While free on bail, Mr. Walker assumed a new identity, according to the court documents. How Palm Springs ran out Black and Latino families to build a fantasy for rich, white people, 17 SoCal hiking trails that are blooming with wildflowers (but probably not for long! In 1986, a young nurse named Sherri Rasmussen was murdered in Los Angeles. Seven months after Sherri Rasmussens death, half a world away from Los Angeles, DNA was used in a criminal investigation for the first time. We looked at maybe a burglary murder that was unsolved. During those 39 years, 23,713 murders took place in Los Angeles. In an indoor crime scene, obviously, the longer you are there, the more you dowhether youre sexually assaulting, burglarizing, moving around ransackingyou increase the chance for good fingerprints.. To an experienced sailor, Stearn's account of her navigational skill is grossly overstated to the point where reading Bugliosi's book "And The Sea Will Tell" becomes an exercise that tests one's patience. The unknown factor was how long she would wait before invoking one or both. Shortly after their arrival, Muff and Mac Graham arrived on a second sailboat. On June 13 of that year, LAPD homicide detectives visited the Rockingham Avenue mansion of O. J. Simpson to notify him that his ex-wife and an acquaintance of hers had been stabbed to death outside her Brentwood condominium. A blood trail down the stairs and a bloody handprint near the front door suggested Rasmussen had tried to escape or reach the panic button on the alarm panel located there, but her assailant followed. A week went by before the coroners office could locate the missing evidence. Two months after the Grahams vanished, Stearns and Walker sailed the Grahams yacht into Hawaii, 1,100 miles away; they were later sentenced to prison for Stearns and Jaramillos goal would be to keep her talking as long as possible, while simultaneously assuring her that she was free to leave at any time. Lambkin, by comparison, had been working with biological evidence for years, and was already convinced of DNAs potential. On September 19, DNA analysis was requested on evidence from the 1986 murder of Sherri Rasmussen. It means Does Not Apply. DNA experts testified for both sides. By this time, Nuttall had spoken on the phone with Nels Rasmussen, Sherris father, whose persistence and intelligence impressed him. They met Curtis Shoemaker, another yachtsman. When she turned to the crime-scene evidence, the items she initially testeda piece of fingernail, a bloodstained towelyielded only the victims profile. Miss Stearns was sentenced to two years; Mr. Walker received 10 years and an additional three for the earlier drug conviction that had caused him to flee Hawaii. But as far as motive was concerned, the information that we had was that [Lazarus and Ruettens] relationship had been over since the previous summer. Buck received 10 years for the theft When confronted, Pitchfork confessed to the killings, and DNA analysis later confirmed that he had raped both girls. He drove directly to the coroners office, where an evidence custodian booked the swab of the bite mark on Sherri Rasmussens arm into evidence at 10:32 a.m. on February 25, 1986. You can see if hes for real.. He escaped from McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary in Washington State in July 1979 and is still at large. Two months after the murder, a pair of men attempted a burglary a few blocks from Sherris condo. By the end of the year, LAPD homicide detectives had solved 538 of those murders, a clearance rate of 65 percent. She is an actress, known for Dreamers (1999), Triple Threat (2005) and America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back (1988). He escaped from prison after 42 months. Bugliosi professing his belief in Stearns innocence is duped by his client. As Stearns and Jaramillo would know, but Lazarus could hardly suspect, the moment she ended the interview and walked out of the room, she would be arrested, regardless of what she had told them. Within a week, the detectives obtained a copy of the stolen-gun report. But police hoped that the list of those who declined to participate would provide new leads. All concernedprosecutors, defense lawyers, forensic scientists, judgeshad to raise their game. Stearns, who sobbed as she read entries from her 1974 log to the jury about the Grahams disappearance, denied there was any feud. Several months and thousands of blood samples later, the police received a curious tip. Mr. Walker and Miss Stearns had been trying to plant seeds, but most were eaten by sand crabs. The unit gradually came to grips with the magnitude of its caseload. Firearms were not allowed in the jail, so it would not seem unnatural for all three detectivesStearns, Jaramillo, and Lazarusto surrender their guns before entering. Its been grueling, Stephanie Stearns told reporters after hugging her tearful parents, who sat in the front row throughout the trial. Meanwhile, in a freezer in the Los Angeles County coroners office, alongside biological evidence from hundreds of other murders, the swab of the bite mark on Sherri Rasmussens arm lay waiting for forensic scienceand the LAPDs scrutinyto catch up with it. These four were the only people continuously at the Palmyra lagoon in July and August 1974, although several other craft came and went. MYSTERY ON PACIFIC ATOLL LEADS TO MURDER CHARGE, https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/13/us/mystery-on-pacific-atoll-leads-to-murder-charge.html. A 