- City Beauty Slain by Beast - Tortured & Dumped by Road -

In the early morning hours of Saturday, February 25, Imette St. Guillen, 24, was tortured, raped and murdered in the Soho district of New York City. The "suspect" is Darryl Littlejohn, 41, a convicted felon and parolee, who has been in and out of prisons since he was 17 years old. Imette would have celebrated her 25th birthday on Thursday, March 2, 2006.

She was a graduate student with brains to match her beauty who came to New York to study criminal justice - but wound up the victim of an unspeakably horrible murder.

A monster tortured vivacious Imette St. Guillen - brutally raping her, chopping off her dark hair and stuffing a tube sock down her throat. Then he wrapped her face in tape and dumped her nude, bound body off alongside a Brooklyn road.

The clear, plastic tape left the 24-year-old John Jay College of Criminal Justice student's pretty face frozen in a haunting expression of horror that shocked even hardened investigators - and made her virtually unrecognizable to her family, sources said.

"It looks like she died in excruciating pain," said a source who saw the gruesome morgue photographs - also shown to the victim's sister, who had the grim task of identifying St. Guillen's battered corpse yesterday. "It seems a crime of passion," said another source. "Someone wanted to make her suffer and diminish her beauty."

The dean's list student and Boston native, who would have turned 25 on Thursday, was spotted at 3:30 a.m. Saturday as she and a female friend argued outside the Pioneer Bar on the Bowery.

St. Guillen wanted to stay, at least until the hot spot's 4 a.m. closing time. But her friend wanted to leave, and did.

Sources said last night St. Guillen was later captured on videotape leaving the bar with another woman. She was apparently intoxicated and may have gone to another bar, the sources said. The upper West Side woman's corpse was found about 8:20 p.m. on a weeded section of Fountain Ave. off the Belt Parkway in East New York.

Her face, from her forehead to chin, was covered with vertical strips of clear packing tape. Her hands were tied behind her back, ankles bound, and a floral quilt wrapped her petite frame.

Her body told the tale of heartless torture: She had marks on her chest and her genitals were lacerated, sources said, adding that she also had been raped and sodomized. The city's medical examiner ruled she had been suffocated - someone pressed on her windpipe while her mouth and nose were covered. Investigators were analyzing body fluids recovered from the young woman's body, hoping for DNA evidence, sources said.

"It has to be absolutely horrific for her mother and sister, so many gruesome details," said Cornelia Kelley, headmaster of the prestigious Boston Latin School, from which St. Guillen graduated in 1999. "They will never get over this."

Police spent yesterday interviewing St. Guillen's friends at Brooklyn's 75th Precinct stationhouse. Cops also questioned a former boyfriend in Boston, but let him go, sources said.

An anonymous male 911 caller tipped authorities to the location of the body. "Whoever did this thought they picked a good, desolate spot to get rid of the body. Luckily, she was found," a police source said.

St. Guillen's older sister Alejandra drove from Boston, where she and her mother, Maureen, live, to identify the body.

Imette St. Guillen was set to graduate from John Jay after this semester. The George Washington University grad enrolled at John Jay in 2004 to pursue a master's degree in forensic psychology. Last fall, she changed her principal field of study to criminal justice. "There are no words to express the deep sadness and sense of loss that we, of the John Jay College community, feel," said President Jeremy Travis.

NEW YORK, March 8, 2006


Two days after detectives brought him in for questioning, Darryl Littlejohn, a bouncer at the Mahattan bar where student Imette St. Guillen was last seen, is being held at a Rikers Island jail, accused of a parole violation.

Littlejohn has not yet been charged with the murder, as investigators wait to see if forensic and other evidence would tie the 41-year-old bouncer at "The Falls" to the slaying. Police tell the New York Daily News that he is the "only suspect." The parole violation could keep him locked up for 90 days.

The 24-year-old criminal justice student (video) from Boston was raped, strangled and suffocated with packaging tape. Her body was found on the side of a service road in Brooklyn.

The New York Post reports that police began questioning Littlejohn after "The Falls" owner, Michael J. Dorrian, told police that he had ordered Littlejohn to "Get her out of here!" because St. Guillen was so drunk at the end of that night.

Dorrian told cops that Littlejohn hauled St. Guillen out a side door of the building at 218 Lafayette St., the Post reports. Dorrian and an unidentified bartender said that moments later, they heard arguing in a hallway just outside a door to the bar, the sources said. They then heard a scream from the same direction.

Crime scene unit detectives, dressed in white coveralls, searched the yellow house on 121st Avenue, where Littlejohn lives with his aunt.

Littlejohn's aunt, Addie Harris, said the warrant for the Queens home targeted the basement, first floor and driveway of the two-story building. Cops were hunting for blood, sand, hair and DNA evidence, Harris told The Daily News. Police tell Chang a cat is significant because feline hair was found on the bedspread used to wrap St. Guillen's body.

Last night, cops removed additional evidence from his home, including clothing and stained pieces of carpet. Cops also took socks to see if they match the tube sock shoved down St. Guillen's throat. Detectives were also preparing to search a gray Ford van parked about three blocks from the house, The New York Times reports. A bench seat like one that might be from a van was taken from the house yesterday. Then the van, missing a seat, appeared in the area sometime between Friday and Saturday, neighbors told the Times. The police said they were trying to determine if the seat came from the van.

