Cellphone data helped US police identify suspect in robbery, stabbing

MIDDLETOWN: Police used surveillance camera footage and cellphone location data to identify a man accused of stabbing a Middletown resident while attempting to steal the wheels from the resident’s car in December, according to an arrest warrant.

Data from the man’s cellphone showed that he was in the vicinity of the incident at the same time that cameras captured the suspect’s vehicle, the warrant states.

In addition, police said examination of the cell phone seized from the suspect, East Hartford resident Aneudi Sifuentes, showed he’d had conversations with associates about preparing for wheel and catalytic converter thefts.

Sifuentes, 19, was arrested Wednesday and is facing numerous charges including first-degree assault, first-degree robbery, fourth-degree larceny and second-degree criminal trover, as well as conspiracy charges for each of those crimes. He was held in lieu of US$200,000 (RM949,400) bail and was scheduled for arraignment in Superior Court Thursday.

According to the warrant supporting Sifuentes’ arrest, officers responded to an apartment in the 60 block of Russett Lane at around 2am Dec 17, 2023, after receiving reports of a robbery. Responding officers found a woman applying pressure to a 20-year-old man’s stab wound to the abdomen.

The victim told police he woke up to sound of a drill outside his apartment, and when he went to investigate the sound, saw an individual “tampering with his vehicle”.

The victim told his girlfriend to call the police as he went outside to confront the suspect, the warrant states. The victim recalled how he pulled the suspect out of his car, and they began fighting, which is when he was stabbed, the warrant says. It goes on to say another man in a nearby vehicle fled with the suspect afterward.

Officers inspected the victim’s car, which was missing all its tires and had been rummaged through, and found another vehicle nearby that also appeared to have been targeted by the suspects, according to the warrant.

Investigators obtained footage recorded shortly before the incident that showed the suspect vehicle, a newer Honda CR-V, entering the lot and parking by the victim’s vehicle, the warrant said.

The warrant says investigators then requested phone data for any devices in the area of the crime scene during the incident. During the search, a phone “had a pattern of activity consistent with the suspects”.

Sifuentes was the subscriber for the phone, and a quick sweep of his social media accounts showed he regularly resold car parts, according to the warrant. It said Sifuentes also fit the victim’s physical description of the suspect.

In October, according to the warrant, Manchester police identified Sifuentes as a suspect in the theft of vehicles’ catalytic converters in the area. The warrant said Sifuentes admitted to police he was involved in some of the thefts, but “wouldn’t confess to particular incidents”.

Sifuentes was arrested by Manchester police a second time four days after the Middletown stabbing while driving a vehicle that contained a reciprocating saw, blades and impact drills, according to the warrant.

Middletown police in February questioned Sifuentes about the stabbing and he denied being in the area that night, the warrant states. – The Middletown Press/Tribune News Service