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He argued that all questions don’t need to be answered. “What was the defendant thinking when she decided to go over there?” asked Presby. Presby acknowledged the case is riddled with mysteries that may never be answered. He urged jurors to accept the theory that Lazarus’ DNA wound up in a bite mark on the arm of the slain Rasmussen because “she bit Sherri when she attacked her.” She was liked by her family and friends.” “What’s the motive for framing Stephanie Lazarus? She was a police officer. “This is a ridiculous, farcical explanation,” he said of claims of a DNA frame-up. Presby ridiculed defense theories that Lazarus’ DNA was planted in a test tube during the decades that it lay dormant in a freezer at the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office. Lazarus did not look at the courtroom screen where the photos were projected. Jurors also saw wedding pictures of Ruetten and Rasmussen.
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Ruetten wears a flower in his lapel and both of them smile into the camera. With a deathly pale Lazarus seated at the counsel table and her now white-haired ex-boyfriend in the courtroom audience, Presby showed a photo of the couple in their college days, dressed up for a party. A broken heart, he said, was one of the elements of this crime. And Presby spoke of Lazarus’ consuming obsession with John Ruetten, the man who married Rasmussen three months before she was killed. He pointed to bullets used in the crime that matched those issued to police officers – even though Lazarus’ gun was never found.
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“This is not the only piece of evidence.” “This case is a banquet of evidence and this is just one course,” said Deputy District Attorney Shannon Presby. “Stephanie Lazarus now is in your hands.”īut a prosecutor argued that DNA was only part of the case against the once-respected policewoman. See if you can answer all the questions,” said Overland. He suggested to jurors that the DNA, the heart of the prosecution case, should not be trusted because it was poorly packaged and stored over the decades. “There are so many questions and so few answers,” said defense attorney Mark Overland. Her attorney noted in closing arguments that other evidence such as blood, fibers, hair and fingerprints from the crime scene could not be linked to her. Without the scientific discovery, Lazarus might never have been arrested. In 1986, when Sherri Rasmussen was found bludgeoned and shot to death in her condominium, DNA had not entered the language of courts or the forensic tool box of prosecutors. The statements by prosecutors and defense attorneys came following more than three weeks of testimony in a case that lay dormant for years and was resurrected by the discovery of a bit of DNA taken from a bite mark on the arm of the slain woman. The eight women and four men began their deliberations Tuesday afternoon following two days of intense final arguments. LOS ANGELES – Jurors who entered the mysterious world of DNA evidence when they began hearing the case of ex-police detective Stephanie Lazarus resumed deliberations Wednesday on the allegation that she murdered a romantic rival 26 years ago.