Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus, Part VIII

 Vanity Fair July 2012 cover  (Photo credit: Vanity Fair.com)

Complete Series on Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Article HERE.

Continued from Part VII...

All news organizations occasionally make mistakes. T&T is no exception. When readers notify me I’ve made a factual error, I apologize and correct it. I consider it my responsibility to report as accurately and transparently as possible. I believe this policy enhances my credibility as a journalist.

In September, Poynter called Mark Bowden “one of the best narrative non-fiction writers working today.”  Vanity Fair is a widely read media outlet with a reputation for publishing serious journalism.

It’s a mystery to me why Vanity Fair has not fully acknowledged the extent of the problems with Mark Bowden’s article on the Stephanie Lazarus case.  At this point, a year into this series, Vanity Fair cannot plead ignorance.

Since Cullen Murphy, Mr. Bowden’s editor, and Mr. Bowden were  both unwilling to answer my questions on the record, there was only one person left at Vanity Fair to contact.  On June 2nd,  I emailed Beth Kseniak, Vanity Fair’s Executive Director of Public Relations:

Dear Ms. Kseniak,

If you remember, we corresponded last October.  Thank you again for forwarding those questions to Cullen Murphy.  I now have some questions for Graydon Carter.  Could you please forward the following email to Mr. Carter.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Betsy A. Ross
Founder & Owner, Trials & Tribulations


Dear Mr. Carter,

I’m writing you in your capacity as Editor-in-Chief of Vanity Fair magazine. I’m a journalist with a small true crime website, Trials & Tribulations, that reports on homicide trials in Los Angeles.  I have some questions and hope you will answer them for my readers.

I am writing you about an article by Mark Bowden that was published in your magazine in July 2012. The article was about the murder of Sherri Rasmussen, a case that I covered extensively. Last year a former LAPD detective, Stephanie Lazarus, was convicted of Sherri’s murder.

When I first read Mr. Bowden’s article, numerous factual errors caught my attention. I asked some questions of Vanity Fair in what became a series of posts between June and August 2012. Vanity Fair never responded.  I did not learn the name of Mr. Bowden’s editor, Cullen Murphy, until I was contacted by Poynter for a story that ran on September 28th. Around that time, Vanity Fair corrected a few of the factual errors I had pointed out in June, but not all of them. The corrections appeared only on Vanity Fair’s website and not in the print magazine.  Some of the quotes attributed to Mr. Murphy in the Poynter story were puzzling to me.

I contacted Mr. Murphy three times via email in October. He did not answer my questions on the record. 

Later that month I obtained Mr. Bowden’s email address. Between late October and mid-November, I emailed Bowden three times. He never responded.

Shortly after, I was on the website of my favorite local bookstore, Vroman’s, in Pasadena. I read that Mr. Bowden was scheduled to appear there on his book tour for The Finish. 

I went to Vroman’s on November 17th. I purchased Mr. Bowden’s book and listened to his remarks.  Afterwards, I stood in line to get my book signed. I introduced myself to Mr. Bowden. Mr. Bowden acknowledged that he had received my emails, but he declined to answer questions about his Vanity Fair article. (He did however sign my book.)  I emailed Mr. Bowden one more time after the book signing. He never responded.

Mr. Bowden said at Vroman’s, “I found over and over again in my career, that the story -- if I told a story well enough -- that it is remembered. And that it enters our popular memory. It becomes a piece of history.”

Mr. Carter, here are my questions:

Why have Mark Bowden and Vanity Fair refused to answer questions on the record?   Who at Vanity Fair will answer questions about Mr. Bowden’s article? 

How did so many factual errors make it into print?  What fact checking did Vanity Fair do before publishing Mr. Bowden’s article on the Rasmussen murder?

Why has Vanity Fair not run a print correction?   When does it plan to do so?

Thank you very much for your time.  I will publish in full any response you send me. I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

Betsy A. Ross
Founder & Owner, Trials & Tribulations

Ms. Kseniak wrote back four days later, on June 6th:

Dear Betsy:

We feel that Cullen Murphy addressed your questions in his email to you.  We have also made the corresponding corrections to the online article (where people will be reading it), and appended a paragraph to the article, which details every correction.

All best,

Beth

I replied on June 10th:

Dear Ms. Kseniak,

Thank you for your response.

I believe you are referring to Mr. Murphy’s email to me from last October.  I honored his request to keep that email off the record.  Although you say it answered all my questions, I respectfully disagree. 

Some of the questions Mr. Murphy did not answer were about his initial statement to Poynter. This is the same statement Mr. Murphy later admitted to Poynter was an inadvertent “red herring.”  Mr. Murphy’s red herring remains the most detailed explanation that Vanity Fair has offered publicly about the accuracy of Mr. Bowden’s article.

Vanity Fair’s silence suggests the magazine is more concerned about protecting Mr. Bowden’s reputation than setting the record straight.  Given Mr. Bowden and Vanity Fair’s prominence, what the magazine publishes carries a great deal of weight.  It’s surprising to me that Mr. Carter, as editor in chief, wouldn’t be more concerned about the accuracy of Vanity Fair’s journalism.

It is true that Vanity Fair corrected a number of errors in the online edition, however, the correction was incomplete.  If Vanity’s Fair’s intent was to put the correction where people would read it, why not publish it in print?  Why is the online correction at the bottom of Mr. Bowden’s article, rather than the top?

I hope Mr. Carter will reconsider and respond to my questions. I hope to hear from him soon.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
Betsy A. Ross
Founder & Owner, Trials & Tribulations

Ms. Kseniak responded on June 12th:

Dear Ms. Ross,

We feel that we have, to our satisfaction, set the record straight, and done so in such a way that will reach future readers of the story in the best fashion. We would note that the small errors that have been corrected had no bearing on the thrust of Mark Bowden's story. Further, one of our editors wrote to you privately, many months ago, to provide background on the reporting and fact-checking. We really don't have anything else to say on the matter.

All best,

Beth

I replied on June 17th:

Dear Ms. Kseniak,

Thank you for your response.

Twice, you have referred to Mr. Murphy’s private email to me, as if it sufficiently explained the mistakes in Mr. Bowden’s article. This puts me in a difficult position journalistically. Obviously, Mr. Bowden’s article for Vanity Fair was published on the record. Mr. Murphy’s comments to Poynter were also on the record, as were my questions to Mr. Murphy. Nevertheless, Mr. Murphy chose to respond privately. 

To be clear, Mr. Murphy’s email did not answer any of the questions I asked him about Mr. Bowden’s article. Mr. Murphy seemed more concerned about protecting Mr. Bowden’s reputation than the accuracy of Vanity Fair’s journalism.

I respectfully disagree with your claim that the errors were small and “had no bearing on the thrust of Mark Bowden’s story.”  Among the facts that Mr. Bowden got wrong were when Lazarus’s relationship with the victim’s husband ended, and whether Lazarus took her gun to the interview. This last error, which I pointed out almost a year ago, remains uncorrected online.

The online version of Mr. Bowden’s article still includes numerous inaccurate quotes by Lazarus and the detectives. The discrepancies are more extensive than Mr. Murphy acknowledged to Poynter, and Vanity Fair has admitted to its readers. Anyone who watches the video and compares it to Mr. Bowden’s article can see they don’t match.

Are Vanity Fair’s editorial standards this lax for all of its journalists, or just Mr. Bowden?

I realize I can’t force Mr. Carter to answer my questions. However, I hope he will reconsider.  As before, I promise to publish in full any response that Vanity Fair sends me.

