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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 4: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 4: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski Good Evening, a deeply reported,
Speaker 4: riveting account of a cold case murder in Los Angeles,
Speaker 4: unsolved until DNA evidence implicated a shocking suspect, a female
Speaker 4: detective within the LAPD's own ranks. On February twenty fourth,
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty six, twenty nine year old newlywed Sherry Rasmusen
Speaker 4: was murdered in the home she shared with her husband John.
Speaker 4: The crime scene suggested a ferocious struggle, and police initially
Speaker 4: assumed it was a burglary gone awry. Before her death,
Speaker 4: Sherry had confided to her parents that an ex girlfriend
Speaker 4: of John's, a Los Angeles police officer, had threatened her.
Speaker 4: The Rasmussens urged the LAPD to investigate the ex girlfriend,
Speaker 4: but the original detectives only pursued burglary suspects and the
Speaker 4: case went cold. DNA analysis did not exist when Sherry
Speaker 4: was murdered. Decades later, a swamp from a bite mark
Speaker 4: on Sherry's arm revealed her killer was in fact female.
Speaker 5: Not male. A DNA match led to the arrest and
Speaker 5: conviction of veteran LAPD detective Stephanie Lazareth, John's one time girlfriend.
Speaker 5: The Lazareth Files The Liver the visceral experience of being
Speaker 5: inside a real life murder mystery. McGoff reconstructs the lives
Speaker 5: of Sherry John and Stephanie, the love triangle that led
Speaker 5: to Sherry's murder and the homicide investigation that followed. Was
Speaker 5: Stephanie protected by her fellow officers? What did the LAPD
Speaker 5: know and when did they know it? Are there other
Speaker 5: LAPD cold cases with a police connection that remain unsolved.
Speaker 5: The book that we're featuring this evening is The Lazareth Files,
Speaker 5: a cold case investigation with my special guest journalist and author,
Speaker 5: Matthew McGoff. Welcome to the program, and thank you very
Speaker 5: much for a Greenness interview. Matthew McGough, thank you very much.
Speaker 5: Thank you for Johnny Man incredible. I call it an
Speaker 5: old time almost like a classic true crime book. Incredible
Speaker 5: detail and congratulations on just an amazing edge of your
Speaker 5: seat book.
Speaker 3: Let's thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Are you welcome?
Speaker 5: Tell us how you became involved with this book and
Speaker 5: this case, how you came to be the author of
Speaker 5: the Lazaruth Files.
Speaker 3: Well, for me, the story began in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 3: a year before Stephanie was arrested, when coincidentally I interviewed
Speaker 3: her for a book that I was planning to write
Speaker 3: about art theft, which was her beat as an laped
Speaker 3: detective before or at least up until the time that
Speaker 3: she was arrested. So I had a fairly innocuous encounter
Speaker 3: with Stephanie when she was still a detective and good standing.
Speaker 3: And then it was about a year after that that
Speaker 3: she was arrested for having committed this murder twenty some
Speaker 3: years before. So I was really on the story from
Speaker 3: day one, just because I knew who she was, and
Speaker 3: I immediately just had this curiosity and desire to first
Speaker 3: of all, know whether or not it could possibly be
Speaker 3: true that this female police attective who I've met with
Speaker 3: could possibly have been harboring a secret like this for
Speaker 3: her whole career, and the more I learned about the story,
Speaker 3: the more I wanted to know.
Speaker 5: Certainly, certainly very interesting first meeting with Stephanie. Very interesting.
Speaker 5: Let's go, as you write in the book, to February
Speaker 5: twenty fourth, nineteen eighty six. You take us right to
Speaker 5: the crime scene. Tell us a little bit about before
Speaker 5: we do that, to introduce a little bit about to
Speaker 5: Van Nuys. Where Van Night's California? What section of Los
Speaker 5: Angeles is this? And tell us a little bit about
Speaker 5: Sherri Rasmussen and her husband John and the Balboa townhouses.
Speaker 5: Tell us a little bit about them before we talk
Speaker 5: about what happened February twenty fourth, nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 4: Who were they?
Speaker 3: Of course, of course, Sherry Rathmussen was a twenty nine
Speaker 3: year old hospital nurse, a very accomplished woman. Although she
Speaker 3: was still in her twenties. She really had a pretty
Speaker 3: meteoric career as a nurse. Worked at UCLA Medical Center
Speaker 3: and then Glendell Adventis Medical Center and was running there
Speaker 3: critical care operations which would include like intensive care unit,
Speaker 3: and she had a specialty in cardiac medicine. She was
Speaker 3: really quite extraordinary, skipped multiple grades when she was a
Speaker 3: young woman, graduated from college I think began college at
Speaker 3: age sixteen, so she was really sort of a high flyer.
Speaker 3: Sherry and John had been married for only three months
Speaker 3: when she was killed. John had attended UCLA and worked
Speaker 3: as a engineer in the computer field back in the
Speaker 3: mid eighties. As a couple, they lived in, as you said,
Speaker 3: Van Nives, which is the middle class area of the
Speaker 3: San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, and they were, you know,
Speaker 3: where the murderer heard and where they lived was a
Speaker 3: condominium complex called about the Balboa Town Homes. It was
Speaker 3: somewhere where Sherry had lived by herself and then with
Speaker 3: a roommate for several years before she met John. They
Speaker 3: became engaged and he moved in with her.
Speaker 5: Now, tell us about February twenty fourth, nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 5: You introduced in the book that John had left work
Speaker 5: at seven twenty that morning, and so you describe him
Speaker 5: as he approaches when he comes back from work. Tell
Speaker 5: us what, as you write in a book, what he
Speaker 5: encounters when he comes home according to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everything in the book I should I should notice
Speaker 3: based on either witness testimony that was given during the
Speaker 3: trial or statements that were given to the LAPD or
Speaker 3: interviews that I that I personally conducted. So according to
Speaker 3: that source material, John left for work. It was a Monday,
Speaker 3: Sherry called in sick tour and stayed home that day,
Speaker 3: so he left her in bed when he left for
Speaker 3: work that morning, and when he came home that evening,
Speaker 3: when he pulled up to their their condo which had
Speaker 3: it was a split level condo, so there was a
Speaker 3: garage two car garage on the ground level and then
Speaker 3: the first floor of the condo was a living room,
Speaker 3: kitchen and dining room on the second floor, and the
Speaker 3: bedrooms on the third floor. So when he pulled up,
Speaker 3: the first thing that he noticed that was unusual was
Speaker 3: that their garage door was open and the Sherry's car
Speaker 3: was not there. So he went upstairs, discovered her body,
Speaker 3: called nine one one, and the police arrived shortly thereafter.
