wasn't just any car. It was a newer BMW that John had actually gifted Sherri when they got engaged the summer before. So now investigators had two things missing from the condo. The marriage license and the engagement gift. It almost felt like somebody was trying to send a message. But the truth was, a week into the investigation and detectives still weren't making much progress.

• 16:18Annie Elise?

  They also weren't really updating the media or Sherri's family either. And if they had a strong theory about what happened, they certainly weren't sharing it publicly. But then, about a week after the murder, there was finally a major development in the case.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  A rug shouldn't just fit your room. It should make your home feel finished. Ernesta creates designer quality rugs custom fit to the exact size of your space. So every room feels beautifully pulled together. Explore Ernesta's range of options, all ready to be custom cut, finished, and delivered to your door in as little as two weeks. Start with five samples for just $10 and get $50 toward your rug when you order. Visit ernesta.com today. That's E R N E S T A dot com.

• 17:01Annie Elise?

  Sherri's BMW was found abandoned on the side of a random street in Van Nuys. And inside her car? There was evidence that would end up changing the entire direction of this case. Whoever had abandoned Sherri's BMW didn't exactly seem worried about it being found. The car had been just left there unlocked. The keys were still sitting right there in the ignition. So investigators take the vehicle and they processed it. And they found several fingerprints inside the vehicle along with a small drop of blood. But the piece of evidence that really stood out the most to the investigators was a strand of brown hair. And that mattered because Sherri, she didn't have brown hair.

• 17:46Annie Elise?

  Her hair at this point was more of a dirty blonde color. Now, remember, this was 1986, so DNA testing, it was not available the way that it is now. So the investigators couldn't just run the hair for a full profile and then bam, get immediate answers. However, John, they knew, did have brown hair. And that started to, you know, trigger some things. Now, at first glance, you would think that that would only strengthen investigators' suspicions about him. But interestingly, around this same time, detectives actually seemed to be moving further away from the theory that John had murdered Sherri. See, after Sherri's body was discovered, investigators interviewed him extensively.

• 18:30Annie Elise?

  And according to them, nothing really stood out as suspicious or alarming. John told detectives that he and Sherri were still very much in the newlywed phase. Everything still felt exciting and fresh between them. There also weren't any major financial problems, no looming divorce, no obvious marital tension. Investigators also asked whether there were any, you know, jealous exes involved, an ex-boyfriend of Sherri's or an ex-girlfriend of John's that was somehow involved causing issues. But according to John, no. Detectives interviewed friends, neighbors, family members, everyone, really trying to see if anybody would hint that the marriage wasn't as perfect as it appeared to be from the outside.

• 19:15Annie Elise?

  But nobody really did. And on top of that, John's alibi was solid. He had left for work that morning around 7:30 a.m. He had been continuously at work afterward. Investigators believed that Sherri was killed sometime shortly before 10 a.m., well after John had already clocked into work. So timeline-wise, it just wasn't fitting together.

• 19:39Annie Elise?

  So slowly, investigators started leaning toward a different theory, a different theory altogether. Instead of believing that this was a deeply personal attack, they began convincing themselves that Sherri had simply interrupted a burglary, a burglary that turned deadly. And there were a few reasons that they landed on this theory. Near the condo's front door, investigators found a stack of stereo and video equipment just sitting there together. And it was obvious that that is not at all where those items normally would belong. Most people don't just keep electronics like piled up by the front door like that. So the detectives theorized that somebody may have broken in, believing that this condo

• 20:23Annie Elise?

  was empty, started gathering valuables to steal, and then got caught off guard when Sherri was suddenly there. And if that happened, investigators believed that Sherri may have seen their faces, which would then explain why the situation escalated so violently. Because if someone had been watching John and Sherri's routines beforehand, they probably would have assumed that nobody would be home on a Monday morning. Except remember, Sherri called in, she stayed home that day. And that detail, it really matters later, because if she had just gone into work like originally planned, then maybe none of this would have happened at all. It also wasn't just the condo scene itself that was influencing the investigators.

• 21:07Annie Elise?

  Apparently, there had been several break-ins happening nearby around that same time of day. A few weeks after Sherri's murder, two men broke into another home only a few blocks away from the condo. And in that case, the homeowner had unexpectedly come back while the men were already inside. So this really seemed to support investigators' theories that burglars in the area may have been studying people's schedules before targeting the homes. Now, the biggest difference, though, in all of this, is that that woman survived, and Sherri didn't. Unfortunately, the woman from the nearby break-in had been assaulted before the men fled, but she survived. And despite going through something incredibly traumatic,

• 21:50Annie Elise?

  she was able to give the investigators detailed descriptions of the two suspects, detailed enough for police sketches to be created. So from the LAPD's perspective, the theory, it started feeling pretty simple. Two nearby break-ins targeting nicer homes and condos, and Sherry just happened to become the victim who interrupted the wrong people at the wrong time. And at the time, LAPD was overwhelmed with gang violence and drug-related crimes. So investigators started wondering whether the people responsible could have been connected to that world somehow. Maybe they were stealing valuables to resell for drug money. Maybe they were tied to a gang. I mean, both theories seemed possible.

• 22:31Annie Elise?

  But what I couldn't really find, though, was a solid explanation for why Sherry had been killed while the other woman had been left alive. Especially considering that that woman had also seen the suspects' faces. I mean, sure, maybe it came down to the struggle, because we know Sherry clearly fought back hard. Her defensive wounds proved that. But there was another detail, too. Some of Sherry and John's neighbors later reported hearing shouting and fighting coming from the condo that morning. They assumed it was just some kind of domestic argument, not something serious enough to call the police over. But it was something. Even with this burglary theory, though,

• 23:13Annie Elise?

  the investigators still weren't actually getting any closer to identifying suspects. Nothing came from the prints or the blood in Sherry's car, and weeks passed, then months, then years. And eventually, Sherry's case went cold. No arrests, no major updates, no new evidence that seemed to move things forward.

