DNA Roadblock In NYC Student Slay

(CBS/AP) Until this week, 41-year-old Darryl Littlejohn was a faceless ex-con getting by as a bouncer. That changed when authorities targeted the parolee in the brutal slaying of a graduate student who disappeared after last call at the bar where he worked.

Now, some evidence is beginning to close in around Littlejohn, WBZ reporter Dan Rea reports, while other forensic evidence is creating a roadblock for investigators.

Carpet fibers on the tape covering 24-year-old Imette St. Guillen's brutalized face have been linked to Littlejohn. The fibers on the tan tape match those from his Queens apartment and are the strongest evidence yet linking him to the crime, Rea reports.

But police held off on charging the ex-con in that case because semen stains on a floral blanket wrapped around St. Guillen's body apparently do not trace back to him, sources told the New York Daily News. The semen results were among the "inconclusive" findings from several DNA and forensic tests, many of which must now be repeated, the sources said.

In another setback to investigators, DNA recovered from underneath St. Guillen's fingernails did not match Littlejohn's, sources told the New York Post. Police spokesman Paul Browne said that the department was continuing to examine evidence.

"This investigation, to a large extent, hinges on DNA evidence," New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday. "There's a lot of material being processed now. Some of it takes longer than others. So we'll just have to wait and see what develops from the lab," Kelly said.

Previous newspaper reports cited cell phone records, which showed Littlejohn was at home about 5 p.m. The records also place him at 6 p.m. within a mile of where St. Guillen's body was dumped in a deserted area off the Belt Parkway, the sources said. Her body was found at about 8:40 p.m. after an anonymous male tipster made a 911 call from a diner in the area.

Littlejohn maintains his innocence, and has not been charged in the death of St. Guillen who was raped, strangled and suffocated with packaging tape. Her body was found on the side of a service road in Brooklyn. Police told the Daily News that he is the "only suspect."

Meanwhile, police have also widened their investigation into Littlejohn as detectives searched for links to at least three unsolved rape and kidnapping cases in Queens and on Long Island, officials in both jurisdictions told the New York Times.

Littlejohn remains in legal limbo. He was transferred Thursday from Rikers Island to a Queens courthouse, where a judge approved a request by prosecutors to put him in a lineup in connection with a sex attack on Oct. 16, 2005 in the Forest Hills neighborhood, District Attorney Richard A. Brown said in a statement.

In that case, the Daily News reports, a 22-year-old victim was abducted from 66th Ave. in Forest Hills by a man who handcuffed her and threw her into a van. He covered her face with a jacket, raped her and then dumped her onto a street, cops told the newspaper. The victim picked Littlejohn out of a photo lineup and recognized a van linked to him as the vehicle she was forced into, the newspaper's sources said.

Nassau County detectives were also looking closely at an incident from Nov. 9, officials said. A police spokesman said that a man driving a black van kidnapped a 15-year-old girl at gunpoint as she walked on the Hempstead Turnpike. After putting the girl in the back of the van and covering her head with a coat, the man took her to the basement of a building and raped her. Then he gave her a shirt and sweat pants to wear and drove her to Elmont, where he dropped her off, the spokesman said.

Littlejohn has been in and out of prison for 20 years, and has used a different alias for nearly every crime. Two names he went by were "John Handsome" and "Jonathan Blaze," which also is the secret identity of comic book character "Ghost Rider," according to newspaper reports. He was sentenced to 8½ to 10 years for a 1995 Long Island bank robbery.

The state Parole Board denied his release in May 2004. "Your violent and out-of-control behavior shows you to be a menace to society," the board found. "Your continued incarceration remains in the best interest of society."

St. Guillen was last seen alive at The Falls bar, where a manager recalled instructing Littlejohn to remove the patron at the 4 a.m. closing time after she lingered too long over a drink. The manager said he overheard the two arguing before they exited a side door.

Newsday reports detectives now believe a racially tinged comment by an apparently inebriated St. Guillen, may have sent Littlejohn into a murderous rage.

Just before Littlejohn was ordered to escort St. Guillen out of The Falls bar on the night she was raped and killed, witnesses told police she said, "That's why all you black people are in jail." The remark came after a brief, contentious discussion with Littlejohn, police sources said.

Told of the comments witnesses say she made, St. Guillen's family said in a statement that they found it difficult to believe she would say such a thing.

"Imette was a kind and loving person," the family said. "She was not the type of person who would ever make such a comment about anyone."

Littlejohn shouldn't have been working at the bar because the job kept him out past his 9 p.m. parole curfew. Officials say they only knew about a second job he had at a mortgage company. It was still not clear yesterday whether the Falls or its principal, listed in state records as Michael J. Dorrian, would face a penalty for allowing Littlejohn, a felon on parole, to work as a bouncer there.

Kimberly Morella, a spokeswoman for the State Liquor Authority, told the New York Times that the agency was "looking into the matter."

St. Guillen had been set to graduate this semester from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. She graduated with honors from George Washington University in Washington.

Less than two nights before her murder, Saint Guillen's family and friends gathered in Florida to celebrate her upcoming birthday.

Saint Guillen's mother, Maureen, tells the Daily News that "Our last words were, 'I love you, always I love you"' as the graduate student left Florida from a vacation with her family just days before she was killed.

She was buried last weekend outside of Boston where her family lives. Friends and relatives at her funeral on Saturday remembered her for her infectious smile, bold confidence, love of board games and penchant for high heels.

St. Guillen's family has appealed for the public's help in finding the killer. Police say anyone with information about St. Guillen should call 1-800-577-TIPS.