NEW YORK New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly said today, authorities would seek an indictment against a parolee with a long rap sheet, the prime suspect in last month's gruesome slaying of a graduate student.
Blood found on the plastic ties used to bind Imette St. Guillen has been matched to a bouncer at the bar where she was last seen alive, the New York Police Department commissioner said.
"This is very significant development. When you talk about DNA here you are talking about the certainty of 1 in a trillion, so it's a very important piece of evidence for us," NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly said. "The investigation is going forward and has certainly not reached a finality. There's a lot more work to be done."
Kelly said authorities would take that match and other evidence to a grand jury to get an indictment against Darryl" Little John". He didn't give a date for when the grand jury would get the case.
"Little John", in custody at a Rikers Island jail on a parole violation, had not been arrested in connection with St. Guillen's death as of this afternoon afternoon.
The 41-year-old maintains his innocence. His attorney, Kevin O'Donnell, who has been on just about every national news outlet, said the parolee "
feels like a scapegoat" and is "upset" because his picture has been published in newspapers across the country.
"Little John" who doesn't look so little from his mug shots was a bouncer at The Falls bar, where manager has told police he ordered him to escort the woman out when she stayed sipping a drink past the 4 a.m. closing time; he recalled hearing the pair arguing before they disappeared through a side door.
He 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.
Sometime during the next 17 hours, the student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan was raped, strangled and suffocated. Her naked and bound body was found in a remote section of Brooklyn on Feb. 25 with a sock stuffed in her mouth and her head wrapped with packaging tape. There are no words to descibe this type of slaying.
Kelly said the plastic ties were used to bind the 24-year-old's hands behind her back. He wouldn't comment on how blood got onto the restraints but said, "It is a very important piece of evidence for us."
Kelly said witnesses also reported seeing "Littlejohn" and St. Guillen leaving the bar together and records put his cell phone near where her body was found.
His aunt Addie Harris has tried to defend him publicly in the St. Guillen case, arguing, "Many people have a record, but that doesn't mean he committed that type of crime." DNA, thank God, does not lie.
According to news accounts, Littlejohn shouldn't have been working at the bar St. Guillen visited because the job kept him out past his 9 p.m. parole curfew.
I'd like to believe that "justice" in this case came down on the wings of an angel, who was herself a criminal justice student, murdered and tortured by a man, who I pray will never see daylight.
Imette St. Guillen (File)
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