More Jail Privileges For Ex-LAPD Detective Charged With Murder

Arrested in '09 for 23-year-old cold case

January 7, 2011 1:37 PM

Veteran LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus (Getty Images)

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LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Former LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus will be given more privileges in jail as she prepares to defend herself for murder.

KNX 1070′s John Brooks reports.

More Jail Privileges For Ex-LAPD Detective Convicted Of Murder

Busted by cold case detectives 23 years after the wife of her former boyfriend was beaten and shot to death, Stephanie Lazarus is now living in a Lynwood jail cell.

As Lazarus hopes to move the case to trial this summer, a judge has granted her more rights to meet with her attorney and review documents and files associated with the case.

Lazarus was arrested in June of 2009, and was tape recorded as detectives who had a DNA match from a bit mark sprang a trap.

The parents of the victim were present in court for the hearing.

Sherrie Rae Rasmussen was 29 and newlywed to Lazarus’s ex-boyfriend when she was killed in 1986.

More Jail Privileges For Ex LAPD Detective Charged With Murder

Dutch

Bad Cop NO doughnut!!!!
Mufon

A deceptive headline, wouldn’t you say, KCBS? It isn’t as though she gets to go out for pizza or ballgames, she gets the same rights afforded many inmates involved with murder charges, I would think.

Sylvia Jenkins

Not quite most inmate are lucky to see thiere atty 1 time so she is getting priveleges!

Jack

It is their attorney you illiterate beotch…. priveleges????? We must have forgotten our see n say
Jamie

Jack you’re an idiot!! Don’t you know that atty is an online abbreviation for attorney?? CATCH A CLUE you hostile MORON!!!

kalina kitty

With ya, Mufon. I was expecting maybe steak and wine dinners or special visits from her significant other. Come on, CBS, ALL inmates that are facing trials get to talk with their counsel! Wondering if CBS gets money every time someone clicks on a story link?
xxx

CBS is just trying to report something dull and make it seem like they have a news breaking story. waste of my time reading this article.

John

Frankly, who cares. As long as this psycho-chick is locked up & facing justice I’m satisfied. This crime was particularly brutal, and I think she deserves the death penalty. Scary to think a person as mentaly unstable as she is running around with a badge & a gun. The detectives handling this case back then dropped the ball completely. I’m still not sure if they did so to protect one of their own. I hope not. Nothing was taken from the residence but their marriage license. A blind bat could see a weird connection there. “To serve and protect.” Who?

FoolsGold

>Psycho-chick???
With one rather notable and extreme exception she seems to have been a dedicated and politically astute LAPD detective and provides no evidence whatsoever of being some sort of psycho-chick. Assertive, perhaps even aggressive and manipulative, but hardly psycho-chick.

As to the original investigation, it would seem that a woman who comes home unexpectedly and finds two men, atleast one of which is armed, would not be so prompt to start a fight. A surprised burglar wants to leave and would not have had a drawn out fight on two levels, involving guns, knives, bites and vases.
I pity the poor burglar who thinks he can steal a marriage license and hock it for some money with which to buy drugs. I pity even more the LAPD investigators who seem to have ignored this crucial detail. Perhaps it indicates what their priorities were as to adverse publicity?

Uriah

She never should have been given the job at all. She was a product of affirmative action. LAPD had to beef up its diversity, and lowered its standards. Many of these cops flamed out; the attempt did more harm than good.

