Stephanie Lazarus Murder Case | Mental Health & Personality | Love Triangle

welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel hello this is dr. grande today's question asks I can analyze the mental health and personality characteristics that may be at work in the Stephanie Lazarus case Stephanie Lazarus is a murderer who committed a murder in 1986 and was not arrested until 2009 so just a reminder that the people that I'm talking about in this video are real people so I'm not diagnosing anybody only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this so first I'll take a look at the timeline of the crime then talk about some background like how these different people got into this position the investigation and the trial and then I'll look at the mental health and personality factors so starting with the timeline we see we start here at February 24 1986 and Van Nuys California a man named John rotten leaves his condominium to drive to work his wife sherri rasmussen a 29 year old nursing administrator was debating whether or not she should go to work that day she was thinking about calling in sick because she had a task to do that she did not enjoy John left the home at about 7:20 a.m. at that point sherry was still undecided as to whether or not she was going into work during that morning one of the neighbors noticed that the garage was open and there was no car in the garage John Rutan called home around mid-morning and there was no answer assuming that sherry had decided to go to work he called her office but her secretary indicated that she had not seen sherry John called home three or four more times but did not get an answer and the answering machine had not been turned on when both of them left the home the last one out would normally turn on the machine that same morning we see that a maid who was cleaning a nearby condominium reported she heard two people in an argument and she heard the sound of something falling she did not hear gunshots when John returned home from work he noticed some broken glass on the driveway and the garage door was still open Sherry's car a silver BMW was not in the garage he entered the condominium and found sherry dead on the floor in the living room she was barefoot and wearing a red bathrobe John touched her skin but it was cold and he could not find a pulse he dialed 911 when the police arrived they discovered that sherry had been shot three times with 38 caliber bullets there was a lot of damage to the contents of the home as if there had been some sort of fight there was this grey ceramic Vaz that was broken there was a stereo speaker laying on the ground next to her we see that there was a VCR and a CD player that had been stacked neatly as if somebody was getting ready to remove them from the house the CD player also had a single smear of blood on top of it there was also some blood on while the walls and near the front door one of the glass sliding doors upstairs was shattered and that glass matched what was found in the driveway sherry had injuries consistent with trying to defend herself she had a bite on her in her right forearm and a bruise on her face that seemed consistent with the shape of a barrel of a gun she had also been beaten the police also noticed that a quilted blanket in the living room chair had a hole in it with powder burns around it they deduced that one shot was fired and then the quilt was placed between sherry and the firearm and two more shots were fired so the blanket was used to muffle the sound of the gunshots Sherry's BMW was discovered a week later parked on a street the keys were in the ignition and the doors were unlocked fingerprints one strand of brown hair and a small amount of blood were recovered from the vehicle the police formed a theory of the crime there had been reports of two men breaking into homes in the area and in one instance they assaulted a woman they combined this with the evidence of the crime scene and they were led to believe that sherry surprised two mail burglars and those burglars murdered her before they fled they ignored the fact that there was no forced entry there was a jewelry box that was left untouched even though it was in plain view the VCR and the CD player that looked like they had been prepared to be stolen because the way they were stacked they had Sherry's blood on them suggesting the attack happened before the items were stacked they also ignored the fact that perpetrator fired two shots through the sliding glass door upstairs yet fatally shot sherry downstairs if a burglar was trying to escape why would they go upstairs confront the resident and then chase them downstairs and fatally shoot them why not just run away now moving to the background so with this case I'm going to give the background to give some context about the players involved here so this isn't so much the background of Stephanie Lazarus but the background of the whole situation that may have led to this crime when John Rutan was in college he dated a woman named Stephanie Lazarus John reported that Stephanie was never his girlfriend and that in a three year time period from 1981 to 1984 they had sex 20 to 30 times after college John went on to work for a manufacturer and Lazarus entered into the police academy eventually she became a uniformed officer with the Los Angeles Police Department not long after this John met sherri rasmussen and they started dating Stephanie Lazarus threw a surprise party for John on his 25th birthday