NEW YORK – A nightclub bouncer was convicted Wednesday of murdering a graduate student whose naked body was found bound and gagged and wrapped in a quilt on a desolate roadside.
Wearing dark glasses, Darryl Littlejohn stared straight ahead as the first-degree murder verdict was read. A jury had deliberated for less than a day in the case, which stirred memories of New York's notorious "preppie killer" slaying and spurred a city crackdown on nightlife security.
The 44-year-old parolee faces up to life in prison without parole in the 2006 death of criminal justice student Imette St. Guillen of Boston. His sentencing is set for July 8; Littlejohn is already serving 25 years to life for kidnapping another woman.
St. Guillen's family and friends wept quietly in the courtroom as the verdict was read.
After a night out, St. Guillen quarreled with a friend outside a Manhattan bar early on Feb. 24, 2006. St. Guillen wanted to continue drinking, but her friend called it a night.
St. Guillen then walked to The Falls, a bar owned by the same family who ran the tavern where "preppie killer" Robert Chambers met Jennifer Levin before strangling her during rough sex in the 1980s — a fact Littlejohn's lawyers emphasized in his trial.
St. Guillen stayed at The Falls past closing. Witnesses said she was asked to leave, and Littlejohn escorted her out.
Her body was found later that day along a road in Brooklyn. She had been beaten and sexually assaulted before being asphyxiated.
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