She served a year on the streets, and was yanked off and given the job of “art cop”, where she’d be out of everyone’s way.
Cathy

Actually, Stephanie Lazarus is slightly psychotic and definitely weird and batty—-I should know, she was in the cell next to me in jail.
The entire time I knew her, she was rather rude and abrupt. Of course, she refused to so much as discuss her case. Okay, I understand that. However, she knew damned well that her’s is a high-noteriety case and most everyone already knows, regardless.
At any rate, she was very unapprochable , unhelpful, and quite phony.
Personally, I didn’t like her one bit.
Mary

I don’t care what she did after she brutally murdered that sweet innocent woman,she can donate all the blood,volunteer here there,be considered the best nicest neihbor blah blah blah,she took someones life out of a jealous rage,her neighbors,family and other cops didn’t see that because they didn’t get in her way for anything to provoke her unstabel side. Yes she was a psycho with a GREAT veneer she hid well

It doesn’t matter what you do after you murder someone,making cookies and treats for the neighbors doens’t make up for unloading three rounds into somones chest and beating them brutally
Cathy

Shut the EFF up.
Stephanie was and is a type A narcissistic personality.
I happen to kno her personally.
She is rude, abrupt, and often quite phony.
You must be a fellow-crooked cop to have posted such nonsense, you efffing idiot.

Jamie

I saw this case that recently aired on Dateline…This woman is clearly a sociopath. ! I PRAY she gets thrown in the slammer and left to ROT…Because anyone that can commit such a heinous, SENSELESS murder, and yet can go on living life as though nothing happened…and make a living as a cop has gotta be an evil sicko!!
Leigh Bennett

The book “the Sociopath Next Door” describes precisely this Stephanie Lazarus. And LAPD must have been manned by morons at the time. They would have displayed more character and integrity by following up instead of putting their heads in the sand. Apparently they need to be reminded periodically what the taxpayers are paying them for. And it is not what they feel like doing or not doing.

Mary

Great book everyone should read,including Stephanies family. They can’t be rehabilted because they’re never remorsful…can’t change what you don’t acknowledge!! They only thing family can do is keep an eye on them …they’ll NEVER get better

Linda

Would the victim try to fight with 2 armed men? Hell, no! Would she fight another woman if her life was in immediate danger? Of course! The fact that the only thing taken was the victim’s marriage certicate, is the crown jewel in the the prosecution’s motive theory. What will the victim’s husband say on the stand? That he slept with the accused and told her that same niight that he was still going to marry Sherri? As far as the issue of tampering with the DNA sample goes, would LAPD frame one of their own just to close a 23 year old homicide? If anything, cops protect their own!
rodger

a horrendous crime…an even more horrendous life to lead for 23 years with this on her conscience…but i guess i’m stupid enough to believe that we all have one. if there is really such a thing as a sociopath, that is lacking a conscience, perhaps she can claim diminished capacity owing to her moral handicap like americans with disability act….ah hell. burn her.
Cathy

No, she certainly never had a conscience, that was abundantly clear, when I met her a few months ago.
I was actually in there for something I NEVER did—-victim of a crazy former employer. Thus, I know all about crazy people.
However, CRAZY, in my book, never excused and never will excuse the actions of these monsters.
Lazarus is the type of person who would never lend a helping hand, even in a jail situation were everyone is in the same boat and can use some help.
Just to give you a very brief insight into her character:
She only spoke to inmates who had a lot and did not need any help. But when it came to someone who was unfortunate and in need of help, she was totally unsympathetic and stingy and would cut you off IMMEDIATLY.
She was also a huge snitch—-ironic, huh?

Mary

Read the book “The sociopath next door” Stephanie is a sociopathic personaility all the way!!! Actually quit cold blooded. This book wil make you run through all the possible ones you think you may have had in your life and it will educate you before you allow any of them in! Thye’re clever,slick,intellient and charming! Not all sociopaths are killers or serial killers but all serila killers are sociopaths,bascially psycopaths and sociopaths are the same thing!

Sociopaths are born into every kind of walk of life,and some come from great nice loving parents.The LAPD had a sociopathic cop in the department for 24 years,they slip through the cracks sometimes and are in ALL professions,becareful be alert and educate yourself,mostly listen to your instincs about these people

Ninachka

Too all you people who think you know Stephanies personality, you don’t know squat. I knew Stephanie through work and personally. She was a great person who treated sworn and civilian alike. She worked her way up with brains not affirmative action. I will always be her friend. Doesn’t anyone think that he ex should take some of the blame? He was still having sex with her before and after his “wife” died.