Request for evidence suppressed in Correia case

Attorneys for a Rhode Island man charged with abducting and killing a woman who was celebrating her 23rd birthday at a Boston nightclub want to suppress certain evidence in the case.

At a hearing on Friday in federal court in Boston, David Hoose, one of Louis Coleman III’S lawyers, told Judge F. Dennis Saylor they are challenging law enforcement’s “warrantless real-time tracking of his location and maintain(s) that the direct and indirect fruits of that unlawful search should be suppressed.”

Their motion claims that the evidence was obtained in violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

According to police affidavits, Coleman and Jassy Correia, the mother of a young girl, met at 2:16 a.m. at Venu Nightclub on Feb. 24, 2019. In affidavits filed in support of some warrants, law enforcement said that shortly afterwards, the two left in a red sedan.

Police obtained video surveillance that showed that at 4:15 a.m., a red sedan entered the parking lot of Coleman’s Providence apartment building.

“Mr. Coleman walked from the red sedan to the front of the building, carrying a body,” the affidavit said. “Law enforcement determined the body was that of Ms. Correia.”

The video showed Coleman carrying Correia’s limp body into the building before putting the body on the floor and dragging it into the elevator, according to police.

Video showed that on Feb. 27, 2019, at about 9:58 p.m., Coleman brought a suitcase into the building. At about 1:15 a.m. on February 28, 2019, he wheeled the suitcase across the building’s parking and had difficulty lifting the suitcase into the red sedan’s trunk, police said.

Later, that day, Delaware State Police learned that Coleman was the subject of a missing person investigation of the victim.

“After obtaining Mr. Coleman’s real-time location data without a warrant,” defense attorneys said, Delaware police stopped the red sedan on Interstate 95, took Coleman into custody and found Correia’s body in the suitcase stowed in the trunk. Authorities said she died from strangulation and blunt force trauma.

A grand jury indicted Coleman on one count of kidnapping resulting in death. Coleman III, 35, has pleaded not guilty.