CONCORD, NH – When Logan Clegg was arrested in South Burlington, Vermont, in October 2022, he carried a backpack with a loaded Glock 9mm handgun and a Romanian ID with his photo, but the name Claude Zemo. He was two days away from boarding a plane for a one-way flight to Germany, Concord Police Department Det. Danika Gorham testified Wednesday.
Gorham, whose testimony began Tuesday, outlined a painstaking months-long connect-the-dot investigation that led police to Clegg 150 miles away, six months after police believe he shot and killed Djeswende and Stephen Reid.
But as testimony in Merrimack County Superior Court drew to a close Wednesday, Gorham’s cross-examination by defense attorney Caroline Smith began to outline another painstaking connect-the-dots case – that investigators proved who Clegg was, and that he’d been in Concord when the Reids were shot, but that they haven’t proved it was Clegg who shot them.
Clegg, 27, is charged with second-degree murder in the shootings of the couple, who were walking on the Marsh Loop Trail in Concord’s Broken Ground Trail System April 18, 2022, when they were shot. Reported as missing by their family April 20, 2022, their bodies were found about 50 yards off the trail, covered with leaves and other woodland debris on April 21, 2022.
Assistant Attorney General Joshua Speicher Wednesday led Gorham, lead detective on the case, through an investigation that started with a detective checking surveillance video at Loudon Road stores for someone buying Mountain Dew Code Red. Det. Garret Lemoine and Kristieann DeSilvio had noticed a pile of empty cans of the soft drink outside the tent of a man camped out near the Alton Woods apartment complex while they were searching for the Reids the night they were reported missing.
Walmart and Shaw’s surveillance footage turned up a man matching the police description of that man, as well as a description by a woman who saw a man on the trail April 18, 2022, minutes after she heard gunshots.
Gorham testified she was given access to Walmart’s database, where she searched for purchases the man had made, some with cash, others with pre-paid gift cards. She testified she searched thousands of receipts and bar codes, spanning November 2021 to June 2022, to find links to the man.
“His last purchase was April 20, 2022,” she said. On that day the man later determined to be Clegg bought chicken, razor blades, a roll of paper towels and a 12-pack of Mountain Dew Code Red.
Before going through the Walmart footage, Speicher projected on the wall surveillance video and still photos from the Loudon Road Shaw’s supermarket taken on April 18, 2022. A variety of angles showed a man in a blue bandanna, blue coat, black pants, baseball cap and wearing a black backpack buying a rotisserie chicken and a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew at 2:38 p.m.
Gorham identified a small figure of a man in the large parking lot photos as the same man left Shaws, crossed the parking lot to Loudon Road, which he crossed and headed toward a footpath in the woods that led to the Marsh Loop Trail Area, Gorham said.
The small figure disappears from view at around 2:32 p.m., less than half an hour before police believe the Reids were shot on the Marsh Loop Trail.
Much of Wednesday’s testimony was a stream of surveillance photos taken of Walmart’s self-checkout, of the man, always wearing black pants, a baseball cap, dark jacket and, with the exception of one, a face mask or bandanna covering his face.
His purchases included Blue Bunny ice cream, chicken, Coke, Mountain Dew, and occasionally some other type of food or paper towels. They also included small camping-style propane tanks – 114 of them from November 2021 through mid-April 2022, Gorham testified.
On the morning of April 19, the day after the Reids were shot, but hours before they were reported missing, the man bought a $34 tent, a sleeping bag and rubbing alcohol. That was the only day he wasn’t wearing a face covering.
Investigators believe that sometime between April 15 and April 20, Clegg burned the tent he’d been living in near Profile Avenue in the trail system. Eliseo Medina testified Friday that he came across the freshly burned site on April 20, 2022. It looked so out of place, he took photos of it.
Investigators found 155 burned propane tanks and other burned detritus at the site when they searched in July and August 2022, Gorham said.
Investigators believe Clegg moved to his new site after burning the one near Profile Avenue. They came across him on the night of April 20 when they were looking for the Reids and he identified himself as Arthur Kelly. Gorham’s testimony Wednesday linked the name Arthur Kelly to Clegg through online purchases he made, as well as an invalid Vermont driver’s license with that name that she said he used to get general delivery service at the Burlington, Vermont, post office later that year.
A search warrant of data related to the gift cards from Meta Bank revealed other purchases, including vitamins from bulksupplements.com. The buyer’s name was Logan Clegg, Gorham testified.