Sincerely,
Betsy A. Ross
Founder & Owner, Trials & Tribulations

That was two weeks ago. Mr. Bowden, Mr. Murphy, Ms. Kseniak and Mr. Carter all have my email address. I will update T&T readers if I hear from anyone at Vanity Fair.

To be continued....

Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus, Part VII

Complete Series on Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Article HERE.

Continued from Part VI...

As my readers know, the Rasmussen family's lawsuit against the LAPD ended on February 20th, when the California Supreme Court declined to take up the family's appeal. The California Courts of Appeal had rejected the Rasmussen's lawsuit in November 2012, on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired.

Thankfully, there is no statute of limitations on crimes against journalism, so I've decided to revisit this series.

Mark Bowden’s article on the Stephanie Lazarus case ran in the July 2012 issue of Vanity Fair.  The first time I read Bowden's article, something immediately struck me as off.  I began writing about it a few weeks later, pointing out a number of factual mistakes in Bowden's piece. I also pointed out a number of places in the article where Bowden's quotes did not match the official court transcript of Stephanie's 2009 pre-arrest interview. It was one of Bowden's misquotes that initially inspired me to fact-check the rest of the article. Vanity Fair did not respond or make any corrections.

A week later I wrote another post, raising more questions. Vanity Fair again ignored me.  Additional posts followed in July (Part III) and August (Part IV).  In September, Poynter picked up the story.  Craig Silverman's lengthy post included numerous quotes from Cullen Murphy, Bowden's editor at Vanity Fair, but no quotes from Bowden himself.  Vanity Fair offered a series of changing explanations for how Bowden's article came to be published with so many mistakes. Some of Vanity Fair's statements impugned my credibility, which I found ironic, since Craig Silverman's findings substantiated my claims. Cullen Murphy also told Poynter that at Vanity Fair, “We take fact-checking very seriously, and when issues arise we look into them carefully.”

After Poynter’s story ran, Vanity Fair quietly made some corrections to the online version of Bowden’s article but left many others uncorrected.  To date, Vanity Fair has refused to run any correction in the print magazine.

Last October, I contacted Cullen Murphy via email and tried to engage him. Murphy would not speak with me on the record about Bowden's article.  I expressed my interest in communicating with Bowden via email. I made it clear that I was very interested to hear from Bowden, but it would need to be on the record.

Through all of this, Bowden has been curiously silent. Until recently, I'd never met Mark Bowden.  For the record, I have nothing against him personally. I think he's an amazing storyteller. He's also a professor of journalism.  I thought I would try to contact him directly.

Through a source, I obtained Mark Bowden’s email address. I first emailed him on October 25th:

Dear Mr. Bowden,

I’m sorry I haven’t written you sooner.  I only recently learned your email address. 

I understand you were interested in having a conversation with me.  Was there something specific you wanted to ask or tell me?

Sincerely,
Betsy A. Ross, Owner
Trials & Tribulations Blog

When I didn’t hear back, I thought maybe I had his address wrong.  So I wrote him again on November 5th, this time cc’ing Cullen Murphy, whose email address I did have.

Dear Mr. Bowden,

I emailed you on October 25th (see below).  In case you missed it or I had your address wrong, I am cc-ing your editor at Vanity Fair, Cullen Murphy, who I corresponded with last month.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

Betsy A. Ross, Owner
Trials & Tribulations Blog

On November 9th, I tried one more time:

Dear Mr. Bowden,

I’m disappointed I’ve not heard back from you. 

Was there something specific you wanted to tell me? Is there anything at all you would like to say to my readers?

I hope to include your perspective in my next post.  If you respond by Tuesday evening, I will publish your response in full.

Sincerely,
Betsy A. Ross, Owner
Trials & Tribulations Blog

A week later I learned that Bowden's book tour for his latest book, The Finish, included a stop at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena on November 17th.  I thought I would take the opportunity to introduce myself to Bowden and see if he would engage me and hopefully speak on the record. I've always loved going to Vroman's, a literary landmark that’s been in business for 118 years.  I’ve been there many times to meet authors and get books signed.  I marked the date on my calendar.

That Saturday afternoon I arrived early at the bookstore and bought a copy of The Finish. Not knowing how Bowden would react when I introduced myself, I took a friend for moral support. I climbed the stairs to the lecture area and took a seat in the back row.  I got comfortable and waited for the lecture to begin.

Bowden spoke extemporaneously for half an hour about his book and his career in journalism. Bowden said something about his writing becoming history that seems relevant to his article on the Stephanie Lazarus case. He said, “I found over and over again in my career, that the story -- if I told a story well enough -- that it is remembered. And that it enters our popular memory. It becomes a piece of history.”

After Bowden's remarks and some audience questions, I got in the long line of people waiting to get their books signed.  It was evident that Bowden was enjoying the attention of his fans. The man in line in front of me was very excited to meet Bowden and asked for a picture with him.  Smiling, Bowden stood beside his fan for the photo op. And then it was my turn.  I stepped up to the table, smiled at Bowden and said, “I’m so glad I came to hear you speak today. Hello Mr. Bowden, I’m Betsy Ross, the blogger.”

Bowden's smile immediately left his face when I introduced myself.  “Oh... hi,” he replied.  I reminded Bowden that I had sent him some emails.  Bowden confirmed that he had received them by telling me,  “Well, you asked if I had any questions of you, and I don’t.” He then added: “But if you had any questions for me."  I asked him if he would answer an email. Bowden was non-committal. There were people waiting in line behind me, so I thanked Bowden and handed him my book.

The next day I wrote to Bowden again:

Dear Mr. Bowden,

I enjoyed listening to you speak at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena yesterday, as well as meeting you in person.

During our brief conversation, you said you had not replied to my earlier emails because you didn’t have questions for me. You then asked if I had any questions for you.  I have several questions about your article on the Stephanie Lazarus case.

In a story published by Poynter in late September, your editor at Vanity Fair, Cullen Murphy, provided the following detailed statement:

"The central charge made by T&T is that Mark Bowden does not accurately quote the interrogation of Stephanie Lazarus and in one instance even adds his own material. This is false... The author of the T&T post relied on a transcript of the interrogation. Bowden, rather than use some unknown person’s transcript—transcripts are notoriously unreliable—went to the actual videos of the interrogation to confirm his quotations. Further, to make sure the speakers were being identified correctly, the quotations were read back to Detectives Stearns and Jaramillo of the LAPD. When the article was published, Vanity Fair put the videos online to make the source readily available. On review, we confirmed that Bowden’s quotations are indeed accurate and that the transcript is not. (We did find that two sentences in a single quotation in the VF piece had been inadvertently transposed, with no impact on meaning.)"

In a second statement to Poynter, Murphy acknowledged “we were mistaken” and apologized for “inadvertently introducing a red herring.”

I don’t understand how such a detailed statement could be made inadvertently. Did you provide the information for Murphy’s initial statement? To your knowledge, is any part of Murphy’s initial statement true?

Are you aware that there are additional quotes you attribute to Stephanie Lazarus and Detectives Jaramillo and Stearns that do not match the video and official transcript? The official transcript I’m referring to was released to the public in November 2010, eighteen months before your article hit newsstands. Can you explain how these inaccurate quotes came to be published?   As a journalist, do you still stand behind your account of the interview?

Thank you for signing my book and I hope to hear from you soon.  If you respond by next Sunday (November 25th), I will include your full response in my next post.

Sincerely,
Betsy A. Ross, Owner
Trials and Tribulations

I'm still waiting to hear from Bowden. 

Continued in Part VIII....

Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus, Part VI

Complete Series on Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Article HERE.

