A Year After Grad Student's Murder

The family of Imette St. Guillen spoke to the Daily News as tomorrow will mark the one year anniversary of her death. St. Guillen, whose bound body was found dumped near the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, was last seen at the Falls restaurant and bar in SoHo. The gruesome nature of her death - raped, stripped naked, and tied with duct tape - worried some that she was killed by a serial murderer, but then suspicion fell on an ex-con bouncer at the Falls, who was later charged with her murder.

Her mother, Maureen, told the Daily News she thinks about her daughter all the time:

"What would Imette do? What would she think?

"I don't know what tense to use when people ask me if I have children. I think about what she's going to miss in terms of her life. It's very, very difficult.

"Every moment has been a struggle."

St. Guillen's mother and sister have created scholarships in her name at her high school and at John Jay College, where St. Guillen had was a graduate student in criminal justice. It's expected that St. Guillen's family will sue the Division of Parole, Board of Parole and the Department of Correction for not keeping tabs on Littlejohn, an ex-con who never should have been allowed to work as a bouncer; the family has sued the owners of the Falls, which closed a few months after the murder, for their negligence and lack of cooperation with the police.

And Littlejohn, who had pleaded not guilty, is still awaiting trial.