They asked about her parents, the way interviewers ask about parents when they are mapping a life and also mapping who might still be around to be asked. Her mom was still around. Her dad too. But she did not really have that much of a relationship with her dad. She could not tell them where he lived if they wanted to know.
Then they came back, because the cars had done their work. If they were looking at the case, and they had read the notes from Sherri’s friends saying the two of them had problems, that words got heated, the reason they were asking was that those friends had mentioned an incident at her work, and they had also said an incident at her house occurred. During the period of time that John and Sherri were married. That was just not sounding familiar at all. If someone said she was at her house and she had an incident with her, that just did not sound familiar. Was John there? Did John say this happened? Were other people there? She just did not recall. It did not sound familiar. And this was an incident where she showed up, she was not supposed to show up, and things got heated. At his house? It just did not sound familiar. Nothing? No. Not at all. Now she was saying not familiar because it did not, or because she did not remember? She would have to say she did not remember, because she did not remember. That did not sound familiar. Would she remember something like that in her life? Sort of drama. The other-woman type of thing. She would think so. Did she have a fight with her?
Long before this conversation ever happened, detectives had already pulled her old property records and found something worth building a whole line of questioning around. The gun she was describing was a Smith & Wesson Model 49, a .38-caliber revolver, the same caliber that killed Sherri Rasmussen. And when investigators checked the date on Stephanie’s theft report, it was not years before the murder. It was not years after. She filed the theft report thirteen days after Sherri was killed. Nobody ever connected those two documents until now. A missing gun of the right caliber, reported stolen in the narrow window after a woman is shot with a .38 and before anyone has thought to ask the ex-girlfriend on the job where her off-duty revolver went. In 1986 that report was a piece of paperwork. In 2009 it was a timeline.
Did she ever fight with her? Like they fought? Did she ever duke it out with her? No, she did not think so. She would remember that, right? That would be pretty specific. Yeah, she would think so. Obviously. It just did not sound familiar. What were they saying? So she fought with her, so now she must have killed her? She was getting the jump. The leap. Excuse her, she had not eaten. They were saying she fought with her, so she must have killed her. Come on. She did not even know who these people were. She could not even say she met any of them. It was insane. If it happened, she honestly did not remember it. That was all she could tell them. Would that be something she would remember? Other intense incidents in her life. A use of force at work. A car crash. Something she was involved in. She would be like, yeah, she remembered that. She thought she would remember. If it was something that crazy. She could not say how many fights she had gotten into in her life. A few at work. Fights at work were kind of different, because they had all had uses of force. She had not even had a lot of those. But if two of them got mad at each other and threw blows in the squad room, twenty years later they would remember it. It would be pretty unique. That was what she was saying. It was not sounding familiar at all.
Let her ask. Throughout her life, would she remember the number of fights she had been involved in? Not a bump. A physical fight, everybody hitting each other, scratching, pulling. Maybe. She could not say she had been in a lot. She played sports. You get into scuffles there. She could recall some of them. Games get intense. But this was just not ringing a bell. If they were doing this as an interrogation, if they were saying hey, she was a suspect, well, now she had a problem. Now they were accusing her of this? Was that what they were saying?
We’re trying to figure out what happened, Stephanie.
She was just saying. Did she need to get a lawyer if they were accusing her of this? She did not have to. She was here of her own free will. She knew. She was not under arrest. She could walk out whenever she wanted. Leave whenever she liked. She was trying to give them some background on how she knew him, and now they were telling her that somebody was saying they had this big old fight, and she did not even know what they were talking about. She did not want to get in trouble for something she did not even do, or for them saying she did something. How would they like it if the tables were turned? They understood. She was free to go whenever she wanted, if this made her uncomfortable and she wanted to leave. Well, now they were starting to make her uncomfortable.