After Sherri Rae Rasmussen was beaten and shot to death in 1986, her father urged Los Angeles police to investigate a fellow officer who had had confrontations with his daughter in the months leading up to her death, according to attorneys for the victim's family.
But Nel Rasmussen's pleas, which he said he made during several interviews with police and in a letter to then-Chief Daryl F. Gates, apparently were ignored by detectives as they pursued a different theory of how his daughter had been killed.
It was only this year, after LAPD cold-case detectives reopened the investigation and interviewed Rasmussen, that Det. Stephanie Lazarus became a suspect. The father's suspicions were bolstered Friday when police arrested Lazarus in connection with the slaying. On Monday, prosecutors charged Lazarus with capital murder, leaving open the possibility that they may seek the death penalty.
The failure to consider Lazarus a suspect for more than two decades infuriated Rasmussen, who is now calling for a separate investigation into how the department originally handled the case. He and his wife have scheduled a news conference following Lazarus' arraignment today in which they plan to raise "serious questions" about the LAPD's investigation of the slaying, their attorneys said.
Rasmussen's allegations added a troubling new dimension to a dramatic case in which the LAPD has had to confront the possibility that one of its own is a killer.
After the arrest, Rasmussen praised the efforts of current LAPD detectives but declined to comment on his earlier contacts with the department. However, one of his attorneys, John C. Taylor, said that "Mr. Rasmussen told the LAPD [Lazarus] was a suspect from his initial interview." Rasmussen reiterated his concerns in several more interviews in the months after the killing, according to Taylor and David Ring, his law partner.
Rasmussen did not know Lazarus' name, according to Taylor, but had described her to detectives as the "ex-girlfriend, who is an LAPD officer."
Rasmussen also told police that Lazarus had had "multiple confrontations" with and had "threatened" his daughter in the months leading up to her killing, Taylor said.
At the time of the slaying, Lazarus had been with the department for two years. She went on to become a well-regarded detective, assigned to a high-profile detail investigating thefts of high-priced art and forgeries.
