NH AG Denies Problems With Clegg Murder Case In Shooting Deaths Of Concord Couple

By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepth NH

CONCORD, NH — Concord Police detectives were right to skip getting a warrant before tracking down Logan Clegg during the investigation into the murders of Stephen and Djeswende “Wendy” Reid.

That’s according to the response brief filed by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office in Clegg’s appeal heading to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

Clegg, 28, is challenging his murder convictions partly on grounds that detectives improperly used emergency procedures to get his cell phone location data instead of first seeking a warrant. According to Assistant Attorney General Audriana Mekula, detectives seeking Clegg knew that time was running out to find the man they believed was a killer.

“Based on what investigators knew, they reasonably believed that the defendant had murdered two people, still had the murder weapon and would imminently destroy it, and was preparing to leave the country in approximately two days. Moreover, because the defendant could easily destroy or deactivate his phone, it was imperative for investigators to obtain his location information before that happened, so they could apprehend him before he boarded an international flight,” Mekula wrote.

Clegg is serving a 50-years-to-life sentence for the seemingly senseless killings of the retired couple in 2022. He was arrested in Burlington, Vermont, five months after the murders after police used his location data to pinpoint his whereabouts. At the time, detectives had been tipped off by federal law enforcement that Clegg had a plane ticket to Germany under an alias he had used with Concord officers. Police found a 9 mm pistol, ammunition, and $7,000 in cash when they arrested Clegg in October of 2022.

Clegg's appeal brief, filed in March, argues that since police never got a warrant for the location data, all of the other evidence obtained during his arrest, like the gun and ammunition, ought to have been suppressed at trial. Police had circumstantial evidence possibly linking Clegg to the crime when they obtained his cell phone number on Oct. 11, 2022.

Location data from cell phones are protected under the Stored Communications Act. Under the law, police can obtain that data from service providers if they first obtain a warrant from a judge. However, cellular companies like Verizon allow police to obtain information without a warrant by calling an “emergency situations” hotline.

Concord detectives testified during a pre-trial hearing that it generally takes about two hours to get a warrant from the courts. Instead, the detectives accessed the Verizon data multiple times starting Oct. 11, 2022 through to just before the arrest on Oct. 12, 2022.

But because the officers believed Clegg was about to get on a plane to leave the country, they had every legal right to rush the process of getting his location data, Mekula states. This sense of urgency also clears the officers for searching Clegg’s cell phone in Vermont without first getting a warrant, Mekula states.

Clegg’s appeal is centered on the decisions Merrimack Superior Court Judge John Kissinger made in allowing crucial evidence and testimony to be seen by the jury during the 2023 trial. Kissinger’s decision to allow Concord Police detectives to testify about seeing an object in a crime scene photo is also part of Clegg’s appeal.

Then-Assistant Attorney General Geoffrey Ward found bullet casings in the area where the bodies of the Reids were discovered off the Marsh Loop Trail in Concord on May 20, 2022, a month after the killings. These casings had previously gone undiscovered for almost a month despite several police searches.

According to information presented at the trial, the area where the casings were found was open to the public in the days before Ward found the evidence. The casings are also not seen in two photos of the area, one taken on April 22, 2022 and another on May 10, 2022.

At the trial, as Clegg’s defense team planned to call an expert to challenge the fact the casings were in the area at all before Ward’s discovery on May 20, 2022, Kissinger ruled that police investigators Wade Brown and Carlton Ryder could testify that they recently noticed “objects” in the April 22 and May 10 photos. This discovery of the objects was made by the detectives within 24 hours or so of their testimony. Kissinger, however, did not allow either investigator to state these objects were the bullet casings, but that was the inference at the trial.

Mekula argues the testimony from Brown and Ryder did not improperly sway the jurors.

“It was relevant testimony explaining to the jury what each detective saw in a photograph and where they saw it. The testimony helped the jury understand the photographs that were admitted as full exhibits,” Mekula wrote. “This evidence was not unfairly prejudicial as it did not evoke an emotional response from the jury, nor was it cumulative or speculative testimony.”

Clegg also disputes Kissinger's decision to strike a question his defense team asked Fish and Game Officer James Benvenuti during the trial. Benvenuti and his K-9 dog Cora searched the site for evidence on April 22, 2022. Cora is trained to find shell casings and bullets, but Benvenuti and Cora found nothing.

Prosecutors at trial objected when Clegg’s lawyers asked Benvenuti how many times Cora had failed her training certification tests.

“We haven’t failed,” Benvenuti testified.

Mekula states the question and Benvenuti’s answer were improper and Kissinger was right to strike them from the record. Once stricken, the jury would not be allowed to consider the conundrum of a well-trained search dog coming up empty so soon after the murder.

"This question was beyond the scope of the State’s cross-examination and did not clarify or explain any point the State made during its cross-examination,” Mekula wrote.

The testimony at Clegg’s trial featured odd gaps, like the fact there was no physical evidence linking him to the murders, and no known motive for the shootings.

Clegg was living in a tent in the woods off the Marsh Loop Trail when the couple was killed. In the days after the shooting, Clegg burned his tent and left the state, eventually traveling to Vermont under an alias. Clegg’s argument at trial was that he was afraid he would be arrested on a warrant out of Utah after Concord police started searching the area in April of 2022.

When he was arrested, Clegg had an airplane ticket to Germany, cash he reportedly earned from working at a Vermont grocery store, and a Romanian travel card obtained under the name Arthur Kelly.

The Reids were retired after coming home to Concord from a career abroad. Stephen Reid was a USAID consultant and travelled the world for his job.

This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.