Judge to rule on admissibility of evidence in Logan Clegg murder case in June

Evidence obtained by the Concord Police Department, including the gun police say was used to kill Steve and Wendy Reid on a hiking trail in April, could be excluded from Logan Clegg’s jury trial on double murder charges.

The defense attorneys for Clegg, 27, are seeking to suppress all evidence obtained after his arrest in South Burlington, Vermont, in October after police located him through phone location data provided by Verizon Wireless. The evidence includes his clothing, his campsite and the contents of his backpack, which contained a Glock 17 that State Police said was the handgun used in the murders, $7,150 in cash, a one-way plane ticket to Germany and a Romanian passport bearing an alias. Additional evidence that could be thrown out includes any information gathered during police interrogation following his arrest, according to court documents.

Judge John Kissinger is expected to issue a ruling on June 8.

Due to their belief that Clegg was about to flee the country, Concord detectives testified they contacted Verizon Wireless to obtain the location of Clegg’s phone.

Based on Clegg’s right to be free from unreasonable search and his right to privacy, the department’s decision to contact his cell phone provider without a search warrant is a violation of his fourth and fourteenth amendments, the defense argued.

“I don’t believe they had probable cause at the time when all of this happened,” defense attorney Maya Dominguez said. “They had established Clegg had been a homeless individual in the area, but they had not established that he was the person the witness saw and even if they had, it’s insufficient to say he was the person that killed the Reids.”

However, prosecutors argued that circumstances existed to allow police to move forward without the issuance of a search warrant and the evidence collected should be considered in trial.

Testifying during the third day of the hearing at Merrimack County Superior Court on Friday, Concord Detective Wade Brown reiterated that those circumstances included that Clegg was a known felon with an active warrant for his arrest, he was trying to avoid being apprehended on that warrant by using aliases and living off the grid, he had a history of destroying evidence by moving the victim’s bodies and burning his tent site, and he had previously been arrested for illegally owning firearms.

“They didn’t know where he was, what he might do, they believed him to be armed and a threat to the public and no murder weapon was found,” argued prosecutor Joshua Speicher. “The fact that they did not go and think to themselves, ‘If I just take two to five more hours, maybe I can get a search warrant.’ That’s not what they were concerned with. The testimony establishes very clearly that if at any point since April 18 police have learned there is a way to locate the person they believe committed these murders, has been on the run and now was leaving the country in a few days, they should.”

As part of a six month investigation conducted by Concord police in connection with the Reid murders, police had their big breakthrough in the case in the fall when they learned the true identity of their suspect who was using the alias “Arthur Kelly.” This information led police to discover, with the help of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection, that Clegg was living and had recently purchased a one-way ticket to Berlin, Germany, and was expected to flee the country in 48-hours.

Homeland Security provided police with an email and phone number associated with a previous arrest.

Police contacted Verizon Wireless on the evening of Oct. 11 and requested geographical pings, which the phone company provided immediately. The location placed Clegg in Centennial Woods, a trail system in Burlington, Vermont, that is similar to the Broken Ground Trail system in Concord where the Reids were shot and killed, police observed.

Clegg was arrested on Oct. 12 on an outstanding Utah probation warrant and was brought to New Hampshire where he was charged with two counts of second-degree murder.

Without the evidence obtained in Vermont, police would still have the evidence obtained in the city of Concord during the first few months of the investigation, including witness testimony linking him to a campsite near the murders and bullet casings found there that matched the ones found near the crime scene.

The Reids had left their home in the Alton Woods apartment complex for a walk around 2:22 p.m. on April 18 and never returned. Their bodies were found three days later near the Broken Ground hiking trails after the family reported them missing.

While reviewing sale records from Walmart, police discovered 12 separate transactions where “Arthur Kelly,” which police say was Clegg’s alias, paid with five different credit cards. Police traced the use of the cards to a supplement website where a transaction was made Clegg’s name. When police searched his name in the system, they found two booking photos of Clegg and noted the images were remarkably similar to “Arthur Kelly.”

Still, police could not locate his whereabouts until an Oct. 3 subpoena from Greyhound bus lines showed that an “Arthur Kelly,” had boarded a bus from Boston to Burlington, Vermont.

Clegg has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He continues to be held without bail at the Men’s State Prison in Concord.