I imagine the police followed his phone.
I saw a story years ago about a hacker named Kevin Mitnick who was arrested in 1995 who was traced by his phone using cell tower locations from across the country by some reporter and a university person so you can imagine that police have this ability.
Today shopping centers follow people by the cell phone. You are a dot until you buy something then they have your name and now you are a dot with a name who bought a shirt. That info is sold so you can be tracked by anyone.
And now, even if you turn off the phone’s power you can still be tracked. I’ve heard that if you pull the battery ... same thing. There’s another battery.
If you don’t want to be tracked, leave the phone at home.
“so you can imagine that police have this ability.”
It’s called geofencing.