77-year-old grandfather with a bushy white beard, Laudenberg was suspected of having raped and strangled four women between 1972 and 1975; the media quickly dubbed him the Santa Claus Strangler. The detectives possessed the killers DNA profile, but had no sample from Laudenberg with which they could compare it. Because many more people within the LAPD and the D.A.s office were now aware of where the investigation was headed, concern was growing that word could leak at any moment. But how far back could they go, given the inevitable loss and decay of physical evidence? That most items in the house appeared undisturbedincluding Rasmussens jewelry box, sitting in plain view on her dresserseemed to Mayer further evidence of a rushed exit. Mr. Walker did not appear for his sentencing. Their story was that they had met the Grahams on Palmyra, and they believed they had drowned after a fishing accident, because they had failed to come back in a couple of days and there was an overturned boat on She's working for the telecommunications giant Harris Corporation. Mahany began by checking for trace evidence around the victims bodyhair, fibers, anything unusualbut he found nothing of note. Back at the squad room, the detectives prepared for two possible outcomes: if Lazaruss DNA matched the sample from the swab, RHD would assume responsibility for the case; if it didnt match, the Rasmussen case would be designated investigation continued and shelved yet again, probably forever. The two men agreed to talk by shortwave radio at 7 P.M. on Mondays and Wednesdays. Stephanie Stearns Center Manager at Hanesbrands Inc. Arlington, WA. If a homicide occurs in late December but an arrest is made in January, credit for the clearance is taken in the year of the arrest, not the year of the murder. If Lisa Kahn was the district attorneys resident DNA geek, that role in the LAPD was filled by Detective David Lambkin. In 1993, the Rasmussens traveled to Van Nuys for a face-to-face meeting with one of the detectives who had inherited the case when Lyle Mayer retired. Feb. 20 a Federal grand jury handed down an indictment accusing Miss Stearns and Mr. Walker of killing Mrs. Graham in ''an attempt to perpetrate a burglary or robbery.'' A woman who worked at a bakery in Leicester had been gossiping with co-workers at a pub when one mentioned that he had agreed to take the blood test on someone elses behalf. The woman called the police, and the naf whod taken the surrogate blood test promptly fingered the man who had talked him into it, a fellow baker with the improbable name of Colin Pitchfork. They're bringing over a cake tonight.'' Into the early 1990s, Loretta called the Van Nuys homicide unit regularly to inquire about Sherris case. The jurors, and the judge, agreed: Robinson was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. He was wearing a wire. When Ruetten rushed inside, he found his wifes body in the ransacked living room. He moved to the small town of Willets in Mendocino County CA. The decision, People v. Castro, sent shock waves through the criminal-justice system. 5. Another defendant is named in the indictment, Buck Duane Walker, 44, but he will not stand trial with Miss Stearns. The office the unit was givena 250-square-foot former janitorial storage spacewas so cramped that every time someone wanted to leave, others had to pull in their chairs to make room. He said he could find no sign of the couple and that he had brought their boat back to Honolulu to keep it from being destroyed by the weather. Deputy D.A. WebStephanie Stearns was tried separately in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco. But the one body was enough: Walker and Stearns were arrested in Arizona for murder. Suspicion quickly fell upon a 17-year-old boy who seemed to have an unnatural interest in the second crime scene. I read the book soon after watching the TV show, and have re-read it a couple of times in the intervening years. The plan was for the RHD detectives to request Lazaruss help interviewing a jailed suspect who claimed to have information on an art-theft case. When she threw out a cup and straw she had been drinking from, the surveillance team swooped in and retrieved it from the trash. Final Argument: An Inquiry Into the Torture and Murder of Mac and Muff Graham on Palmyra Island Perpetrated by Buck Walker and Stephanie Stearns, and the Subsequent Trial of Stephanie Stearns. The Rose case made Lambkin eager to see how many other homicides from the citys past might be solved using new technology. Stearns, 39, is accused of plotting Grahams death and helping Walker carry out the crime in what prosecutors have called a modern-day case of piracy and murder. It took 23 yearsand revolutionary breakthroughs in forensic sciencebefore LAPD detectives could finally assemble the pieces of the puzzle. Her trial is tentatively scheduled to begin in late August. If you dont solve one, well, no one solved it. One of them, a .38, had been reported stolen on March 9, 198613 days after the murder. I need you to walk me through everything from A to Z, Nuttall recalls. Phillip Stearns was born on June 2, 1984, in Bloomington, Illinois, USA. The detectives went back over the whole investigationbut this time with the assumption that they were looking for a female suspect. Robinson emerged from prison a changed man. I n Los Angeles, the first two defendants told by prosecutors that DNA evidence would be used against them promptly pleaded guilty. Over