she did not know that John was involved with Sherri it was at this party when she found out about Sherri evidently Sherri was devastated by this news that John had a romantic partner she felt as though she was truly in love with Jon and she did not understand his decision she visited John and his condominium and they had sex even though John was engaged to Sherri John later reported that this was done in order to give Stephanie closure after this we see an incident with water skis Lazarus brought the skis to Jon and asked him if he would wax them John agreed to do this and Sherri questioned John about the nature of his relationship with Stephanie after Stephanie came by to pick up the water skis Sherri told her to leave so she made it fairly clear that she did not want her around cher became more forceful of John insisting that he stand up to Stephanie John essentially told her that it was just better to ignore Stephanie and eventually she would just go away Stephanie showed up again at the home this time wearing a uniform Sherri was there but John was not this caused an awkward situation shortly after this Sherri reported that she believed stephanie was stalking her on the street and we see an incident at Sheree's place of work Stephanie came in to where Sherri worked and told her that if she cannot have John no one else will and she became aggressive so this seems like a pretty good clue that things aren't working out here and we see after the murder of sherry Stephanie and John were United briefly again in 1989 after John contacted the police and asked him if he was sure that there was nothing that tied Stephanie to the murder so he was having some suspicions at that point but he still went and saw her John would later remarry and stephanie was promoted to Detective and would marry another police officer later on so now moving to the investigation so the first investigation concluded that this was a burglary gone wrong and even though the police were still looking for the perpetrators they were not looking very hard Sherry's father had suggested to the police that perhaps Stephanie Lazarus was the killer they told him he watched too much television in 2004 evidence from the murder investigation was reexamined using new DNA testing techniques that had actually been developed several years before the saliva that was collected at the crime scene came from a female a criminalist inquired as to whether the woman who had harassed the victim both at her place of employment and at her home had ever been investigated of course referring to Stephanie Lazarus she was told that Stephanie Lazarus was an LAPD detective and she was not involved it was a burglary gone bad so the evidence was placed back in storage it wasn't until 2009 that officers willing to investigate the crime became involved they generated a list of five female suspects Lazarus who was a pretty good suspect was still last on the list because she was a police officer the detectives became alarmed when they eliminated four suspects and only Lazarus remained they were frightened because Lazarus was a detective and her husband was a detective as well they found out that Lazarus owned a Smith & Wesson Model 49 a 38 caliber revolver and she had reported that weapon stolen just 13 days after the murder they also discovered that Lazarus was not working on the day of the murder eventually the detectives were able to collect DNA from a discarded cup and straw that Lazarus had used because effectives created a careful plan to arrest Lazarus on June 5 2009 they had other officers call her and tell her she was needed to meet a suspect at the lockup in the Parker center this was the police administration building no one was allowed to take a gun into that area so the detectives thought that would be safer the detectives confronted Stephanie and admitted that they had lied that they had summoned her down to that area under false pretenses they said they just wanted to talk about the Rasmussen case Stephanie did not ask for an attorney and she answered many questions about John and Cheri in a way that really minimized how well she knew them now that's at first but then she kind of admitted she knew them much better than that this interview went on for over an hour it really hurt her case she shouldn't have talked at all of course if she wanted to remain out of prison but I find this interview interesting because her demeanor I think does give us some indication as to what she was thinking and feeling so looking at her behavior during this interview we see a lot of over describing she offers a ton of irrelevant details they had nothing to do with what the detectives were asking she had periods in that interview where she really rapidly talked and that was more during the times when she was giving a lot of those unnecessary details she appeared annoyed and exacerbated at points and she also hesitated at other points kind of like she was searching her memory she would say let me think back she often took a lot of time to answer a question especially if the question had kind of an incriminating component to it it was like she was trying to decide what to say should she tell the truth or should she select among a number of potential lies she rattled off a number of dates and emphasized how long ago this whole situation occurred she talked about like how it was 20-something years ago how could anybody remember it was so long ago nobody could be expected to recall that when asked about