Firearms expert Jill Therriault shows the jury an enlarged bullet as she testifies in Logan Clegg's trial, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, at Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord, N.H. Clegg is on trial for the shooting deaths of Stephen and Djeswende Reid on a hiking trail last year. (Geoff Forester/The Concord Monitor via AP, Pool)

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Prosecutors in the case of a man charged with fatally shooting a retired New Hampshire couple on a hiking trail argued Thursday that his repeated lies, bid to flee and a gun in his backpack offered a trail of evidence to show he was guilty.

Defense attorneys for Logan Clegg, 27, who is charged with second-degree murder counts of knowingly and recklessly causing the deaths of Stephen and Djeswende “Wendy” Reid, argued that authorities charged the wrong man.

The newly retired couple, who did international development work, were shot multiple times after going for a walk on the trail near their Concord apartment April 18, 2022. Their bodies, found several days later, had been dragged into the woods and covered with leaves, sticks and debris, police said.

Clegg also is charged with several counts of falsifying physical evidence and being a convicted felon in possession of a gun.

“The state has proven to you over the past three weeks now that the defendant, and the defendant only, killed Stephen and Wendy," prosecutor Joshua Speicher said, describing the killing as senseless. “We have proven this beyond a reasonable doubt. We have proven to you how he did it, when he did it, where he did it."

Defense attorney Mariana Dominguez argued the state's case was built on speculation and was full of holes.

“Logan Clegg is not guilty,” she said. “Police investigated, but instead of looking at the science and at the evidence with clear eyes, they speculated. They assumed. ... They saw only what they wanted to see. They got the wrong guy.”

After the Reids were reported missing, prosecutors said Clegg, who questioned by investigators searching for them, burned his tent, erased information from his computer and bought a bus ticket out of Concord. Investigators eventually found him in South Burlington with a one-way plane ticket to Berlin, Germany, a fake passport and a gun in his backpack.

Prosecutors said that shell casings and bullet fragments were later found at the crime scene. Shell casings also were found at a location later discovered to be Clegg’s tent site. Prosecutors said bullets fired from Clegg’s 9 mm handgun were consistent in caliber and class characteristics as bullet fragments found during the Reids’ autopsies.

Lawyers for Clegg said he was on probation in 2021 on burglary and larceny offenses in Utah and wasn't hiding from police. They also said an analysis of shell casings and bullets found in the area could not conclude that his gun fired the shots and that the casing could have come from a variety of guns.

“They have no idea what gun killed the Reids,” Dominguez told the jury during her closing arguments, adding that police “only had eyes” for Clegg's gun.

Both sides also gave differing accounts of a woman who was walking on the trail with her dogs and allowed the Reids to pass her and walk ahead. She later heard gunshots, then came across a man on the trail before continuing her hike. Defense attorneys argued the man she saw on the trial was not Clegg, noting the clothing he had did not match the prosecution’s description.

News from © The Associated Press, 2023