She said that was the first time investigators had connected the man they’d been investigating all those months to a legitimate name.
Once they had a name, investigators “wanted to see if Logan Clegg was in Concord at the time of the homicides,” Gorham said.
Through a canvass of Loudon Road businesses, they found Clegg had worked at McDonald’s from November 2021 to February 2022. His employment application gave them more information, Gorham testified. That included a gmail address, RXKelly@gmail.com.
Gorham said Clegg filled out his application Nov. 10 and said he could start work Nov. 11. He had his first shift about a week later.
Investigators eventually also found that Clegg used a Sutton Bank pre-paid gift card to buy two Glock 17 magazines that hold 17 rounds each from Brownell’s, in Iowa, in March 2022. That ammo was mailed to Clegg in care of general delivery at the post office on Loudon Road.
They ran Clegg’s name and found that there was a warrant for him out of Utah after he’d skipped out on probation related to September 2020 felony convictions for theft and burglary.
Logan Clegg’s arrest
Gorham testified that on Oct. 11, 2022, federal authorities notified investigators that Clegg had a one-way ticket to Berlin, Germany, on Norse Atlantic Airways, flying out of JFK Airport in New York on Oct. 14. [The 27-page affidavit used to get Clegg’s arrest warrant says that federal officials notified Utah officials, who notified Gorham, but Wednesday’s testimony didn’t go that in-depth].
Clegg was arrested in the South Burlington, Vermont, library by Vermont State Police on Oct. 12, 2022.
On Oct. 12 “there were no charges related to the deaths of Stephen and Wendy Reid,” she said.
Gorham testified that after Concord police got a search warrant Oct. 13, they searched his backpack and found a Glock 9mm pistol, loaded with a full magazine and an 18th round in the chamber. She said police also found about $7,150 in cash, employment papers for the South Burlington Price Chopper grocery store, where he’d been working, and an envelope from the UK addressed to Arthur Kelly. In it was a Romanian identification card with Clegg’s photo and the name Claude Zemo. Gorham said they also found a holster for the gun, that they believe he bought from Amazon in February.
Gorham said that investigators also found out he had a ticket for a Delta flight from the Burlington airport to JFK on Oct. 13. Clegg had bought both plane tickets Sept. 29, 2022, using the Sutton Bank pre-paid card.
Gorham testified that the tent they found at what they believe is Clegg’s tent side in Centennial Woods in Burlington, Vermont, matched the serial number of one they’d determined he’d bought at the Concord Walmart April 19, 2022.
Gorham said that on Oct. 12, the day before New Hampshire’s warrant was issued, Concord Police Det. Wade Brown “attempted to” interview Clegg, but Gorham didn’t take part.
Defense attorney Caroline Smith began cross-examination late in the day Wednesday, focusing on pants Clegg bought from Walmart, but also on bullets and casings found at the scene of the shootings that Gorham had testified about on direct Tuesday.
Smith asked about a pair of Classic Khaki brand pants Clegg bought that were black, not khaki in color. The color of his pants on the day the Reids were killed is part of the defense case. Nan Nutt testified Friday that that she saw a man who police believe was Clegg on the trail minutes after she heard gunshots the day the Reids were shot. Nutt testified Friday she was certain the man was wearing khaki-colored pants.
In all of the surveillance video shown Wednesday, and earlier in the trial, the man is wearing black pants. Where color is noted on Clegg’s pants purchases, it’s also black.
“Every picture of [Arthur Kelly/Logan Clegg], every time he’s seen, he’s wearing black pants?” Smith asked Gorham.
Gorham said that was correct.
Smith also asked about finding the man who identified himself as Arthur Kelly when police were looking for the Reids on the night of April 20, 2022. The police had set up a staging area in a clearing behind the Alton Woods apartment complex, where the Reids lived. It was close to where Clegg was camping that night.
“By happenstance, you stumbled upon [the campsite],” Smith said. “You later found out it was two days after the Reids were killed?”
Gorham answered yes.’
“Where Logan Clegg happened to be residing?”
“Yes.”
Crime scene questions
Smith also asked Gorham about the search for evidence on the trail near where the Reids’ bodies were found.
She asked Gorham if the Reids were killed on April 18, and their bodies not found until April 21, if someone could’ve changed things at the scene.
Gorham agreed that could happen.
“And after doing a search you discovered there are changes to the scene,” Smith said. Those included the drag marks caused by the Reids being moved from the trail down an incline about 50 feet being partially covered up, the bodies being covered with leaves and sticks and other changes.
