Dateline: The Smoking Gun - Who was Sherri Rasmussen and what happened to her? Disturbing details of the 1986 murder, revealed 

Dateline features a chilling 1986 murder case of Sherri Rasm B ussen in its episode titled The Smoking Gun. As the title suggests, Rasmussen was killed with three gunshots to her chest as her husband found her body unresponsive in their living room after coming from work. Sherri was 29 and used to work as a nurse in the hospital. She took a holiday on February 24, while her husband was already in office. What John Ruetten discovered after arriving home has scarred him for life.

According to the interviews in the Dateline episode, she was considered the family's glue, who held the family together. Indeed, her death shattered the family, while the attacker was found after almost two decades, post the advancement in DNA technology.

Read on to know more about Sheri Rasmussen and the disturbing details of the 1986 murder, as covered on Dateline.

Dateline: The Smoking Gun - Who was Sheri Rasmussen and what happened to her?

Sherri was living a perfectly happy married life with her husband, John Reutten, in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. She was a skilled staff member in the nursing department and was promoted to the director of nursing in the hospital. She was compassionate and was kind enough, which further put her family in a spiral about why someone would want to kill their daughter.

As mentioned, on the day of the murder, she was on leave, while her husband was out working. This is when she was attacked, with the crime scene revealing evidence of a hustle and struggle happened between the attacker and Sherri. The authorities discovered that the table was toppled while the glass vase was broken. Even on Sherri's body, wounds and bruises suggest she tried to save her life but failed miserably. There was a biting mark on one of her arms, while a robe was found with bullet marks on it, suggesting that the attacker used the robe to muffle the sound.

Here are some disturbing details of Sherri Rasmussen's case, as shown on Dateline

As per Dateline, initially, the investigators believed the case was of a burglary that ended up in murder, given the condition of the house and the missing car. However, jewelry was left behind, but the investigators still concluded it to be a robbery that went wrong.

The case went cold for almost two decades. It was Sherri's father who suspected that her husband's ex-girlfriend might be behind the murder. The investors never explored the theory properly despite allegations.

It was in the 2000s, post some advancements in DNA technology, that the case was reopened. When they got the DNA found on the bite mark tested, they discovered the attacker is a woman. They tried to connect it with any criminal on their database, but failed. In 2009, they finally considered looking at the case from a fresh lens and tracing the women Sherri was connected with at the time. They figured John ex ex-girlfriend, Staphanie Lazarus, could be a possible attacker given the motive to murder Sherri. They followed her and collected a discarded cup from the public dustbin.

When they tried matching her DNA with the bite mark, it matched, and this is how the case concluded after decades of misdirection. Lazarus is an LAPD officer and possesses a weapon. She had reported her personal backup gun missing a week after the murder; moreover, she was also on leave on the day Sherri was killed. This cemented the detective's doubt and gave them enough evidence to back their case.

Finally, in 2012, 26 years after the murder, Stephanie Lazarus was convicted of first-degree murder based on the DNA evidence presented in court, as shown on Dateline. She was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison. The case shocked many when an LAPD agent, a woman, was found to be the killer in the brutal murder case, while her profession simply made evading the crime scene much easier for her.

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