Update: Following the trail of evidence in Concord double-homicide

 By JAMIE L. COSTA

Monitor staff

Published: 10-21-2022 8:10 PM

The day before the bodies of Steve and Wendy Reid were found near a city hiking trail, Concord police came in contact with a homeless man living near the murder scene who has now been charged with the crime. 

Logan Clegg, who initially identified himself to police as “Arthur Kelly,” burned his tent and fled Concord following the murders, police said in court documents.

Detectives have been trying to track down his true identity and whereabouts ever since. 

The exhaustive investigation, which included searches of video, phone and bank records, ballistics testing, and multiple trips to the crime scene and a nearby tent site, ultimately brought police to a Vermont library, where Clegg was taken into custody. 

On Wednesday Clegg was charged with two counts of second-degree murder for knowingly causing the death of the Reids. Details of the six-month investigation were obtained by the Monitor on Thursday through the Vermont court system.

At the center of their investigation was their search for a man Concord police referred to in court documents as “Mountain Dew Man” because he was holding several cans of the drink when approached by officers on April 20, a day before the discovery of the bodies. Investigators say they were ultimately able to piece together that the “Mountain Dew Man,” who gave them an alias as Arthur Kelly, was Clegg. In recent days, they say the New Hampshire State Police Forensic Laboratory was able to determine that a handgun found in Clegg’s possession during his arrest was a match for the bullets, fragments and casings found at the crime scene and the tent site.

Early days 

During the investigation, police learned that on April 18, believed to be the day of the killings, a man who looked like Arthur Kelly was seen on surveillance footage leaving Shaw’s Supermarket in Concord at 2:32 p.m., crossing Loudon Road and accessing a known trail that cuts through the Alton Woods complex where the Reids lived.

According to family members, the Reids left their apartment that day at 2:22 p.m. and entered the same trail. The Reids were outdoors enthusiasts known to take frequent walks along Concord hiking trails. They were described by family and friends as soulmates who traveled the world and pursued adventures together. 

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A witness told police that she had passed the Reids around 2:50 p.m., several minutes before she heard five gunshots. Minutes later, at 2:59 p.m., she saw a young man, matching the description of Clegg, known at that time to police as Arthur Kelly, standing on the trail looking into the woods where the Reids’ bodies were later found.  

Suspicious of their earlier encounter with Arthur Kelly, police returned to his campsite to question him and found that it was both abandoned, and burned. Police wouldn’t see him again until this week. 

Making a connection

Over the next several months, police interviewed local residents who remembered seeing Arthur Kelly frequently between November 2021 and April 2022 at his campsite, which was 0.3 miles from the crime scene. During that time, he was working at McDonald’s off of Loudon Road but disappeared after the murders. 

Returning to the burned tent site in August, police recovered several 9mm shell casings matching the shell casings found at the crime scene in April. Both were sent to forensics and later confirmed to have been fired from the same handgun. 

While reviewing sale records from Walmart, police discovered 12 separate transactions where Arthur Kelly paid with five different credit cards. Police traced the use of the cards to a supplement website where a transaction was made under the name Logan Clegg. 

When police searched his name in the system, they found two booking photos of Clegg and noted the images were remarkably similar to that of Arthur Kelly. 

On Sept. 14, Clegg’s former boss at the McDonald’s on Loudon Road was able to confirm that the man in the booking photos and the man on surveillance videos was Clegg.

Finding Clegg

Still, police could not locate his whereabouts until an Oct. 3 subpoena from Greyhound bus lines showed that an Arthur Kelly, a now known alias of Clegg’s, had earlier boarded a bus from Boston to Albany, New York, where he switched to the Vermont Translines and traveled from Albany to Burlington, Vermont. 

Later, police learned that Clegg had purchased a one-way ticket from John F. Kennedy airport in New York City to Berlin, Germany, scheduled for Oct. 14. 

Around 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 11, police received an email from Homeland Security Investigation Special Agent David Burpoe containing the phone number of a burner phone traced to Clegg. With the help of Verizon Wireless, they were able to trace the phone to an area of Centennial Wood Phenology Place in Burlington, a 3.8-mile hiking loop where police believe Clegg was likely camping. 

The following day, they traced the phone to a Price Chopper in Burlington where Clegg was identified that morning around 9:30 a.m. Vermont State Police and the South Burlington Police tailed him and took him into custody at 1:10 p.m. at the South Burlington Public Library.

What they found

While in custody, Clegg waived his rights and agreed to speak to Concord Detective Brown. He acknowledged living in Concord but denied staying near the Alton Woods apartment complex, using the alias Arthur Kelly, possessing firearms or being involved in the Reids’ murder. 

On Oct. 13, using location data points provided by Verizon Wireless, police located and investigated his campsite and confirmed that the tent and sleeping bag Clegg was using at the campsite were the same style tent and sleeping bag purchased at Walmart in Concord the day after the murders.

Search warrants were obtained the same day and police located a black Glock 17 handgun that was fully loaded with 9mm ammunition (the same type and caliber recovered at the crime scene), an envelope addressed to Arthur Kelly containing a Romanian passport bearing the name “Claude Zemo” with a photo of Clegg and $7,150. 

The handgun was sent to the New Hampshire State Police Forensic Laboratory for examination and forensics determined that the bullets, ammunition and Glock 17 were used in the murders of Steve and Wendy Reid. 

Police say the Glock 17 found in Clegg’s possession was purchased at R&L Archery, Inc., in Barre, Vermont on Feb. 12, 2022, and was sold to Arthur Kelly.

The court case

At the time of his arrest on Wednesday night, Clegg was being held without bail at the Northwest State Correctional Facility on an unrelated charge out of Utah. 

Clegg, 26, was initially considered a person of interest in the shooting deaths of the Concord couple and police said they believe Clegg acted alone and is their only suspect. 

During his arraignment on Thursday at the Franklin County Superior Court, Clegg was ordered held without bail by Judge Mary Morrisey and voluntarily waived extradition. He will return back to the state of New Hampshire to answer to the charges filed by the Concord Police Department. 

Given the more serious murder charges, Sally Adams of the Utah State Attorney’s Office announced the state would be dropping the charges of receiving stolen property, burglary, and theft, felonies; and failing to stop for officers, a misdemeanor, which Clegg was initially arrested on last week before he was deemed a person of interest in the homicides. 

During the hearing, New Hampshire State Attorney John Formella made contact with Judge Morrisey to confirm that members of the Concord Police Department would arrive soon to transport Clegg back to Merrimack County. His next court hearing will be held at Merrimack County Superior Court at an undisclosed time. 

The murders remain under investigation by the Concord Police Department. 

In 2018, at age 22, Clegg was under investigation for the fatal stabbing of Corey Ward in Spokane, Washington. Clegg was not prosecuted and the stabbing was ruled self-defense. 

 Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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