![]() He ridiculed the prosecution theory that Lazarus was obsessed with Rasmussen’s husband, John Ruetten, who had been her college classmate and later her lover. Overland said the detectives who investigated the case in 1986 had concluded that two suspects were involved and it was a robbery gone wrong. “Degraded DNA doesn’t turn into someone else’s DNA,” he said. ![]() Nunez said the DNA, whether it was deteriorated or not, belonged to Lazarus. “If you don’t do that,” he said, “it doesn’t have any value.” He said its condition violated coroner’s rules for preserving evidence. He reminded jurors that the torn envelope containing the DNA tube was missing for a time and was located only after a search of freezers in the coroner’s office. He argued, however, that the “centerpiece of the prosecution case cannot be trusted because its integrity has been compromised.” “The entire case is based on circumstantial evidence with one item of evidence as the centerpiece,” he said. Overland said the prosecution case had been “fluff and fill” but for the bite mark. Investigators found a probable match in Lazarus, a veteran police detective. Rasmussen was murdered in 1986 and the evidence lay dormant until a cold-case team subjected it to DNA analysis. Nunez showed jurors gruesome pictures of Rasmussen dead in her condo, blood smearing her face and body under a deep red robe. He also argued that the DNA sample from a bite mark on the victim’s arm had been compromised over years of improper storage. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, overwhelming evidence of the defendant’s guilt,” he said.ĭefense attorney Mark Overland countered that DNA is a matter of probabilities and not positive proof. “Twenty-six years ago, the defendant thought she had gotten away with it … that she had committed the perfect crime,” Nunez said. He said Lazarus might have remained free if DNA had not entered the forensic world. In closing arguments, prosecutor Paul Nunez focused on jealousy, which he said drove Stephanie Lazarus to kill her romantic rival, Sherri Rasmussen. LOS ANGELES – A prosecutor and defense attorney implored jurors Monday to consider the science of DNA and use it to either convict or acquit a former police detective in a 26-year-old, love triangle murder case.
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