Cheri she said in the beginning that she may have met Cheri then she said she did meet her then she indicated that she may have had a conversation with Cheri about them both dating John she admitted that she talked too John after Sherry's death she talked about how she met John and Hawaii in 99 that's that brief for your Union I talked about before she said I'm thinking that John met us they're talking about her and a friend that had been there when John arrived so again she was just kind of keeping her options open the way she worded things she didn't want to commit to something because she didn't know what the detectives might have already known when she was first asked the relationship with John start again after Sherry's death she said I would say no right of course she admitted that she did have a relationship with him after Sherry's death pirate talked about that but I found this interesting the way she word this I would say no and so just saying the word no she's again being quite careful or she thinks she's being careful she took a long time to answer her questions that she knew the detectives had the answer to so like she was stalling they asked what John's address was I guess the address he was that before he moved to that condominium of course the detectives really didn't need to know that information and we see that Stephanie takes a long time to answer that kind of like buying time so she can start thinking about the other lies that she needs to tell to cover up later in the interview now with these detectives I didn't actually think they did that good a job I felt like they were much too obvious they were playing like they did not know things that they clearly would have known but still they easily outflanked Sherri so even though she was a detective they outmaneuvered her by quite a margin she became annoyed eventually and said she won't talk to an attorney when she tried to leave she was arrested her home was searched and a journal was discovered in which she discusses how she was despondent over losing John rotten now even though she was arrested for murder she was granted an early retirement or I find this interesting how is this a priority at this particular time but I guess that money would keep coming in and that could help pay for a legal fees so I guess I can understand that now moving to the trial this was far from an open-and-shut case there was evidence that Lazarus was to spawn that about that relationship with John but also that she was despondent about many failed relationships John was just one of those people the defense was able to cast doubt about the quality of the DNA analysis in the end though the prosecution was successful we see in March 2012 stephanie was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to 27 years to life in prison eligible for parole in 2034 she was 52 at the time of her conviction so she could get out at age 74 now taking a look at the mental health and personality factors that may be at work in a case like this so Stephanie Lazarus is actually fairly interesting she had no criminal or disciplinary history now it's important remember the context though she worked for the police department and they didn't really seem too keen on investigating fellow officers so yeah she didn't have a history but it's hard to know if that's because she didn't do anything or they just didn't follow up by just about every report stephanie was an upstanding citizen other than her arrest for murder and having a temper we really don't see much in terms of indications that she would commit a crime like this so what characteristics does her behavior align with well we see quite a few here overconfidence pathological lying and manipulation we see this interview by the detectives took her by surprise she was probably quite certain she had gotten away with the murder she thought she could talk her way out of this situation when clearly the detectives were interviewing her because she was a suspect we also see rage callousness and impulsivity even though she used her knowledge of police work to mislead investigators she left a lot of evidence behind at the crime scene she also used her gun which is not consistent with intelligence the murder she committed really had components of premeditation and impulsivity so we saw a mix of both we see a sense of entitlement and jealousy here she was not going to be rejected without a consequence and we see a lack of remorse how did she go for 23 years with all the guilt of committing that murder well perhaps there was no guilt now I've heard theories about antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy which is related to that I've heard theories about narcissistic personality sorter as well as borderline person I disorder the channel here is though we really don't know a lot about Stephanie and we don't know a lot about our history so we do see alignment with a few antisocial personality characteristics so if we look at the symptoms of antisocial personality disorder we do see repeated unlawful behaviors the murder covering up the murder and then lying later on we see consistent deceitfulness impulsivity aggressiveness a reckless disregard for safety irresponsibility and the lack of remorse I talked about but all these characteristics are really in the context of Stephanie threatening Sherri before the murder the murder itself and the interrogation twenty three years later we don't really know what happened before that we don't know what