• 23:36Annie Elise?

  But the truth was, behind the scenes, there was one person who never really accepted the burglary theory, not at all. And that was Sherry's father, Nels. And what's interesting with that is that this wasn't some theory that he developed years later out of frustration or desperation. Nels had concerns almost immediately, literally starting the day after Sherry was killed. Because when Nels first learned that his daughter had been murdered, he didn't even hear it from the police. And he also didn't hear it directly from John either. It was actually John's father who called him.

• 24:16Annie Elise?

  He called him around 1:00 in the morning on February 25th to break the news to him. Which I can't even imagine, getting a phone call like that and learning that your daughter was brutally murdered, inside her own home. And then realizing that you were seemingly one of the last people to even hear about it. Nels was understandably furious and also devastated. And during the call, he learned that John was there with his father as his father made this call. Now whether John's dad mentioned it directly or Nels could hear him in the background, I'm not exactly sure. But Nels immediately begged to speak with John himself. Which I think does make sense. He was grieving, he was confused, desperate for answers.

• 25:00Annie Elise?

  John was the man who had married his daughter after all, only a few months earlier, as a matter of fact. Now to be clear, if this truly was a burglary gone wrong, there may have been absolutely nothing that John could have done to save Sherry. But grief, it doesn't always work logically. And in that moment, Nels wanted answers. But John's father refused to put him on the phone. So just like that, Nels felt completely shut out. So instead of sitting quietly with his grief, he threw himself into trying to figure out what had really happened to his daughter. From the moment that he learned that his daughter had been murdered, he started replaying

• 25:42Annie Elise?

  every recent interaction that he had had with Sherri back in his head. Every conversation, every complaint, every odd detail that maybe didn't seem important at all at the time. And what's interesting to me is that Nels never really bought into the whole gang-related burglary theory that the investigators were pushing. He wasn't focused on random intruders or drug-fueled break-ins. Instead, he started looking backwards through Sherri's life, trying to figure out whether there had been somebody making her uncomfortable before she died. Had she mentioned somebody following her, someone acting strange around her, watching her? At first, he couldn't come up with anything.

• 26:26Annie Elise?

  But then, suddenly, he remembered something that Sherri had told him, something she told him just weeks before her wedding. Something that at the time, felt more uncomfortable than dangerous, more invasive than threatening. Now, I have to tell you, Sherri was extremely close with her parents, especially her dad, Nels. So when something bothered her, she would talk to him about it. And according to Nels, shortly before the wedding, Sherri called him very upset, not terrified exactly, but definitely rattled and pretty annoyed. Because a random woman had shown up at her front door, just unexpectedly asking for John.

• 27:07Annie Elise?

  Apparently, the woman had a pair of water skis with her, and she was casually claiming that she needed John to wax them for her. Which Sherri immediately felt like these skis were just an excuse for this woman to see John, but like, who is this woman and why is she just showing up on their doorstep weeks before the wedding, right? And look, women have a remarkable intuition, I have to say. And in that moment, feeling that something isn't quite aligning, you trust your gut, right? Something feels out of the norm. So I totally get why it bothered her. This was only weeks before their wedding. They were supposed to be busy planning the final details of getting married, but instead, some random woman was just showing up,

• 27:49Annie Elise?

  expecting John to stop whatever he was doing and like, what, wax her water skis? It made no sense. It felt weird. And according to Sherry, John acted almost overly casual about the entire thing. Which in turn, that only made her more upset. But eventually, he admitted that he and this woman had previously hooked up back in college. According to him, though, it was never even that serious. He told Sherry that they had originally just been friends at first, then briefly crossed a line romantically, before supposedly then going back to being just friends again afterward. Now, I don't think that that makes this situation any better. I then would still be like, okay, well, why is this chick who you hooked up with

• 28:32Annie Elise?

  once in the past asking you to wax her water skis? Like, what is going on? Which, not to be a pessimist, though, okay, maybe that was true. But I will say, showing up unannounced, right before someone's wedding, it definitely sends a different message, at least to me. So Sherry apparently told John, like, "Look, I don't want you waxing these skis." "I think that it's gonna encourage this woman or give her the wrong idea." But John disagreed. And according to Sherry, what really upset her the most was the fact that he wasn't shutting it down himself. And then, things got even stranger. On another random day, the woman came back to the condo, saying that she was there to pick the skis up.

• 29:13Annie Elise?

  And the second that John handed these skis over to this woman, Sherry basically told her, "Get the hell out, leave." There wasn't any sort of fake friendliness. There wasn't an attempt to become buddies with this old friend of his. Sherry made it very clear that she did not want this woman around. Now unfortunately, when her dad Nels later tried recalling all of this information after Sherri's murder, he couldn't remember the woman's name. But he did remember one very important detail. The woman was a police officer, or as he described it, a lady cop. And according to Nels, the water ski incident wasn't even the only uncomfortable interaction.

• 29:57Annie Elise?

  Not long after that, the woman showed up again, except this time, she was dressed head to toe in LAPD gear. And you can interpret that however you want. I mean, maybe it was a coincidence, maybe she was trying to intimidate Sherri. But the woman apparently claimed that she was just nearby on a break and she thought that she would stop in and say hello. But what made the visit stand out was that John wasn't home. Sherri was alone. And this part really stood out to her dad Nels later. Because apparently, John was originally supposed to be home that day, while Sherri was supposed to be working. Their schedules had unexpectedly switched around somehow.

