LAPD detective begged to have sex

After days of tedious testimony about DNA and the storage of evidence, the murder trial of Los Angeles Police Detective Stephanie Lazarus shifted gears Wednesday for testimony by the husband of the woman Lazarus is accused of killing in a jealous rage.

Lazarus, a 25 year LAPD veteran, was arrested in 2009 when cold case detectives linked her to the 1986 beating and shooting death of Sherri Rasmussen. Prosecutors have alleged the DNA in the saliva matches Lazarus, while her attorney wants to convince jurors there were serious lapses in how the saliva sample was stored and handled in the years between the killing and Lazarus' arrest.

On Wednesday in a downtown courtroom, Ruetten, now 53, calmly answered questions from Deputy Dist. Atty. Shannon Presby about how he and Lazarus met while they were students at UCLA and dated casually for a few years after graduating from college. Although they took trips together, went on dates a few times each month and had sex many times, Ruetten said he did not consider Lazarus his girlfriend and was dating other people at the time.

His steady demeanor changed when the questioning turned to Rasmussen. Describing the night in 1984 when he met the attractive nurse at a party, Ruetten said he was smitten from the outset and that the two quickly started a serious relationship. His voice cracked as he identified Rasmussen in a photograph the first of several times that he broke down in tears during his testimony.

Within a year, Ruetten said, he and Rasmussen were engaged.

Shortly after getting engaged, Ruetten said, he received a frantic phone call from Lazarus, who was crying and asking him to come to her apartment. When he arrived, he said he found Lazarus distraught over his decision to marry another woman, which he said struck him as odd since he had not spoken with Lazarus for over a year and believed they were "friends, just friends."

Lazarus,replica rolex date just, he said, asked repeatedly to have sex with him and he agreed. Calling the decision "stupid," he said, "I was over my head. I didn't know what to do, how to calm her down."

Not long after,rolex oyster perpetual day date fake, Ruetten recalled, Rasmussen returned to the Van Nuys town house they shared and angrily confronted him about Lazarus, who had come to the hospital where Rasmussen worked and told her about the recent sexual encounter.

Ruetten said he confessed to Rasmussen. He told jurors Wednesday that he begged for her not to break off their engagement.

Ruetten recounted returning home from work Feb. 24, 1986, three months after the wedding, to find his wife body on the living room floor. She had been shot three times at close range in the chest and beaten badly.

"I could tell by her eyes that she was gone," he said.

He recalled speaking that night with Lyle Mayer, the lead homicide detective assigned to the case, who told him he believed from evidence at the scene that Rasmussen had been killed by intruders who were trying to burglarize the house.

Having no reason to doubt the detective, Ruetten testified that it wasn't until a later interview that he mentioned his relationship with Lazarus to Mayer and that "it never crossed my mind that Stephanie was involved."

Never considered a suspect by Mayer or the cold case detectives who reopened the case, Ruetten on Wednesday denied any involvement in his wife's death when questioned by Presby.

In the first few questions of cross examination,fake rolex day date ii, Lazarus's attorney,replica rolex oyster date, Mark Overland, pressed Ruetten on the seriousness of his relationship with Lazarus. Asking whether he had introduced other women to his parents and pointing to photos Lazarus apparently took while on a vacation with Ruetten's family, Overland appeared to be trying to get Ruetten to acknowledge the relationship was more serious than he indicated.

Lazarus, 51, has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody on $10 million bail. She retired from the department in 2010.