Concord cop testifies Logan Clegg asked ‘What’s really going on?’ after arrest on Utah charges

CONCORD, NH – The Merrimack County Superior Court jury that will decide the fate of Logan Clegg, charged with killing Djeswende and Stephen Reid in April 2022, got to hear the defendant’s voice Friday after nearly two weeks of testimony.

In an interview with Concord Police Department Det. Wade Brown after his arrest Oct. 12, 2022, on charges he violated probation in Utah, Logan Clegg asked Brown, “What’s really going on?”

Clegg was referring to the “high number of officers” involved in taking him into custody when he was arrested earlier that day at the South Burlington, Vermont, public library, Brown testified.

Brown said he made it clear to Clegg when the interview began that he wasn’t there to talk about the Utah charges, but that he was investigating a case in Concord.

The jury will have to go by Brown’s testimony on the first part of the hour-plus-long interview, including  Brown’s assertion that he read Clegg his Miranda Rights and that Clegg said he understood and waived them. The first 13 minutes of the interview, including Clegg asking “what’s really happening,” weren’t audio-recorded because of a misunderstanding between Concord police and the South Burlington police, in whose station the interview was taking place. Lead investigator Danika Gorham testified about the mix-up Thursday.

Clegg, 27, is charged with shooting the Reids as they walked on the Broken Ground Trail System in northeast Concord April 18, 2022.

Friday’s testimony by Brown in Merrimack County Superior Court wrapped up the second week of the trial, which is expected to last until at least the end of next week. Brown was a detective at the time of Clegg’s arrest, but is now a master patrol officer. His direct testimony began Thursday, and cross-examination began about an hour before court ended for the day.

Before the one-hour-plus recording was played, Brown testified about the content of the interview, which took place a few hours after Clegg was arrested by Vermont police on the Utah warrant.

Judge John Kissinger instructed the jury that what Brown says on the recording is not “substantive evidence,” but just gives context to Clegg’s remarks. What Clegg says, however, is substantive evidence.

The prosecution had proposed playing a redacted recording, but Clegg, through his defense attorneys, said he preferred the entire recording be played. The first part of it was one hour, one minute and 30 seconds. After Brown left the room for about 30 minutes that day, then returned, the remainder is about 10-15 minutes.

Most of Clegg’s part of the interview is inaudible, and what is audible is difficult to hear, despite professional audio enhancement, which was testified about earlier this week. Jurors closed their eyes and leaned forward in an attempt to make out Clegg’s responses to Brown’s questions, as well as to better hear some of what Brown said.

Close to the end of the tape, as Brown increasingly presses Clegg about his stay in Concord, use of the alias Arthur Kelly and evidence investigators believe tie him to the shootings, Clegg said he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. Audible on the tape is something like “I want to be done with this,” with the rest inaudible. Apparently Clegg said more, invoking his right to silence.

Brown didn’t ask Clegg more about the Concord case, but did spend several minutes asking him if he wanted to eat, or needed anything else. “Burger, rotisserie chicken?” Brown asks. Clegg bought a rotisserie chicken at Shaw’s supermarket on Loudon Road less than half an hour before the Reids were shot.

Brown also asks Clegg if he wanted Concord police to get him new clothes, since what he was wearing at the time of his arrest was likely going to be taken as evidence once the investigators got a search warrant.

“Do you have any other clothes you can wear? Can I get you some clothes to replace [what you’re wearing]?” Brown asks.

Clegg’s response is inaudible, but he apparently says yes, because Brown asks him about sizes, including Clegg’s pants inseam. Clegg can be heard answering “30-30.”

Earlier Friday, Brown testified that he found part of a pants label with the size 30-30 at a burned tent site in Broken Ground Trail System that investigators believe Clegg had lived at through the winter and early spring of 2021-22.

Brown, in response to questions from Assistant Attorney General Joshua Speicher Friday, said when he asked Clegg his pants size, he wanted to get replacement clothes for Clegg “so he wouldn’t have to wear the Tyvek suit.” It wasn’t mentioned by Speicher or Brown Friday, but because Clegg had invoked his right to silence before the question, if Brown were asking about his pants size in order to link Clegg to the pants label found at the tent site, it would be a possible violation of Clegg’s Miranda rights.

Speicher asked Brown if he was aggressive during the questioning.

“No, that’s not something I do,” Brown said.

Brown, on the recording, is matter-of-fact and sometimes friendly, at one point agreeing with Clegg that Shaw’s supermarket “is kind of pricey,” and seemingly expressing concern about Clegg’s living conditions and hygiene habits.

Early in the conversation, Brown asks Clegg if he has any questions for him, and Clegg asks about the extradition process to Utah. Brown talks a little about how extradition works, and then Clegg says, “I’m just really confused,” but the rest of what Clegg says isn’t audible. The warrant for Clegg issued in September 2020 only called for extradition if he was found west of the Mississippi, though it was expanded to include eastern states at the time of his arrest. The defense was successful in objecting to that fact being brought up in front of the jury during Brown’s morning testimony. It wasn’t clear on the recording that the geographic limitations of the warrant were being discussed.

