

Sherri was visited by Lazarus at their condo one day when normally she was at work and John would be home, leading her to worry that John and Lazarus would spend time together while she was at work. She visited John at the condo he shared with Sherri multiple times during their engagement, in order to bring things for him to fix or have the excuse she was picking up something to show up armed and in uniform to intimidate Sherri who told John on multiple occasions that she was uncomfortable with Lazarus. Lazarus fell into a depression when she found out John was in a serious relationship with Sherri and that they would be getting married. She would also steal John’s clothing when he showered and take nude photos of him while he slept. Lazarus was not aware during her affair with John that he was also seeing other women, John reported that he had only slept with Lazarus once after he graduated but Lazarus claims they slept together 20 - 30 times the three years they had this relationship. After John graduated Lazarus applied for the city’s police academy and would join the LAPD in 1983. She and John reportedly had casual relationship but never officially dated. Lazarus had gone to school with Sherri’s husband John and studied political science. Sifting through the four volumes that the case now comprised of, they were able to find 4 female suspects that had never been investigated - shocking them all, one was an LAPD Detective. Sherri let go of the person and they grabbed a large vase nearby, hitting Sherri in the head, stunning her and sending her to the floor where the attacker shot Sherri once before grabbing a blanket to muffle the sound and shooting her two more times to ensure her death. She fled her room and likely went to hit the panic button but the attacker got to her first, they struggled and Sherri might have gotten the intruder into a headlock, causing them to bite her forearm thus leaving the mark. This person began shooting at her immediately, two bullets hitting the sliding glass doors and shattering them, this told the group the person had the intent to kill Sherri. The front door showed no signs of damage and the alarm of the home had been turned off so the team theorized that Sherri had likely been upstairs in her room and been surprised by someone who stealthily came into her home. This showed the equipment had been stacked after Sherri had been killed to make the scene appear more like a burglary. Supporting this was a smudge of Sherri’s blood that looked to be fingerprint size but the assailant had been wearing gloves so no fingerprint could be collected. At the top of the stairs was stereo equipment that had been stacked up by the “robbers” that likely would have been knocked over had this theory been true and a robber would flee the scene quickly after a murder, not stayed to stack the equipment back up like it had been in this case. The original theory also claimed that the altercation between Sherri and her attacker began on the second floor of their home when Sherri walked in on the burglars and led downstairs to where her body had been found. The crime had taken place during the day and Sherri’s jewelry box that had been in plain sight on the dresser was left untouched. They started the investigation over from the very beginning and could see early on that the burglar theory was improbable and likely staged to throw detectives off. He did not pressure police to solve his late-wife’s case like his in-laws did. John moved on, shortly after the murder of his wife he quit his job and moved out of LA before eventually remarrying. Sherri’s family felt the police were unhelpful and when they would call the department for updates on their daughter’s case, they would be dismissed, hung up on, or placed on hold for extended periods of time.
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The case lost traction with LAPD since their focus had shifted to dealing with warring gangs, the crack epidemic, and other violence in the city. A $10,000 reward was offered for more information on the case by Sherri’s family but nothing came of this. A cast was made of the bite for tooth comparisons and a swab had been taken of the bite mark but there was not enough DNA to create a profile of the killer. But since some men have been known to leave bite marks in fights, the burglar theory was not entirely dismissed.

And the bite mark on Sherri’s arm stood out since bites are usually inflicted by women in fights while most burglars are men.

However, theories fell apart when further evidence was taken into account, in the home nothing was missing other than the couple's marriage license.