Speaker 5: Tell us about his demeanor, and you introduce important characters
Speaker 5: in this The detectives in charge soon after arrived, Detectives
Speaker 5: Lyell Mayler mayor pardon me and Steve Hooks tell us
Speaker 5: about the demeanor of John and also what the police
Speaker 5: find in their run through as you call it the
Speaker 5: walk through.
Speaker 3: Initially, yeah, Well, according to again testimony and the statements
Speaker 3: given by the paramedics who reported to the scene and
Speaker 3: the patrol the patrol officers who were initially directed to
Speaker 3: the scene by the nine one one operator, John was
Speaker 3: very distraught, as would be expected, coming home and finding
Speaker 3: finding his wife dead on the floor the condo. The
Speaker 3: living room which is where her body was found, appeared
Speaker 3: to have been ransacked. So when the detectives who were
Speaker 3: assigned to the case, and you had their names right,
Speaker 3: it was Detective Lyle Mayer was the lead investigator. He
Speaker 3: was the more senior detective assigned to the case, and
Speaker 3: then his partner assigned to assist was a younger, somewhat
Speaker 3: less experienced detective named Steve Hooks. They arrived at the
Speaker 3: condo within an hour or so after John placed his call,
Speaker 3: had some initial conversations with him, and based on his demeanor,
Speaker 3: I think concluded fairly quickly that he seemed much more
Speaker 3: likely to be a witness than the suspect, that he
Speaker 3: did not have any direct involvement in the murder, and
Speaker 3: so it was necessary for them to interview him. That
Speaker 3: happened a little bit later on that evening. But the detectives,
Speaker 3: based on their initial impression of the crime scene, the
Speaker 3: fact that Sherry's car at BMW was missing, and just
Speaker 3: the condition of the living room living room, there were
Speaker 3: some there was a drawer of an end table that
Speaker 3: was pulled and dumped out as if someone was possibly
Speaker 3: looking for valuables. There was some stereo equipment that had
Speaker 3: been removed from an entertainment wall unit and placed near
Speaker 3: the front door inside the condo, as you know, which
Speaker 3: to the detectives suggested that Cherry may had been home alone.
Speaker 3: Burglars had entered on knowing that someone was home and
Speaker 3: that she had surprised them and the confrontation had turned
Speaker 3: violent and then the burglars had fled. So their initial impression,
Speaker 3: based on John's demeanor and the crime scene, was that
Speaker 3: this was most likely a burglary gone wrong.
Speaker 5: As you write in here, you incredible detail and with
Speaker 5: the incredible access that you had to everything and all
Speaker 5: the reports, but you also include the procedures that were
Speaker 5: supposed to be followed at the time by detectives, especially
Speaker 5: in a homicide case, and you talk about some of
Speaker 5: the things that were done, and we're not done. Tell
Speaker 5: us as you do about because they thought initially that
Speaker 5: this was a burglary, how did the detectives conduct the
Speaker 5: interview with John and how did they conduct the rest
Speaker 5: of the initially that their investigation. How did they proceed
Speaker 5: based on this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, feel free to insterrupt me because we're talking
Speaker 3: about a thirty year investigation. So we'll just go a
Speaker 3: little bit chronologically at the beginning. You know, obviously, homicide
Speaker 3: is the most serious crime that exists, and you know,
Speaker 3: the LAPD has a lot of policies and procedures that
Speaker 3: have developed over the years sort of best practices that
Speaker 3: detectives are supposed to follow. And there were several things
Speaker 3: that the detectives did in nineteen eighty six that they
Speaker 3: did well that allowed the case to be solved. And
Speaker 3: not just the detectives, but forensic science personnel from the
Speaker 3: LAPD Crime Lab which is called Scientific Investigation Division, the
Speaker 3: people who were there to collect things like fingerprints and bloodstains,
Speaker 3: and you know, also a similar personnel who work for
Speaker 3: the coroner's office there to collect evidence. But the only
Speaker 3: interviews that the detectives conducted in nineteen eighty six and
Speaker 3: the way of the murder that were actually tape recorded
Speaker 3: the way that you know, they had the ability to
Speaker 3: tape record all interviews, and I think today it's recognized
Speaker 3: as the best practice to.
Speaker 5: Do that.
Speaker 3: Because there's no statut of limitations and homicide, you don't
Speaker 3: know how long it's going to take to solve the case,
Speaker 3: and it's very very common for cases to be transferred
Speaker 3: between detectives police divisions, and for you know, detectives eventually retire.
Speaker 3: So there's very good reasons for things to be done
Speaker 3: by the book because it gives later to is the
Speaker 3: best possible chance to solve the crime. So where the
Speaker 3: shortfalls exist is in what was documented back in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six and conversations that those initial detectives had with
Speaker 3: people who had information to suggest that it may not
Speaker 3: have been a burglary, which was their primary theory, possibly
Speaker 3: a more personal motive. But on paper, there's very very
Speaker 3: little indication that any of those conversations ever took place.
Speaker 5: What you're talking what you're referring to for our audience
Speaker 5: and for those who read the book, is that you're
Speaker 5: talking about the homicide division having something called a murder book,
Speaker 5: and also something you call short for chronological is chrono.
Speaker 5: So what you were referring to is that the protocol
Speaker 5: is is that they would have all kinds of labeling
Speaker 5: as to when it was the questioning had been done,
Speaker 5: who had done it, and what was contained in that
Speaker 5: those conversations, in those interviews, and that was not as
Speaker 5: you write in this book. That's one of the features
Speaker 5: of what happened in nineteen eighty six. And because they
Speaker 5: were supposed to do follow ups, that's some of the
Speaker 5: things that were very lacking in terms of what they
Speaker 5: did in eighty six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's there's gaps there. Again, my goal in
Speaker 3: researching and reporting the story was to try to interview
Speaker 3: anyone who had sort of lived through the experience. I'm
Speaker 3: forty three years old right now. I was eleven years
Speaker 3: old when this murder occurred and not living in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: So when I came to the case, you know, beginning
Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine, after Stephanie was arrested, strategy
Speaker 3: for trying to get it the truth was to try
Speaker 3: to speak to people who actually lived through it and
Speaker 3: try to get their own recollections down so that I
Speaker 3: could write about the story as as clearly as possible.
