He was a writer for “Law & Order” in 2009, and had previously met Lazarus for a book he was going to write about art theft, which at the time was her beat. “Once the trial happened and I had the benefit of police records and Stephanie’s diary and the various scientific reports, it suddenly possible to tell a story almost over the shoulder of the people who were living it at that time,” says McGough. Now, Matthew McGough has stepped into that chasm, filling in the full story with a blizzard of meticulous, sometimes overwhelming detail - his book, “The Lazarus Files: A Cold Case Investigation,” weighs in at nearly 600 pages. In 2009, a few diligent and determined detectives aided by a persistent civilian criminalist who had already been ignored by other police officers pieced together what had happened from the DNA of a bite mark on Rasmussen’s arm. The case remained unsolved eventually investigative material - including the separate interviews where Ruetten mentioned Lazarus and where Rasmussen’s father, Nels, pointedly asked police to check out the ex-girlfriend who had been hassling Rasmussen - as well as most potential DNA evidence went missing. The detectives failed to interview many relevant people, including one who witnessed Lazarus harassing Rasmussen at her job before the murder. Despite evidence to the contrary, lead detective Lyle Mayer decided almost immediately that the murder was committed by two men as part of a botched robbery gone wrong, and nothing said by family or friends changed that perspective. Stephanie Lazarus, a Los Angeles police officer, entered the home of her ex-lover, John Ruetten, and murdered his new wife, Sherri Rasmussen, beating her brutally during a struggle before shooting her three times.
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