• 30:41Annie Elise?

  And if your fiance's former hookup keeps showing up at your house, assuming that he will be there alone and you won't be there. I mean, hello, that's going to make almost anybody uncomfortable. So Sherri called her dad once again to tell him what was going on. And this time, according to him, she was genuinely scared that John might be cheating on her. She kept going back and forth between wanting to trust him and feeling like the entire situation was strange. More than anything, though, she just wanted John to step in and tell this woman off, tell her to beat it, back off. But according to Sherri, he wasn't doing that. And obviously, it was making her confidence in the relationship start to crack a little bit.

• 31:25Annie Elise?

  Nels also said that there was something else in that conversation that really stayed with him. Sherri almost never cried. As a nurse, she dealt with stressful and upsetting situations constantly, and she usually stayed incredibly composed because of that.

• 31:42Annie Elise?

  But during that phone call with her dad, she was sobbing.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Finding the right size rug can be hard. Enter Ernesta. Designer-quality, custom-sized rugs cut to the exact size of your room and delivered in as little as two weeks. Not sure of the size or the material? Start with five samples for just $10 today to see them in your own light and match to your decor. Plus, get $50 toward any rug of your choice. Visit Ernesta.com today. That's E-R-N-E-S-T-A dot com.

• 32:11Annie Elise?

  Nels didn't really know what advice to give her in that moment, other than try to stay calm, not make any huge emotional decisions based off fear or suspicion alone. So that's what Sherri did. She moved forward with the wedding. She acted like things were normal, and then afterward, she and John appeared happy together. And as far as Nels knew, this woman had stopped showing up completely. Maybe it had all just been some last-ditch attempt to get John's attention before he officially became a married man. But now, after Sherri was murdered, Nels couldn't stop thinking about it. So literally, the day after learning that his daughter was killed, he brought the woman up to the investigators.

• 32:56Annie Elise?

  And according to Nels, he wasn't storming in, making some crazy accusation or demanding arrests. He simply asked the lead detective one question. "Hey, have you checked out John's ex-girlfriend, the lady cop?" But according to Nels, the investigator just brushed him off almost immediately, telling him, "You know, you've watched too many cop TV shows." So that was basically the end of the conversation. No follow-up questions, no indication that they planned to take it seriously or look into it, nothing. And I think what frustrated Nels the most wasn't necessarily that he was positive that this woman killed Sherri, but it was the fact that the investigators didn't even seem willing to consider the possibility.

• 33:39Annie Elise?

  But Nels and Sherri's mother, Loretta, she refused to let it go. Even two years later, in 1988, Nels was still pushing investigators to take another look at the case. He even wrote directly to the then LAPD chief, Daryl Gates, asking him to intervene and have fresh eyes to review the investigation. And once again, he specifically mentioned the woman, the lady cop in all of this. The LAPD officer that he believed detectives had ignored far too quickly. But according to the family, they never even received a response back. Not a letter, not an acknowledgement, nothing.

• 34:20Annie Elise?

  Over the years, Nels and Loretta kept trying to keep Sherri's case alive publicly. And interestingly, John stayed involved too. He stood beside the family during the interviews. He was asking the public for information and he was continuing to mourn Sherri publicly as well. Unfortunately, though, once an unsolved case goes cold and there aren't any major developments, media attention usually fades too. So in 1993, Nels and Loretta traveled from Arizona back to Van Nuys, hoping that detectives finally might have some kind of update for them. But the meeting ended up feeling almost exactly like the earlier years of the investigation.

• 35:01Annie Elise?

  There were still no suspects, no arrests, no major new leads. Detectives told them that they had reviewed the original reports, they had looked into incoming tips, but still hadn't identified anyone responsible. And remember, the woman from the nearby break-in, she survived and provided police sketches of the men who attacked her, right? Well, those suspects were never identified either. And as awful as the meeting was, what the detectives told Nels and Loretta at the end of the meeting, it may have hit the hardest. Because they told them they needed to move on with their lives. Which I can't even imagine hearing that as a parent. Because at that point, it forced this family to confront something that they probably

• 35:45Annie Elise?

  never wanted to admit to themselves. Despite how badly they wanted answers, the case didn't seem any closer to being solved than it had years earlier. So eventually, Loretta stopped calling detectives, stopped looking for updates.

• 35:59Annie Elise?

  And I'm sure that there came a point where Nels, Loretta, maybe even John too, started wondering whether they would ever actually know what happened to Sherri, whether anyone would ever be held accountable or not. Now, back in 1986, DNA evidence simply was not what it is now. The technology that investigators rely on today, it didn't really exist yet. However, in October of 1998, things started changing. The FBI launched a national DNA database, giving investigators the ability to compare crime scene DNA to known offenders and potential suspects in ways that they never could do before. So with that, it completely changed cold case investigations.

• 36:42Annie Elise?

  It took time for the technology to spread from the FBI into local departments, though. So LAPD didn't officially create its own cold case unit until late 2001. But by the end of 2002, detectives finally started reviewing unsolved murders for possible DNA evidence. And thankfully, Sherri's case made that list. Now, it still wasn't considered some huge priority investigation at the time, but for the first time in years, there was at least a possibility that the evidence that was left behind in Sherri's murder might finally be able to tell investigators something that they hadn't been able to see before. In December of 2004, a criminalist named Jennifer Butterworth sat down at her desk

• 37:26Annie Elise?

  preparing for a long day of combing through cold cases. And one of the files sitting right there in front of her was Sherri's file. Now, say what you want about the original investigation, because there were definitely issues with it, but detectives had collected a pretty decent amount of physical evidence from the crime scene. So Jennifer started going through it, piece by piece. There was a piece of a fingernail, a bloodstained towel paramedics had placed over Sherri's face. But when those items were tested, the only DNA that was found belonged to Sherri herself. Then Jennifer came across something else in the evidence file, a DNA swab that was taken from the bite mark on Sherri's arm.

