Former LA detective guilty of murder

A jury Thursday found a former Los Angeles police detective guilty of first-degree murder in a 1986 case that was reopened in 2009 using updated DNA technology. The jury convicted former Detective Stephanie Lazarus in the killing of Sherri Rasmussen, three months after the victim had married a man Lazarus had dated prior to the wedding. Lazarus had worked for the Los Angeles Police Department for more than 25 years and retired from the department while in jail awaiting trial, the Los Angeles Times reported. California law requires a sentence of life in prison without parole for first-degree murder. During the initial investigation of Rasmussen's killing, detectives though the victim had been killed by two men during an attempted burglary and disregarded Rasmussen's father's attempt to get them to look at Lazarus as a suspect, the Times said. Investigators reopened the case in 2009 and collected a DNA sample from a coffee cup Lazarus had thrown in the trash. The sample established Lazarus had been the source of a bite mark on the victim.