By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – Police don’t have evidence linking Logan Clegg to the murders of Concord couple Djeswende and Stephen Reid, his attorney Caroline Smith told jurors.
“The wrong man has been charged,” Smith said in her opening statement on Tuesday.
Clegg’s trial started this week in the Merrimack Superior Court in Concord almost a year after he was arrested in Vermont for the killings.
Djeswende and Stephen Reid were murdered in April of 2022 as they were hiking on the Marsh Loop Trail. Clegg was arrested months later after he was tracked to Vermont.
Clegg certainly acted like a suspect, Assistant Attorney General Meghan Hagaman said in her opening. When he was arrested in October of last year, police found a fake Romanian passport, a one-way plane ticket to Germany, $7,000 in cash, and a Glock 17, 9 mm pistol.
“After the defendant killed Steve and Wendy, he tried to run and hide. And when he couldn’t run and hide anymore, he lied,” Hagaman said.
The couple was initially reported missing on April 18, 2022, when they didn’t return home from their hike. Police started searching the trail, hoping to find the husband and wife.
As police searched the woods for the Reids the next day they encountered Clegg living in a tent in the woods. That’s when he started his lies to police, Hagaman said. Clegg gave them a false name, Arthur Kelly, and said he’d never seen the couple. The day after he was questioned, Clegg got on a bus to Portland, Maine.
Police would later find a burned camping site in the Concord woods, where Clegg allegedly burned his tent and other belongings.
After getting out of Concord, Clegg stuck to buses, heading to Boston and then Burlington, Vermont. In Vermont, Clegg got a job at a Price Chopper and took to living in a tent close-by. During the months in Vermont, Hagaman said, Clegg was getting ready to flee the country.
Police ended up tracking him down using a cell phone he had in another alias, Peter Black. They were able to locate the cell phone signal in Vermont, Hagaman said.
But according to Smith, aside from Clegg’s suspicious behavior, the state does not have any hard evidence proving he’s the killer.
“Yes, Logan’s actions made him a suspect and the police were right to investigate him,” Smith said. “But the evidence isn’t here.”
Hagaman told jurors police recovered shell casings from the woods, some close to where the couple’s bodies were found. These casings match Clegg’s gun. Two bullets recovered from the scene, one from Wendy Reid and one from a tree, also match Clegg’s gun, Hagaman said.
However, Hagaman’s take on the ballistics is simply not accurate, Smith said. While the scientific testing shows the bullets came from a 9 mm pistol, the test results do not pinpoint the specific, individual weapon that fired the bullets.
The closest the tests come is identifying several different manufacturers that could have fired the bullets, including Glock, Walther, Kahr Arms, HK, and others, Smith said. Glock is one of the most popular gun brands in the world, and the 9 mm round is ubiquitous. There are millions of 9 mm pistols in circulation in the United States.
The shell casings found in the woods do match Clegg’s gun, but that’s because he set up a firing range close by, Smith said. The shell casings found near the Reids’ bodies were found weeks after the site was initially discovered, Smith said. In fact, the casings were found after police went through the area with metal detectors and evidence dogs.
Police did not find the casings until a witness came forward to say he had seen them in the area.
The rest of Clegg’s strange behavior can be explained by the fact he was wanted for a probation violation in the state of Utah and was afraid he was about to be arrested for the violation, Smith said.
“He was a fugitive from Utah and did not want to be found,” Smith said.
Police actually encountered Clegg days before the murder, coming across his tent on April 15, 2022 during a patrol of the area. Clegg stayed inside his tent and did not speak to the officers on April 15, but took drastic steps thinking he might be arrested for his Utah violation, she said. He burned his tent on April 16, days before the murder. He then got a new tent and set up a new site in the woods, she said.
When questioned about the Reids on April 19, 2022 Clegg used the Arthur Kelly alias as part of his effort to avoid trouble for the Utah violation, she said. He left the state, not because he was fleeing the murder investigation, but he was fleeing probation, she said.
The most stark evidence missing from the state’s opening remarks is any hint about a motive for the heinous crime. While jurors might have thought the wad of cash police recovered from Clegg somehow came from the Reids, Hagaman never said that. She never mentioned any theft of credit cards or cash or checks from the elderly couple.
Smith presented an explanation for the money, though. In Vermont, Clegg cashed his Price Chopper pay checks, putting aside the $7,000 police would later find. He did get the fake passport and planned to go to Europe, she said. Not because of the murder. It’s something he had done before to get away from his probation troubles.
Clegg was arrested in Utah in 2020 on a shoplifting charge. During the arrest, police found a pistol in his waistband. The gun would turn out to be reported stolen, but Clegg said at the time he bought it through a private sale and did not know it was stolen.
Clegg was sentenced to probation for the Utah charges but didn’t stay in the state as ordered by the court. Instead, he fled the country and went to Portugal. He stayed there for five months until COVID restrictions forced him to return to the U.S., Smith said.
After his Portugal sojourn, Clegg wandered to Concord, where he took up in the Marsh Loop Trail woods and got a job at the Loudon Road McDonald’s.
Clegg’s odd and nomadic life already includes death and tragedy. The Washington State native became estranged from his family in the years after his father committed suicide. At the time, Clegg was 12.
In 2018, Clegg stabbed and killed a man in Washington State. Clegg was working the night shift at a McDonald’s when he was reportedly attacked by the man. Police would later determine Clegg had acted in self-defense.