• 38:10Annie Elise?

  So they tested it, and the results showed two DNA profiles. One belonged to Sherri, but the other belonged to an unknown person. Now unfortunately, the unknown DNA didn't match anyone in the FBI database. But still, that wasn't even the biggest discovery. Because when Jennifer looked at the gender marker connected to the DNA profile, it came back as XX, meaning that the person who bit Sherri was a woman. And just like that, the entire theory that the investigators had built this case around, it started falling apart. Up until then, detectives believed that Sherri had likely been killed by a man,

• 38:52Annie Elise?

  maybe multiple men, gang members, burglars, drug dealers, drug-related suspects. That was the only narrative that they had worked with for years. But now, they had physical evidence showing that a woman had been directly involved in the attack. Now, as major as this discovery was though, it still didn't immediately solve the case. The DNA findings were documented, written up, and added to the file. But then, things stalled again. It wasn't until 2007 that new DNA evidence finally triggered a second investigation into Sherri's murder. And this time, detectives had to approach the case completely differently than the way that the investigators before them had.

• 39:37Annie Elise?

  And that is when the case landed on the desks of two detectives, Jim Nuttall and Pete Barba. And almost immediately, they realized something pretty obvious. If the DNA evidence contradicted the original theory, then every conclusion that the investigators had reached over the years needed to be reexamined. This case no longer needed to be investigated like a burglary gone wrong. They needed to find a woman, possibly a woman who hated Sherri enough to kill her. And interestingly, when they reviewed the original case file, there were actually five women listed in connection to the investigation.

• 40:18Annie Elise?

  Yet somehow, none of them had really been seriously looked into at the time. So now, years later, detectives started going through those names one by one, trying to determine who might realistically have had a reason to target Sherri.

• 40:36Annie Elise?

  One woman was a nurse who worked with Sherri and had apparently gotten into arguments with her before. Another name in the file was Stephanie LaRazus, and unlike the nurse, Stephanie was not a coworker, a friend, or a family member. So, because of that, naturally, the detectives wanted to know why her name was even in there in the first place. Well, according to the documents, Stephanie was listed as John's ex-girlfriend. And next to her name was a small little note that read "P.O."

• 41:10Annie Elise?

  Now, at first, Detective Nuttall apparently didn't think much of it. But after briefly speaking with John about Stephanie, it clicked. P.O. stood for Police Officer. So with that, they started digging deeper into Stephanie, her history with John, everything. Now, Stephanie and John first met while they were both students at UCLA, living in the same dorm. And at first, they were just friends. But after college, things became more complicated. They started spending a lot of one-on-one time together and going out on dates. And I'm not intentionally not fully calling it a relationship, because a lot of sources are pretty vague about whether they were ever truly official.

• 41:52Annie Elise?

  But it seemed like they had more of this, like, ongoing kind of casual relationship. Or at least, that's how John viewed it. Before meeting Sherri, John apparently wasn't thinking much about settling down. And I wouldn't necessarily call him a player, but he definitely had multiple women in his life at different times, and Stephanie was one of them. The issue was that Stephanie seemingly didn't realize that she wasn't the only woman in his life. And apparently, it all came to a head around John's 25th birthday. Stephanie had thrown him a birthday party. And during that birthday party, John revealed that not only was he seeing somebody else, but that he and Sherri were very serious.

• 42:37Annie Elise?

  And even though Stephanie and John may not have been technically official, it seems pretty clear that Stephanie wanted something more from him. So finding out that he had essentially chosen another woman over her, it was devastating to her. Which to me, it sounds like John had completely moved into a, you know, new phase of his life. He went from casually dating around and not really thinking about the future, to now suddenly wanting marriage and wanting stability, and wanting that with Sherri. So after learning all of this, Stephanie actually wrote a letter to John's mother. Now, maybe it was just a way to vent her feelings that felt somewhere safe. I don't know. I don't have the full letter, but I do know that one section of it read,

• 43:21Annie Elise?

  "I'm truly in love with John, and the past year has really torn me up. I wish it didn't end the way it did, and I don't think I'll ever fully understand his decision." So clearly not taking this, I don't want to say breakup, but separation well. Heartbroken, jealous, sad. Then, after learning that John and Sherri were engaged, Stephanie showed up at John's house, asking for closure. But apparently, that conversation, it didn't exactly end the way that either one of them probably expected. Because the two of them ended up sleeping together. And that detail, it matters. Because even years later,

• 44:04Annie Elise?

  it painted a much messier picture of the relationship between Stephanie and John. Way messier than Stephanie would later try to spin and admit.

• 44:14Speaker 07

  Within every beautifully busy day, there's a brief moment between now and next. A moment made just for you to recharge, refuel, and most importantly, bring out the Bob. Bring out the new Bob Evans Protein Mac and Cheese. Bring out the rich, velvety goodness now with 18 grams of protein-packed perfection. Bring out the mmm. Before you ask what's next, just take one more bite. For a delicious protein power-up, bring out the Bob. Bob Evans' new Protein Macaroni and Cheese.

• 44:44Annie Elise?

