BOSTON -- A law enforcement official said Wednesday a bouncer with a long rap sheet has been indicted in the vicious rape and strangulation death of a New York City grad student.

The official said the sealed indictment charges Darryl Littlejohn in the death of Imette St. Guillen, whose body was dumped in a desolate area of Brooklyn last month.

The St. Guillen family headed to New York on Wednesday in preparation for the expected Littlejohn arraignment.

St. Guillen, 24, was found strangled, suffocated and raped on Feb. 25, her body dumped in an abandoned Brooklyn field.

Police questioned the 41-year-old ex-convict, Littlejohn, in connection with the slaying.

Investigators said Littlejohn's DNA was found on the plastic ties that were used to bind St. Guillen's wrists.

Maureen St. Guillen, the victim's mother, left her home in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood Wednesday morning, suitcases stowed in a car by family members.

All she would say is that she wished "my baby was home." She was accompanied by her daughter Alejandra and son, Lou.

The arraignment could come as soon as Thursday.

Imette St. Guillen was a Boston Latin graduate who went on to attend George Washington University. She was earning her master's degree in criminal justice at John Jay College in Manhattan at the time of her death.

Littlejohn has been held in Riker's Island jail on parole violations for working late hours at the trendy SoHo bar where Imette St. Guillen was last seen.

Littlejohn's first brush with the law came at age 17, when he robbed someone with a shotgun. Over the years, he was convicted on drug and gun charges using names like Darryl Banks, John Handsome and Jonathan Blaze - the name of a comic book character.