A Case So Cold It Was Blue

June 20, 2012 1:54 PM

"A Case So Cold It Was Blue" is about Sherri Rasmussen's unsolved murder.

The interrogation video.

posted by Avenger50 (17 comments total)

Previously (a different article from before the trial).
posted by dsfan at 1:58 PM on June 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

At the end of the interrogation she's pretty much decided she needs a lawyer. :-/ It's pretty clear that after years and years of trying to put it behind her, the questioning really took her off guard. Plus the fact that these guys are in her own department...
posted by circular at 2:03 PM on June 20, 2012

Conclusion: never, ever talk to the cops. Even if you are a cop.
posted by valkyryn at 2:20 PM on June 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

Conclusion: never, ever talk to the cops. Even if you are a cop.

How about never, ever murder anyone?
posted by Edgewise at 2:31 PM on June 20, 2012 [5 favorites]

The article's OK but pretty much recapitulates the LA Times multi-parter, if you read that at the time. I expected more from Bowden.
posted by dhartung at 2:31 PM on June 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

After reading the article, watching the video was almost surreal. She was certainly a cool cucumber about it, even toward the end of the interrogation.
posted by xingcat at 2:46 PM on June 20, 2012

The video blew my mind. It's hard to reconcile the personality there with what she apparently did. Also, never talk to the police, even (especially?) if you're innocent.

Don't know how I managed not to hear about this until now...
posted by jewzilla at 2:59 PM on June 20, 2012

So SNL had a skit where californians always talk about directions on highways? I heard "the 405 to 5..." and couldn't not chuckle at that...
posted by symbioid at 3:11 PM on June 20, 2012

What's with the absurd photographs of all the police? Bowden only writes them as perfunctory hinges in the case anyway, not as people in of themselves who interest the reader. They suggest some concerted league of super detectives, and it hardly reads that way, especially in a police force of obviously lingering malfeasance.
posted by dougmoon at 4:23 PM on June 20, 2012

It's Vanity Fair. It's what they do. (Vague shrug, shaking of head, casting about.) That's all I got. At least someone got paid, which is more than one can say about most editorial photography.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:32 PM on June 20, 2012

How about never, ever murder anyone?

The two are not mutually exclusive. Never murder anyone and, whether or not you murder anyone, never ever talk to the cops.
posted by Justinian at 7:11 PM on June 20, 2012

She reads to me in the video like someone who is very flustered and caught off guard, and really quite defensive but trying to hold it back. Not cool as cucumber at all, really.
posted by Felicity Rilke at 8:43 PM on June 20, 2012

It's the exaggerated "oh jeez, can I remember that?" thinking face she has so often throughout.
posted by Felicity Rilke at 8:45 PM on June 20, 2012

I agree. I thought she was over-explaining every time they asked her question. And in the beginning of the video, when she realized she was being questioned, you could see her chest heaving up and down, trying to catch her breath.
posted by SweetTeaAndABiscuit at 9:14 PM on June 20, 2012

And that's why I'd make a lousy detective. "You say you didn't do it? Sounds right to me! On your way, then!"
posted by xingcat at 6:50 AM on June 21, 2012

It's a strange, sad case. The strong implication of internal coverup is the most interesting thing about it... that, and the fact that Lazarus' arrest leaves LAPD with just one experienced art theft detective--the senior one, who will likely retire soon.
posted by Scram at 12:49 PM on June 22, 2012

Wow. I wouldn't have expected such poor fact-checking from Vanity Fair.
posted by Scram at 12:12 PM on June 25, 2012