There were signs of a struggle, such as a porcelain vase that had apparently been broken over Rasmussen's head before the shooting, a bloody handprint next to the burglar alarm's panic button, and a toppled credenza. Inside, Ruetten found Rasmussen dead on the living room floor, shot three times. In addition, he discovered that the BMW he bought for Rasmussen as an engagement gift was missing. On February 24, 1986, John Ruetten returned home and found broken glass on the driveway. 'I wish it didn't end the way it did, and I don't think I'll ever understand his decision.' When Ruetten announced his engagement to Rasmussen, it led her into a state of depression.Īt this point, Lazarus was a patrol officer at the LAPD who aspired to rise in the ranks and become a detective. 'I'm truly in love with John, and the past year has really torn me up,' Lazarus wrote to Ruetten's mother in August 1985. When she learned about his relationship with Rasmussen, Lazarus was disheartened.

On Ruetten's 25th birthday, Lazarus arranged a surprise party, not knowing that he had been dating other women or that he had developed a serious relationship with a woman named Sherri Rasmussen, a graduate of Loma Linda University. Ruetten never believed that his relationship with Lazarus was serious, as he called it, 'necking and fooling around.' In court, he later testified that they had sex 'twenty to thirty times' between 19 but that she was never his girlfriend. The Murder of Sherri RasmussenWhile an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1978 to 1982, John Ruetten occasionally dated fellow UCLA student Stephanie Lazarus.

Stephanie lazarus