A jury on Tuesday found Sergio Correa guilty of carrying out a crime spree that left three people dead and ended in a fiery blaze, guaranteeing him a life in prison.

The 30-year-old was found guilty on 13 of the 14 charges in the vicious killings of Kenneth and Janet Lindquist and their son Matthew in Griswold on Dec. 20, 2017, including one count of murder with special circumstances, which carries the harshest penalty a person can face in Connecticut: life in prison without the possibility of parole. Correa now faces that sentence, plus an additional 105 years in prison.

The 12 jury members came back with the verdict shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday, after two full days of deliberations following the monthlong trial in New London Superior Court Part A, where major crimes are heard. They found Correa not guilty of only one charge: felony murder in the death of Matthew Lindquist.

Correa, dressed in a gray suit and striped tie, showed no emotion upon hearing the verdict. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Hunchu Kwak on March 2, 2022.

A wave of relief washed over the Lindquists' relatives and friends as the verdict was read. But, even after hearing the jury repeat the word "guilty" 13 times in emphatic unison, the surviving Lindquists still don't feel like justice has been served or ever will be.

"It would be ignorant to presume that we are celebrating a guilty verdict as if it's some kind of victory," Eric Lindquist, Kenneth and Janet's surviving son, said in a statement on behalf of his family. "Do not be misled: A guilty verdict does not mean justice has prevailed; it does not mean the judicial system works; it does not mean we get to return to normal and move on with the lives we once knew."

"The nightmare of what happened will haunt us forever," he said.

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Testimony at the trial showed that nearly four years ago, Janet and Kenneth Lindquist went to bed in their home in a quiet cul-de-sac near the woods in Griswold. Unbeknownst to them, Matthew — who had been battling a drug addiction — had been exchanging a flurry of frantic texts with an alleged Hartford drug dealer named Sergio Correa, whom he was begging to bring him heroin in exchange for guns his father kept in a safe in their basement.

When Matthew Lindquist wandered outside in his bathrobe for the drug deal, something went wrong and he ran into the woods. There, he was struck on the back of the head with a machete, stabbed 67 times and left for dead, a medical examiner testified.

The Lindquist couple, who had been married for 28 years, were awakened that night by two strangers in their home who unleashed four hours of mayhem on them.

Kenneth Lindquist was hit on the head with a baseball bat until his skull smashed into more than 30 pieces, according to autopsy reports. The family's golden retriever, Skylar, was struck so hard with a golf club that it broke. And Janet Lindquist cowered in fear before being beaten and strangled. She was still alive when her home, which her husband had built, was set on fire, according to testimony.

“It’s a morning I’ll never forget,” said Eric Lindquist, who awoke about 5 a.m. to a call from his dad’s best friend and neighbor, Bob Thibeau, who told him that his parents' house was on fire. Thibeau testified during the trial that he woke up to find his own bedroom “was bright orange.” He looked outside and saw the Lindquist home was in flames.

He told the jury he made a “a horrible scream” before sprinting across the street to try to get into the house to save his friend and his family. But everywhere he looked, he was met with flames.

“I’ll never be able to not remember what I saw that morning. It’s been four years of grief, of missing them,” Eric Lindquist said. “And not just missing them, but the anger that comes from the way that they were taken from me and my family.”

Last week, he spoke of his “roller coaster of grief.” He thinks people often overlook that he lost not only his family, but nearly everything that belonged to them — their beloved golden retriever, all their possessions, including decades' worth of photographs, and the home that his father built “with his own hands.”

“That was his legacy and that’s gone," he said. "All of the family heirlooms are gone. We don’t have much to remember them by."

He said he hopes that he and his loved ones, who packed the courtroom every day of the trial, would be able to rest after a month that made them “relive the nightmare” of their loss over and over. Family and friends often became visibly emotional during the most gruesome testimonies, some stepping outside when the most gut-wrenching crime scene photos were shown.

Eric Lindquist has taken more than 120 days off from work, mostly unpaid, to see the case through in person. He said last week that it’s cost him valuable time that he could have otherwise spent building his career and personal life. Although it’s taken a toll, he hopes to use this experience to advocate for changes in the state’s criminal justice system.

But, he said, “for now we can just go home and get some rest and be at a little more peace than we’ve been at these past few weeks.”

Eric Lindquist's half-sister Danielle Nichols, Kenneth Lindquist's daughter, broke down in tears after the verdict was delivered, hugging members of her family in the hallway. She said that although it all still feels like a dream, and sometimes she still hopes she'll wake up and her family will still be here, she feels a little bit of relief knowing that Correa will not be walking the streets.

Kenneth and Janet's niece Kelsey Lindquist also became emotional in the courthouse. "It's been long and arduous but I feel like now we can all start healing," she said.

Correa was charged with three counts of murder, one count of murder with special circumstances, three counts of murder during the commission of a felony, two counts of second-degree arson in attempt to conceal a criminal act, one count of first-degree burglary at night, two counts of first-degree robbery and home invasion. The charge of murder with special circumstances applies in this case because Correa killed more than one person during a single incident.

