State police Detective Frank Cuoco "felt something shift" as he interviewed Sergio Correa eight days after Janet and Kenneth Lindquist were viciously killed and their Griswold home set on fire.

The conversation that took place at Hartford police's command center on Dec. 28, 2017, had been casual, Cuoco, the lead detective in the Griswold home invasion and murder case testified Thursday, the second day of a suppression hearing in New London Superior Court.

Correa, who had been released from prison just a few months earlier after a decade in prison for crimes he committed as a teen, including armed robbery and arson, had been the last person to have phone contact with the Lindquists' son Matthew.

Cuoco and Detective David Bennett, both members of the Eastern District Major Crime Squad, showed Correa a picture of Matthew Lindquist, who was missing and suspected of his parents' murders. Lindquist's phone had pinged, or responded to a signal sent out by state police, from the area of Correa's home in downtown Hartford.

Correa agreed to talk to them after probation officers searched his apartment without finding Lindquist. The detectives told Correa Matthew Lindquist was "a bad dude," and had possibly been involved in a couple of murders. Correa, who was "manipulating his phone," told them he wasn't involved in anything Lindquist had done.

Based on Correa's reactions, Cuoco decided to seize Correa's phone.

"I know from experience that with just a couple of swipes, a phone could be wiped out," Cuoco testified.

Correa asked for an attorney several times, and though the detectives attempted to keep him talking, the interview eventually ended, and Correa was free to go. He would be arrested about a month later on a drug-related probation violation charge. Matthew Lindquist's body was found in May 2018 in a wooded area near his home, and Correa and his sister Ruth Correa eventually were charged with killing Lindquist and his parents.

Correa's attorneys are attempting to convince Judge Hunchu Kwak that Correa's phone and its contents were seized illegally by state police and should not be admissible as evidence at Correa's trial. The detectives didn't get search warrants for the phone and its contents until after they seized it, but the state contends the detectives had probable cause the phone had been an instrument in the commission of the crime.

For several hours Thursday, Cuoco remained on the witness stand as defense attorney Joseph E. Lopez cross-examined him about the search of Correa's house by probation officers, the chain of custody of the phone after it was seized and the monthslong effort to extract its contents.

Cuoco said he placed the phone inside a Faraday bag, which is made of a metallic fabric that blocks remote alteration of electronic devices, and drove to Troop E in Montville, where he placed it in the evidence cage. Detectives sent the phone to Cellbrite, an Israeli company that specializes in accessing the contents of locked phones. According to testimony, the company could not access the information, and the device eventually was sent to the FBI, which by then was able to "break" into it.

The suppression hearing will resume in approximately two weeks, when the state is expected to call at least one more crime squad detective to the witness stand. Lopez has discussed calling as a witness Correa's girlfriend at the time, Tanisha Vicento.

k.florin@theday.com