Speaker 3: Through the eyes of the people who who were actually
Speaker 3: there at the time. So uh, yeah, you're you're correct.
Speaker 3: The the murder book for your listeners who are unaware
Speaker 3: is basically to just demystify it. It's it's a three
Speaker 3: ring binder essentially, or if a case is very complex
Speaker 3: or goes on for long enough, it may spill over
Speaker 3: to multiple three ring binders, but it's a it's a
Speaker 3: compendium of all the reports, uh and information generated over
Speaker 3: the life of a homicide case, from the moment that
Speaker 3: the uh the phone rings at the homicide table that
Speaker 3: there's a you know that a murder or a dead
Speaker 3: body has been found or reported through the verdict however
Speaker 3: many years later that is and yeah, the murder book
Speaker 3: would include pretty much everything that is known about a case,
Speaker 3: with the exception of who did it, which is the
Speaker 3: point of the investigation. So there's one murder book for
Speaker 3: each homicide that is committed. The most important document in
Speaker 3: the murder book is the chronological log, which is referred
Speaker 3: to in shorthand as the chrono, and that's sort of
Speaker 3: the running log of every investigative action that detectives take
Speaker 3: over the course of the entire case. So it'll begin
Speaker 3: with the notification that I just described that at this
Speaker 3: time and this date, detectives were notified that there was
Speaker 3: a homicide reported at so and so address, and detectives
Speaker 3: so and so and so and so reported to the
Speaker 3: crime scene at this time and date. And then it
Speaker 3: goes from there, and it should include everything, because the
Speaker 3: purpose of this document is to allow anyone other than
Speaker 3: the original detectives to pick it up however much you know,
Speaker 3: at any point later in the case, even months or
Speaker 3: years or decades later, and be able to understand this
Speaker 3: is what has been done to this point. This is
Speaker 3: you know, these are the scientific reports or tests that
Speaker 3: have been completed, these witnesses have been spoken to. This is,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe a short summary of this is what
Speaker 3: the witness reported their contact information. If their name is
Speaker 3: John Smith, you would hope to have a date of
Speaker 3: birth and an address, because you can just imagine picking
Speaker 3: up a murder booker a Krano thirty years later and
Speaker 3: trying to figure out if a witness named John Smith
Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty six is still alive or where they
Speaker 3: might be today. So it's a crucial it's a crucial document.
Speaker 3: It's the lens through which all later detectives look at
Speaker 3: the case. So one of the features of Sherry Rascus's
Speaker 3: case that is troubling is that there appears to be
Speaker 3: gaps in this original Krano. I interviewed several people who
Speaker 3: were adamant that they had had conversations with the detectives
Speaker 3: back then, and there's no record in the Krano or
Speaker 3: in the murder book that those conversations took place.
Speaker 5: Let's get back to the investigation that is just hours old,
Speaker 5: and you introduce again very important characters in this Sherry
Speaker 5: Rasmusen's father Nells, and the mother Loretta, and the sister Connie,
Speaker 5: and Sherry is killed, but they are not notified by
Speaker 5: John for many many hours later. In fact, they're not
Speaker 5: notified by anyone except John's father, Richard. What did the
Speaker 5: police When you talk about the police and the police response,
Speaker 5: normally the husband becomes for lack of any other suspects,
Speaker 5: becomes a suspect and they do question him despite that
Speaker 5: person might be grieving. Let's talk about the questioning, the
Speaker 5: interview with him, and also the polygraph test that he
Speaker 5: was asked to take.
Speaker 3: Sure. Yeah, So moving from the these procedural stuff to
Speaker 3: the more sort of human you know, relationship elements of
Speaker 3: the story. Uh, you know, it's not uncommon in many
Speaker 3: families or couples or whatever. There there there's tension between
Speaker 3: the in laws and uh uh, I don't think Nels
Speaker 3: Rasmussen is the only father to want to have only
Speaker 3: the best uh for his daughter in terms of of
Speaker 3: a son in law. But Sherry and John's relationship uh
Speaker 3: uh you know, they met and fell in love fairly
Speaker 3: quickly in that soon after they met they were a couple.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: And then within a year or so of meeting, they
Speaker 3: were engaged to marry, and then six months later they
Speaker 3: were married. So it all happened pretty quickly for them
Speaker 3: as a couple. And there was some tension between Sherry's father,
Speaker 3: Nell's and John's father Richard that you know, those back
Speaker 3: to well before the murder. So that's one of the
Speaker 3: elements that possibly exacerbated things after the murder, that there
Speaker 3: just wasn't a lot of like a baseline of trust
Speaker 3: between these people who were thrust into this tragic situation
Speaker 3: not by choice at all, but just by virtue of
Speaker 3: what happened. So for the Rasmussens, one of the immediate
Speaker 3: frustrations for them was that they were not notified of
Speaker 3: the murder, either by the police or by John himself,
Speaker 3: but that it was John's father who called the Rasmussens
Speaker 3: very late that night. Nels and Loretta, Sherry's parents, lived
Speaker 3: in Tucson, Arizona, where they had raised Sherry and her
Speaker 3: two sisters, and by the time they received notification that
Speaker 3: Sherry had been killed, it was already too late at
Speaker 3: night for them to get a flight to Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: The last flights from Tucson had already left for the day,
Speaker 3: so they did not arrive on the scene until mid
Speaker 3: morning the following morning. You know, well, I would say
Speaker 3: maybe eighteen hours after Sherry's body was discovered by John.
Speaker 3: And that becomes significant because, as I described a little
Speaker 3: bit earlier, the detectives really sort of made up their
Speaker 3: minds almost on the night of the murder, based on
Speaker 3: their initial impressions of John and the crime scene, that
Speaker 3: this is what had occurred, that Cherry had been interrupted
Speaker 3: a burglary, struggled with the burglar, things had escalated, and
Speaker 3: that it had ended in her murder before the burglars fled.