the next few years, in courtrooms across America, the adversarial process worked its magic. Hes going to know I know. Of them, 463 were cleared by arrest and 75 cleared other, a catchall designation for cases in which there is sufficient information to support the arrest of a suspect but, for reasons outside police control, no arrest can be madefor instance, when the suspect is dead or cannot be extradited to Los Angeles. A century later, the unit could not do much about that one. Primitive as the IBM punch-card and mainframe-computer databases might seem today, they were cutting-edge at the time, and they nurtured Lambkins interest in how technology could be used to solve cases. The defendant will be Stephanie Stearns, 34 years old, of Simi Valley, Calif., who has served one prison term as a result of what happened seven years ago at Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Russia missile attack on Ukraine injures 34, damages homes, Far from Russia, a pro-Moscow sliver of land tries to cling to its identity and keep war at bay, Man who lost wife, son in Texas mass shooting tells story. For what it's worth, at the end of the day I do agree with Tom Bucy's assertion that Stephanie Stearns is compulsive liar and sociopath who is responsible in How to support my channel:Artwork on Opensea link: https://opensea.io/collection/astoldbytheolyn-collectionArtwork on Etsy Under questioning by her attorney, Vincent Bugliosi, Stearns described Walker as a very strong person, domineering, a person who liked to have his own way. In all, Rasmussen had been shot three times in the chest, the bullets piercing her heart, lungs, and spine. He is now trying to locate Muff's family and return her remains to them. I am thrilled to have Stephanie as part of my cabinet and look forward to her continued leadership and counsel as we advance a city-wide agenda for Bostons recovery, reopening, and renewal. But the suspects remained elusive, and months passed without further leads. A suspect, Edmond Marr, had been identified at the time but was never prosecuted; confronted with wiretap evidence and a DNA report that linked him to the murder, Marr eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 16 years to life. Soon after, a couple arrived to Hawaii on board the Sea Wind. It was during that time that he planned to flee Hawaii on his own boat, and Stearns decided to go with him. As tantalizing a clue as Butterworths DNA report provided in the Rasmussen casenamely, that a woman might be the murdererit did not point directly to a specific suspect, unlike the many cold hits rolling in thanks to Prop 69. Of course it was O.J.s DNA: it had been planted at the scene! Kahn recalls her desire to find jurors who would be able to make sense of this new universe of DNA testimony. Get the day's top news with our Today's Headlines newsletter, sent every weekday morning. For these families, this stuff never goes away, he says. In the wake of the successful prosecution, Kahn became responsible for handling any DNA-admissibility hearing that took place in Los Angeles County. Stephanie Stearns Human Resources Professional Tewksbury, MA. When the two LAPD detectives pulled up to the house, Nels came out to the driveway to greet them. The LAPD had collected semen at both crime scenes, and Kahn received permission to submit the evidence to a private lab for DNA analysis, which confirmed that Wildss DNA profile matched that of the rapist. In the living room Rasmussen had been bitten on her left forearm, perhaps while grappling for the gun, and then struck over the head with the heavy vase, a blow that likely incapacitated her. In February 2003, a year and a half after its formation, the cold-case unit made its first arrest, solving the 1983 murder of a young nurse and mother named Elaine Graham. In December 2004, a criminalist named Jennifer Butterworth noticed the unworked request sitting on her colleagues desk and volunteered to handle it. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Her husband's body was never found. We were in love. But Stearns refused. From the interrogation room, Lazarus was taken to Lynwood, the Los Angeles County jail facility for female prisoners, where she has been held ever since on $10 million bail. Garrett-Stearns was previously Head of Public Relations and Chief Corporate Spokesperson for the Siemens division, Osram Sylvania., I am honored to serve the people of Boston as part of the historic Kim Janey administration, said Garrett-Stearns. The stolen BMW was found abandoned nearby about a week later, but it offered up no further clues. Smithville, MO , is where Stephanie Beshears lives today. The assailant had then taken a quilt from across the roompresumably to muffle the guns reportand fired more shots through it, killing Rasmussen. They had subsisted by eating birds' eggs and by borrowing as much food as they could from any other boats that came to the atoll. What is the birth name of Jeff Stearns? Her mother, Rose King, and sister, Peggy Faulkner, of San Diego, were quoted in media coverage of the murders as having grown up here. The food supply never went below a seven-day supply, she said. That is how I found out about Tom Bucy's book. Given the sensitivity of the unfolding investigation, Nuttall had to be cautious about tipping his hand. Eventually, a detective arranged to meet at a doughnut shop to discuss what he described as a series of burglaries from automobiles.
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