The last time Matthew Lindquist’s phone “pinged,” its location registered near the Hartford home of Sergio Correa, leading investigators in the direction of the man now charged with killing Lindquist and his parents and burning their Griswold home to the ground nearly four years ago.

A likely lengthy suppression hearing in Correa’s case continued for a second day Tuesday as the court heard testimony from a state police detective and a probation officer. They said investigators suspected Correa was involved in the murders about a week after Janet and Kenneth Lindquist’s bodies were found in the charred remains of their home — months before Matthew’s body was found in the woods nearby.

Frank Cuoco, a homicide detective with the state’s Eastern District Major Crime Squad, and Melissa Chin-Hing, a warrant officer for adult probation, both testified about the seizure of Sergio Correa’s car in December 2017. Correa’s defense attorneys are arguing that police did not have sufficient probable cause to seize the car as evidence and are looking to suppress evidence from the car in Correa’s upcoming trial.

Correa appeared in New London Superior Court on Tuesday before Judge Hunchu Kwak. He is charged with murder with special circumstances, home invasion, arson and other charges in connection to the Lindquists' deaths.

His defense team — Public Defenders Joseph Lopez and Corrie-Ann Mainville — questioned Cuoco at length Tuesday about his seizure of Correa’s Mitsubishi Galant, which he shared with his then-girlfriend Tanisha Vicento.

Cuoco testified that when he decided to seize Correa’s car, he knew Janet Lindquist had suffered blunt force trauma and that police were investigating two suspicious fires: one at the Lindquist house in Griswold and another involving Matthew Lindquists’ car in Glastonbury. He knew that a sledgehammer and a gas can had been found in Sergio Correa’s car after it was searched by a parole officer.

He told the court it might be possible to recover “trace evidence” from the car that possibly could be linked to the Griswold homicides, including fingerprints, blood or saliva.

He also testified that the vehicle Correa was driving was consistent with the shape, size and color of a vehicle, captured in footage from a Bank of America security camera, driving close behind Matthew Lindquist’s car before it was burned.

Mainville pressed Cuoco as to whether he could have released the car back to Correa and Vicento pending a warrant or kept it in the custody of the Hartford Police Department, rather than having it towed to Montville before he had secured a warrant.

Cuoco told the defense attorney that those things were not possible.

“There was a possibility of destroying evidence if I let the vehicle leave at that time and I was not going to let that happen,” he said.

Mainville also questioned whether Cuoco stayed with the vehicle in the hours between when he decided to seize it and when it was towed or had surveillance on it. He said he did not.

The court on Monday heard hours of testimony from two FBI agents who handled Correa’s iPhone during the course of the homicide investigation.

Attorneys questioned the experts about the chain of custody of the phone, how it was unlocked and a reported white screen that appeared during the process of unlocking the phone and retrieving data.

Ruth Correa, Sergio Correa’s sister, is expected to take the stand Wednesday, according to Lopez. She pleaded guilty this summer to three counts of felony murder in the deaths of the Lindquist family as part of a plea deal — she’ll receive a suggested sentence of 40 years served in prison in exchange for testifying against her brother.

Vicento is expected to testify on Thursday, along with an employee from Cellebrite, one of the software companies used to extract data from Correa’s iPhone.

Correa’s long-awaited trial, which has been delayed during the COVID-19 pandemic, is expected to begin next month.

t.hartz@theday.com