Continued from Part V....

Yes T&T readers, there's still more to write about Mark Bowden's Curious Stephanie Lazarus article.

Bowden’s article ran in the July 2012 issue of Vanity Fair.  Late last month, Craig Silverman at Poynter published a detailed story investigating my claims about Bowden’s article.   I am very grateful to Craig for backing up my findings and getting some answers on the record from Vanity Fair.  It was from reading Craig’s article that I first learned the name of Mark Bowden’s editor, Cullen Murphy.   Speaking for Vanity Fair, Mr. Murphy told Poynter, “We’re always grateful to have errors called to our attention . . . We take fact-checking very seriously, and when issues arise, we look into them carefully.”

Some of Vanity Fair’s other quotes seemed odd to me, and raised additional questions I wanted to ask the magazine. A few days after Craig’s story was published, I emailed him for Cullen Murphy’s contact information.  Since Craig was away, I didn’t receive a response from him until October 10th. Craig told me his initial contact at Vanity Fair was Beth Kseniak, the magazine’s Executive Director of Public Relations.  I immediately sent Beth an email, introducing myself and asking her to forward my questions to Mr. Murphy.  I explained to Beth that I wanted to give Vanity Fair plenty of time to respond, and if Mr. Murphy replied by October 15th, I would include his answers in my next post.  Beth wrote me back that she had forwarded my email to Mr. Murphy.

Here is the email I sent to Mr. Murphy on October 10th:

Dear Mr. Murphy,

I’m sorry not to have introduced myself to you sooner.  I only learned your name recently, when I read Craig Silverman’s piece for Poynter.

I was glad to learn that Vanity Fair is always grateful to have errors pointed out, and that you take fact checking very seriously. Now that I know you are Mark Bowden’s editor at Vanity Fair, I wanted to ask you a few questions, and give you the opportunity to comment in my next post. 

When Poynter first contacted you, you told them:

“The central charge made by T&T is that Mark Bowden does not accurately quote the interrogation of Stephanie Lazarus and in one instance even adds his own material. This is false... The author of the T&T post relied on a transcript of the interrogation. Bowden, rather than use some unknown person’s transcript—transcripts are notoriously unreliable—went to the actual videos of the interrogation to confirm his quotations. Further, to make sure the speakers were being identified correctly, the quotations were read back to Detectives Stearns and Jaramillo of the LAPD. When the article was published, Vanity Fair put the videos online to make the source readily available. On review, we confirmed that Bowden’s quotations are indeed accurate and that the transcript is not. (We did find that two sentences in a single quotation in the VF piece had been inadvertently transposed, with no impact on meaning.)”

Poynter verified that the official transcript matched the video perfectly.  You then admitted you were mistaken and apologized for “inadvertently introducing a red herring.”

My questions are below.

1. In what way was your initial statement “inadvertent?” 

2. When did Bowden speak to Detectives Stearns and Jaramillo to verify their quotations? Did Bowden also ask the detectives about their experience interviewing Stephanie?

3. Why did Bowden use some unknown person’s transcript of Stephanie Lazarus’s interview, rather than the official court transcript which Judge Perry made public in November 2010?

4. Have all the quotations in Bowden’s article been checked against the official transcript?

You also told Poynter:

"Having gone back again to compare it’s hard to see a substantive issue. Much verbiage and crosstalk has been cut out for concision and clarity—pretty standard when dealing with a long, rambling, and shaggy interrogation—but the quotations used in Bowden’s text correspond with relevant portions of the video. Some things are hard to make out, and there may be an occasional small variance, but a fair reading would conclude that the quotes track accurately and correctly capture the dynamic of the interrogation. There has been no distortion."

5. The primary focus of Bowden’s piece is Stephanie’s Lazarus’s 2009 interrogation. Can you cite another piece of journalism in Vanity Fair, or any other publication, in which a “long, rambling, and shaggy interrogation” was compressed in this way, without disclosure that it had been?

You also told Poynter:

“We take fact-checking very seriously, and when issues arise we look into them carefully.”

6. How carefully has Vanity Fair looked into Bowden’s article?

7. Did Vanity Fair fact check Bowden’s article before it went to press?

In his article, Craig Silverman said he raised two errors with you. But I noticed Vanity Fair corrected four errors online.

8. How did Vanity Fair decide which errors to correct, and why did Vanity Fair only correct four?

9. Are you aware there are at least five more significant factual errors in Bowden’s article that remain uncorrected?

Thank you very much for your time. I would appreciate it if you could please respond by Wednesday, when I plan to publish. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,
Betsy A. Ross, Owner
Trials & Tribulations Blog

On October 15th, I received a reply from Cullen Murphy, in which he requested to respond “privately and off the record.” I wrote Murphy back the same day:

Mr. Murphy,

Thank you for your response. I will honor your request not to publish what you emailed me. However, I am disappointed by your decision not to comment on the record.

To be clear, my sole intent in writing this series has been to keep the public record as accurate as possible, given the very serious circumstances of Sherri Rasmussen’s murder. I appreciate the background you provided, but it doesn’t acknowledge the scope of the problems with Bowden’s article, the factual errors that remain uncorrected, or your recent statements to Poynter. 

I hope you will reconsider, and answer my questions on the record. I think my questions are very reasonable. I will give you and Vanity Fair a few more days to decide. Please respond by Wednesday evening if you would like your perspective in the post.

Sincerely,
Betsy A. Ross, Owner
Trials & Tribulations Blog

Mr. Murphy wrote me back two days later:

Dear Ms. Ross,

I'm sorry that you're unable to take up the offer to have a conversation with Mark Bowden, and I've passed that information along to him.

Sincerely,

Cullen Murphy

I responded the same day, October 17th:

Dear Cullen,

I think you may have misunderstood my email. I'm perfectly willing to have a conversation with Mark Bowden about his article, but not off the record.  For transparency's sake, and so there's no confusion about who said what, I prefer to communicate via email.

To confirm, you have forwarded my questions to Bowden?

I know I had offered Vanity Fair until tonight to comment, but in case Bowden only received the questions today, I want to give him and the magazine plenty of time to respond. If you or Bowden answer my questions by Friday, I will include your comments in my next post.

Sincerely,
Betsy A. Ross, Owner
Trials & Tribulations Blog

Later that day, I noticed that Vanity Fair added numerous additional corrections to the online version of Mark Bowden’s article.  Vanity Fair offered no explanation for the timing of these new corrections. I received one more email from Mr. Murphy on Friday, but again, he declined to speak on the record.

I have one additional question for Vanity Fair:

10. Are you aware that one of your recent corrections is factually inaccurate? John Ruetten and Stephanie Lazarus did not take a trip together to Hawaii.  Stephanie traveled to Hawaii with her friend Greg, and John Ruetten independently met them there. Stephanie discusses this in her interview (see pages 28-29 of the official court transcript).

Continued in Part VII.....

Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus, Part V

Continued from Part IV.....

Complete Series on Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Article HERE. 
UPDATE: 10/17: spelling of Murrow
UPDATE: October 17th, 2012: VANITY FAIR CORRECTS MORE ERRORS IN MARK BOWDEN'S ARTICLE

Vanity Fair quietly added numerous corrections to the online version of Mark Bowden's article.

Stay tuned for more on this series...

UPDATE 10/2/2012 Correct VF November 2007, to September 2007

UPDATE 10/1/2012
A few developments to tell T&T readers.  Last Friday,  Craig Silverman of Poynter.org, a journalism watchdog site published a story about this five part series.  Today, someone at Advance Publications, the parent company of Vanity Fair, visited T&T again from a link on Silverman's story.  They also hit the Stephanie Lazarus Quick Links page and searched T&T for the words "Vanity Fair."

