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The New York Post reports that concerns have been raised about a possible lack of strength in the murder case against former bar bouncer Darryl Littlejohn, who was indicted for the abduction and killing of grad student Imette St. Guillen 18 months ago. The victim disappeared from the SoHo bar The Falls after a night of drinking, and her body was found the next day dumped alongside a road in Brooklyn. Police say that she had been brutally raped and suffocated to death with a tube sock stuffed down her throat. Littlejohn was arrested and indicted after carpet fibers found on the packing tape that bound St. Guillen matched carpeting in Littlejohn's home.
A year and a half after Littlejohn's indictment, cops and legal experts are puzzled about the lack of courtroom progress in St. Guillen's murder case. Littlejohn will soon be tried for a kidnapping in Queens. The Post quotes a Brooklyn homicide detective who said that it doesn't make sense to try a suspect on a lesser charge when he is facing a murder rap in a different borough. A criminal justice professor at Fordham Law concurred, saying that an especially heinous and high-profile murder case would usually take precedence.
The concern is that the murder case against Darryl Littlejohn might be particularly weak. Also, there is a statute of limitations on the kidnapping charges he faces in Queens, while he could be held accountable for St. Guillen's murder indefinitely.
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sounds like the central park jogger case part deux.
wrong guys and still covering it up. this city will never learn.
never again.
It's going to look really bad if they can't slam dunk this guy on both counts at the same time..real bad..as in Central Park Jogger, Pick Up The Usual Suspects Bad...
They should, technically, be able to give him the 1-2 kidnapping/murder punch, if the evidence was strong enough.
I highly doubt Littlejohn is innocent of killing St. Guillen. They pulled a mountain of evidence from his home, truck, cell phone and off he himself.
Also, the prosecution can take as long as they need to form a case against anyone. Murder charges never go away unless your not convicted or can prove otherwise. If the prosecution and defense were both so sure he was innocent, he'd be on the steet as we write.
I agree, Central park jogger hysteria all over again. bad bad bad, how much will this cost the taxpayers of NYC?
Weak on Evidence, but how else would the carpet fibers match? How common is his carpet?
In any case, there are lots of convictions based on circumstantial evidence alone.
Other than the High Profile: How is this like The central park jogger case?
#4 Your worried about $$money$$ when a girl has been "brutally raped and suffocated to death with a tube sock stuffed down her throat".?!! Shame on you for such a small thought to even pass your mind. If that was your family, you would not be thinking that way. Some people .....
DNA is traced back to Littlejohn... that right there is proof he was involved.
what did I tell you, central park jogger hysteria all over again. if you compare the news stories on the jogger and ms. guillen, you'll notice the similarities. Some People........
shame on you, madam, shame on you.
Hey Marygrace, welcome to the gladiator arena of blog comments -- a place with fewer rules than those of a knife fight, which has none.
It's not hate you're reading, I believe, only honesty. And honestly, I couldn't care less about the victim or this case, which is the rote lesson of when stupidity meets savagery that's been repeated since the dawn of time. The public whining of the victim's family hasn't earned much sympathy, either. I would hope that in the same situation, I would have more dignity.
If you want to read greater testaments to human empathy, I suggest you read some comment threads on 9/11 and Ground Zero. . .
DNA was traced back to him? Are you sure? Where does it say that? The carpet could have come from anywhere.
I guess that compassion is scarce around here. Most New Yorkers have great big hearts!! I guess not here. Oh Well....
sorry sister, you win some, you lose some.
the big hearts are getting scarcer and scarcer.
We lost a couple of truly big hearts last week.
Hey Marygrace, welcome to the gladiator arena of blog comments -- a place with fewer rules than those of a knife fight, which has none.
It's not hate you're reading, I believe, only honesty. And honestly, I couldn't care less about the victim or this case, which is the rote lesson of when stupidity meets savagery that's been repeated since the dawn of time. The public whining of the victim's family hasn't earned much sympathy, either. I would hope that in the same situation, I would have more dignity.
If you want to read greater testaments to human empathy, I suggest you read some comment threads on 9/11 and Ground Zero. . .
[9] Posted by: guest | August 20, 2007 2:27 PM
Having no empathy for a young woman's savage rape and murder is neither honesty nor intelligence merely a lack of empathy. But such is the nature of anonymous posters who are ostensibly being honest about their hollow internal state. Like those who planned and executed 9/11 or Imette's rape & murder... they, for reasons of religious fanatacism or mental psychosis, put their ability to recognize the humanity of others on HOLD long enough to commit their acts of mayhem for the glory of God... the witness of history or just to make cold blooded commentary on a website... to serve their inner snark.