  By the summer of 2009, when Sherri's case was officially being reinvestigated, decades had passed. And I know a lot of people look at this case and immediately, you know, ask, "How was Stephanie not investigated sooner?" And I get that reaction. But you also have to look at who Stephanie was by 2009. At that point, Stephanie had built a very respected career within the LAPD. She had worked her way up from patrol officer to the art theft division, which apparently was considered a pretty high-profile assignment in Los Angeles, especially with all the wealthy collectors and expensive artwork that is there. Everybody who knew Stephanie seemed to respect her as well.

• 45:27Annie Elise?

  She didn't really seem to have any disciplinary problems, no major complaints, nothing suggested that she was some sort of unstable or violent person. She had even helped create a childcare program for officers with kids, and she had launched a child safety program too. So on paper, she looked like the model officer. And beyond that, she appeared to have her personal life together too. She was married, she and her husband had adopted a little girl together, she was happy. So I do think that there was probably a level of hesitation from the investigators because Stephanie was one of their own, but also because she simply didn't fit what people expect a murderer to look like. As for John, he had also moved on with his life by then.

• 46:12Annie Elise?

  He had remarried, he started a family with his second wife, the family that he and Sherri had once talked about having together. But despite all of that, detectives couldn't ignore the mounting evidence surrounding Stephanie. Because now, it wasn't just about old suspicions or awkward stories from the 1980s. They had female DNA from the bite mark. They also had Stephanie's name buried in the original case file. And now, they were actively narrowing potential suspects down. Now, earlier, I had mentioned that the list included two remaining women that the investigators wanted to look closely at: Stephanie and the nurse that Sherri had argued with at work.

• 46:56Annie Elise?

  Well detectives quickly ruled out the nurse after she voluntarily gave them a DNA sample and the DNA didn't match the bite mark evidence. So that left Stephanie. And once investigators really started digging into her history, there were a lot of details that suddenly started standing out in a much different light. For example, the gun that was used to kill Sherri was a .38 caliber weapon. And at the time that Sherri was murdered, .38s were commonly carried by the LAPD officers, either as backup guns or as off-duty weapons. So detectives started researching every firearm that ever was registered to Stephanie.

• 47:40Annie Elise?

  And in 1986, sure enough, she owned a .38. Now could that alone be a coincidence? Sure, it's not like she was the only officer within the LAPD or anything, right? Not the only officer carrying that kind of gun. But then, the investigators also, as they were digging in, learned something else. Just 13 days after Sherri was murdered, Stephanie reported that same .38 as missing. According to her, it had been stolen. And there was a whole story attached to that as well. Apparently Stephanie walked into the Santa Monica Police Department, she identified herself

• 48:22Annie Elise?

  as an LAPD officer, and then she filed a report claiming that someone had broken into her car near the Santa Monica Pier. According to Stephanie, a gym bag had been stolen from the vehicle along with everything inside of it, including the gun. And to be fair, the break-in did appear legitimate on the surface. The driver's side lock had been punched, which is something that thieves commonly did back then, so it was absolutely possible that somebody really did break into her car. But at the same time, if someone had used that gun to kill Sherri, this also would have been a very convenient way to explain why the weapon suddenly disappeared less than two weeks later.

• 49:02Annie Elise?

  The issue for the investigators was that almost everything that they had against Stephanie was circumstantial. Could she have been obsessed with John? Maybe. Could she have been jealous of Sherri? Sure. And could her car genuinely have been broken into completely unrelated to the murder? Yes. Did any of that automatically make her a murderer? No. Plus, when you're talking about accusing one of LAPD's most respected officers of brutally killing someone, you need evidence that is undeniable. So the detectives came up with a plan. They decided to wait until Stephanie discarded something in public that contained her DNA. Then, they were going to quietly collect it themselves.

• 49:46Annie Elise?

  And that did not take very long. On May 27, 2009, plainclothes officers followed Stephanie while she ran errands around town. At some point, she got a drink, finished it, and then threw the cup away in a public trashcan. So investigators immediately retrieved that cup and the straw, and they sent both of them in for testing. Two days later, they got the call that they had been waiting for. It was a match. Stephanie's DNA matched the DNA that was found on the bite mark on Sherri's arm. But still, detectives wanted to interview both Stephanie and John again. Now, when Stephanie was questioned about her relationship with John, she really tried

• 50:28Annie Elise?

  to minimize it completely, acting like it had barely even been a real relationship at all.

• 50:34Speaker 04

  God, that's been a million years ago. I mean, you know, um, what year is it now? 2009? I mean, I graduated in 82. 82, yeah. Um, you know, we dated, um, I dated other guys. I'm sure he dated other girls, um... Well, let me ask you. Roughly, how long would you say you guys dated? Jeez, um, I couldn't even say. I mean, I started school there in 78. I started UCLA in 1978.

• 51:09Speaker 02

  I graduated in eighty-two. Um, I don't even remember what year he graduated, if it was a year or two before me.

• 51:16Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Um, I think he was a little bit older than I was.

• 51:19Speaker 04

  So you haven't talked to him for a long time?

• 51:21Speaker 02

  Oh, I, I think, I haven't talked to him in a long time. Um, I couldn't even tell you when the last time I talked to him.

• 51:26Annie Elise?

  Now, just watching that interrogation footage, if you are watching the video version of this episode, she seemed incredibly nervous. Every answer felt rushed and jittery.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  I mean, well, what's, what's, I mean, what's this all about? I mean.

• 51:42Speaker 04

  Well, let me ask you, what ended the relationship between you and John?