T&T's StatCounter® Page

Here's a little known fact that my long-time readers might remember.  If you search Vanity Fair's website for the words "Betsy Ross," you will find that the late writer Dominck Dunne mentioned me in his story Cheating on Phil With Paris that appeared in Vanity Fair's September 2007 issue.

UPDATE 9/26/2012
Today, Advance Publications, the parent company of Vanity Fair revisited T&T several times via a link on Mark Bowden's Wikipedia page.

Screen shot of T&T Stat Counter Page

Originally Published September 20th, 2012
Back in June, when I first wrote about Mark Bowden’s article on the Stephanie Lazarus case in the July issue of Vanity Fair, I never thought I’d still be writing about it. But three months and many posts later, here we are.  As legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow once said: "The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer."

Late last week, I noticed that Vanity Fair quietly posted some corrections to the online version of Bowden’s article. To find the corrections, you must click through to the seventh page and scroll down to the very bottom.  Here is what they corrected:

An earlier version of this story misidentified Sherri Rasmussen's alma mater. It is Loma Linda University, not U.C.L.A. The date on which Stephanie Lazarus was mentioned in the case file is November 19, 1987, not November 19, 1986. A cup and straw introduced into evidence were used outside Costco, and not inside, and the DNA from the sample was identified two days later, not three days later.

I applaud Vanity Fair for correcting a few of the factual errors that I pointed out back in June. But what about the other ones?

Oddly, Vanity Fair did not to correct what might be Bowden’s most egregious misstatement of fact, that John Ruetten and Stephanie’s relationship ended in Hawaii in 1989. (Page 146: “Their relationship did not outlast the vacation.”)

Actually, as John testified over two days in February 2012, he and Stephanie reconnected in Los Angeles in the early 1990s and were sexually intimate at least twice.  It’s hard to imagine how Bowden and Vanity Fair’s fact checkers missed this.  John’s testimony was extensively covered by the media.  The Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times, The Criminal Report Daily, and other news outlets reported it.  It was heart wrenching to watch John admit, in front of Sherri Rasmussen’s family and dozens of strangers, that he had sex with Stephanie during his engagement and after the Hawaii trip.  Given that Bowden's article was published in the July issue of Vanity Fair, more than three months after Ruetten testified, how did Bowden get this wrong?  How can his editors defend not correcting it?

There are at least four other significant errors that Vanity Fair has not corrected:

Page 124: "Before they entered the holding area, as a matter of routine, they checked their weapons." Stephanie Lazarus left her weapon at her desk and was unarmed when she entered the jail (which by the way was on the second floor of Parker Center, and not in the "building's basement jail facility," as Bowden described it).

Page 126:  "The saliva swab showed that whoever had bitten Sherri's left forearm had a different blood type from hers." The bite mark swab, which was the crucial evidence in the case, was never tested for blood type in 1986.  It wasn’t tested at all until 2004, when it was tested for DNA, not blood type.

Page 148: "What did 'PO' mean? When they guessed 'police officer,' they ran the name through the department directory and came up with their esteemed colleague in the art-theft division." Van Nuys Homicide detectives never "guessed" Stephanie Lazarus was an LAPD officer. They were told that fact by John Ruetten.

Page 148: Mark Bowden asserts in his article:

Whoever had come looking for Sherri had come to kill her. Sherri had apparently run downstairs, trying to reach the panic button on the security panel. The killer pursued, and stopped her before she got there. They fought savagely. Sherri apparently managed to briefly wrest her assailant’s gun away and place her in a headlock. The killer then bit Sherri’s forearm to break free, and picked up the heavy gray ceramic vase from the living-room shelf and crashed it hard into her forehead. The blow was enough to daze Sherri, if not knock her to the floor. The killer then retrieved the gun and fired the first shot that hit Sherri. It went clean through Sherri’s chest. She began bleeding internally and would have had only minutes to live. She was down now for good. Using the blanket to muffle the sound, the killer then fired two more rounds into her chest, finishing the job.

There was no evidence presented at trial about Stephanie Lazarus's state of mind the morning she killed Sherri Rasmussen, or that she went to Sherri's home with the specific intent to kill her. Former FBI profiler and crime scene analyst Mark Safarik testified during the trial that it is impossible to know for certain the exact sequence of events that transpired when Sherri Rasmussen was killed. 

How does Mark Bowden know Stephanie Lazarus's state of mind the morning of the murder?  How did he reach his conclusions? 


Continued in Part VI.........

Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus, Part IV

Continued from Part III.....

Complete Series on Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Article HERE.
UPDATE: Monday, August 20th, 2012 11:30 PM

I had lots of traffic on the blog today from Advance Publications, the parent company of Vanity Fair.

T&T StatCounter® Screen Shots

As  you can see above, someone at Advance Publications and/or Vanity Fair reread Part I of this series on Monday at 10:48 AM PT.  A few minutes later,  someone read Part II. Shortly after noon, Part III and Part IV were  also read.  All told, between 10:48 AM and 3:44 PM, T&T received 26 visits from Advance Publications.

This puts to rest the question of whether Vanity Fair is aware of  the errors and fabricated quotes in Mark Bowden's article. Bowden and Vanity  Fair owe their readers an explanation.  
________

UPDATE: August 15th, for clarity

August 13th, 2012
With all the recent journalism stories about plagiarism and fabrication in the news, I thought it was time to revisit this series, Fact Checking Mark Bowden’s Curious Vanity Fair Article on the Sherri Rasmussen case.

Recap
Bowden’s story, A Case So Cold It Was Blue, appeared in the July 2012 issue of Vanity Fair, which hit newsstands in early June.  A week and a half later, the entire lengthy article – more than 9,500 words –went up on the Vanity Fair website, where it’s still online.

A few days later, on June 20th, I posted Part I of this series. Part I detailed numerous factual errors in the Vanity Fair article. Considering the subject, a murder committed by a LAPD detective, these were not insignificant mistakes. Among the facts Bowden gets wrong is what year Stephanie Lazarus’ sexual relationship with John Ruetten ended, as well as when lab testing was done of the bite-mark swab and what that testing revealed. None of these facts were late-breaking news. Stephanie Lazarus’ trial ended on March 8th, 2012, almost three months before Bowden's article. Part I also documented numerous places where Bowden misquotes Stephanie Lazarus’ June 2009 videotaped interview. In at least one instance, Bowden fabricated a line of dialogue that is never said, and does not appear in the video or transcript. The video and transcript have been public documents since November 2010.

In Part II, posted on June 26th, I questioned how Bowden was able to describe Lazarus’ private thoughts and feelings during the interview, and how he arrived at his characterizations of Lazarus' personality and career.

On July 2nd, Part III revealed that Bowden never interviewed any of the individuals involved in the case before publishing his article.

The August 2012 issue of Vanity Fair came out soon after the 4th of July.  Below is an image of page 47 of the August issue. Vanity Fair did correct one error from the July 2012 issue but nothing regarding Bowden’s article.

Vanity Fair August 2012, published corrections

To me, getting the facts right in a story involving the murder of an innocent woman by an active-duty police officer seems more important than some book title. But maybe that's just me. Since Vanity Fair is a magazine that has a long lead time, I thought it might take them a bit longer to verify all the errors I pointed out in Part I and run a correction.  So I waited for the September issue.

 

The September 2012 issue of Vanity Fair hit newsstands August 2nd.  Below is an image of page 152.  This time, Vanity Fair corrected another story from the July 2012 issue, but still nothing on Bowden's piece.