Police are also awaiting DNA tests to come back. At the top of the list is skin found under St. Guillen's broken fingernails - believed to be scratched off as she fought her attacker, police sources tell the Daily News.

The bouncer was the only bar employee who did not voluntarily submit to DNA testing, WCBS reporter Ti-Hua Chang reports, but his DNA is on record from previous crimes.

"If Littlejohn's DNA is there, he's nailed," criminal profiler Pat Brown told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith. "If it's not, they'll have more trouble. They'll have to come up with enough circumstantial evidence in his car and his home to nail him."

Littlejohn's aunt said outside the home she didn't think her nephew was involved in St. Guillen's killing.

"I pray that it wasn't him. The young lady was somebody's daughter, somebody's sister," said Harris.

Cell phone records showed Littlejohn was at home about 5 p.m., according to newspaper reports. 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, who has been in and out of prison for 20 years, 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."

"The No. 1 job of serial killers is security. Yes, I would be looking at this guy very carefully for those reasons," Pat Brown, a criminal profiler, told The Early Show. "When you're going out to your car at night, the last person you want to walk you to your car is a security guard."

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.

- Imette St. Guillen - Age 24 -

- 1981 - 2006 † -

By AL BAKER and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: March 7, 2006

The detectives investigating the murder of a graduate student zeroed in yesterday on the home of a bouncer who worked at the SoHo bar where the victim was last seen alive. They also questioned the bouncer at a Brooklyn station house for a second day.

More than a week after the body of the student, Imette St. Guillen, 24, was discovered on Feb. 25 rolled inside a comforter and dumped at a desolate spot near the Belt Parkway, fresh leads in the case sent the detectives fanning out across the city.

According to a law enforcement official, who requested anonymity because the investigation is continuing, a witness has said that the bouncer, identified by his aunt as Darryl Littlejohn, had been asked to show Ms. St. Guillen out of the bar about 4 that morning because it was closing. The police said they have tracked Mr. Littlejohn's cellphone to the area around his home in South Jamaica, Queens, after he left the bar and, later that morning, to the part of southeast Brooklyn where the body was found.

Crime scene unit detectives, dressed in white coveralls, searched the yellow house on 121st Avenue, which is owned by Mr. Littlejohn's mother, Lucille Harris. The detectives were looking for evidence that might indicate Ms. St. Guillen was at the house in the hours after she disappeared.

The investigators are trying to determine if Ms. St. Guillen was taken from the Falls, the SoHo bar where witnesses last saw her alive, to the home of Mr. Littlejohn, 41, who has been in out-of-state and federal prisons since he was a teenager for offenses including armed robbery and drug possession. Mr. Littlejohn was last released from prison in 2004, records show.

Outside the house, Mr. Littlejohn's aunt, Addie Harris, defended her nephew, whom she said she last saw on Friday.

"Many people have a record, but that doesn't mean he committed that type of crime," she said. "I pray that it wasn't him."

She added, "We are hoping he gets a fair trial if there is a trial."

At the same time, the detectives are poring over physical evidence that they have amassed so far, much of it taken during their basement-to-roof search on Sunday of the two-story building that houses the Falls at 218 Lafayette Street.

They are comparing cat hair taken from the basement with hairs stuck to the comforter in which Ms. St. Guillen's body was found. They are also looking at packing tape recovered from the office space above the bar and comparing it with the tape that was used to cover Ms. St. Guillen's nose and mouth. Detectives also found plastic ties at the Lafayette Street address that match the ones that were used to bind her wrists and ankles.

However, the law enforcement official said, there is no evidence that Ms. St. Guillen, who was also sexually assaulted, was attacked in the bar building.

A law enforcement official said the circumstances under which Ms. St. Guillen left the Falls were unclear at first. Initially, the police were told that she walked out with other patrons, but one witness associated with the bar now says she left after the security gate in front had been pulled down, the official said.

The witness described how he went over to Ms. St. Guillen and told her to finish her drink, the official said. The witness said he told Mr. Littlejohn to make sure Ms. St. Guillen left the bar, according to the official.

The witness said he then went downstairs, and when he returned he heard a commotion in the hallway, the official said.

An investigator said that Ms. St. Guillen was later seen talking to Mr. Littlejohn outside the bar while he sat in the driver's seat of a blue van. Detectives are seeking to search 12 vehicles owned by employees and others associated with the bar.

Yesterday's fast-moving events suggested that the police were building a case built largely on circumstantial evidence. While Mr. Littlejohn's DNA is on file, the police are awaiting the results of DNA tests from the packing tape, the comforter and Ms. St. Guillen's body.

Of the effort to bring a killer to justice, the official said, "It's not going to be a quick thing."

A police official said that investigators were awaiting toxicology tests to determine whether the woman had been given a date rape drug.

A co-owner of the Falls, John Kekalos, said yesterday that he had been cooperating with the police investigation and that he would continue to do so. "It is very unfortunate," he said of the murder.
 

