Fatal Attraction: The Book Is Never Closed — Ep. 4 | MK Confidential

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Hey podcast listeners, Mr. Ballin here. To let you know, we are now publishing four times a week on my podcast, Mr. Ballin Podcast, Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories. That's right, you'll be getting four new episodes a week covering unbelievable mysteries, chilling through crime and stories so strange they sound made up. But they aren't. They're all true.

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Megyn Kelly (1:00)

Stephanie Lazarus sits in front of a camera in a California state prison and answers questions under oath. It is February 12th, 2025 Stephanie is 64 years old, and she has been in state custody for almost 16 years. She really wants to get out. On the other side of the video screen, Sherri Rasmussen's two sisters, Connie and Teresa, are watching. So are Sherri's two nieces, and John Rutten, Sherri's husband, the man Stephanie killed Sherri over and still lost.

A parole commissioner named Kevin Chappelle asks Stephanie about a phone call she made on a February morning in 1986 Sherri had answered. Chappelle asks what Stephanie felt when she heard Sherri's voice. Yes, sir, I was enraged. Stephanie says she went down the stairs of her condominium and took a cord off of her workbench. Chappelle asks her why she brought that cord with her to John and Sherri's home. Because I was so angry that if she got in my way to see John, I was going to strangle her.

Chappelle asks what she was thinking by the time she reached Sherri Rasmussen's front door. I'm going to kill her if I don't see John.

Sherri's younger sister Teresa watches her screen listening to Stephanie talk about murdering Sherri. At these parole hearings, Teresa makes a point of staying visible. She told us why.

Teresa Lane (2:31)

Personally, I make a effort to be sure that I'm on the screen the whole time. So she has to, if she looks up, she has to see me.

But she never looks up.

Megyn Kelly (2:45)

Stephanie says she barged into Sherri's home asking for John. And from there, she describes what happened as a hellacious fight.

Kevin Chappelle stops her. Why are you calling it a fight? Stephanie thinks about this. I invaded her home. I was an intruder. So maybe it was just a fight on my part. Her trying to maybe defend herself would be a better description of the situation.

Chappelle offers a different word. What about assault? And Stephanie agrees with that. Stephanie describes a violent struggle, hitting Sherri in the face with her gun, then biting her and smashing a vase over her head. And Stephanie says she picks up a blanket from the floor, wraps it around her gun, and fires three times into Sherri's chest. Chappelle comes back to that. When I think of someone in a rage, they're just out of it. They're not thinking about, well, I need to wrap this up. Why did you wrap the gun up? Stephanie shifts her eyes and answers to deaden the sound.

I'm Megyn Kelly, and this is MK Confidential.

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13 years earlier in 2012, Stephanie Lazarus is singing a very different tune. She is on trial for Sherri Rasmussen's murder. Stephanie was arrested in June 2009 over the next 32 months through preliminary hearings, motions and other pretrial proceedings. She comes to court shackled in an orange jail jumpsuit. Then on February 6th, 2012, the first day of her trial, she appears dressed in black. She pleads not guilty. She will not testify. Prosecutors tell the jury that Stephanie Lazarus killed Sherri Rasmussen because of a love triangle. John Rutten chose Sherri instead of her. They put the old evidence back on the table, the swabs from Sherri's arm, the 38 caliber revolver that Lazarus reported stolen after the murder, and Stephanie's own words about John preserved in letters, diary entries, and photographs. Then they call John Rutten to the stand.