Vanity Fair September 2012, published corrections

Two issues of Vanity Fair have been published since Bowden’s article ran. In each one, corrections were made to other articles in the July 2012 issue. Neither of those corrections approach the seriousness of Sherri Rasmussen's case.

Does Vanity Fair Know?
Since I began this series six weeks ago, a few T&T readers have suggested I write a letter to Vanity Fair’s editor, pointing out the errors in Bowden's article.  The problem I have with that is the magazine’s letters policy, which you can read in the above images. I believe the best platform for my reporting is right here where it's always been, on my blog.

Besides, within a day of publishing Part I, I knew there was no need to send a letter to Vanity Fair, since they are well aware of my blog.

Part I went live on June 20th at 9:00 PM PST. Below is a screenshot of my Statcounter® log showing a visitor from "Advance Publications" the very next morning, to my first post on Bowden's article.  The parent company of Vanity Fair is Advance Publications. As the image shows, there have been other visits from Advance Publications since then.

T&T StatCounter®

Since it's clear that Vanity Fair is aware of the factual misstatements in their Lazarus article, when will the magazine acknowledge them, and offer an explanation as to what went wrong? How did those altered quotes make it into print? Did Vanity Fair's fact checking department drop the ball, or did Bowden overrule them?  This Vanity Fair reader is waiting to know.

Stephanie Lazarus Trial Quick Links -- Complete Case Coverage

Continued in Part V.....

Going to Court: Gerhard Becker, Kelly Soo Park, Lonnie Franklin, Jr., Etc.

 "Grim Sleeper" Lonnie David Franklin, Jr., 

alleged serial killer on July 8th, 2010. Photo: KTLA.

UPDATE: spelling, clarity

July 11th, 2012
I drove into downtown Los Angeles yesterday morning to attend pre trial hearings in the Kelly Soo Park case, as well as Lonnie Franklin, Jr.'s case, dubbed "The Grim Sleeper" back in 2008 by the LA Weekly's Christine Pelisek.  Here is wikipedia's page on Franklin and there is also a web site dedicated to all things 'Grim Sleeper', apparently run by a Brit across the pond.  Franklin is an alleged serial killer, who targeted victims in South Los Angeles. Park is charged with the 2008 murder of Juliana Redding.  I missed the June 11th hearing in Park's case, however, blogger Lonce LaMon has also been covering Juliana Redding's murder.

My car-- that had a cerebral aneurysm back on February 6th --is finally running like a dream again.  An engine shop rebuilt the head and Mr. Sprocket recently overhauled the air-conditioning system. It's so nice to have wheels again and not have to ride in the White Whale Work Truck to the train or bus station.

As I start my walk up Broadway from the budget parking lot to the rear entrance of the criminal court building, I realize how quickly I've gotten out of shape by not going to court and getting in a daily brisk walk.   Memo to self, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get walking again.

As I start to approach the corner of First and Broadway, all the construction walls are down around the LA Law Library and the entire building is now a eye-popping burnt orange.  Although I'm across the street, it appears that the half walls around the front entrance stairs on First Street are dressed in dull black stone -- but it could be colored cement; I can't tell.  I'm still debating on whether I like the new look of the building or not.  The color really makes you step back and go "Whoa!"

Behind the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, (CJC) construction workers are putting the finishing touches on the new "Grand Park" that extends across Broadway behind the Hall of Records and beyond to Grand Avenue.  The previous "court of flags" flag poles are already repositioned along Broadway from their original location directly behind the Hall of Records. The construction screens are down from around the back entrance of CJC and I get my first view of this portion of the new park space.

It's about 8:10 AM, and as I enter the security screening line, I see handsome LAPD Robbery - Homicide Division (RHD) Detective Dan Jaramillo from the Stephanie Lazarus case carrying a thick, heavy looking binder.  I smile and give him a little wave, and he smiles back as he walks past me to the entrance for officers.  As I reach the elevator bay, the area is packed.  There are two elevators that have lights lit up but the doors are closed; a good bet that they might not be working.  One could easily wait 20 minutes or more for a crammed sardine space in these ancient lifts.  (The elevators in this building are a curse. They are outdated and need to be replaced, but the county is broke and closing courtrooms; more on that in a bit.) With the packed elevator lobby, I quickly see I need to pick an elevator, stand in front of it and just wait.  The hope is the elevator you're standing in front of will open sooner rather than much later.

I finally get on the 9th floor and clear security.  I make my way down the right wing of the hallway to Department 109, Judge Kathleen Kennedy's courtroom.  There are only a few people waiting in the hall and one of them is wearing a juror badge.  After a few moments I see Detective Jaramillo standing down by the center of the hallway, directly in front of Dept. 104, Judge Perry's courtroom.  Jaramillo is chatting with a man sitting on the bench wearing a dark shirt and the word 'POLICE' in bright yellow across the back.  I know that Jaramillo is no longer in RHD's "Homicide Special." He's now in the sister-unit Robbery Special.  I'm betting he's here to testify in a robbery case in Perry's court.

As my eyes are wandering around this end of the hallway, I notice that next door to Judge Kennedy's courtroom, there is a newspaper article taped to Judge Lance Ito's courtroom door. It's an article from the Orange County Register with a very large photo of Judge Ito and a sub heading in the article highlighted indicating that Judge Ito's courtroom is closing.  With the budget crisis facing the state and virtually every county, the Los Angeles County Superior Court has cut back staff and closed courtrooms.  I don't know anything about the Superior Court's decision making process as to which courtrooms to close, but sources tell me there was no private notification given to Judge Ito; there was just a mass E-mail sent out notifying court staff of the closures.  I believe his last courtroom day was Friday, July 6th.  Although Ito has lost his courtroom and staff, he's still a working Judge.  It's my understanding he will be assigned administrative tasks and fill in for a courtroom when there is an absence.

The District Attorney's office calendar notice for today indicated there was a hearing in Dept. 107, Judge Michael Pastor's courtroom (the other end of the long hallway) in the Christian Gerhartstreiter case today.  I thought that I might spot a bunch of media down there but that end of the hallway was just as vacant.  (Unfortunately, I'm only one person; I can't be in two courtrooms at once.)

An ABC reporter shows up talking on their smart phone.  I overhear him mention "Lisa" and I'm betting he's talking about my friend Lisa Tomaselli, a producer with ABC's 20/20.  When he sits down beside me I chat with him a bit.

A pretty bottle blond wearing quite a figure revealing outfit of pants and a white linen top strolls down this end of the hallway. She has a pink protector case for the smart phone she's holding in her hand.  With her hair pulled back in a ponytail, I know immediately that she's with some news agency, but I've never seen her before.

During the Conrad Murray preliminary hearing and subsequent trial, there used to be signs up every couple yards notifying people no photography allowed.  Most are all gone now but there is still one small 8 x 11 sign up at this end of the hallway.  The bottle blond gets up from her bench seat across the hall from me, stands in the middle of the hallway and aims her smart phone at the courtroom doors for Department's 101 and 102, clearly taking a picture.  I immediately speak up and tell her she can't take photographs.  She first responds to me with, "That's only inside the courtrooms."  (I will not share the negative thought that went through my head at that moment.)  I inform her, "You can't photograph anywhere inside the building."  She goes back and sits down on her bench seat and is looking at her smart phone. With my past experience of being photographed in this same hallway and all the drama that surrounded that event, I also add, "You can't publish that."  She responds back with, "I know what I'm doing," and I successfully stifle myself from laughing out loud.