His adoptive sister Ruth Correa was charged as an accomplice in the case and this summer agreed to testify against her brother in exchange for a suggested sentence of 40 years instead of the more than 100 she faced.

Eric Lindquist said the fact that Ruth Correa may walk free in her 60s is one of the things that makes it hard to consider the outcome of the case a victory. "The lives that were taken at the hands of cold-blooded killers can never be returned, yet at least one of those unremorseful killers could have a life after prison after committing some of the most heinous acts in Connecticut's recent history."

"The best we can do to honor the lives of Mom, Dad, and Matthew is to fight to reform a horribly broken judicial system that is failing to serve and protect our communities," the 31-year-old said.

Correa's trial took years to go before a jury, delayed significantly by the COVID-19 pandemic. Jury selection was a long process, as attorneys for both sides looked for jurors who could commit to spending up to six weeks in court.

Once the jury began hearing testimony from witnesses, they faced delays ranging from jurors talking about the case on their lunch break — prompting the defense to call for a mistrial in the first week — to an emotional outburst by Sergio Correa's ex-girlfriend Tanisha Vicento when she took the stand. Prosecutors encountered some technical difficulties as they tried to show evidence, including graphic crime scene and autopsy photos, that frustrated the Lindquists' friends and family and led them to speak out about what they called "outdated courtroom technology" impeding the case.

State Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, attended several days of the trial to stand by the family and said she hopes to bring her experience with her to the legislature in Hartford to fix problems she noticed in the courtroom.

In a statement Tuesday, she said that throughout this process Eric Lindquist has become “the true face of victims of homicide and understands that these victims' lives are impacted forever and that life will never be the same even with those who commit these crimes behind bars.”

Noting areas in the judicial system "require great attention and reform,” she said, “I am committed to working with Eric and other victims to address these issues so that no other family must endure the pain, heartbreak and loss the Lindquists' extended family has.”

She also said this case further emphasizes the importance of tackling the opioid crisis: “Matthew had an addiction, which led to where we are now, and we have to do more to stop that opiate addiction.”

Eric Lindquist, too, said Tuesday that his brother’s addiction was a catalyst for the tragedy that unfolded. “My brother obviously had some struggles in his life and there’s no doubt that’s what led us to this, but in his heart I know he was an incredible person as well,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that it had to end this way, but I love my entire family to death.”

Investigators during the trial read through pages of text messages exchanged between Matthew Lindquist and Sergio Correa hours before his death when he was, as prosecutors described, “dopesick” — suffering from opioid withdrawal.

The state called more than two dozen witnesses who also mapped out cellphone location tracking, reviewed autopsy reports, showed crime scene photos and described the violence inflicted on the family.

The defense called only one witness in the trial, a woman named Erica Teal, who was an inmate at York Correctional Institution at the same time as Ruth Correa. Teal testified that Ruth Correa told her about how she stabbed a man in the woods in Griswold and how it felt "euphoric."

Correa's attorneys, public defenders Joseph Lopez and Corrie-Ann Mainville, said they had no comment on the verdict.

Supervisory Assistant State's Attorney Stephen M. Carney said Tuesday afternoon that he and his fellow prosecutors wanted to thank the jurors for sitting through the weeks of testimony in what he called "one of the longest and most emotionally and intellectually challenging trials" he's ever experienced.

He also thanked Assistant State's Attorney Marissa N. Goldberg and Senior Assistant State's Attorney Thomas M. DeLillo for "working tirelessly to see that the people's interests were represented," and commended the dedication of Supervisory Inspector Merritt D'Amico, whose "tireless efforts were key to the successful prosecution."

State's Attorney Paul J. Narducci issued a statement Tuesday afternoon, saying "First and foremost, our thoughts are with the Lindquist family. We hope that this verdict brings them some peace after the suffering that they have endured."

Narducci thanked the Connecticut State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the state Division of Scientific Services, the state police Fire Explosion Investigation Unit and the Glastonbury Police Department, saying "their assistance was invaluable."

Though the family was hoping for guilty verdicts on all 14 charges, Eric Lindquist said he understood the jury's decision to find Correa not guilty on one charge and expressed his gratitude to jury members for their “hard work.”

“It shows that they did their work and took their charge seriously,” he said. “It actually adds more solidity to the other guilty verdicts, because it shows that they did their homework.”

Carney agreed and said the prosecution respected the verdict. “It reflects that they were thoughtful in the manner in which they apply the law to the facts they found,” he said.

The law says a person can only be convicted of murder during the commission of a felony if the murder victim was not a participant in the felony crimes, he noted. The jury may have considered Matthew Lindquist’s role in inviting Correa to his parents' neighborhood to trade the guns for drugs when ruling on that charge.

On their way out of the courtroom, members of the jury — including the forewoman — said they had no comment on the verdict.

t.hartz@theday.com