Cops Thought He Killed His Parents. He Was Dead All Along

For more than four months, 21-year-old Matthew Lindquist was considered a suspect in the murders of his parents, found inside their burned-out home in Griswold, Conn., on Dec. 20. All the time, he was lying dead 1,500 feet away, a third victim of what police describe as a fake robbery turned real. According to an arrest affidavit released Tuesday, Lindquist had offered his father's guns to a man in exchange for drugs, so long as the man staged the scene to look like a burglary. That's not what happened. Now charged in the case, 23-year-old Ruth Correa reportedly told police her brother, Sergio Correa, hit Lindquist in the head with a machete after Lindquist panicked, per the Washington Post. The siblings then stabbed Lindquist, leaving his body in the woods near his parents' home, which they entered through a basement door they knew to be unlocked, per the affidavit.

When Kenneth and Janet Lindquist appeared, 26-year-old Sergio hit Kenneth, 56, with a baseball bat while Ruth told Janet that "her son had set her up," the affidavit states, per NBC Connecticut. The document says Sergio then choked Janet, 61, and hit her in the head with the bat before he and his sister set the house alight and took off with stolen goods and Matthew Lindquist's car, later found burned. After reportedly telling police that her brother might be planning to kill her, Ruth Correa was arrested on charges of murder, home invasion, arson, and robbery on May 12, a week after Matthew Lindquist's body was found. At the time, police said additional arrests were expected. Sergio Correa has yet to be charged, though. He's in police custody following a February arrest for probation violations and "maintains he had nothing to do with this," his lawyer tells the Hartford Courant. (More murder stories.)