By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – Jurors will now decide if Logan Clegg killed Concord’s Stephen and Wendy Reid last April for no known reason, or if police got the wrong man following a shoddy investigation.
After three weeks of testimony, jurors heard the closing arguments from prosecutors and defendants. The defense team hammered the inconsistencies in the state’s circumstantial evidence, while the prosecution focused on Clegg’s suspicious behavior.
“Logan Clegg is not guilty. Instead of looking at the science and the evidence with clear eyes, (police) speculated, they assumed, and they theorized. They got the wrong guy,” Defense Attorney Mariana Dominguez said.
Dominguez kept coming back to key findings during her closing; the DNA science and the shell casings found at the scene a month after the murders took place.
The DNA expert hired by the Concord Police Department to examine evidence taken from the scene testified the science tilts against Clegg being a suspect, Dominguez said. There is, additionally, evidence in the DNA that two people besides Stephen and Wendy Reid were at the scene, she said.
“The results weigh against Logan being the killer,” she said.
The shell casings found on May 20, 2022, by then-Senior Assistant Attorney General Geoffrey Ward is another reason to find Clegg not guilty, Dominguez said. The state has said those shell casings came from Clegg’s Glock 17, 9 mm pistol, though the bullets recovered from the bodies cannot be directly linked to the gun.
Jurors heard testimony Thursday morning from police who searched the area on April 22 and April 23. Those searches included specially trained evidence sniffing dogs, officers with metal detectors, and a line-search involving numerous officers. The shells never turned up during those searches. The jury has to consider the possibility someone planted the casings for law enforcement to find.
“It’s fanciful to believe casings were there in April,” she said.
The Reids were killed swiftly and with precision, Dominguez said, and then their bodies were quickly dragged into the woods off the Marsh Loop Trail and hidden. These are not actions that match with the homeless Clegg, whose odd demeanor and undersized frame are not those of a killer.
Once police started investigating Clegg as a suspect, though, they were ready to fit their circumstantial case into a narrative that Clegg committed the brutal crime, she said.
“The police wanted to catch the killer so they convinced themselves they did,” Dominguez said.
But Assistant Attorney General Joshua Speicher told the jury Clegg’s guilt is obviously based on his lies to police, the fact he burned his tent in Concord, that he wiped his computer’s Internet browser history, and made plans to leave the country several months after the murder.
“He knew he was guilty. Innocent people don’t burn their homes,” Speicher said.
The fact the state never presented jurors with a motive for the murders shouldn’t stop them from reaching a guilty verdict, Speicher.
“What we don’t know is why. We just don’t know. But that does not change the fact he is guilty,” Speicher said.
Clegg gave police a false name when he was questioned about the couple on April 20. At the time they were considered missing. Clegg’s team claimed he was afraid he would be arrested for violating his probation in Utah, and that’s why he used the alias and then left the city a few days later.
“If there was ever a case with reasonable doubt, it is this one,” Dominguez said.
Stephen and Wendy Reid were retired and living in Concord at the Alton Woods apartment complex, near the Marsh Loop Trail. The couple was active and known to hike the trail several times a week.
There is no mention of a robbery involved in the murder, but Stephen Reid’s cell phone from that day is still missing. Police were able to use the phone’s Google location data from the phone to find the bodies. However, FBI agent Kevin Hoyland testified Stephen Reid’s phone was downloading and uploading a large amount of data about an hour after the murders, indicating it was being used.
Dominguez said this indicates someone involved in the killing was looking for something on the phone, and may have known Stephen Reid’s password to unlock the phone.
Speicher said the alias and Clegg’s escape from New Hampshire show he is guilty. The fact that he burned his tent site in the days surrounding the murder and bought a new tent also shows he is guilty, Speicher said.
Dominguez has said Clegg burned the tent before the murders took place, after a Concord police officer found the tent on April 15. Aside from being afraid of his probation violation, Clegg exhibits some paranoia. He told police he would not go to the Friendly Kitchen in Concord for free meals because he was concerned he would be tracked by the government at the kitchen.
Deliberations are scheduled to start Friday in Merrimack Superior Court in Concord. The jury is considering several charges against Clegg, including second-degree murder and falsifying physical evidence. During her closing argument, Dominguez acknowledged Clegg is guilty of one of the charges, being a felon in possession of a firearm.