Over the last ten minutes or so, several of Kelly Soo Park's supporters show up.  Park arrives on the floor around 8:30 AM.  Kelly receives hugs from several of her supporters.  She's wearing tasteful black slacks and black heels. Her blouse has blue and white narrow pinstripes, long-sleeves with stark white cuffs, collar and placket.  Her counsel George W. Buehler and Mark M. Kassabian arrive not long after.  The courtroom finally opens and Park and most everyone else in the hallway enters Dept. 109.  At first, I wait in the hallway a bit to see who from the prosecution team will be attending the hearing.  There was an older black woman on the hallway bench next to mine, who was talking on her cell phone when I first arrived.  I overheard her mention that she would be at each and every court hearing for the "Grim Sleeper." I'm betting that she is related to one of his many victims.  When the courtroom opened she entered Dept. 109 and took a seat in the second row next to me.

Already inside the well of the court are Franklin's attorney's.  The one male attorney I've seen several times in Dept. 30.  I'm betting he is not with the public defender's office, but along with his co-counsel, a woman, has been assigned by the court to represent Franklin. (When the hearing was over I followed them out and obtained their business cards:  Seymour I. Amster, office in Van Nuys and Louisa Pensanti, office in Sherman Oaks.

As I take a seat in the second row, two more older black women enter and greet the woman who is sitting to my left.  It's a good bet these are relatives of Franklin's many victims.  Judge Kennedy's same bailiff she had during the James Fayed case is still assigned to her courtroom.  Another female bailiff enters and I watch both sheriff's put their weapons inside the wall mounted black security box before they enter the jail area for a short time.

Santa Monica Detective Karen Thompson enters and takes a seat in the well of the court near the podium.  Lisa Tomaselli enters the courtroom and greets Park.  I catch her eye, she smiles and comes over to sit next to me.  I'm happy to see her and we catch up on what's new.  Lisa's crew is waiting for their cameraman to show up.  They have a formal media request in with Judge Kennedy to film the proceedings.  Kennedy is a more modern judge and she signs the order but the bailiff warns Lisa's associate that the camera operator has to be here on time and all set up in the jury box before Judge Kennedy takes the bench.  Apparently, the cameraman is stuck either in the lobby or an elevator.

As I look around the courtroom, I see the pretty Dateline producer "Luce" (sp?) in the back row near the door.  DDA Eric Harmon enters the courtroom.  I'm surprised because I thought he would have been sworn in as a new judge by now.  Harmon, Thompson and the defense team leave the courtroom via the door by the jury box.  It's likely they are all going to the jury room to speak privately.

More people show up for the Franklin hearing and Lisa and I scoot down to make room for them so they can all sit together.  While we wait, DDA Beth Sliverman enters Dept 109 and greets the many people in the gallery. At first, I didn't recognize her.  Silverman and her co-counsel, another woman whose name I miss hearing are prosecuting Franklin.

I guess that since the Kelly Soo Park case attorneys are still outside the courtroom, the bailiff's bring out Lonnie Franklin first.  Judge Kennedy comes out and takes the bench. She has lost more weight and looks fantastic.  She actually looks younger.

Lonnie Franklin, Jr.
Amster starts off by claiming the prosecution's office has not provided the defense with all the discovery they said they did.  He tried contacting the prosecutor and asking for the specific page numbers (Bate stamp numbers) but these two were never able to reach a connection.  It appears there is a name of an individual that the defense states the prosecution did not give them any documentation on.  (The defense says the name is Sharm (sp?) DeSmoki (sp?) the prosecution contends there is a separate murder book for a Sharon (sp?) Demukey (sp?) but I can't find a similar name attached to Lonnie Franklin on the web.)

When one party wanted a call back on a certain date, the other wasn't available.  Because of this, the defense now is asking for another month to go back through all their discovery to locate the pages they feel the prosecution didn't give them.  There's a bit of back and forth from the defense and prosecution.

Judge Kennedy finally has enough of it and tells them in an I've had enough of this tone, "You're acting like children! (snip) I'm ordering you to go upstairs and work this out. (snip) I don't want this to be a personality driven case. (snip) Leave your ego at the door! (snip) I want you four to get together and figure out who this (person?) is and be back here in half an hour.

Kelly Soo Park
So while this is going on, ABC is in luck. Their cameraman finally shows up.  DDA Harmon and Park's counsel are still in the jury room but not long after Judge Kennedy leaves the bench they emerge and have a sidebar with Judge Kennedy.  I think I overhear the words "...set a date.."

The case now goes on the record.  Judge Kennedy states the defense is making a request for more discovery.  I believe Harmon states he's filed his own motion and needs further time to (research? reference?) and see (?)...

It's a good guess that the private discussion had to do with DNA that the defense want to test that the people have control over.  Timing is everything.  That evidence has to be turned over and I'm guessing, an individual chosen to observe the defense testing, or an outside lab selected that is acceptable by both parties.

My notes don't state who specifically mentions that there are other discovery issues that the prosecution and defense are working out informally (regarding? testing?) and won't need to involve the court.

Judge Kennedy asks how soon the parties can bring this case to trial.

One of the defense attorneys states they have another trial already scheduled for mid November, "But we would target this case after that case...." 

I believe the defense mentions a return date of August 17th to keep the case tracked and the calendar set at 0-60 on that date.  Judge Kennedy mentions something about more forensic testing if the defense seeks for it to be tested.  She addresses Park and asks her if she waives her right to a speedy trial, to return to court on August 17th.  Park answers, "Yes."

At some point, Judge Kennedy asks Harmon about the prosecution's readiness, once he is off the case and Harmon informs the court that the prosecution is ready with another attorney to step in and take over.  His leaving will not affect the prosecution's readiness to proceed.

And that's it for Park.

Gerhard Becker, Vanity Fair Photo Shoot
I head toward the elevators looking for my friend Matthew McGough who was on the 5th floor in Dept. 30, following the Becker case.  I find him in the elevator bay, chatting with Detective Dan Jaramillo, who had just finished testifying in Judge Perry's courtroom in a multi-robbery case. Matthew quickly gets me up to speed on Becker. The preliminary hearing was supposed to start today but that's been set aside.  Becker has obtained new counsel, Donald Re. (I could not find a business web page for him. Sprocket.) I take the opportunity to ask Dan several questions about the Vanity Fair photo shoot with photographer Platon (pronounced Plah-tone), who Vanity Fair flew out from New York to take his and Detective Greg Stearns photo. Mark Bowden was not present for the photography sessions with the detectives.  I make sure to tell Dan that at least one T&T reader was glad to see the easy on the eyes photo of him.

With his new counsel notification accepted by the court, Becker's next hearing is now scheduled for September 6th, 2012 in Dept. 30. 

Lonnie Franklin, Jr., Part II
After saying goodbye to Detective Jaramillo, Matthew and I pass through 9th floor security and back towards Dept. 109 for the Franklin hearing.  Interestingly Assistant District Attorney Pat Dixon  enters Dept. 109 alongside Beth Silverman.  Once Matthew and I take a seat inside Dept. 109, I ask Matthew if he knows the names of the LAPD detectives who are here.  Matthew points out RHD Detective Dennis Kilcoyne (pronounced kill-coin) who he believes worked on the Grim Sleeper task force.  Matthew also said that Kilcoyne was a detective at Hollywood Homicide with Rick Jackson before joining RHD.

Back on the record, Amster tells Judge Kennedy that after meeting with the prosecutors they believe they will be able to resolve the earlier issue by this afternoon.  Amster states they will come up with a procedure to deal with discovery issues and won't have to litigate them in front of Judge Kennedy in the future.