Speaker 3: So when the Rasmussens arrived the next day, they had
Speaker 3: information from Sherry over the previous several months, going back,
Speaker 3: you know, six to nine months before her murder, she
Speaker 3: had been reporting to her parents a series of troubling
Speaker 3: encounters and incidents with an ex girlfriend of John, who
Speaker 3: was a Los Angeles police officer, and Sherry was a
Speaker 3: fairly private person. She did not talk very openly, even
Speaker 3: with some of her closest girlfriends, about the issues that
Speaker 3: were going on in her marriage, but she had told
Speaker 3: her parents and several of her friends different pieces of
Speaker 3: this sort of growing problem with John's ex girlfriend, who
Speaker 3: Sherry felt harassed and threatened by. There was an incident
Speaker 3: where the woman had gone to Sherry's workplace and told
Speaker 3: her that if this marriage doesn't work out, I'm going
Speaker 3: to pick up the pieces, and a couple of times
Speaker 3: Sherry had told her parents that the girlfriend had her
Speaker 3: ex girlfriend had come to their condo uninvited. John had
Speaker 3: repeatedly promised that he would not have any more contact
Speaker 3: with her, but Sherry told her parents that John didn't
Speaker 3: seem willing to stand up to this ext girlfriend police
Speaker 3: officer and tell her once and for all that he
Speaker 3: had moved on from her and to leave him and
Speaker 3: his wife alone. So there was a big gap in
Speaker 3: terms of the information that Sherry's parents had and what
Speaker 3: the detectives believed happened. And that was all within the
Speaker 3: first day of the investigation.
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Speaker 5: It's interesting the yeah, go ahead, no go ahead.
Speaker 3: I think you had also said the uh John's polygraph,
Speaker 3: which is true. That comes in a little bit later.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say it little something about that, or.
Speaker 5: Talk about it. We'll talk about it later. Then I
Speaker 5: wanted to mention before we get too far that for detectives,
Speaker 5: I guess looking at cases today, they look at things differently,
Speaker 5: but at that time they thought it was a burglary,
Speaker 5: and they also we got to say that Sherry was
Speaker 5: beat so bad that on her face that initially everyone thought,
Speaker 5: even as you write, an experienced corner investigator did not
Speaker 5: recognize that she had not been shot in the face.
Speaker 5: She had actually been beaten. And so those those were
Speaker 5: the extent of his extent of her injuries. But also that,
Speaker 5: as we mentioned in the introduction, there was something that
Speaker 5: under when they did the autopsy, there was something noticed
Speaker 5: other than the bullet wounds, and we got to talk
Speaker 5: about the ballistics again, talk about what kind of bullets
Speaker 5: were found and what kind of make of gun, and
Speaker 5: that what that relevance was. But that tell us about
Speaker 5: the bitemark discovery and this sort of the police overlooking
Speaker 5: any possibility of a personal connection to this murder.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was evident from the state of the crime
Speaker 3: scene and Sherry's injury that it was a very protracted,
Speaker 3: ferocious fight that culminated in her death, that really she
Speaker 3: fought for her life for a very long time. The
Speaker 3: fight began on the second floor of the condo. There
Speaker 3: were at least two shots that were fired that passed
Speaker 3: through a balcony. A glass door to the balcony near
Speaker 3: the kitchen, shattering that window, and then it seemed likely
Speaker 3: that Cherry had fled down the stairs either to the
Speaker 3: front door or to an alarm panel that was on
Speaker 3: the wall near the front door, and evidently didn't make
Speaker 3: it to either one. The fight resumed in the front entryway.
Speaker 3: There was blood and fingernails that were found on the floor,
Speaker 3: again indicative of a very intense struggle, a bloody handprint
Speaker 3: on the wall in that same area, and then to
Speaker 3: the living room, which is where her body was found,
Speaker 3: there was a shattered like a heavy ceramic vase that
Speaker 3: was on the floor that Sherry had been struck with
Speaker 3: in the head, most likely knocking her out. And before
Speaker 3: she was shot three times at very close range in
Speaker 3: the chest, which were any of the three shots would
Speaker 3: have been fatal. So it was a very protracted fight.
Speaker 3: And then what ends up being the key evidence in
Speaker 3: the case, and so key that if it didn't exist,
Speaker 3: I think it's fair to question whether or not the
Speaker 3: case ever would have been solved if everything had played
Speaker 3: out the way that it did except for this one
Speaker 3: piece of evidence. It may be that the Rasmussens would
Speaker 3: still be waiting for justice.
Speaker 5: To this day.
Speaker 3: But Yeah. When John came home and first encountered Cherry's body,
Speaker 3: her facial injuries were severe and obviously disturbing to him
Speaker 3: as her husband, and it was evident to him that
Speaker 3: she had passed, so he immediately called nine one one,
Speaker 3: And I think the sight of her was too disturbing
Speaker 3: to him to look at her for very long. And
Speaker 3: one of the things that he overlooked, and that the
Speaker 3: paramedics who first arrived again, they were focused on checking
Speaker 3: her vital signs and then once they determined that, you know,
Speaker 3: once they pronounced her dead, their primary responsibility shifted from
Speaker 3: saving life to preserving the crime scene and evidence of
Speaker 3: what clearly was a crime had been committed. So neither
Speaker 3: John nor the paramedics who initially examined Sherry's body noticed
Speaker 3: that on the inside of her left forearm she had
Speaker 3: a very pronounced bite mark. And it seems possible, maybe likely,
Speaker 3: that during this intense struggle she had with her assailants,
Speaker 3: Sherry may have gotten control of the gun at one
Speaker 3: point and the assailant may have bid in her on
Speaker 3: the arm to make her drop the gun, and that
Speaker 3: would have happened before she was knocked out and incapacitated
Speaker 3: and executed. So it was not until later on that night,
Speaker 3: after John had been interviewed, when the detectives were back
Speaker 3: at the crime scene with the various forensic hides personnel,
Speaker 3: that one of them noticed that there was this bite
Speaker 3: mark on her arm. And you know, to be fair
Speaker 3: to the detectives and the other personnel who were at
Speaker 3: the crime scene, we're talking about, you know, February nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six when this murderer occurred. So there was no
Speaker 3: such thing at that time as DNA evidence detectives or
Speaker 3: the crime lab, you know, was it had been a
Speaker 3: practice for quite a while at that time to collect
Speaker 3: blood evidence, saliva, semen, and to be able to determine
Speaker 3: whether or what a blood type a person has. You know,
Speaker 3: abo different percentages of the population have different blood types.