“Changes were made to hide the crime, to hide the identity of the shooter,” Smith said.
Gorham said that the changes to the scene may have been done in part to hide those things.
On April 23, 2022, a metal detector turned up an “old and tarnished” bullet about three inches underground, a little south on Marsh Loop Trail of what police believe to be the crime scene. Blood on some leaves and some bullet fragments had been found in the search of the area April 22.
At the end of August, using a metal detector, Gorham found three bullets about eight to 10 inches underground on the trail, closer to where the blood and fragment was found in April.
Smith asked her if the bullet found in April was connected to the Reids’ deaths.
“Based on how it looked when it was collected, it didn’t appear to be, but I collected it,” Gorham said.
Smith also asked Gorham if she was there on April 22 when a detective with a metal detector accompanied Allan Schwarz, who told police he found four bullet casings on the trail while he was hiking April 18. They were near the big tree that marks the spot where police believe the Reids were shot and dragged off the trail. When investigators went to look for the casings with Schwarz April 22, they weren’t there.
“I was not present when he was there and I didn’t speak to him,” Gorham said. She said she’s never spoken to Shwarz.
Of the old bullet, Gorham said, that it didn’t appear to be connected to the Reids’ deaths, because of its condition. “
Forensics experts testify
Friday morning, Gorham’s testimony, which began Tuesday, was delayed while two expert witnesses from out of state testified.
Jason Brewer, a forensic chemist examiner with the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, testified that the white powder found scattered over the brush that had been piled on the Reids’ bodies was sodium bicarbonate, commonly known as baking soda.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Mariana Dominguez, Brewer said that the Concord Police Department had originally asked him to test for “lye or lime.” He said, though, that such tests aren’t subjective, but objective to determine what a substance is.
When Dominguez tried to nail him down on the fact that people use baking soda to absorb odors, among other things, he said “it supposedly absorbs odors.”
She also asked Brewer about confirmation bias, when she signaled during jury voir dire last week would be a part of the defense case. Confirmation bias means that someone who expects a certain conclusion only looks for evidence that supports it, rather than considering evidence that may not.
Dominguez asked Brewer that, since his work goes through a number of reviews, if he believes they’re less likely to be subject to confirmation bias. He said that is correct.
Audio expert Arlo West also testified about enhancing a recording made at the South Burlington police station after Clegg’s arrest between Clegg and Concord Police Det. Wade Brown.
While the content of the recording wasn’t discussed, West testified that the audio had to be enhanced “for intelligibility,” because of background noise and other poor quality, including the microphone being closer to one person than another.
When prosecutor Meghan Hagarman asked what the issues were with the noise level, and what had to be enhanced, West responded that Brown “was speaking very loud, because he wanted his voice to be heard,” then he began to say that Clegg wasn’t, but before he could speculate on a reason, Smith objected.
Kissinger told West to testify about the facts, not what he believed was in the minds of the people being recorded.
On cross-examination Smith, demonstrating by moving closer to, then away from, her microphone in the acoustics-challenged courtroom, asked West about proximity to a microphone being a bigger issue than someone having a loud voice or not. The voices may be the same, she said, but a voice closer to a microphone might seem louder.
“Not ‘seem,’” West said, stressing that the voice actually is louder to the listener, not just seems louder.
“When you enhanced the audio, you knew who detective Brown and who Logan Clegg were” and that Brown was louder and Clegg was soft-spoken and hard to hear? she asked West. She asked if when he enhanced it, if he enhanced Brown’s voice.
West said that he adjusted to equalize the loudness of the voices, with Brown going down and Clegg’s coming up. In answer to Smith’s questions he said that what a person would hear on the recording would not be the same as what someone who’d been in the room would hear.
“But the content is the same?” Smith asked.
“The content is the same, yes,” West responded.
The defense, at a week-long hearing in May, attempted to have Clegg’s initial interview with Brown suppressed, asserting that Clegg had asked for an attorney. Brown and Smith differed over what Clegg said on the recording.
Clegg is charged with two counts of second-degree murder for “knowingly causing the death” of each of the Reids, two alternative second-degree murder charges for “recklessly causing” their deaths, three counts of falsifying physical evidence and one count of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and one count of falsifying physical evidence (a Class B felony) was added.
He’s been held in Merrimack County Jail. The trial is expected to last until Oct. 20.