There is some discussion about having the defense investigators meet with the prosecution's investigators.  The defense is suggesting a return date of August 29th for the court to monitor the case and time to file additional motions.  Silverman states that date is not good since she's out of town.  There's a bit of back and forth to pick a new date and August 30th is agreed with the calendar clock set at 0-60 on that date.  Franklin is asked if he waives his right to a speedy trial and to return to court on that date.  "Yes, your honor," Franklin replies.

Judge Kennedy then asks the parties if they have a realistic estimate as to the length of the trial.  The defense first states, "No, your honor."  After a few more questions from Judge Kennedy, Amster feels that this will be a six month trial.  Silverman's estimate is that it will be a two-to-three month case.  Silverman adds that it's a forensic case. There's not a ton of witnesses that are not experts..."

Judge Kennedy asks the parties to seriously consider pre screened jurors and the defense and prosecution agree with that.  And that was it for Franklin. 

Dropping in on Dept. 104, Judge Perry's Courtroom
Matthew asked if I was interested in dropping in on Judge Perry's courtroom to hear a bit of the case that Detective Jaramillo was involved in.  We enter as quietly as we can and sit in the back row.  One of the first things I notice is that there are only 14 jurors in the jury box.  This tells me that it's not a murder case.

There is a witness on the stand and a video up on the overhead screen of a robbery in progress.  It's video from a security camera inside the cash vault/office of a ROSS Dress for Less store.  The witness on the stand identifies one of the defendants "Williams" as the one who tied her up (she's in the video) and had the gun.  Here's the story I was able to gather from testimony.  An (former?) employee of the Ross stores and a (former?) employee of Dominoes Pizza hatch a plan to rob several Ross Dress for Less stores.  I believe a total of five stores were targeted on two different days (one on the Fourth of July and the others over Labor Day, 2010). Three robbery attempts were successful.  The witness on the stand indicated the tally for the robbery of her store was approximately $45,000.00, a typical amount for a three-day holiday.

The plan went like this.  The robbers entered the store wearing Dominoes Pizza uniforms provided by the (former?) Dominoes employee.  The robbers enter the store and claim that Ross upper management (knowing the names of several corporate managers via the (former?) Ross employee) has, ordered Pizza's for specific employees (I'm guessing those who were in charge of the office/vault).  Once they gained entry to the office cash vault area, they robbed the store. The witness on the stand testifies about picking one of the defendants out of a photo array.

In my opinion, the store employees who were robbed were lucky no one was injured.

When the morning break is called, Matthew goes over to chat with Judge Perry's court reporter, Beth, where the topic quickly turns to the next court staff cutbacks that are expected at the end of the year.

After we say our goodbyes to Beth, we make our way to the back of the building to visually take in the section of Grand Park behind CJC.  I'm not impressed with the new space at all.  A few small trees, one decent sized tree, a few cement paths, not nearly enough benches.  The county did not need a park here.  There was plenty of public space around City Hall.  What the public needed was an adequate parking facility to service CJC to replace the parking lot that used to be in the same space.  Affordable budget parking for CJC is at best two blocks away, up an incline but I guess a "park" looks better that a parking structure.

Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus, Part III

Editorial cartoon © 2012 by Thomas Broersma (thomasbroersma@yahoo.com). All rights reserved by the artist. Full disclosure: This drawing is satire, not investigative journalism. It is unknown if CA inmate # WE4479 is a Vanity Fair subscriber.

Complete Series on Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Article HERE.

Continued from Part II...

I am not a famous writer. I don't have an editor, a fact-checker, or an unlimited budget.

I'm just a semi-retired housewife with a blog. However, I attended every hearing in the Lazarus case since February 2011. Watching the trial and getting to know many of the people impacted by Sherri Rasmussen's murder was an extremely intense and heart wrenching experience. I have such respect for the Rasmussen family, the attorneys, and all the LAPD detectives who worked on this case.

Since I published Part I and Part 2 of my review of Mark Bowden's article on the Lazarus case in the current issue of Vanity Fair, several T&T readers have asked if Mark Bowden attended the trial. As far as I know, Bowden did not attend a single court hearing between Stephanie's arrest in June 2009 and her sentencing in May 2012.

Robbery-Homicide Division Detectives Gregory Stearns and Dan Jaramillo are the stars of Bowden's article.  As anyone who's watched the video knows, their interrogation of Stephanie Lazarus was masterful and truly one for the textbooks. Reading the article, I found it strange that Bowden repeatedly got inside Stephanie's head, but not Stearns or Jaramillo. Bowden does not quote either RHD detective, except off the video tape which Judge Perry released to the public in November 2010.

Given the curious absence of Stearns and Jaramillo's personal perspectives, I had to wonder: Did Bowden interview them about their experience that day? So I made a few calls.

I began with Detective Stearns. I can confirm that he was not interviewed for the Vanity Fair article.

I then decided to dig a little deeper, and can report to my readers that none of the following people were interviewed by Bowden:

• Robbery-Homicide Detective Dan Jaramillo.

• Detectives Rob Bub, James Nuttall, Marc Martinez or Pete Barba (the Van Nuys Homicide Unit that solved the case).

• Retired LAPD Detective Phil Morritt (who apparently checked out physical evidence in 1993).

• Anyone in the Rasmussen family: Nels, Loretta, or Sherri's sisters, Teresa and Connie.

• John Ruetten, Sherri Rasmussen's widower.

• Jayne Goldberg, Sherri's closest friend.  

• Deputy District Attorneys Shannon Presby or Paul Nunez.

• John Taylor, the Rasmussen family attorney.

• Stephanie Lazarus' defense attorney Mark Overland.

• Stephanie Lazarus.

Since Bowden didn’t attend the trial, and didn’t interview any of the principals above, it begs the question: What did Mark Bowden base his article on?  The article doesn't say, and this Vanity Fair reader would love to know.

....Continued in Part IV....

Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus, Part II

Cover of Vanity Fair's July 2012 issue.

Complete Series on Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Article HERE.
UPDATE June 27th, 2012: for correction of rebuttal date

This has been a busy month for news in the Stephanie Lazarus case.
First, Mark Bowden’s long rumored article on the Lazarus case was published in the July issue of Vanity Fair.  The full article went up on VanityFair.com on June 14th. On June 2oth, I obtained Stephanie's prison booking photo.  Later that same day, I posted Part I of my review of Bowden's Vanity Fair article, in which I set the record straight on numerous factual errors.

Reading the Vanity Fair article, I had to wonder about some of Bowden's more subjective descriptions of Stephanie Lazarus.

I can hear it now that some people will say that these criticisms are not nearly as black and white as the factual errors and deviations from the official transcript of Stephanie's interview. However, having sat through the entire trial, a few passages made me scratch my head in puzzlement. For example:

Stephanie Lazarus’ LAPD Career
Here is the second paragraph in Bowden’s article, where he describes Stephanie's career:

Vanity Fair Article Page 124:

Deputy District Attorney Shannon Presby has been involved in the prosecution of the case ever since Lazarus’ arrest in June 2009.  It would be my guess that during the nearly three years of extensive preparation the prosecution conducted in this case, Presby and his co-counsel, DDA Paul Nunez, probably better than anyone, had a deep understanding as to who Lazarus was and what her colleagues thought of her. On March 5th, 2012, in his closing rebuttal argument at the end of the trial, DDA Presby described Lazarus’ LAPD career for the jury with these words:

"You've heard she was a police officer, she was well liked by her family and friends. That's it. You haven't heard anything about the defendant that makes her exceptional in any way. You have the defendant's personnel file. It's been marked in evidence, introduced by the defense. Look at it. Look at her commendations. What are they? Does it say anywhere in there, 'Oh, Stephanie Lazarus caught a serial killer'? No. 'Solved a murder case?' No. 'Stephanie Lazarus helped out with a barbecue. Stephanie Lazarus helped out with a golf tournament.' I don't want to be cruel, but at best she was a B, nothing exceptional..."

