Sergio Correa's iPhone 7 was a trove of information for state police detectives investigating the deaths of Janet and Kenneth Lindquist and the apparent disappearance of the couple's son Matthew following a massive fire at the family's Griswold home on Dec. 20, 2017.

Correa, 29, eventually was charged with killing Janet, Kenneth and Matthew Lindquist and setting fire to their home at 70 Kenwood Estates during a four-hour crime spree that included a home invasion, three murders, two arsons and theft of anything that Correa and his sister, Ruth Correa, could find of value — including Christmas gifts. 

As Correa heads to trial — jury selection is expected to commence as soon as Judicial Branch officials figure out a way to safely conduct a trial without putting the parties at risk of contracting COVID-19 — defense attorneys are claiming the state police illegally seized Correa's cellphone. The lawyers are trying to keep the phone, and its contents, from being admitted as evidence.

The state has the burden of proving, to trial Judge Hunchu Kwak, that the detectives had probable cause to believe the phone was the instrument of a crime or that they seized the phone under "exigent," or pressing, circumstances on Dec. 28, 2017.

At a suppression hearing Wednesday, Senior Assistant State's Attorney Thomas M. DeLillo stipulated, or agreed, that detectives seized the phone without a search warrant. DeLillo elicited testimony from Detectives David Bennett and Frank Cuoco of the Eastern District Major Crime Squad about the string of events that led to the troopers' seizure of the phone.

When the missing Matthew Lindquist's pinging cellphone led troopers to the Sands Apartment Complex in Hartford, where both Correa and his sister Ruth lived in separate apartments, Correa was not yet considered a suspect.  

He was a person of interest, though, since phone records showed he was the last person to have phone contact with Matt Lindquist, who wasn't in the family home when it burned down, and whose car was found, also on fire, in Glastonbury about an hour after the Griswold fire was reported.

State police didn't know it yet but Matt Lindquist, 21, also had died on Dec. 20, 2017. He'd been struggling with a heroin addiction and had made a deal with Correa, who had been released just months earlier following a 10-year stint in prison, to stage a burglary at his parents' home in exchange for drugs.

Matt Lindquist's body wouldn't be found until the following spring, in a wooded area near the family home, where state police say the Correa siblings left it after hacking Lindquist to death and going on to the family home to rob and kill his parents. 

Bennett and Cuoco were hoping to talk to Correa about Lindquist's whereabouts, and were sitting in the parking lot of his Donald Street apartment when probation officers conducted a search there on Dec. 28, 2017, Bennett testified Wednesday. Correa agreed to speak with the detectives, and a probation officer drove them to the Capital City Command Center, known as C4, where they interviewed Correa, until he asked for a lawyer, then they seized his phone.

Defense attorney Joseph Lopez cross-examined Bennett about whether they considered Correa a suspect at that point and whether they had told probation officers during a planning meeting that they were going to try and "grab" Correa's phone. Bennett said several investigative steps needed to be taken before Correa could be called a suspect.

He said probation officers told Correa he should cooperate with the detectives, and Cuoco took the phone from Correa. In January 2018, the detectives sent the phone to a company that extracted its contents, but it wasn't until June 2018, after Matthew Lindquist's body was found and Ruth Correa confessed to the crimes in detail, that police obtained a search warrant for the phone.

Cuoco was testifying when the hearing ended for the day and is expected to resume the witness stand Thursday. The state is also expected to elicit testimony from a third state police detective and a probation officer.

Judge Kwak eventually will rule whether the phone, and its contents, should be admitted as evidence.

k.florin@theday.com