Speaker 3: So if you have a very rare if you know
Speaker 3: your victim is blood type A, and you find blood
Speaker 3: type OH at the scene, there's a good chance that
Speaker 3: that could be the suspects blood. And then if you
Speaker 3: have a suspect and you get him and you test
Speaker 3: his blood and it's type OH, that can you know,
Speaker 3: corroborate or eliminate someone as a potential donor and a
Speaker 3: potential suspect. So yeah, these detectives did not have the
Speaker 3: benefit of DNA back then. I want to make that
Speaker 3: clear that you know, when I interviewed them, they made
Speaker 3: the point that if they did have DNA back then,
Speaker 3: they would have solved it sooner, and I can't dispute that,
Speaker 3: but at that point in time, that's what they were
Speaker 3: working with. So it was later that night that the
Speaker 3: the bitemark wound on her arm was swabbed by a
Speaker 3: coroner's criminalist forensic technician, and eventually it was stored as
Speaker 3: evidence in a freezer in the basement of the Morgue
Speaker 3: downtown LA and stayed there for the better part of
Speaker 3: two decades while science slowly caught up to it.
Speaker 5: When we're talking about solving a case, let's talk about
Speaker 5: the questioning of John despite the polygraph. As you write that,
Speaker 5: they said he was too emotional, he starts sobbing. You
Speaker 5: questioned some of the questions that he was asked in
Speaker 5: that polygraph. Then they said they made a note that
Speaker 5: maybe he could do a polygraph later, But then there
Speaker 5: was another note and a follow up that said no,
Speaker 5: they weren't going to do that. But I want to
Speaker 5: just get to the basic question. When they asked if
Speaker 5: there was any reason for this it, could he think
Speaker 5: of anyone that might want to do harm to his wife?
Speaker 5: Did he have any ex girlfriends? She have any girl
Speaker 5: boyfriends in the class? When he was asked that kind
Speaker 5: of question, what was John's response in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 3: I'll try to paraphrase for memory, but I should note,
Speaker 3: you know, everything in the book is directly from transcripts,
Speaker 3: and you know, so the conversation you're referring to, I
Speaker 3: have heard the it was tape recorded at the time,
Speaker 3: and I've listened to it, and you know, wrote it
Speaker 3: verbatim in the book. But to paraphrase, John was asked
Speaker 3: during his initial interview with Lyle Mayer the night of
Speaker 3: the murder, if Cherry had any problems with an ex
Speaker 3: boyfriend or if he had any problems with an ex
Speaker 3: girlfriend the detective should know about, and despite all of
Speaker 3: the incidents and issues that Cherry had recounted to her
Speaker 3: friends and family, John answered no without any hesitation, and
Speaker 3: according to John, it was not until the next day
Speaker 3: when he was with the detectives at the crime scene
Speaker 3: before the Rasmussens arrived from Tucson that one of the
Speaker 3: detectives mentioned that Cherry had been bidden and the possiblity
Speaker 3: that it could be a woman, because according to John,
Speaker 3: the detective said women bite, and that is what prompted
Speaker 3: him to bring up the uh the name of his
Speaker 3: ex girlfriend, Stephanie Lazarus, and also inform the detectives that
Speaker 3: Stephanie was an active duty LAPD officer. But that conversation
Speaker 3: when John gave them her name and identified her as
Speaker 3: a cop, that was not tape recorded. So again it
Speaker 3: was it was a challenge and sort of a puzzle
Speaker 3: how I could piece together what happened to the best
Speaker 3: of my ability, even though some of the documentation was
Speaker 3: was was lacking. So even with John's polygraph, Grassmussen's told
Speaker 3: me that they recall hearing about John failing a polygraph
Speaker 3: exam the week immediately after Sherry's murder. According to the
Speaker 3: LAPD's records and detective Mayor who was involved in the polygraph,
Speaker 3: that did not take place until several weeks later, so
Speaker 3: it seems that John was not asked any questions during
Speaker 3: the polygraph about Stephanie Lazarus, his relationship with her, any
Speaker 3: contacts that she had with Sherry prior to the murder,
Speaker 3: and all that documented in the detective's notes and reports
Speaker 3: is that John was unable to complete the polygraph because,
Speaker 3: as you said, he.
Speaker 4: Was too emotional.
Speaker 3: Why John was too emotional, whether they drew any conclusions
Speaker 3: from that, why they decided not to give it another
Speaker 3: try after he down. There's not really easy answers to
Speaker 3: those questions because what I included in the book is
Speaker 3: sort of the limit of the information that was documented
Speaker 3: by detectives at that time, and it's very hard in
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen to go back and say conclusively this is
Speaker 3: exactly what happened in February nineteen eighty six, more than
Speaker 3: more than thirty years ago.
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Speaker 5: spoke about the murder book and the investigation with Lyle
Speaker 5: Mayer and his idea and other officers in homicide and
Speaker 5: LAPD that this was a burglary gone mad, are gone bad,
Speaker 5: I should say, and this case, needless to say, we
Speaker 5: have to say, goes cold despite everyone's suspicion on may
Speaker 5: have known more. That's what Nells, Sherry's father felt that
Speaker 5: John knew something, knew more, and that Stephanie Lazarth was
Speaker 5: a good suspect, and Nell's and Loretta and their family
Speaker 5: did not want to give up. And you also introduced
Speaker 5: some other characters that were friends of Sherry's that were
Speaker 5: never interviewed in nineteen eighty six. Tell us how this
Speaker 5: case proceeds despite it going cold? What happens to renew
Speaker 5: this case and win? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So like you said, the Rathkussens did what they could
Speaker 3: at the time, many many conversations, follow up calls, meetings
Speaker 3: with the detectives, letters that they sent to the LAPD's
Speaker 3: chief of Police, Darrel Gates, to the media, you know,
Speaker 3: getting a ten thousand dollars reward for information together. Nothing
Speaker 3: that they did serve to advance the investigation. So within
Speaker 3: a few years most investigative activity on Sherry's case had ceased.
Speaker 3: And it was not until you know, more than twenty
Speaker 3: years later, in two thousand and eight, two thousand and
Speaker 3: nine time frame, that the case lands back at the
Speaker 3: Van Nuys division and is reopened by a detective whose
Speaker 3: name is Jim Nuttle, who has no idea what he's
Speaker 3: getting into when he opens up this old murder book
Speaker 3: and notices that there is a DNA report from a
Speaker 3: few years earlier indicating that the person who bit Sherry
Speaker 3: Rasmussen in nineteen eighty six is female. That's all that
Speaker 3: he knows from the DNA report when he opens it.
