Crime
Logan Clegg, 27, is charged with second-degree homicide counts of knowingly and recklessly inflicting the deaths of Stephen and Djeswende Reid by capturing them a number of instances.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A person charged with capturing a New Hampshire couple to dying on a mountaineering path final yr spent months hiding from police — however over a probation violation from Utah, not the killings — and an evaluation of shell casings and bullets discovered within the space couldn’t conclude that his gun fired the pictures, his legal professional stated firstly of his trial Tuesday.
“They obtained the incorrect man,” Caroline Smith stated throughout opening statements within the trial of Logan Clegg in Harmony. She stated he had no connection to the couple and was not the killer.
Clegg, 27, who was dwelling in a tent close to the path on the time, is charged with second-degree homicide counts of knowingly and recklessly inflicting the deaths of Stephen and Djeswende Reid by capturing them a number of instances.
The newly retired couple have been killed shortly after going for a stroll on the path close to their Harmony residence on April 18, 2022. Their our bodies, discovered a number of days later, have been dragged into the woods and coated with leaves, sticks and particles, police stated. Jurors deliberate to go to the residence advanced and path space on Tuesday afternoon.
Clegg is also charged with a number of counts of falsifying bodily proof and being a convicted felon in possession of a gun. He pleaded not responsible following his arrest final October in South Burlington, Vermont, initially on a fugitive from justice cost.
Legal professionals stated Clegg was on probation in 2021 on housebreaking and larceny offenses in Utah. Smith stated he had gone to Portugal, and finally got here again to the US, staying in Harmony.
After the Reids have been reported lacking, Clegg, who was questioned by investigators trying to find them, burned his tent, erased info from his pc and purchased a bus ticket out of Harmony, prosecutor Meghan Hagaman advised jurors. Investigators finally discovered him in South Burlington with a one-way airplane ticket to Berlin, Germany, a faux passport, and a gun in his backpack.
“When he couldn’t run or cover, he lied,” Hagaman stated in her opening assertion in Merrimack County Superior Courtroom. Clegg stated he wasn’t in Harmony that April 18, hadn’t heard of the completely different identify he gave police when first questioned, and didn’t have a gun on the time.
Hagaman stated that shell casings and bullet fragments have been later discovered on the crime scene. Shell casings additionally have been discovered at a location later found to be Clegg’s tent website. She stated jurors will study that bullets fired from Clegg’s 9 mm handgun have been constant in caliber and sophistication traits as bullet fragments discovered in the course of the Reids’ autopsies.
She stated a state police forensic laboratory evaluation confirmed the casings have been fired from Clegg’s gun. However Smith drew consideration to 2 casings that have been discovered on the crime scene in plain view a month after the world had been closely searched, suggesting that somebody had put them there. She stated a criminologist couldn’t say that Clegg’s gun was the one used to fireside the pictures. Smith additionally stated that DNA testing on objects that the killer might need touched suggests “two international contributors in these areas — not the Reids, and never Logan.”
Each legal professionals additionally gave differing accounts of a girl who was strolling on the path along with her canine and allowed the Reids to move her and stroll forward. She later heard gunshots, then got here throughout a person on the path earlier than persevering with her hike. Smith stated that Clegg was buying at a grocery store on the time. She stated that objects and clothes he had didn’t match the prosecution’s description.
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