“Oh, I’ve been lied to before. I’ve gotten over it. When that becomes a crime, I think we should all get out of this business.”

Who said this yesterday?

a) A teacher whose student lost his homework;
b) A parent whose child missed a curfew;
c) The nurse who takes your weight at the doctor’s office;
d) The Brooklyn district attorney discussing the murder of Imette St. Guillen.

Unfortunately, the most disturbing answer, d), is the correct answer.

At a press conference discussing the first-degree murder indictment of Darryl Littlejohn, Charles Hynes shrugged off the significance of a witness lying to the police while a killer roamed free. What sounds to some like obstruction of justice sounds to him like an acceptable fact of life.

That’s too bad.

Mr. Hynes made his unfortunate observation after a reporter asked what should happen to Daniel Dorrian, the bar manager who misled detectives investigating the brutal rape, torture, and murder of St. Guillen.

Mr. Dorrian originally told detectives St. Guillen left the Falls alone, but a week later changed his story and said he’d asked Littlejohn to escort her out at closing time. Perhaps Mr. Dorrian was offered immunity in exchange for finally cooperating. If that’s the case, Mr. Hynes should tell us.

Mr. Hynes pretends the week’s delay didn’t affect the investigation, but as a former FBI profiler, Clint Van Zandt, wondered aloud recently to Dan Abrams on MSNBC, “Who knows what evidence this guy could’ve gotten rid of that would have linked him?”

“This guy” is Littlejohn, according to the first-degree murder charge leveled against him by a Brooklyn grand jury on Tuesday.

We learned a bit more about the case yesterday, including the alibi Littlejohn gave police – that he visited his mother in a nursing home the day St. Guillen was missing. The police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, dismissed that claim, and also dismissed Littlejohn’s claim that he took the subway instead of driving to work the night he was seen leaving the Falls with St. Guillen.

We’ve known about some of the evidence against Littlejohn for a couple of weeks, including information about DNA and cell phone records. Mr. Kelly added a few new twists yesterday, including the following disclosures:

* A witness saw a van resembling Littlejohn’s in the area St. Guillen’s body was found.

* Fibers matching Littlejohn’s mink and rabbit-hair jackets were found on the tape wrapped around her face, and on the blanket wrapped around her body.

While we now know the defendant had a diverse wardrobe, we still don’t know where the victim was killed. We also don’t know who called 911 to report the body that turned out to be St. Guillen’s. These are significant details that could prove important for prosecutors to resolve as the case winds its way toward a trial.

They did not seem important yesterday as St. Guillen’s family and friends sat somberly in the first row of the “Ceremonial Courtroom” in Brooklyn’s new courthouse. Normally chatty reporters (about 50), police officers (a dozen), and court officers (another dozen) sat silently as St. Guillen’s sister placed her arm around her mother’s shoulders.

Littlejohn was silent as well while staring ahead from his seat at the defense table. There was something uncanny about watching the man accused of binding St. Guillen’s hands and feet with his own hands and legs bound by handcuffs and shackles.

Littlejohn’s lawyer spoke the “not guilty” plea on his client’s behalf. But surely everyone else in the room hoped he was guilty. Otherwise, the killer is still out there.

Mr. Goldin’s column appears regularly in The New York Sun.