Speaker 3: But it was enough to catch his eye and make
Speaker 3: him sit up straight in his chair, because, first of all,
Speaker 3: very very few homicides are committed by women as opposed
Speaker 3: to men, and this was a particularly violent and brutal crime,
Speaker 3: and everything in the chrono and the murder book to
Speaker 3: that point, apart from the DNA report, indicated that the
Speaker 3: prime suspects and the only suspects in this murder were
Speaker 3: these male burglary suspects who were never identified or arrested.
Speaker 3: So just from the fact that he had females eliva
Speaker 3: on the arm of the murder victim told not All
Speaker 3: that something here doesn't line up. There must have been
Speaker 3: a wrong turn taken at some point, and that's what
Speaker 3: inspires him to go back and reinvestigate the case from
Speaker 3: the very beginning.
Speaker 5: What's interesting too, didn't mention it, but I thought it's
Speaker 5: worth mentioning because it's a very strong visual is that
Speaker 5: he's sitting in the Van Nuy's station and from out
Speaker 5: of nowhere, this box appears with a murder book for
Speaker 5: the Rasmusen case and then another one.
Speaker 3: Kathy Brailey Brayley, Yeah, I write about two different cases.
Speaker 3: You know, probably ninety percent of the book is about
Speaker 3: the Sherry rasmus In case. But in the course of
Speaker 3: my research, I learned that there was a separate murder.
Speaker 3: I'll just give a very thumbnail sketch of it. Two
Speaker 3: years after Sherry Rasmussen was killed in Van nine, there
Speaker 3: was a woman, a twenty six year old woman named
Speaker 3: Catherine Brayley, who was murdered, and similar to Rasmussen, there
Speaker 3: were some law enforcement persons of interest in that case
Speaker 3: and the team of detectives who investigated that case. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of overlap with the detectives who investigated Rasmussen,
Speaker 3: and more than overlap, really, you know, the same people.
Speaker 3: Both of the detectives involved in Rasmussen were also involved
Speaker 3: in the investigation of Kathy Brayley's murder. And to this day,
Speaker 3: Kathy Brayley's murder remains unsolved or family and friends are
Speaker 3: still waiting for justice and answers about what happened to her.
Speaker 3: So back in two thousand and eight, Nuttle, you know,
Speaker 3: Jim Nuttle, was part of the Van Night's homicide unit,
Speaker 3: which again is not the most glamorous area of LA
Speaker 3: by a long shot, sort of off the beaten path
Speaker 3: and kind of forgotten way out of the limelight. He
Speaker 3: was not a cold case detective. His primary responsibility was
Speaker 3: to solve fresh murder cases. But all homicide detectives are
Speaker 3: encouraged between fresh cases to try to go back and
Speaker 3: look at old cases, not only to do that for
Speaker 3: the families that are still waiting for answers.
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Speaker 3: As you know, it's the best way to learn how
Speaker 3: to be a homicide detective. I've been told by many
Speaker 3: homicide detectives is to go back and read read the
Speaker 3: old murder books. And so I think it was sort
Speaker 3: of in that spirit that you know. In two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight, Nouttle came into work and discovered that someone
Speaker 3: had left next to his desk a unmarked cardboard box
Speaker 3: that contained the murder books for two cases, both unsolved
Speaker 3: at that time, Sherry Rasmussen and Catherine Brayley. And Nuddle
Speaker 3: did not realize the significance of either case at the time,
Speaker 3: or he probably would have got into it sooner, you know,
Speaker 3: he had other cases to work, and he ended up
Speaker 3: basically just keeping holding onto the box for safe keeping
Speaker 3: for more than a year before he finally had the
Speaker 3: opportunity to dig into them. So it was in early
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine that he pulled the Rascus and
Speaker 3: Murder book and pretty quickly discovered that there was information
Speaker 3: here that he could work with, and it did not
Speaker 3: take him and his squad mates. It was a group
Speaker 3: of four detectives including Nuddle. Pete Barba, Mark Martinez and
Speaker 3: Jim Nuttle were the rank and file case carry detectives,
Speaker 3: and then their supervisor was a more experienced detective, the
Speaker 3: homicide coordinators is the name of the position. His name
Speaker 3: was robbed up, But it was just these four detectives
Speaker 3: who were working together when Nuddell reopened the case, saw
Speaker 3: the female DNA report, and then within not very long,
Speaker 3: you know, matter of days, maybe a week or two tops,
Speaker 3: you know, they had developed a list of five diff
Speaker 3: print women in Sherry's life who may have had, you know,
Speaker 3: either the motive or the opportunity to harm her. And
Speaker 3: they're feeling pretty much right away. Based on the crime
Speaker 3: scene photos, the violent Sherry was subjected to that this
Speaker 3: was not a burglary at all, that the crime scene
Speaker 3: had been staged to look like a burglary, but that
Speaker 3: the motive was far more likely to be personal.
Speaker 5: You write about a particularly heroic and dedicated person in
Speaker 5: law enforcement or outside of law enforcement, involved with law
Speaker 5: enforcement named Jennifer Francis, and Jennifer Francis speaks with Nuttle.
Speaker 5: But Jennifer Francis and this in her connection to this
Speaker 5: case and the DNA happens before this tell us this
Speaker 5: remarkable person, Jennifer Francis in her story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jennifer Francis is. You know, there's not too many
Speaker 3: heroes in this story over thirty years, but she is
Speaker 3: certainly one of them. She's a civilian crime lab analyst
Speaker 3: for the LAPD. She continues to work there to this day.
Speaker 3: Back in around two thousand and three, so five years
Speaker 3: before this box arrived in Van Nuys and Nuttle took
Speaker 3: possession of the murder book, Francis was assigned the task
Speaker 3: of testing evidence in Sherry Rascussen's murder. The LAPD had
Speaker 3: formed a cold case homicide unit in two thousand and one,
Speaker 3: where they basically screened thousands of unsolved murders dating as
Speaker 3: far back as the nineteen sixties, looking for cases that
Speaker 3: had a good potential for some of these new scientific
Speaker 3: tools and advances that had come along since the murders
Speaker 3: were committed. DNA, fingerprint databases, ballistics databases. None of those
Speaker 3: things existed back in like the sixties and seventies, and
Speaker 3: even you know, it took some time for them to
Speaker 3: be adopted into the eighties. So she received this case
Speaker 3: not really knowing very much about it. I'm skipping over
Speaker 3: some stuff that's in the book, but don't want to
Speaker 3: spoil everything. But Francis obtains several evident samples, and when
Speaker 3: she tests them, she expects that she's going to find
Speaker 3: blood from the suspect, But all of the DNA results
Speaker 3: match Sherry's own DNA. So all of the blood that
Speaker 3: was found and collected at the crime scene in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six turns out to have been the victim's blood,
Speaker 3: no blood from a suspect. So in reviewing the case file,
Speaker 3: Francis no, this is a reference to this bitemark swab.