• 51:47Speaker 02

  You know, I don't, it was kind of a weird relationship. I mean, we, we, we dated. Um, I can't say that he was my boyfriend. I don't know that he would consider me his girlfriend. Um, we just, we dated, we did things. I played sports in college, he played basketball. His brother played basketball. Um, we just, you know, it just didn't work out. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. It was like, I went out with other guys, um, saw other guys, I went on lots of vacations, um, you know.

• 52:20Speaker 04

  And, and once you guys split, were you guys still friends or kind of, you know?

• 52:25Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 52:26Speaker 04

  Is it friendly, not friendly?

• 52:28Speaker 02

  No, I don't think it was not friendly. I mean, we were friendly, um, uh, I know that we went to Hawaii, um, at one point. Um, another friend of mine who's actually dying right now, oh, was, went to Hawaii with us, um, at some point, um.

• 52:47Speaker 04

  Remember roughly when that was?

• 52:49Speaker 02

  Geez, um, let me think. Hmm, I have to check my pictures, um, or I'd say I'd ask Greg, but my friend Greg is like dying of liver cancer right now. Um, yeah, I mean, I, you know.

• 53:04Annie Elise?

  She already seemed uncomfortable just discussing John in general. So when investigators started asking about Sherry and whether she had ever met her before, things became even more tense.

• 53:16Speaker 02

  It's two thousand nine now.

• 53:18Speaker 04

  Had you ever met his wife?

• 53:20Speaker 02

  I may have.

• 53:21Speaker 04

  Do you know, do you remember her name or anything, or?

• 53:25Speaker 02

  Um.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  Um.

• 53:30Speaker 04

  For what she did for a living, or where she worked, or anything about her?

• 53:35Speaker 02

  Well, I think she, I th- I'm gonna say, I think she was a nurse, um.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Man, I can't even remember how he, he said he met her. Uh, yeah, I mean, I, I, yeah, I mean, it's been so long ago.

• 53:47Speaker 04

  Well, let me ask you, did you go to their wedding, you know?

• 53:49Speaker 02

  No, I didn't go to their wedding, um, no, I don't, did not go to their wedding, um. Couldn't even tell you what year he got married. I mean, you know, it's, it's been a million years ago.

• 54:00Speaker 04

  Do you remember if you ever talked to her, cause it seems like a lot of you who were at, at the school at UCLA, you guys kinda were friends during and after school, so I don't know if you guys still associated afterwards when, once he was married or anything?

• 54:13Speaker 02

  With him?

• 54:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  No, I don't think so.

• 54:15Annie Elise?

  Then the questions got darker. Did Stephanie remember hearing that John's wife had been murdered? Did she remember hearing the details about how Sherry was killed inside her own home only months after her wedding?

• 54:30Speaker 02

  You know, I, I don't understand why you're talking about some guy I dated a million years ago.

• 54:34Speaker 04

  Well, do you know what happened to his wife?

• 54:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know she got killed.

• 54:38Speaker 04

  What did you, what did you hear about that?

• 54:41Speaker 02

  I guess I saw a poster at work, um, I'm sure I spoke to him about it, um. I think I spoke to another friend of his about it, um.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  And how did, how did you first learn about that?

• 54:54Speaker 02

  Jeez.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Someone could've called me, I could've heard it at work, um. I think at one point there may have been a flyer or something, I know a good friend of his, um.

• 55:06Speaker 04

  Were you on the job back then, when that happened?

• 55:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so, yeah, I'm sure I was on the job, that's why I would've heard about it with the flyer, um. He had a good friend, Mike, Mike Boldrick, Mike. Hmm, um.

• 55:23Speaker 02

  Anyways, a fr- uh, fr- uh, he may have lived in the dorms, I don't remember if that's how I met him, um, I, I may have talked to him.

• 55:30Annie Elise?

  I mean, you know, I don't remember how I heard. I mean, I don't even remember what year it was.

• 55:35Speaker 04

  And you think, you, you thought, you said you thought his wife was a nurse. Do you have any idea where she was working at the time? Or did he ever mention that to you? Was it a hospital or a doctor's office?

• 55:43Annie Elise?

  I'm sure he must have mentioned it. Now, now that you're bringing that up, I think she worked at a hospital somewhere. And yeah, I may have met her at a hospital. Um, I may have talked to her once or twice, um. Now, watching those clips now, it's hard not to notice how uncomfortable she looks. Especially considering that she had spent years working high-pressure police assignments. She definitely did not come across as calm or collected. And then the investigators finally started steering the interview exactly where Stephanie probably knew that it was heading from the very start of when she sat down.

• 56:21Speaker 04

  But being that you were kinda, you used to see, uh, John, you know, was it everything okay between you guys? I mean, there was never anything uncomfortable or anything between you and her?

• 56:31Annie Elise?

  Um, you know, I don't know. I mean, it's, God, it's been so many years. I mean,

• 56:39Annie Elise?

  uncomfortable, I mean,

• 56:43Annie Elise?

  I can't even, I can't even remember if we had a conversation. I mean, we may have, I may have, I may have seen her at his apart, you know, geez, how many years ago is that? I don't even know what year she, you know, got killed.

• 56:56Speaker 04

  Where was his apartment?

• 56:57Annie Elise?

  On Roscoe.

• 56:58Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 56:59Annie Elise?

  Yeah, Roscoe in, um, um, east or west of DeSoto, uh, either east or west of DeSoto.

• 57:08Speaker 04

  Do you know where he moved after, did he move after he got married, or do you know, or?

• 57:16Annie Elise?

  I'm sure he did.

• 57:18Speaker 04

  Did you know where he was living, or?

• 57:21Annie Elise?

  Somewhere in the valley.

• 57:23Speaker 04

  Did you ever visit him and his wife?