I remember reading in Paper magazine an editorial about Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman that said that holding a civil trial was pointless as the economic value of the two of them put together would never exceed the income of the average owner of a Starbucks. Hey.. this is NEW YORK CITY.. home of billionaires and masters of the universe.. we've got a million slum dwellers and a million CEO's living cheek by jowl in the same smoggy hellhole and a million bright eyed fresh faced dewey eyed creamy thighed young girls coming from all over the country the day they graduate college to join them. So who cares if a couple of 'em, while sitting in a bar or drunk at the parking violations office, get carted off and raped and stabbed and wrapped up in a carpet. That's the cruel world and life in the big city.
Well.. look around you friend... inflated rents and $15.00 cups of coffee aren't going to stave off that OTHER bleeding to death entity that fewer and fewer people are caring about.. the city itself and the callous, unthinking, and unfeeling denizens that everyone thinks lives here. Charlotte North Carolina already has more banking business in it and London is now the economic capital of the world ... 500,000 new yorkers have left the city in the last 10 years.. filled in by immigrants who people care about even less than you did about that girl getting raped and murdered. And when THEY return to their palatial second homes in Mexico and the Dominican Republic or the houses they are buying in new york's suburbs(where people DO care about that and a LOT of things) after a decade or two of back breaking work.. they're going to look back on THIS city's burnt out corpse and tsk tsk about how pretty and alive it once was.. but too bad it was buried in apathetic snark instead of worrying about it's working people.. it's infrastructure.. it's security... and it's future but was too dazzled by it's faux "Sex in the City" "Devil Wears Prada" FIERCENESS to worry about it sinking into the sea faster than Venice!
Marygrace: I'm pretty sure that #4 was referring to the money lost based on a city's stubbornness in holding on to someone that is not guilty and not money spent on tracking and convicting a killer; at least, that's how I read it rather than jump to negative conclusions.
I don't know enough about the details of this particular case to comment, but I do know enough to know that carpet fibers don't match to just the carpet they came from, but to any carpet of the same make.
This case has the potential to become the next Central Park Jogger case. Consider the fact that there was no DNA evidence, convictions based on circumstantial evidence only to have those overturned years later due to DNA linked to another rapist. I certainly hope they have the right suspect, but if carpet fibers is all we have, how could we be so sure he's the right guy?
JRod5417:
What're yoiu talking about? There are several links from Littlejohn to St. Guillen and a very big DNA link.
BAck in the winter of 2005 an extensive investigation found many DNA links between Littlejohn and the crime, including his blood on the ties used to bind the woman, police said.
Sorry to break it to you, but this would be enough to convict for, kidnapping, rape and murder.
EdEx- Like I said, I hope they have the right guy. But the fact that they are trying to convict him on lesser charges first could be indicative that the murder case is not as strong, so they need to build up his rap sheet before they go after him on the murder.
I don't remember any blood?
you sure you got the right case, detective?
JRod5417:
they're trying him on the kidknapping charge becuase the statute is up soon, not because there's lack of evidence in the murder case. it just so happens (as usual) this is a good time for the media to make it more than it is...
You may be right, it is the Post after all.
The NYPD and FBI were pulling Littlejohn's house apart with the evidence that was cascading from it. They have a mountain and he's S.O.L.
It just bothered me to think that you can put any kind of money value on a life.
#13 What you describe that is happening to NYC has been going on for 100's of years. One race replaces the next and so on.. new faces and dreams. That is what this city is made of!
And one less does matter. All for one and one for all.
And yes brother, we did a couple of good ones last week.
Likely just trying to clear the kidnapping case before going to the murder.
Don't know if there's any good DNA evidence in the murder case. Anybody got a good (hard)reference ?
Info as to previous indictments/convictions/acquittals/pleas will most likely be inadmissable in the trial phase of the murder, but can be allowed in the sentencing phase. Unless there's REALLY strong reason for introduction regarding a continued pattern of conduct (serial killer stuff).
There's a temporal/spatial relationship between the victim and perp, as well as (if I remember correctly) wits showing them leaving together. Fiber stuff is only an add-on. DNA and/or unique items are the hammer after the above.
Dadoc
@Marygrace, stop being so haughty and misreading someone's comment as an opportunity to lecture everyone on how saintly you are. Save it for when it's relevant.
I like how this story started . The Media, Police, & Everyone with what they thought was a valid opinion vilified this guy . Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he didn't do what they allege he did . Just look at what I said there in the last sentence . >> "I'm not saying he didn't do what they Allege" he did"