Brown asks Clegg about why he lives the way he does, commenting “everyone’s got something.”

Clegg’s relatively lengthy answer to that, as well as to questions about how he spent his time in Europe after he left Utah and before he arrived in Concord, and why he prefers to be alone – remarks that may have given the jury more insight into the person whose fate they’re deciding – were inaudible.

When Brown asks about Clegg’s parents, Clegg responds, “My dad killed himself when I was 12 and I haven’t seen my mother [inaudible].”

It then sounds like Clegg says he doesn’t want to talk about it. Brown apologizes and says there must be “some way you can have a better existence than camping out in this brutal New Hampshire weather.”

Clegg’s response to that is also inaudible.

Throughout the conversation, Brown circles back to topics surrounding the Reid shootings, reeling out more evidence and pressing Clegg that he believes he was in Concord at the time. He continually asks about where he shopped, use of the alias Arthur Kelly when he talked to police officers who were searching for the Reids as well as on documents like bus tickets, the “burnt tent site,” and more.

Clegg tells Brown he left Concord in early 2022 “when there was still snow on the ground” and knows nothing about the other things. Several times, he says, “I can’t help you,” or “I don’t know what to say.”

Clegg tells Brown he’d been camping “in the high grass” near the power lines between Shaw’s and Home Depot on Loudon Road, not the Broken Ground Trail System or near the Alton Woods apartment complex where the Reids lived, which is on the other side of Loudon Road. He said he’d never been to the woods on that side of Loudon Road.

Despite the poor audio, it’s clear Clegg denies shopping at Walmart, living in a tent, buying tents, or using the name Arthur Kelly. In many of the surveillance photos from Walmart and Shaw’s that investigators retrieved, a man police believe is Clegg is wearing a blue bandanna as a face covering. His coworkers at McDonald’s on Loudon Road told investigators, according to Brown, that Clegg also wore one. Clegg said he “didn’t recall” having a blue bandanna.

When Brown asks him about Djeswende and Stephen Reid and what he knows about them being shot, Clegg responds, “I’ve never heard of them.” Brown testified Clegg also said he didn’t read or listen to news, but it’s difficult to hear on the recording whether he says that.

Brown then asks Clegg if he killed anyone in Concord, regardless of their name. Clegg responds, “No.”

Shortly after that, Brown tells Clegg that on April 19, 2022, the morning after the Reids were shot, surveillance video shows a man resembling Clegg buying a tent at Walmart. It’s the same man who is wearing a face covering in all of the other surveillance video, but he’s not wearing one on April 19.

“That person bought a new tent at Walmart. That person didn’t wear a mask. That person looked to be you,” Brown tells Clegg.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Clegg responds. “I’m just not that person.” It then sounds like Clegg accuses Brown of “making up a bunch of stuff.”

Brown responds, “I’m not that kind of detective. I’m telling you what I believe to be true. I’m just trying to solve this case for people who are really missing their loved ones.” Brown then attempts to appeal to Clegg’s empathy, asking him how he would feel in that situation.

Clegg’s response is not audible, and Brown returns to pressing him on the fact someone used his name to buy items at Walmart and Walgreens, and for deliveries by FedEx.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Clegg responds again.

Despite the sound quality, it’s apparent on the recording that Clegg is getting irritated with Brown’s questions. As the interview nears its end, Brown repeatedly asks about Arthur Kelly, bringing up more and more ties to Clegg. Clegg says something like, “I just want to be done with this.”

After listening to the recording Friday, Kissinger instructed the jury that Clegg’s assertion to be silent was his right, and they shouldn’t draw any inference from it. “It’s his Constitutional right,” Kissinger said.

Clegg Google searches

After the recording, Speicher asked Brown about Google searches on Clegg’s laptop, which was seized when he was arrested.

Investigators used a warrant to get Clegg’s search information from Google, and Brown noted that on Oct. 12, 2022, before his arrest, Clegg searched “Concord New Hampshire news.”

A screenshot projected on the wall behind Brown showed Clegg also searched “Are knives illegal in Europe” “Can you get Euros at the airport,” “Prague weather,” “Berlin weather,” and “Do Verizon stores sell unlocked phones,” among numerous other searches.

During cross-examination, which began an hour before court was to end for the weekend, defense attorney Mariana Dominguez guided Brown through other Google searches Clegg did using a different email address during the summer of 2022, which took up 76 printed-out pages. There were many searches for medical information and about medical conditions, as well as a variety of eclectic topics like “definition of sophistry,” “Marie Antoinette,” “Reflections on the revolution in France,” “Storage units in the Burlington Vermont area” and “Weather in Burlington, Vermont.” There was one on July 21, 2022, for Concord New Hampshire News.

Brown also testified Friday about Clegg’s movements after the Reids were killed. Using the name Denton Kelly, and a Gmail address related to that name, on April 22, 2022, the day after the Reids’ bodies were found, Clegg, using the name Denton Kelly, bought a bus ticket online to Portland, Maine, scheduled to leave April 23, 2022.

