Trial of a person accused of killing a New Hampshire couple on a mountain climbing path nears conclusion

Crime

Protection attorneys for Logan Clegg, 27, who’s charged with second-degree homicide counts of knowingly and recklessly inflicting the deaths of Stephen and Djeswende “Wendy” Reid, argued that authorities charged the fallacious man.

By Related Press

October 20, 2023 | 8:23 AM

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Prosecutors within the case of a person charged with fatally capturing a retired New Hampshire couple on a mountain climbing path argued Thursday that his repeated lies, bid to flee and a gun in his backpack supplied a path of proof to indicate he was responsible.

Protection attorneys for Logan Clegg, 27, who’s charged with second-degree homicide counts of knowingly and recklessly inflicting the deaths of Stephen and Djeswende “Wendy” Reid, argued that authorities charged the fallacious man.

The newly retired couple, who did worldwide growth work, had been shot a number of instances after going for a stroll on the path close to their Harmony condo April 18, 2022. Their our bodies, discovered a number of days later, had been dragged into the woods and coated with leaves, sticks and particles, police mentioned.

Clegg is also charged with a number of counts of falsifying bodily proof and being a convicted felon in possession of a gun.

“The state has confirmed to you over the previous three weeks now that the defendant, and the defendant solely, killed Stephen and Wendy,” prosecutor Joshua Speicher mentioned, describing the killing as mindless. “We’ve got confirmed this past an affordable doubt. We’ve got confirmed to you ways he did it, when he did it, the place he did it.”

Protection legal professional Mariana Dominguez argued the state’s case was constructed on hypothesis and was filled with holes.

“Logan Clegg is just not responsible,” she mentioned. “Police investigated, however as a substitute of wanting on the science and on the proof with clear eyes, they speculated. They assumed. … They noticed solely what they needed to see. They acquired the fallacious man.”

After the Reids had been reported lacking, prosecutors mentioned Clegg, who questioned by investigators looking for them, burned his tent, erased info from his laptop and acquired a bus ticket out of Harmony. Investigators finally discovered him in South Burlington with a one-way airplane ticket to Berlin, Germany, a pretend passport and a gun in his backpack.

Prosecutors mentioned that shell casings and bullet fragments had been later discovered on the crime scene. Shell casings additionally had been discovered at a location later found to be Clegg’s tent website. Prosecutors mentioned bullets fired from Clegg’s 9 mm handgun had been constant in caliber and sophistication traits as bullet fragments discovered through the Reids’ autopsies.

Attorneys for Clegg mentioned he was on probation in 2021 on housebreaking and larceny offenses in Utah and wasn’t hiding from police. In addition they mentioned an evaluation of shell casings and bullets discovered within the space couldn’t conclude that his gun fired the photographs and that the casing may have come from a wide range of weapons.

“They don’t know what gun killed the Reids,” Dominguez informed the jury throughout her closing arguments, including that police “solely had eyes” for Clegg’s gun.

Either side additionally gave differing accounts of a lady who was strolling on the path along with her canines and allowed the Reids to go her and stroll forward. She later heard gunshots, then got here throughout a person on the path earlier than persevering with her hike. Protection attorneys argued the person she noticed on the trial was not Clegg, noting the clothes he had didn’t match the prosecution’s description.