The Los Angeles Times reports that Stephanie Lazarus, the veteran LAPD detective accused of the 1986 murder of Sherri Rae Rasmussen, was ordered to provide prosecutors with dental impressions.
Police believe that on February 24, 1986, Lazarus, a 26-year veteran LAPD detective, severely beat and shot Rasmussen on her living room floor in what officials are calling a “crime of passion.” Rasmussen was the wife of Lazarus’ former lover, John Ruetten.
Original investigators on the case believed two men who had robbed another woman in the area were responsible for the murder. It was only after investigators re-opened the case in February that the focused switched to a female based upon testing of DNA left at the crime scene.
As it turns out, that DNA came from a bite mark left on Rasmussen’s inner left forearm. That bite mark was photographed, swabbed and cast at the time of her murder.
Today, prosecutors argued that ordering the former LAPD detective to provide dental impressions would be “minimally intrusive” and could potentially provide strong exculpatory evidence. Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Henry J. Hall agreed and ordered Lazarus to submit dental impressions and further allowed prosecutors to take photographs which will be compared with the original cast.
Lazarus’ criminal defense lawyer, Mark Overland, unsuccessfully argued that ordering his client to provide dental impressions would be invasive and was unreliable due to physiological changes in Lazarus’ teeth. In dismissing the defense argument, Commissioner Hall stated that the weight of such evidence would be left to the “trier of fact.”
In making his ruling, Commissioner Hall said that such evidence “may be tremendously valuable or it may not. It’s one of those things if you ask for, you may not be happy with the results.”
Stephanie Lazarus could potentially face the death penalty if convicted as prosecutors have charged the veteran LAPD detective with capital murder with a special circumstance allegation that Lazarus committed the murder during the commission of a burglary. A decision by prosecutors as to whether or not to seek the death penalty will be made at a later time. As for now, the court ordered dental impression could seal her fate.
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