Speaker 3: It was taken in nineteen eighty six, and even though
Speaker 3: she's not a detective, she's a crime lab analyst and
Speaker 3: a civilian, she is able to put two and two
Speaker 3: together and realize as well, people don't bite themselves, and
Speaker 3: so if I can get that bitemark swab, that is
Speaker 3: going to give me a good chance of getting the
Speaker 3: suspects DNA rather than the victims DNA. So it was
Speaker 3: really just her tenacity, dedication, thinking outside the box, not
Speaker 3: giving up on this case that she easily could have
Speaker 3: just set aside because there were other cases waiting for
Speaker 3: her attention. But she ultimately sets in motion the events
Speaker 3: that lead to this bitemark slab being unearthed from the
Speaker 3: freezer where it had been for more than twenty years.
Speaker 3: She tests it, and she's the one who was the
Speaker 3: first to know that the person who bit Sherry Rascusen
Speaker 3: was a woman. So she had her own suspicions based
Speaker 3: on that that the motive may have been personal for
Speaker 3: reasons that are still a little bit murkhy that I
Speaker 3: hope I'll be able to nail down one day, she reported,
Speaker 3: that information to the cold case detective who was assigned
Speaker 3: to investigate, but the case was not pursued. No specific
Speaker 3: female suspects were pursued at that time. The case pretty
Speaker 3: much went dormant again, and it was not until two
Speaker 3: thousand and nine when Nuttle and his squad mates and
Speaker 3: Van Eyes reopened it and started talking to Jennifer Francis
Speaker 3: that the case picked up momentum and the Rascusins, you know,
Speaker 3: finally got the justice they had been waiting for.
Speaker 5: A big part of this book is the really heartbreaking,
Speaker 5: you know, story of Nells and Loretta and Connie and
Speaker 5: her sister. But Nells and Loretta and especially Nells really
Speaker 5: fighting and really not wanting to give up and being
Speaker 5: persistent is part of this story, isn't it. And when
Speaker 5: this detective Nuddle got a chance to talk to Nells
Speaker 5: and Loretta and then some of the friends there's like
Speaker 5: people like Sylvia that Sherry worked with at the hospital.
Speaker 5: What did Detective Nuddle get to hear from those people?
Speaker 5: Whereas many of those people were never interviewed or the
Speaker 5: interviews with Nells were not recorded.
Speaker 3: Well, again, your listeners, you can try to maybe try
Speaker 3: to put themselves in the shoes a detective Nuddle, so
Speaker 3: he picks up this case. He knows nothing about it.
Speaker 3: He sees this DNA report, it strikes him immediately that
Speaker 3: it's very unusual that it would be a woman DNA
Speaker 3: female DNA donor as a suspect. When he speaks to
Speaker 3: John and asks him were there any women who may
Speaker 3: have wished to harm Sherry before she was killed, he
Speaker 3: immediately brings up the name of Stephanie Lazarus, describes her
Speaker 3: as an LAPED officer and tells Nuddle that he informed
Speaker 3: detectives of her in nineteen eighty six. Nuddle has all
Speaker 3: the records in front of him, and there's no record
Speaker 3: of that. Then, you know, some days or weeks later,
Speaker 3: as the investigation proceeds, he has his first conversation with
Speaker 3: Nels Raspussen and poses a similar question to him, and
Speaker 3: Cherry's father says, I know who killed my daughter? Was he?
Speaker 3: Does you know the rap? One of the issues is
Speaker 3: that the Raskissons never had Stephanie's name. They knew that
Speaker 3: there was an ext girlfriend of John's who was an
Speaker 3: LAPD officer, and they tried to get John to tell
Speaker 3: them her name, but they never got that information in
Speaker 3: eighty six, so they did not have that piece of
Speaker 3: information about her. But Nells couldn't have been clearer in
Speaker 3: that initial interview in two thousand and nine that he
Speaker 3: had a pretty good idea who may have killed Cherry,
Speaker 3: and he was not surprised to learn that there was
Speaker 3: female DNA on her body. What was new, I think
Speaker 3: for the Rasmussens and emotional about that moment, was that
Speaker 3: they finally had someone who was listening and wanted to
Speaker 3: know what they had to say. Rather than telling them,
Speaker 3: we don't care about the information you have, we're telling
Speaker 3: you what happened. I mean, the Rasmussens were literally told,
Speaker 3: or they told me that they were told things like
Speaker 3: you watched too much television when they tried to tell
Speaker 3: detectives in nineteen eighty six that there was a female
Speaker 3: cop who would threatened their daughter. So I tried to
Speaker 3: have empathy for everyone in the story, even including Stephanie
Speaker 3: and John and the detectives. But yeah, what Knowls and
Speaker 3: Loretta Rasmussen have been through over the last thirty years
Speaker 3: is incredibly tragic, and it's all the more tragic that
Speaker 3: you know, there's never been any sort of accountability. You know,
Speaker 3: all the information that they've gotten, they they had to
Speaker 3: fight for. And so for me, one of the big
Speaker 3: reasons to write this book is to, you know, try
Speaker 3: to give them answers. Obviously not just them. I live
Speaker 3: in la I want the LAPD to you know, it
Speaker 3: has a proud, very complicated history as a police department.
Speaker 3: I want a great police department in my city. And
Speaker 3: so I think when you have a failure like this,
Speaker 3: failing to identify and apprehend a murderer in your own
Speaker 3: ranks for more than twenty years, it's really imperative to
Speaker 3: try to look back and say, well, what really went
Speaker 3: wrong here? What could be done better? You have to
Speaker 3: you have to take some lessons from it, or else
Speaker 3: what's to say it's not going to happen again. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I hope my book provides the Rastussins with some measure
Speaker 3: of com for that. There are some answers and information
Speaker 3: out there that the issue wasn't that they were watching
Speaker 3: too much TV back then. It was that there was
Speaker 3: some pretty serious breakdowns and policy and procedure that caused
Speaker 3: this thing to drag out for as long as it has.