happened between the murder and the interrogation there's just no way to figure out if this is truly a pattern of behavior or if it was isolated to just these particular instances when it comes to narcissistic personality we don't really see a lot of alignment here either maybe manipulation lacking empathy and envy but again we run to the same problem of whether this was really a long-term pattern or not and that brings me to a borderline personality where this is an interesting theory there is some alignment here with frantic efforts to avoid abandonment we see all those journal entries about being despondent about losing romantic relationships and of course we see anger but I don't think this is really about getting John back like winning him back as a romantic partner but more about getting revenge on him and Sherri I think this was really about making them suffer for the pain that she believed that they caused her it wasn't about again reestablishing the relationship with John now she might have met briefly in 1989 but the murder occurred in 1986 so if her objective was to win him back she waited three years to have any meaningful contact that just seems a little inconsistent with that goal so in a situation like this we may see some cluster B traits but it's hard to link it to a specific pathology so I have some other thoughts here on this case what went wrong here right like how did somebody get away with this murder for so long we see delayed justice while the police believed from the beginning that either John or the mysterious burglars committed this crime the original detective actually ruled out Stephanie Lazarus as a suspect because John told him it was not possible friends examples from the crime scene that may have contained DNA were removed from the coroner's office by a police officer as part of a routine transfer but never entered into the case file the bite swab was accidently left in the coroner's office now that detective who removed the forensic samples had no memory of signing them out interestingly other evidence like audio recordings were also missing so the police department denied having any involvement in a cover-up but the evidence strongly points to either a cover-up or being incredibly incompetent right I think there in one of those situations where they more or less have to admit to one of the other now Stephanie Lazarus actually had access to the case file before she was arrested not immediately before but for many years after the murder even though she had a prior relationship with the victim's husband I find this really incredible why was this permitted it doesn't make any sense at all now before she worked in the art theft division she had worked in internal affairs and homicide so this is kind of frightening that she went undetected and was able to infiltrate in all these areas of law enforcement when she in fact had committed homicide now on this point of how the police seemed to give other police officers of past police officers commit crimes every day just like many people do they are not exempt from this component of the human condition giving Lazarus a pass simply because she was a police officer is offensive to logic and reason furthermore of course at delay justice in this case another point here is about the burglary theory so a number of people looked at this case and thought these detectives were really way off for believing that a burglar committed the murder but this theory wasn't really that ridiculous considering the evidence they had I find it curious how after the DNA implicated Lazarus many people involved in the case said oh yeah burglar would never murder somebody they would never bite somebody they would never shoot somebody through a quilt because what burglars are like little angels right of course burglars can commit these crimes it was just that the crime scene pointed to an intentional homicide more so than an unexpected confrontation now a lot of people have discussed how John had sex with Stephanie while he was engaged and many think this contributed to the murder now he specifically acknowledged that this was a mistake when he was at the trial that's a bit of an understatement now I don't know if it contributed to the murder but certainly it was not a good idea right this is problematic this reminds me of the Jodi arias case where the victim had sex with her even though she was stalking him so it seems pretty clear that John knew that there was stalking behavior yet he still did this now he claimed as I mentioned before that this was done to bring closure for Stephanie I find this difficult to believe I think a better explanation is that they wanted to have sex they were attracted to one another right so he's simply cheated on his fiancee seems actually fairly straightforward it's just one of those unfortunate events that can't be clearly tied to what happened but it does make a lot of people wonder what was really going on there so I know we never talked about cases like the Stephanie Lazarus murder there will be a variety of opinions please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 579,527

Rating: 4.8550997 out of 5

Keywords: Stephanie Lazarus, Sherri Rasmussen, John Ruetten, narcissism, grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, factor 1 psychopathy, factor 2 psychopathy, sociopathy, hypersensitivity to criticism, love triangle, mental health, counseling

Id: hBULroRe7P0

Length: 21min 39sec (1299 seconds)

Published: Sun May 10 2020