GUILTY CA - Sherri Rasmussen, 29, murdered in her Los Angeles home, 24 Feb 1986

[JoeFromLB]

murder happened 26 years ago today,

Sherri Rae Rasmussen, murder victim:

 

[joe jones]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd-detective-trial-20120224,0,4539264.story

prosecution rests

 

[Vhead]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd-detective-trial-20120224,0,4539264.story

prosecution rests

Thanks for this post. I haven't been able to find anything in la times paper..


Sent from my iPhone

 

[joe jones]

defence cic in chief still going on, they expect to have wrapped it up by thursday/friday for closings, went much faster than I thought it would

state seemed to have presented a reasonable case considering the length of time from crime to trial, strongest evidence is the bite mark DNA, LE, the prosecution and Sherry's family and friends must be so thankful that the bite mark was swabbed and the evidence kept for all those years,

 

[all4justice]

Sherri Rae Rasmussen, murder victim:

She reminds me so much of the actress, Julia Stiles.

 

[joe jones]

defence has rested

 

[joe jones]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...9k0x2w?docId=a8f7cafcd8e24ff49c57c6ca6443accb

not the great defence I was expecting, the huge problem defence has with arguing contamination is that the swab was found and a DNA profile was recovered from it, this profile sat in the case file for a long time as no matches to any known suspects were hit on in Codis

then when the case was again looked at it was noticed that the DNA matched a female, so the police had to look for possible female suspects and Lazarus was amongst a list of women they looked at, they got Lazarus DNA from a plastic cup she threw in the bin and when they recovered her DNA profile from the cup and matched it to the swab it was a good match, it was only then did they really begin looking at her and when arrested got a buccal swab to do another DNA profile of her and then match that to the bite mark swab

so at no time was the bite swab in contact with any of Lazarus DNA as the profile raised on the swab was raised before her DNA was ever sought or tested

they could have argued degradation of the swab, but that still would not have changed anything, the DNA on that swab is a mixture of the victim and the defendant and nothing will ever change that

 

[joe jones]

closings will be on Monday, I am thinking it will be a guilty verdict, but I do think that some of the judges rulings may have given her some appellate issues

 

[joe jones]

http://blogs.discovery.com/criminal...from-stephanie-lazarus-the-defense-rests.html

Lazarus never testified, I never expected her to,

 

[joe jones]

http://www.contracostatimes.com/cal...g-arguments-delivered-stephanie-lazarus-trial

closings

 

[joe jones]

closing arguments were done yesterday, jury should get the case, I would vote guilty,

I am surprised that the defence case was quite poor, I expected them to challenge the states case a little harder,

seems they are hoping the jury will dismiss the crucial piece of evidence the DNA from the bite mark as being so tainted because there was a tear in the evidence collection bag that it is now rendered useless as evidence, and the jury should then dismiss evidence that the bullets fired that killed the victim could have come from a gun that Lazarus owned and 13 days post the murder she reported it stolen, never to be seen again,

the bite mark DNA evidence is a mixture of victim and suspect, if the jury accept the evidence is untainted and reliable and the jury accept the fact that the bite occurred during the murder then it is all over,

 

[Cortne]

Thank you JJ. Your input is much appreciated.

 

[SevenSeas]

Can't imagine deliberations will take long at all. I'm expecting a G verdi before day's end tomorrow.

 

[joe jones]

jury deliberated for over an hour yesterday, will be back today to continue, they have the option of first or second degree murder

 

[joe jones]

no verdict today, jury have asked for some testimony to be read back, Judge decided that they would do the readback tomorrow

 

[SevenSeas]

Verdict IN!!! To be read at 1:30PST today!

ktla ‏ @ktla

Jurors Reach Verdict in Murder Trial of Fmr. LAPD Detective, Stephanie Lazarus http://bit.ly/y5Yh6z

 

[MsFacetious]

Pushed to 1:45 PST.

It appears there is supposed to be a video on this article at some point:

http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/loc...-lazarus-trial-verdic:-145pm-today-2012-03-08


This one has a live stream... I don't know if the verdict will be live or not. Maybe live, maybe not.

http://cbs6albany.com/news/features/live/

 

[Vhead]

Verdict IN!!! To be read at 1:30PST today!

ktla

 

[MsFacetious]

Yeah, KTLA has news at 1pm, so one would think they will show the verdict live.

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-stephanie-lazarus-murder-trial,0,3777467.story

 

[joe jones]

Judge said he will allow pool camera to film verdict and show it later, but it will not be streamed live