Bouncer Questioned in Slain Grad Student's Death Is Taken to Jail

March 7, 2006 — -- Darryl LittleJohn is back in jail.

The burly bouncer had been held in a Brooklyn police station and questioned by authorities for almost two days as a "person of interest" in the sexually motivated homicide of Imette St. Guillen, but he quickly hired a lawyer and refused to cooperate with detectives.

So late Monday evening, the New York State Department of Parole was notified and early this morning, the 41-year-old ex-con was removed from the police station and taken back to jail on a parole violation -- his second in a long, violent record of criminal convictions that date back to when he was 18.

LittleJohn emerged last week as a suspect in the brutal slaying of St. Guillen, a New York graduate student whose death prompted fears that a new serial killer had perhaps made his first strike.

St. Guillen, a 24-year-old Boston native, was seen on Feb. 25 at the Falls bar in Manhattan. Hours later, her naked and bound body was found in a desolate area of Brooklyn.

LittleJohn was alone among the bar's employees in his refusal to voluntarily provide police with a DNA sample.

Police placed him under surveillance for two days before bringing him in and holding him for questioning. During that time, police obtained a DNA sample from an item he'd left behind, police sources said.

Between the time he refused the DNA sample and the time he was picked up, police had obtained LittleJohn's cell phone records and established that calls from his cell phone placed him in Brooklyn, near where St. Guillen's body was found, at about the time forensic experts believe she was killed. The calls also placed him at the Falls, the bar where St. Guillen was last seen alive, at about the same time as St. Guillen, police sources said.

Police officers said that while several pieces of evidence pointed to LittleJohn, they did not, as of this afternoon, have enough pieces in place to ask the district attorney to charge LittleJohn with the crime. This has frustrated detectives for several days now.

Over the weekend, police executed search warrants for the bar and its business offices, as part of an effort to gather evidence, especially physical evidence, such as a device used to cut translucent beige packing tape like the kind that was wrapped across the young woman's eyes, nose and mouth, and contributed to her death by asphyxiation. St. Guillen was also choked.

On Monday night, police executed a search of his aunt's residence, took foot and heelprint samples from her driveway, and searched a van belonging to LittleJohn.The New York City Medical Examiner's office continues to perform.DNA tests and other forensic tests.

Nancy Quade, Sally Hawkins and Chris Francescani contributed to this report.