CONCORD, NH – A jury rejected a strong defense case for reasonable doubt, finding Logan Clegg guilty of four counts of second-degree murder in the shooting deaths of Djeswende and Stephen Reid in Merrimack County Superior Court Monday after about 10 hours of deliberation.
The jury of six men and six women found Clegg guilty on nine counts – four of them second-degree murder – in the April 2022 shooting death of the Concord couple.
The couple’s family reacted to the verdict with one quick clap that rung out in the silent courtroom as the forewoman read the first guilty finding shortly after 12:30 p.m. Monday.
Clegg, 27, was found guilty of nine charges: two of second-degree murder for “knowingly causing the death” of each of the Reids two of second-degree murder for “recklessly” causing the death of each of the Reids; four more for falsifying evidence, two of those for concealing the Reids’ bodies under leaves and woodland detritus after he shot them, one for clearing his computer history and data in the days after the shootings, and one for burning down his tent site with all his possessions in them after the shootings.
He was also found guilty of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, a charge the defense conceded to the jury that he was guilty of before deliberations began.
Clegg’s sentencing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday, Dec. 15, in Merrimack County Superior Court. A second-degree murder charge in New Hampshire carries a maximum penalty of life in prison without parole.
Clegg, standing between public defense attorneys Caroline Smith and Mariana Dominguez, grimaced slightly as the verdict was read. Through Smith, he requested that the jury be polled. Each juror, some barely audible, responded “guilty” to the clerk’s question of how they found the defendant on all nine charges.
During the polling, Clegg watched the jurors intently, as Brian Reid, the victims’ son, leaned forward in his seat behind the prosecution table, watching Clegg.
“A liar, a thief, a murderer has been brought to justice today,” Brian Reid said in a statement in front of TV cameras set up on the hallway outside the courtroom. Reid thanked the jury for their work. His wife, Jackie, also thanked the jury, and said the family is “eternally grateful” to the law enforcement officers whose work led to Clegg’s arrest. She described the Reids as “lifelong humanitarians beloved the world over.”
After Brian and Jackie Reid read their statements, a TV reporter asked, “How did it feel to hear the jury say ‘guilty’?” But the couple, and other family members and friends accompanying them, did not respond, and quickly left the courtroom.
The pair had attended most of the three-week-long trial, as did other friends and members of the Reid family.
Most of the media covering the case, including all of the print journalists, were not present for most of Brian Reid’s statement, kept in the courtroom by a court officer until “they are out of the building.” It wasn’t clear who “they” were. As they waited to be allowed out, some reporters remarked on how it was the first time they hadn’t been allowed to leave a courtroom after a verdict.
Attorneys on both sides of the case also weren’t immediately available for comment after the verdict was read and reporters were able to leave the courtroom.
Djeswende, 66, and Stephen Reid, 67, had been married for 38 years, and had two children. The pair lived in Senegal, Chad and Niger, before returning to the U.S. They retired to Concord, Stephen’s hometown, in 2019 and were living at the Alton Woods apartment complex on Loudon Road as they shopped for a house.
Three weeks of testimony
The jury sat for nearly three weeks of testimony, two weeks of it the state’s case, which was almost entirely circumstantial. The state stressed actions that showed Clegg’s consciousness of guilt and the timing of a sighting of a man who was likely him on the trail near the shootings five minutes after they happened, as well as shell casings that could be tied to the crime scene and Clegg.
There was no evidence that tied Clegg directly to the shooting except two shell casings that were found at the shooting scene by an assistant attorney general a month after the shootings in an area that had been extensively searched before they were found. After Clegg’s arrest, the casings were found to match ones shot from the Glock 9mm pistol he had in his backpack, according to the New Hampshire State Police forensics lab ballistics effort. Bullet fragments at the scene, as well as a bullet the medical examiner found in Djeswende Reid’s head, were too damaged to determine caliber, make, or if they matched Clegg’s gun.
Clegg bought the Glock 9mm pistol and three boxes of ammunition on Feb. 12, 2022, at R&L Archery, in Barre, Vermont. He showed a driver’s license with the name Arthur Kelley and a Barre address as the identification required to buy it. Store owner Chris Sanborn testified at the trial that store employees matched his information on the license to be sure it was the same as on a form Clegg filled out for the purchase, on which he also used the false name and address.
Under the federal Brady Act, every gun dealer with a federal license to sell firearms must conduct a background check on potential buyers. Such a check would’ve flagged Clegg and not allowed him to buy a gun, since the license was later determined to have a fake name and address, and invalid in Vermont. That fact did not come at the trial either during the state’s direct or defense’s cross-examination. If the owner had, the license would’ve been flagged.
During closing arguments Thursday, Assistant Attorney General Joshua Speicher said despite the circumstantial nature of the evidence, the amount of it, when taken as a whole, pointed to Clegg’s consciousness of guilt, and was enough to dispel any reasonable doubt.