Speaker 5: You talk about nells and being frustrated, but It's also
Speaker 5: very striking that you write in the book that Mayer
Speaker 5: put in his report almost literally blaming Nells for giving
Speaker 5: advice to his daughter to fight off these attackers, which
Speaker 5: he's then concluded was part of the reason for her demise.
Speaker 5: And where Nells is you write in the book said
Speaker 5: I never said such a thing to my daughter nor
Speaker 5: to the detective. What's the most one of the most
Speaker 5: fascinating parts of this story in this case is is
Speaker 5: how much the reader, despite all of the detail and
Speaker 5: all of the I mean, all of the deep investigation
Speaker 5: that you've done for this, is how much John knew
Speaker 5: you You keep we did mention that he did mention
Speaker 5: to the police about the ex girlfriend, but as you
Speaker 5: read in this book, he omitted some really important details
Speaker 5: like having sex with this woman on the verger right
Speaker 5: around his engagement, and that Sherry knew about this as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the behavior.
Speaker 5: Of the behavior of John is very odd.
Speaker 3: Yes, And again even Nels Rasmussen himself, who had a
Speaker 3: very sort of torture relationship with John, he was very
Speaker 3: clear that he does not think John had any involvement
Speaker 3: in the murder itself, but he has felt all along
Speaker 3: that John had that John knew more than he told
Speaker 3: police or told anyone about who may have harmed Sherry.
Speaker 3: And part of John's issue is that at various points
Speaker 3: through the investigation he was not completely forfright with detectives
Speaker 3: about his history with Stephanie. So, for instance, again the
Speaker 3: night of he's interviewed asked are there any ex girlfriends
Speaker 3: who might be a problem, and he says no, And
Speaker 3: the next day he does bring up Stephanie's name and
Speaker 3: that she's a police officer, but minimizes the relationship. When
Speaker 3: I interviewed Lyle Mayer, he was very adamant that John
Speaker 3: described her to him as an acquaintance, not an ex girlfriend.
Speaker 3: Lyle told me that if John had been honest with
Speaker 3: him about the extent of the relationship, or if he
Speaker 3: knew any of these about any of these incidents that
Speaker 3: Sherry reported to family, that things would have gone a
Speaker 3: different way. And again, how can anyone we're talking alternative
Speaker 3: history here, like how things may have played out differently.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to go to down, you know, I
Speaker 3: didn't want to go down that rabbit hole because who
Speaker 3: can say, you know, things unfolded the.
Speaker 5: Way they did.
Speaker 3: What I tried to do to the best of my
Speaker 3: ability was stick to either what was documented on paper
Speaker 3: or what people directly told me, or what they testified
Speaker 3: to under oath. And yeah, there's things that just don't
Speaker 3: add up. So the RAS missins were adamant that they
Speaker 3: brought up the ex girlfriends not just once, but pretty
Speaker 3: much every time they had contact with the detectives. In
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty six. Lyle Mayer, when I interviewed him, was
Speaker 3: equally adamant that the ras missions never mentioned her, not once.
Speaker 3: So both of those things cannot be true. And again
Speaker 3: it's very hard, thirty years after the fact to settle
Speaker 3: that conclusively. How can I possibly do that? I feel
Speaker 3: like the best that I can do is present the
Speaker 3: information as objectively as I can and let the readers
Speaker 3: draw their own conclusions about who, you know, who has
Speaker 3: more credibility, who may be telling the truth of what
Speaker 3: really happened.
Speaker 5: We don't have time, and we don't want to give
Speaker 5: too much away more than we already have. But needless
Speaker 5: to say, she was arrested, and your book chronicles that
Speaker 5: incredible pursuit. To be able to do that as well,
Speaker 5: once Jennifer Francis makes that profile a DNA profile. And
Speaker 5: but what I wanted to say before I let you
Speaker 5: go to is that in the book is some really
Speaker 5: stark things that happened without conclusion. And one of the
Speaker 5: things that you include in this is that from nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty six to the present, John never called any detective
Speaker 5: inquiring about the case.
Speaker 3: Did he.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, that's a I don't know that I
Speaker 7: can go I mean, that's a sort of a blanket statement.
Speaker 7: I think he had some contact with the detectives, whether
Speaker 7: John initiated them or they initiated him. You may be
Speaker 7: right that he you know, he may not have initiated
Speaker 7: contacts himself. Certainly in two thousand and nine it's Nuddle
Speaker 7: who's calling him, and over the years it's the Rasmussens
Speaker 7: who are going to the LAPD asking for updates, desperate
Speaker 7: to keep this thing from slipping into oblivion completely. I
Speaker 7: think John pretty much decided.
Speaker 3: To move on with his life to the best of
Speaker 3: his He eventually had another marriage and children in that marriage.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, all the pushing pretty much from nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six until the time that the case has reopened
Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine is coming from Sherry's family,
Speaker 3: not from John.
Speaker 5: Right. I want to thank you very much Matthew for
Speaker 5: coming on and talking about the Lazareth Files, a cold
Speaker 5: case investigation. It's a fascinating book, and thank you very
Speaker 5: much for this interview. For those that might want to
Speaker 5: take a look at this book, do you have a
Speaker 5: website or a Facebook page for this? Can you tell
Speaker 5: us about that?
Speaker 3: Uh? Yeah, I'm on Twitter more than Facebook. My Twitter
Speaker 3: handle is mtt mcg But the website I encourage people
Speaker 3: to check out is the Lazarus Files dot com, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, the same as my author website. There's a
Speaker 3: lot more information about the case, other things that I've
Speaker 3: written about the case and the history of the LAPD
Speaker 3: cold case unit. And again what I want to stress
Speaker 3: to your listeners is this is an ongoing story and
Speaker 3: I intend to continue reporting it, so hopefully I'll get
Speaker 3: an opportunity to fill in some of the questions that
Speaker 3: remain unanswered in the book.
Speaker 5: And if you.
Speaker 3: Check out my website Matthew McGough dot com or the
Speaker 3: Lazarus File dot com, which is basically the same website
Speaker 3: the book, get you to the same information. I hope
Speaker 3: to you know, stay on the story and bring more
Speaker 3: to light.
Speaker 5: Well. I want to commend you for this remarkable book,
Speaker 5: The Lazareth Files, A cold Case Investigation, and thank you
Speaker 5: very much for this in interview Matthew McGough, thank you
Speaker 5: very much, my.
Speaker 3: Pleasure enjoyed it. Thank you, thank you for the sharp.
Speaker 5: Question, Thank you, good night, good night
Speaker 4: HM,