Police seek possible 2d suspect in slaying

NEW YORK-- As New York authorities continue to probe a bouncer at the bar where a graduate student from Boston was last seen before she was slain, investigators canvassed the man's Queen's neighborhood hoping to identify a possible accomplice yesterday, officials said.

Detectives went door to door telling residents they wanted to interview any young men in the neighborhood who could have been involved in the slaying of Imette St. Guillen, 24, a Mission Hill native, neighbors and police said. Darryl Littlejohn, a bouncer at The Falls bar, remains the chief suspect in the slaying, police said.

The hunt is an effort to widen the investigation into the slaying of St. Guillen, which so far has been focused on Littlejohn, a seven-time felon who is being held on a parole violation, said a high-ranking police official involved in the investigation.

''We are exploring every possible lead," said the official, who declined to be named because the investigation is ongoing. ''There is evidence that someone else might have been involved with this murder."

Detectives also showed residents in the neighborhood pictures of several different women and young girls in hope of identifying them, neighbors said.

The official would not comment on who the women in the photos were or whether they were victims of crimes.

Littlejohn, 41, was not picked out of a police lineup Thursday by the victim of an unsolved New York rape, the suspect's attorney said.

He had been ordered by a Queens judge to stand in the lineup at a police precinct. Authorities are investigating whether Littlejohn is connected to any of three unsolved rapes that bear similarities to the Feb. 25 sexual assault and killing of St. Guillen.

''He wants to prove his innocence; he feels like he's being used as a scapegoat," said Kevin O'Donnell, a court-appointed attorney for Littlejohn on Thursday. ''Unfortunately, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Yesterday's search was undertaken hours after police ransacked Littlejohn's home once again to look for clues, this time taking out part of the plumbing in his basement apartment.

Residents in Littlejohn's South Jamaica neighborhood said they were surprised when officers knocked on doors asking to speak with any young men who might be in the house.

''They asked if they could come in, and I said what for," said Linva Rose, Littlejohn's next door neighbor. ''They wanted to speak to my nephew. I told them, my nephew doesn't know that man. He goes to school. He didn't even know that man's name before this."

The officers asked if her nephew would mind going down to the police station to speak with them about the slaying, Rose said.

''They are looking for someone to pin with him," she said. ''They are trying to implicate someone, anyone."

Cyril James, who lives across the street from the two-story house Littlejohn occupied, said the officers also showed him the photos and asked him to identify them.

''They wanted to know if I had ever seen them, ever, not just in the neighborhood," he said.

Some DNA tests attempting to link Littlejohn to the murder came back inconclusive earlier this week, the police official said.

According to the official, a witness saw St. Guillen, a Mission Hill native, sitting in a vehicle with Littlejohn outside of The Falls, the bar in the SoHo section of Manhattan where he worked, shortly after its 4 a.m. closing.

St. Guillen, a graduate student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, was found bound and strangled 17 hours later in a weed-covered lot in Brooklyn.

Last night, 200 people were expected to gather for a protest outside of The Falls. Jeff Ragsdale, the rally's organizer, said he wants to see the bar shut down.

Ragsdale, who did not know St. Guillen, said the bar is unsafe because they hired Littlejohn as a bouncer without checking his criminal background.

''You have to have do background checks, so that when you escort a girl out at 4 a.m. you know she is going to be safe," he said. ''People need to know, hey, this bar doesn't do background checks. Don't put your life in their hands."

Earlier this week, New York State Liquor Authority officials said that they had begun a preliminary inquiry into The Falls because of Littlejohn's employment as a bouncer, which is prohibited under state law for felons and violated his parole-imposed curfew of 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Meanwhile, the labor union representing parole officers announced yesterday that Littlejohn's parole officer was juggling double her caseload when officials discovered this week that he had been violating his parole.

The parole officer had been given 110 cases when she should have only had 50, said Manuelita Clemente, council leader for the Public Employees Federation.

''She feels sad that one of her parolees is being investigated for killing someone," Clemente said. ''The parolees know we are understaffed. They know they are not been supervised, then they run wild."