Mr. Littlejohn has not been charged in the case, as yet; it was unclear if he had a lawyer with him in the station house, on Sutter Avenue. In a long law enforcement record, a portrait of him emerged as a troubled man with seven felony convictions who was known to use aliases.

He first tangled with the authorities when he was just 17, arrested for armed robbery in Manhattan. He slashed a man and tried to rob another with a shotgun, according to state records. He went to prison for three years.

Using the alias Darryl Banks, he was arrested on a drug charge in 1985, and served a year and two months in jail. In 1987, as Damon Wells, he again served time for drug possession. In 1992, he was arrested in Maryland, where he was using the name Derek Hansen, for unauthorized use of a car, among other charges. Mr. Littlejohn was extradited to New York on a warrant for another of his aliases: John Handsome.

As Mr. Handsome, Mr. Littlejohn was arrested in Queens with a bag full of heroin and cocaine and a 9 millimeter gun, according to a person familiar with that case. He was paroled in October 1995. Within three months, he was in trouble again, this time as Jonathan Blaze. He held up a bank in Farmingdale on Long Island that December. He stole $61,759 and fled, according to state papers.

Mr. Littlejohn pleaded guilty to robbery and criminal use of a weapon, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

On May 11, 2004, he appeared before a parole board. A transcript shows that Mr. Littlejohn was hostile and uncooperative, refusing to answer questions from the commissioners. He was denied parole.

"Your violent and out-of-control behavior shows you to be a menace to society," the decision read. "Your continued incarceration remains in the best interest of society."

But two months later, Mr. Littlejohn had served enough of his sentence to qualify for a conditional release. He took a job with a mortgage lender and met with his parole officer, officials said. But he failed to tell parole officials that he was working as a bouncer at a bar, which may have violated the conditions of his parole.

"It's something we're looking into," said Scott Steinhardt, a spokesman for the Division of Parole.

Officials in Maryland said that Mr. Littlejohn, as Derek Hansen, had still not answered the charges he faced there in 1992. They said a warrant for his arrest is still active.

See Original Articles

The first Link has several videos featuring Rita Cosby:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11623311/

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/08/national/main1381503.shtml

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/nyregion/07dead.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/395480p-335275c.html

Comment:

Due to the gruesome nature of this crime, and because it took place in New York City, there has been extensive news-media coverage of this case. There is no way that the news media can now stop covering this story, even though the only "suspect" is a Black male. The radical news media would rather play down the fact that so many Black males are involved in violent murders, rapes and assaults, but they cannot avoid covering this one. We hope that young women take heed and learn a lesson from all of the publicity this horrendous crime is receiving, and that they take the necessary precautions.

There were many mistakes made by many people in this case. First of all, Darryl Littlejohn's parole officer should have monitored such a violent person more closely - for example, Littlejohn should not have been working as a bar bouncer. Secondly, the bar where Darryl Littlejohn was working should have done an extensive background check on him. Thirdly, Imette's girlfriend should not have left her alone. Fourthly, Imette should not have gotten so drunk. Fifthly, the bartender should not have ordered the bouncer to "get her out of the bar," he should have called her a cab and requested that the driver come inside to announce that he was there; or the bartender should have taken her outside and made sure that she was safely in a cab on her way home. And finally, Darryl Littlejohn should not have been let out of prison to start with.

This case is just more very convincing evidence that we have to be stricter with repeat offenders. And, convicted felons have to be checked through their DNA or fingerprints to see whether or not they are using aliases. Since we, as average citizens, know that our criminal justice system is not adequate, and since we know that many communities, and especially New York City, are filled with repeat offenders, we have to do the best we can to look out for each other, because it is clear that we cannot depend on the criminal justice system.

Therefore, I would say that all women would be well-advised not to go out drinking alone - always go with at least one friend. And, when two or three women do go out drinking together, never leave one of the group alone - no matter if she does get drunk and want to stay out until closing time. We cannot count on the criminal justice system to keep criminals off the streets, so we have to count on each other. The latter is something that all of us can do starting now; overhauling our criminal justice system, on the other hand, which we should strive to do, could take decades.

When going out on the town in groups of two or more, whether it is young women or young men, it would be a good idea to have a "designated sober person" - someone who doesn't drink alcoholic beverages or, at least, someone who doesn't drink as much as the others - to assure that the group sticks together, and that one member of the group is not left alone in an intoxicated state. Just as all of us are now encouraged to have a "designated driver," who sees to it that an intoxicated friend does not drive, because of their increased vulnerability on the roads, young people going out on the town should have a "designated sober person" to see to it that an intoxicated friend does not end up alone, in a state of increased vulnerability, to face the perils of the night in a diverse society filled with predators.

More sound advice would be to "not go out drinking" at all, and to "not frequent such bars," especially not into the early hours of the morning. Due to the fact that we are now living in such a dangerous era in America, it would perhaps be best for young ladies to do their socializing during the day and evening, without the use of alcohol. A better choice would be to attend concerts, plays, or debates, where alcohol is not served, and which are attended by people with a background and education similar to your own. Sometimes, when you make a mistake, you don't get a second chance.

Yours Faithfully, Liberty