U.S. & World

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Darryl Littlejohn, considered a suspect in the case of a slain graduate student, is back at Rikers Island prison after a rape victim failed to pick him out of a lineup for a separate sex assault in Queens, CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano reports.

Defense attorney Kevin O'Donnell told reporters that the rape survivor had each man in yesterday's lineup shout "Shut up!" She told police that her attacker was taller than Littlejohn. The woman was raped last October, in Forest Hills, Queens.

O'Donnell told reporters earlier that police have the wrong man. He added that Littlejohn "feels like a scapegoat" and objected to Littlejohn's mug shot being released by authorities.

"He maintains his innocence. My heart goes out to the victim, but he has no history whatsoever of abuse against women," O'Donnell said.

Littlejohn, 41, has not been charged in the death of 24-year-old Imette St. Guillen who was raped, strangled and suffocated with packaging tape. Her body was found on the side of a service road in Brooklyn. Police told the New York Daily News that Littlejohn, the bouncer at The Falls bar where St. Guillen was last seen alive, is their "only suspect."

Investigators had hoped to charge Littlejohn with the sexual assault as they continue to work furiously to gather enough evidence to link him to St. Guillen's slaying. Detectives broadened their investigation as they searched for links to at least three unsolved rape and kidnapping cases in Queens and on Long Island, officials in both jurisdictions told the New York Times Thursday.

In the Queens rape case, the Daily News reports, a 22-year-old victim was abducted from 66th Ave. in Forest Hills by a man who handcuffed her and threw her into a van. He covered her face with a jacket, raped her and then dumped her onto a street, cops told the newspaper. The victim initially picked Littlejohn out of a photo lineup and recognized a van linked to him as the vehicle she was forced into, the newspaper's sources said.

Without the identification, however, the Queens District Attorney's Office said it could not file charges against Littlejohn in the rape case, and cops could only send him back to Rikers Island on relatively minor charges of violating his parole. He can be held there for 90 days.

On Thursday, police revealed that carpet fibers on the tape covering St. Guillen's brutalized face linked to Littlejohn. The fibers on the tan tape match those from his Queens apartment and are the strongest evidence yet linking him to the crime, WBZ reporter Dan Rea said.

But the carpet is "relatively common," the New York Daily News reports.

Investigators also conclusively determined that semen on the floral blanket found wrapped around St. Guillen's dead body does not belong to Littlejohn, police told the New York Post. Police now believe that the cat-hair-covered blanket came from the basement of The Falls bar, where Littlejohn works, the newspaper reports. Investigators combed cats who live in that basement for hair samples and were awaiting the return of forensic tests.

The semen on the blanket could have come from an earlier sexual encounter in the basement, but sources said it also raises the possibility that someone else had sex with St. Guillen the night she was killed.

In another setback to investigators, DNA recovered from underneath St. Guillen's fingernails did not match Littlejohn's, sources told the Post Thursday. Police spokesman Paul Browne said that the department was continuing to examine evidence.

Detectives have not ruled out the possibility that St. Guillen's killer had an accomplice and were focusing on a female customer who was in The Falls bar at the same time as the student, police sources told Newsday. The woman's story has a number of discrepancies, according to the newspaper's sources.

In the meantime, police are continuing to run forensics tests and to pour over potential physical evidence taken from Littlejohn's house.

"This investigation, to a large extent, hinges on DNA evidence," New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday. "There's a lot of material being processed now. Some of it takes longer than others. So we'll just have to wait and see what develops from the lab," Kelly said.

Previous newspaper reports cited cell phone records, which showed Littlejohn was at home about 5 p.m. 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.

St. Guillen was last seen alive at The Falls bar, where a manager recalled instructing Littlejohn to remove the patron at the 4 a.m. closing time after she lingered too long over a drink. The manager said he overheard the two arguing before they exited a side door.

Newsday reports detectives believe a racially tinged comment by an apparently inebriated St. Guillen, may have sent Littlejohn into a murderous rage.

Just before Littlejohn was ordered to escort St. Guillen out of The Falls bar on the night she was raped and killed, witnesses told police she said, "That's why all you black people are in jail." The remark came after a brief, contentious discussion with Littlejohn, police sources said.

Told of the comments witnesses say she made, St. Guillen's family said in a statement that they found it difficult to believe she would say such a thing.

"Imette was a kind and loving person," the family said. "She was not the type of person who would ever make such a comment about anyone."

Littlejohn shouldn't have been working at the bar because the job kept him out past his 9 p.m. parole curfew. Officials say they only knew about a second job he had at a mortgage company. It was still not clear yesterday whether the Falls or its principal, listed in state records as Michael J. Dorrian, would face a penalty for allowing Littlejohn, a felon on parole, to work as a bouncer there.

Kimberly Morella, a spokeswoman for the State Liquor Authority, told the New York Times that the agency was "looking into the matter."

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.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)