By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – Lawyers for accused killer Logan Clegg took over the trial late Tuesday after prosecutors called their last witness, and Judge John Kissinger found enough evidence to continue.
The state is trying to prove that Clegg shot and killed Stephen and Wendy Reid in April of last year for no apparent reason and without any evidence directly linking him to the crime.
Once the prosecution wrapped up on Tuesday in Merrimack County Superior Court, Clegg’s lead defense attorney, Caroline Smith, moved to end the case with a directed verdict in Clegg’s favor.
Smith argued the prosecution did not present enough evidence to continue the trial, let alone convict her client.
Kissinger ruled from the bench that the state has enough evidence to let the jury decide if Clegg is guilty.
“There is sufficient evidence linking the defendant to the murder of the Reids,” Kissinger said.
The jury was not present for the argument on the motion for a directed verdict.
Kissinger said Clegg’s burned tent site, discovered on April 20 when the bodies of Wendy and Stephen Reid were discovered, as well as Clegg’s 9 mm pistol, the same caliber of gun that was used for the murders, is enough to keep the trial going.
The fact Clegg burned his tent site is significant, Kissinger said. Clegg has said he burned his tent site and fled the state in April of 2022 because he was afraid of being arrested for a Utah probation violation. Kissinger said that explanation does not explain Clegg’s extreme steps.
Stephen and Wendy Reid were retired and living in Concord, and the couple enjoyed hiking the Marsh Loop Trail several times a week. The couple never returned from their April 18, 2022 hike, and were reported missing before their bodies were found in a wooded area off the trail on April 20, 2022.
Clegg was living in a tent in the woods off the trail, though not at the site where the bodies were found.
Smith spent much of the day cross-examining one of the final prosecution witnesses, state laboratory expert Jill Therriault, poking holes in the physical evidence taken from the site where the bodies were found, like the pistol shell casings and the bullets recovered from the bodies.
The Reids were killed with a 9 mm gun that features a barrel with polygonal rifling, Therriault said. Glock is one of at least 15 gun-makers to have polygonal rifled barrels.
However, Therriault conceded on the witness stand that she could not determine if Clegg’s Glock 17 was the gun that killed the Reids based on the bullets taken from their bodies.
“My results of that comparison were inconclusive,” Therriault said. “So, they had the same class characteristics, but there were no individual characteristics for me to make any kind of a concrete determination.”
Glock sells about 1 million pistols a year in the United States, and other gun makers with polygonal rifled barrels include big brands like Walther, HK, and Kahr Arms. Smith additionally pointed out Therriault said in her deposition under oath that many people build so-called ghost guns using Glock-type polygonal rifled barrels.
“When it comes down to it, there are an untold number of guns in the United States that could have fired the bullets,” Smith said.
State experts testified on Monday that no blood samples found at the scene turned up any DNA connecting Clegg to the murders, and that Clegg’s belongings did not have any blood stains when he was arrested in October of 2022, several months after the murders.
The strongest physical evidence linking Clegg to the murders are the shell casings found near the bodies. Those shell casings were fired from Clegg’s gun, but Therriault said she cannot prove the bullets came from those casings.
“I can’t put bullets back into cartridge cases,” Therriault said.
The casings were found by then-Senior Assistant Attorney General Geoffrey Ward on May 20 of 2022, a month after the bodies were found. Clegg’s team is challenging this discovery, noting the fact the casings were not found for a month despite numerous police searches for evidence in the area. There is also the fact that police secured the site from members of the public for just three days.
The defense called independent DNA expert Amber Smith as the first witness, though her testimony did not progress to any conclusions when the trial adjourned for the day. The jury is expected to start hearing more from her starting at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