• 57:25Annie Elise?

  No.

• 57:26Speaker 04

  No, never went out to, you know, get together dinners?

• 57:32Annie Elise?

  Now, at that point, Stephanie was still pretending that she had barely interacted with Sherry at all. Meanwhile, though, investigators already knew that there had been multiple encounters between the two of them back in the eighties, including Stephanie showing up at the condo. So eventually detectives stopped dancing around it and they came right out with their suspicions. And Stephanie reacted with what I can only describe as shock and outrage. Though, in my opinion, it didn't really feel all that convincing.

• 58:03Speaker 04

  They've also told us that an incident at her house occurred.

• 58:09Annie Elise?

  You know what?

• 58:10Speaker 04

  And this is at her house during the period of time that they're married.

• 58:15Annie Elise?

  That's just not sounding familiar at all. I mean, I, you know what, I,

• 58:21Annie Elise?

  that's just not, I, I, I, again, if someone says that I was at her house and I had an incident with her, I, I, you know, I, that just doesn't sound, I, I, I, you know, was John there? Did John say this happened because, and other people were there? I, I, I just, I don't recall. I mean, it just doesn't sound, you know, familiar.

• 58:41Speaker 04

  And this is an incident where you showed up, you weren't supposed to show up, and things got heated.

• 58:49Annie Elise?

  At his house?

• 58:53Annie Elise?

  That I, you know, I, that just doesn't sound familiar. I mean, I, you know, it's not sounding familiar. Not at all.

• 59:02Speaker 04

  Now you're saying not familiar because it's just, doesn't you remember, or it's just?

• 59:05Annie Elise?

  You know what, I would have, then I'd have to say I don't remember, because I don't remember. I, that doesn't sound familiar. I,

• 59:12Speaker 04

  I mean, would you remember something like that in your life?

• 59:15Annie Elise?

  Well, I would think like-

• 59:16Speaker 04

  Sort of drama involving, you know, the other woman type of thing.

• 59:20Annie Elise?

  Did you fight with her? You mean like we fought? Yeah. Did you ever duke it out with her? No, I don't think so. I mean, You'd remember that, right? That would be pretty. Yeah, I would think so. I mean, Yeah, like I said, I mean, obviously.

• 59:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, you know, I mean, it just doesn't sound familiar. I mean, I mean, what are they saying? So I, I, I fought with her, so, so now I mean, I, I, I, I'm ge- getting the jump of the leap. Excuse me, I haven't eaten, um, they're saying, okay, I fought with her, so I must have killed her. I mean, come on, I mean, that's, you know, I, I, I don't even know who these people are, I, I can't even say I met any of these people, I mean, that's, it's insane.

• 1:00:04Annie Elise?

  Then investigators finally revealed why she was really there that day.

• 1:00:09Speaker 04

  Uh, on this case, you know, this is occurring when eighty-six, right? Uh, detectives processed the scene, things of that nature. They did fingerprints and all that stuff, you know, you know the standard stuff, you've been doing this longer than I have.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  Well, not about that. I got twenty-six years on, going on twenty-six.

• 1:00:30Speaker 04

  Nineteen, so. But, you know, as they processed everything, uh, they did the best they could at that time, and they looked at a lot of, a lot of people and different things in this case. And you're right.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  I mean, if you guys are claiming that I'm a suspect, then, you know, I, I got a problem with, you know, with that.

• 1:00:47Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  Okay? So, you know, if you're, if you're doing this as an interrogation, you're saying, hey, I'm a suspect, well, I, now I got a problem with, you know, now you're accusing me of this? Is that what you're, is that what you're saying?

• 1:01:01Annie Elise?

  We're trying to figure out what happened, Stephanie.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  Well, I'm, I was, you know, I'm just saying, you know.

• 1:01:08Speaker 04

  Right now, from looking at the evidence, it's, you know, it's possible we may have some DNA at the location.

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 1:01:15Speaker 04

  And we're gonna do what we can to try to put this thing together. And your name's in the book, these people are pointing at you, for whatever reason.

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  I don't know why, that's just crazy, I mean, that's just.

• 1:01:28Annie Elise?

  That's absolutely crazy. Now, this part is absolutely wild, okay? When detectives eventually told Stephanie that she was free to leave, they were lying. The second that Stephanie stormed out saying she was contacting a lawyer, the officer stopped her in the hallway, handcuffed her, and formally arrested her for Sherri's murder. At that point, detectives already had the DNA evidence that they needed. The interrogation was really just about seeing how Stephanie would react once she realized that they were on to her. Now, when the news broke that an LAPD officer had been arrested for murdering Sherri, reactions were all over the place. For people who didn't know the history between Stephanie, John, and Sherri, there was a lot of shock and confusion.

• 1:02:13Annie Elise?

  How could someone who had spent her career supposedly fighting for justice be accused of something like this? I'm happy for the family. I'm happy for the family, but, you know, I'm glad it wasn't robbers. It was somebody that somebody knew. Wow, that's really sad. Very relieved and thrilled. A lot of shock. Nobody could believe it had happened to one of our nursing directors. Now, for Sherri's family, though, this arrest, it brought a sense of relief. This was the theory that they had been pushing for decades. The family released a statement saying, quote, "The family was not surprised at the arrest. We can only praise the work of the current chief of police and his loyal detective department."

• 1:02:56Annie Elise?

  And there was definitely some shade in that statement toward the original investigation, which, I mean, considering everything, I completely understand and, like, respect. Because imagine believing for over 20 years that investigators ignored critical warning signs from the very beginning, only to learn that you were right.