Clegg apparently spent a few weeks in Portland, logging onto the wifi at the Portland Public Library, according to laptop information Brown uncovered. He then bought a bus ticket to Burlington that went by way of Boston and Albany, New York, arriving in Burlington May 16, 2022, using the name Arthur Kelly.

More shell casings testimony

Earlier Friday, shell casings found on Marsh Loop Trail near the crime scene on May 20, a month after the Reids bodies were found, in an area already extensively searched, continued to be a topic.

Brown showed the jury objects that looked much like the shell casings in a blown-up photo taken by the FBI on May 10. Before testimony started in the morning, Kissinger listened to an objection from defense attorney Caroline Smith, who argued that Brown saying the objects in the photo were the casings didn’t rise to the level of expert testimony, but was opinion.

Kissinger overruled the objection, but instructed Speicher that Brown could only point out “objects,” and not say they were shell casings, and only say they were in the “general area” where the casings were found 10 days later, not say it was where they were found.

During his testimony, Brown used a laser pointer on a photo projected on the wall to show the jury where the casings were found by then-Assistant Attorney General Geoffrey Ward on May 20. He used a stick lying across the root of a large tree to orient the casings found. The nearest casing is several inches from the end of the stick, and is slightly different in color and shape from the brown leaves, dirt and twigs that surround it.

Brown then used the laser pointer to indicate the “object” in the May 10 FBI photo. The FBI photo was taken several yards north of the tree, looking south at the tree and trail. The photo had to be zoomed substantially before the object appeared – it’s not visible in the original photo. When zoomed in, the stick across the tree root is in the same position, and the object seems to be about where the casing is in the May 20 photo, with the same shape and color.

Consistent with Kissinger’s ruling during the morning’s motion hearing, Brown did not say that the May 10 photo showed the casing and did not say it was in the same spot as the casing found May 20.

Brown also testified that he visited what investigators refer to as the “burnt tent site” near Profile Avenue on April 26, 2022.

Investigators believe the tent site was used by Clegg and burned, along with much of its contents, between April 15 and April 20, 2022.

Brown said a resident of the area took him to the site, where Brown saw a pile of burned propane tanks, pots, tent poles in other debris in what appeared to be the 10-by-10 footprint of the tent.

Brown testified that he returned to the area several times after that, including on June 24, 2022, and again on July 19, 2022, after he talked to Concord police officer Brian Cregg. Cregg testified earlier in the trial that he’d visited the site at the request of a resident on April 15, 2022. On that day, there was a tent, padlocked, with a pair of boots outside the closed flap.

Brown took photos on April 26, 2022, that showed the burned debris file. On June 24, he said, he put on protective gloves and “moved some objects to see if anything led to the identity of the person who had set that fire.”

That day, he collected some of the propane tanks as evidence as well as a glass medicine bottle with a glass dropper.

On July 19, 2022, after talking to Cregg, Brown said, “I went back because I wanted to get a better sense” of the site. He said he “basically inventoried” it with two other detectives.

He lined up the propane tanks in rows of 10, counting 155. He also found melted green Mountain Dew soda bottles, “heating equipment,” pots, a fork, two spoons, scissors, knife blades, tent stakes, coins later determined to be Euros, and other items, all in the burned tent footprint.

He visited again on Aug. 5 and collected the remnants of a blue sleeping bag and of a tent or tarp. He also found a burned label for men’s pants, size 30-by-30, with a portion of a bar code.

On Aug. 18, 2022, he again visited the site. “I was looking for items either to identify the person who stayed there or the person who burned it,” he said.

Among the Aug. 18 items he collected pieces of a Chubby 2-in-1 portable camping stove. He assembled the pieces, and Speicher Friday projected a photo of the small cylindrical stove, covered with soot. The stove has a cord that connects to camping-size propane containers like the ones found at the site.

On Aug. 24, 2022, Brown talked to Eliseo Medina, who on April 20 had taken photos of the freshly burned site. Medina testified last week that he was riding his bicycle on the trails when he saw the site and it looked so out of place to him, he took photos. He said it appeared to have been freshly burned.

Brown testified Friday that after talking to Medina, on Aug. 25, he collected the remaining propane tanks and other items at the site.

When the site was searched after that, on Aug. 30 and 31, 2022, investigators found 19 shell casings and one bullet. The bullet and 18 of the casings were in a clearing near the tent site. One casing was in the tent footprint.

Dominguez, during cross-examination, asked Brown, to mark on a calendar date-by-date, evidence recovery and investigation events in the days and weeks after the Reids were killed. The cross-examination will resume at 9 a.m. Monday.

Kissinger scheduled Monday and Tuesday’s testimony to begin at 9 a.m., rather than the 10 a.m. that has been the norm, in an effort to help the trial meet its scheduled Oct. 20 end date.

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.

Before testimony began Friday, with the jury out of the room, Kissinger heard the state argue to amend the final indictment to add the word “knowingly.” Kissinger did not rule on the motion Friday.

The trial began Oct. 3 with 16 jurors, four of whom would be named as alternates before deliberations begin. That number is down to 15 after one member of the jury became ill Thursday.