The Reids were shot to death on April 18, 2022, as they took an afternoon walk on Marsh Loop Trail in the Broken Ground Trail System in northeast Concord. They were reported missing by their family on April 20, 2022, and their bodies were found the evening of April 21, 2022, about 50 yards off the trail under a pile of leaves, sticks and other woodland detritus.
Prosecutors acknowledged they don’t know why Clegg shot the Reids, but Speicher stressed to jurors that motive was not one of the elements that the state had to prove.
“The evidence shows Logan Clegg murdered Steve and Wendy, it doesn’t matter why, he’s the one who did it,” Speicher said during his closing statement.
Clegg is believed to have shot the Reids to death on the way back to his campsite in the Broken Ground Trail System after he bought a hot rotisserie chicken and two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew at Shaw’s on Loudon Road.
A Concord woman walking her dogs was passed by the Reids on the way to the trail the afternoon of April 18, 2022. Five minutes later, she heard gunshots, and five minutes after that, came upon a man on the trail that investigators believed at the time could be the shooter. An investigation that tied Mountain Dew Code Red cans they saw at the tent site of a who identified himself as Arthur Kelly as they searched for the Reids the night of April 20, 2022, eventually uncovered a trail of Walmart and Shaw’s surveillance photos, store receipts, email addresses and online purchases that led police to find out Clegg’s real name.
Investigators also eventually determined a tent site in the trail system about a quarter mile from where the Reids were shot had belonged to Clegg. It had been burned to the ground with most of his belongings in it, including 155 camping-size propane tanks. Four months after the shootings, investigators found shell casings and bullets at the site that later were found to match a gun belonging to Clegg.
Clegg was arrested at the South Burlington, Vermont, public library on Oct. 12, 2022, a day before he was to leave on a flight out of JFK Airport in New York with a one-way ticket to Berlin, Germany.
Investigators tracked Clegg to Vermont using a cellphone number from a Verizon Trac phone he’d given to buy the ticket.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security notified police in Logan, Utah, about the number, and the Utah police notified the Concord Police Department.
In Utah, Clegg was sentenced to 36 months’ probation for charges of failing to stop at command of law enforcement (a Class A misdemeanor), theft by receiving stolen property, burglary and theft (all 3rd Degree felonies) in November 2020, after he stole two guns from a sporting goods store. When he didn’t appear for a probation appointment in June 2021, a warrant was issued for his arrest. Once Concord police learned Clegg’s name, they uncovered the Utah charges and had been in touch with Utah police about Clegg.
When Concord police Det. Wade Brown interviewed Clegg after his Oct. 12, 2022, arrest, Clegg lied about when he was in Concord, saying he left while there was still snow on the ground. He also said he’d never camped in Broken Ground Trail System or shopped at Walmart, though police uncovered 50 visits to the store caught on surveillance video. That included one on the morning of April 19, 2022, the morning after the shootings, when Clegg bought a tent and sleeping bag. Investigators believed he’d burned his tent and belongings after the shooting.
Clegg was initially arrested on the Utah warrant, which police in that state expanded from a west coast warrant to a full-U.S. one, after learning of Clegg’s possible involvement in the Reids’ homicides.
In the following days, he was extradited to New Hampshire and charged with the Reids’ killings.
It’s that warrant, the defense argued, that was the reason Clegg lied to police and cover his tracks, and not the shooting. The defense case emphasized that most of Clegg’s behavior was spurred by his dislike for police and fear of being arrested on the warrant.
The defense made most of its case during the state’s portion of the trial, as well as their two days of testimony. They hammered away at the fact the shell casings that tied Clegg to the crime scene were not found despite the fact sniffer dogs, metal detectors and multiple investigators had searched around the tree where the were later found by then-Assistant Attorney General Geoff Ward. They also continuously pointed to the state’s focus on Clegg, rather than any other possible suspects, and argued confirmation bias by investigators led them to make the circumstantial evidence fit Clegg.
The defense also called an analyst from a DNA lab that Concord Police Department investigators had sent 31 items to for testing. Of the 63 samples tested, none tied Clegg to the shooting. Investigators believe touch DNA might be found on the Reids’ clothing, since their bodies were dragged from the trail after they were shot. The analyst testified that the DNA found on the underside of Stephen Reid’s belt, his hiking boot and a sock were multiple times more likely to be from an unknown male than from Clegg.
The defense also argued that the dog-walker who saw a man who resembled Clegg, saw no signs of exertion, blood or dirt on him, though he would’ve had only about five minutes to conceal the bodies after she heard the gunshots.
Dominguez, in closing arguments, said science – the DNA, ballistics, and timeline – should all lead them to have reasonable doubt that Clegg killed the Reids.
“If you think he could have, that’s reasonable doubt and you must acquit,” Dominguez told the jury in her closing statement. “If you think he might have, that’s reasonable doubt and you must acquit. If you think he probably did, that’s reasonable doubt and you must acquit.”