• 1:03:14Speaker 04

  The investigation in 1986 is a completely different story, and the family has numerous questions about what was done during that time period. The family has nothing but praise for the LAPD.

• 1:03:30Annie Elise?

  PD of 2009. It wasn't until 2012 that Stephanie finally went to trial. And throughout the entire process, she maintained that she was innocent. There was never some dramatic confession after her arrest or any, you know, remorse. The prosecution explained that the reason for Stephanie killing Sherri was pretty simple. Jealousy. Sherri had everything she wanted. She had John, she had the life, the marriage, all of it. That stereo equipment that was by the front door of the condo? It was there planted to make it seem as if someone had broken in. That somebody was going to steal it, like a home robbery gone wrong. Now, as for John himself, investigators never believed that he was involved in the murder

• 1:04:15Annie Elise?

  or that this had been some kind of setup or murder-for-hire type situation. Ultimately, the DNA evidence against Stephanie was incredibly difficult to explain away. And although the stolen marriage license was never recovered, there was plenty of evidence that proved that Stephanie wasn't being truthful about a lot of different things. After her arrest, investigators searched her home and they found years' worth of diaries. Inside those diary entries were entries about being in love with John and being devastated over his relationship with Sherri. In one entry, Stephanie wrote about visiting John in May of 1985 and seeing Sherri there.

• 1:04:57Annie Elise?

  In another, from April of 1985, she described leaving a note on John's car and repeatedly checking to see whether he had found it or not yet. Interestingly, though, the defense tried using some of the diary entries to help Stephanie. For example, they pointed to a March 1986 entry where Stephanie mentioned taking her car in for repairs after it had supposedly been broken into. And I guess that their argument with that was basically like, why would she journal about a fake break-in if it never happened? The defense also brought in character witnesses through all of this, including people who claimed that they had never known Stephanie to be violent. But I mean, compared to the DNA evidence and everything else,

• 1:05:40Annie Elise?

  it just did not seem like strong evidence in comparison. The trial lasted about five weeks, and finally, the jury reached a verdict. People of the State of California versus Stephanie Eileen Lazarus, case number BA357423. We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant Stephanie Eileen Lazarus guilty of the crime of murder of Sherri Rasmussen in violation of Penal Code Section 187A, a felony, as charged in count one of the information. We further find the murder was of the first degree. We further find the allegation that in the commission of the above offense,

• 1:06:21Annie Elise?

  the defendant Stephanie Eileen Lazarus personally used a firearm, namely a handgun, within the meaning of Penal Code Section 12022.5, subsection A1, to be true, this 8th day of March in the year 2012, during number 9, 4%. Is this your verdict? So say you one, so say you all? Guilty of first degree murder. More than 26 years after Sherri was killed, her family finally had justice. Justice that they had been fighting for since the very beginning. Stephanie was later sentenced to 27 years to life in prison.

• 1:07:03Annie Elise?

  But unfortunately, the story still didn't fully end there. Because for years afterward, Stephanie continued insisting that she was innocent and that she had been wrongfully accused. That is, until November of 2023, during a parole hearing. For the very first time, Stephanie admitted to killing Sherri.

• 1:07:26Annie Elise?

  But the timing of the confession, it raised a lot of eyebrows because California had passed a law allowing special parole consideration for people convicted of crimes that were committed before the age of 26. And Stephanie, she happened to qualify under that law. Now personally, I don't know if she ever would have confessed otherwise. I'd have to say no. She went on for decades hiding this, and that's just my opinion, but I don't believe that she would have ever come forward. Sherri's older sister Connie attended the hearing and later said that Stephanie never even actually apologized for killing Sherri. According to Connie, Stephanie also tried minimizing what happened, describing the murder almost like an accident, claiming she hadn't

• 1:08:10Annie Elise?

  meant to kill her that day. And shockingly, parole officers initially found Stephanie suitable for release. One commissioner even said that Stephanie appeared remorseful and did not seem like a danger to society anymore. Now thankfully, that didn't mean that she was immediately released. In 2024, a select committee of the Board of Parole Hearings voted to review the decision. And then in 2025, Stephanie's parole request was officially denied. And throughout all of this, John continued advocating for Sherri. He joined other family members in asking the parole board to deny Stephanie's release, arguing that she was

• 1:08:50Annie Elise?

  manipulative, calculating, and had used her police training to help cover up the murder. He also said that he believed that Stephanie would say whatever she needed to say in order to get parole. So even decades later, John was still trying to protect Sherri the best way that he could. And as things currently stand, Stephanie will be eligible for parole again in 2028. And hopefully, for Sherri's family's sake, she remains exactly where she is. It's just once again such a senseless crime over what jealousy? And I know on here I always say, just get a divorce, which that doesn't really seem applicable in this scenario, but maybe the, maybe the tagline needs to be like, he's just not worth it.

• 1:09:35Annie Elise?

  Worth it. Period. Like, he is just not worth it. Or she is just not that worth it. Not in this case, but like, you know, when men kill over women. So it's like, he's just not that worth it. For what? And now, your life that you tried to build for yourself, the marriage, the adopted child, that child, this innocent child who was adopted into this family, she now has to grow up without a mother? Because you couldn't contain your jealousy? Like, get real. So for any of my female listeners, right now, who might be going through a breakup, or you might be envious of your man's new girl, or what's going on, or the situation,

• 1:10:14Annie Elise?

  he's not worth it. It is not worth it. Now, before you go, quick reminder, merch, right now, annieleese.com. Get it before it is completely gone. Alright, guys. Thank you so much for hearing Sherri's story today, and allowing her voice to carry on. And I am so glad that justice was finally served. Until the next one. Stay safe. Bye.