During the trial, numerous LAPD officers (both on-the-job and retired) who were reading my coverage of the case contacted me. I was also contacted by several T&T readers outside the LAPD who knew Stephanie and shared with me their impressions. Her LAPD colleagues described her to me as dedicated and hard working. One told me Stephanie was “like a dog with a bone," when it came to working her cases. Several officers told me about her hyperactive personality, which was reflected in her nicknames: "Crazy Steph" and "Snacks."  Not a single LAPD officer described her to me as anything like "legendary," "perfection," or “a privilege to know.”

My question is, who did Bowden speak to that described Stephanie Lazarus in this way?  The article doesn’t say.

Inside Stephanie Lazarus' Mind
In numerous places in his Vanity Fair article, Bowden ascribes thoughts and feelings to Lazarus during her pre arrest interview.  Here are a few:

Vanity Fair Article Page 124:

Vanity Fair Article Page 125:

Vanity Fair Article Page 128:

Vanity Fair Article Page 129:

How did Bowden get inside Stephanie Lazarus’ head? Is it possible he scored an interview with Stephanie? The article leaves the impression he did, but it doesn’t say either way.  I for one, would love to know.

Continued in Part III....

Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus

Complete Series on Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Article HERE.
UPDATE: June 21st, 2012 10:00 AM, for clarity
UPDATE: June 22nd, 2012 1:30 AM, to Factual Error #7 
UPDATE: June 23rd, 2012 7:00 PM
ADDITIONAL Factual Error #8

I confess I’m a long time reader of Vanity Fair. I’ve always considered it a quality magazine with experienced, talented investigative journalists. I would wait with anticipation when the next issue came out just to read Dominick Dunne’s coverage of the latest high profile trial he was attending.  One of the things I learned sitting next to him for many months in the first Phil Spector trial was getting the story right. I remember the disappointed expression Dominick had on his face when he told me he wouldn’t be at court the next day because he had to spend time with his editor and fact checker before his next article went to press. Although he would miss a day of court, Dominick knew how important it was to accurately source his material and get the facts straight.

So when I finally got a copy of the July 2012 issue of Vanity Fair and read Mark Bowden’s lengthy article on the Stephanie Lazarus case -- which I covered -- I was puzzled because it raised a lot of troubling questions.

When I first read Bowden's article something struck me as slightly off.  It had to do with the quoted statements of Lazarus and the detectives.  Initially, I thought it was just a matter of Bowden dropping words or smoothing out the dialogue for readability.  Then I consulted the transcript of the interrogation and compared what was actually said to the dialogue Bowden quotes in his Vanity Fair article. In multiple places, they do not line up. In at least one instance, Bowden actually adds a line of dialogue that does not appear in the video or transcript. Here is the first dialogue quoted in Vanity Fair:

Vanity Fair Article Page 124:

Page 9 of the Official Transcript, Video Time 01:06

 

Vanity Fair Article Page 124:

Page 10 of the Official Transcript, Video Time 01:36

Vanity Fair Article Page 125:

Bowden shuffled the sequence of what was actually said. Note the numbers of the transcript pages below.
Page 14 of the Official Transcript, Video Time 04:13

Page 17 of the Official Transcript, Video Time 07:31

Page 16 of the Official Transcript, Video Time 05:57

Page 19 of the Official Transcript, Video Time 08:51

Factual Errors
I am also compelled to set the record straight regarding multiple factual errors I noticed in the article. 

#1.Vanity Fair Article Page 124: 

 When Stephanie Lazarus left her desk to accompany Detective Jaramillo to the interview room in the jail, she did not bring her weapon with her. 

#2. Vanity Fair Article Page 125:

Sherri Rasmussen's sister, Teresa Lane, verified for me that at age 16, Sherri Rasmussen enrolled in a nursing program at Loma Linda University. Years later, she worked as a nurse at U.C.L.A. Medical Center. 

#3. Vanity Fair Article Page 129: 

The sole mention of Stephanie Lazarus in the Rasmussen case file is a chrono entry on November 19th, 1987.  This document was entered into evidence at trial. (Address and phone numbers have been redacted for privacy.) The first entry on that page, dated 11/18, notes the Rasmussen family is flying into Los Angeles on "11/23/87" for a press conference. The press conference was reported on in the Los Angeles Times on November 24th, 1987.  
Rasmussen Case File Chronological Record Document

#4. Vanity Fair Article Page 146:

Sherri Rasmussen’s widower, John Ruetten testified on February 15th, 2012 and February 16th, 2012.  Ruetten said he reconnected with Lazarus in Hawaii in 1989.  Ruetten testified that during the following year and a half, he and Stephanie were sexually intimate on two occasions.

#5. Vanity Fair Article Page 148

There was no evidence presented at trial that proved Lazarus came to Sherri's home that day with the specific intention to kill her. Former FBI profiler and crime scene analyst Mark Safarik testified for the prosecution on February 24, 2012, the 26th anniversary of the murder. I remember that was a very difficult day for the Rasmussen family.  In Safarik's analysis of the case file -- the evidence, the crime scene photographs, and after visiting the scene of the crime -- he testified that it is impossible to know for certain the exact sequence of events that transpired when Sherri Rasmussen was killed.

#6. Vanity Fair Article Page 148:

 
Van Nuys Homicide Detectives confirmed to me that John Ruetten informed them in 2009 that his former girlfriend Stephanie Lazarus was an LAPD officer.  When the detectives ran Lazarus’ name through Groupwise, the LAPD's E-mail directory, they saw that she was still on the job and worked downtown in Commercial Crimes. Not a single member of the Van Nuys Homicide Unit recognized her name or in any way considered her an "esteemed colleague." 

#7. Vanity Fair Article Page 148:

UPDATE: June 22nd, 2012 1:30 AM
Clip #7 from Vanity Fair, (above) has been updated to include a few more lines of text.

On February 9th, 2012,  undercover Detective Roberto Morales, testified that Lazarus was sitting outside in the Costco food court when he observed her drinking from a cup with a lid and straw.   After she threw the cup in the trash and walked away Morales retrieved the discarded cup.

In Matthew McGough's article on the Lazarus investigation, published in the June 2011 issue of  The Atlantic magazine, he reported that the cup and straw with Lazarus's DNA were collected on May 27th, 2009, and the crime lab completed its DNA analysis two days later on May 29th, 2009.

On February 9th, 2012, Sergeant James Hensley confirmed on the witness stand that he delivered the cup and straw to the crime lab on May 27th, 2009.  Later in the trial, Detective Greg Stearns testified that he was assigned the case on May 29th, 2009. This was the same day that the DNA results were confirmed. A special thank you to T&T reader and commenter "EvictObama" for drawing my attention to this additional factual error in Mark Bowden's Vanity Fair article.

UPDATE: June 23rd, 2012 7:00 PM
Additional Factual Error

#8. Vanity Fair Article Page 126:

Bowden appears to be talking about the 1986 investigation, yet the "saliva swab" was not tested in 1986.  The "saliva swab" was not located until December 2004 after a search of the Los Angeles County Coroner's freezers. The swab was never tested for blood type. It was tested for DNA in February 2005. 

Continued in Part II....