‘Dangerous’ Drifter Charged With Fatally Shooting Retired Couple on New Hampshire Hiking Trail
A 26-year-old transient man identified as a “person of interest” in the brutal April murders of a retired couple was formally charged over the slayings Thursday, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said. Logan Levar Clegg, 26, faces two counts of second-degree murder for “knowingly” causing the deaths of Stephen and Djeswende “Wendy” Reid.
Clegg, described by authorities as “highly dangerous,” is being held without bail in Vermont, where he was arrested on a fugitive-from-justice charge over a separate Utah break-in case last Wednesday. Investigators found he’d purchased a one-way ticket to Germany that would’ve seen him fly out of New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport two days later, they said.
On April 21, Stephen, 67, and Djeswende Reid, 66, were found fatally shot in a wooded area near a hiking trail they frequently walked. They’d last been seen four days earlier, and were reported missing the day before their bodies were recovered, according to state authorities.
In a statement issued shortly after, the Reids’ family thanked law enforcement for their diligence, according to CBS News. They memorialized the couple as lifelong kindred spirits, saying, “Steve served four years in the Peace Corps in West Africa right after college. He met his future wife and soulmate Wendy, who was from West Africa, while she was studying in Washington D.C. on an athletic scholarship. They bonded over their mutual love of adventure and fitness.”
The Concord Police Department encouraged anyone with information on the Reids’ murders to come forward. Then six months went by.
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It was not immediately clear what evidence investigators had collected to name Clegg a person of interest in the case. His arrest led authorities in South Burlington to search a nearby forest last week, turning over a number of items found there to New Hampshire law enforcement, The Boston Globe reported.
Records obtained by the Globe revealed that Clegg had previously been investigated in connection with the fatal stabbing of a 28-year-old in Spokane, Washington in 2018. Clegg said he’d been acting in self-defense when he stabbed the other man, Corey Ward, and was never charged over the incident.
A native of Washington himself, Clegg was 22 years old when Ward was killed. The two men did know each other prior to the confrontation, which began—in Clegg’s later telling—with Ward calling him “an asshole.” Clegg explained to police that he’d responded by flipping the larger man off, “telling him he was mentally retarded.” Ward tackled him, and Clegg “decided that the only way he was not going to be seriously hurt was to start defending himself,” police wrote in a report.
Clegg pulled out a small knife and began stabbing Ward repeatedly. An autopsy would later find that Ward had been stabbed at least 10 times, with an additional six lacerations across his body. But Clegg didn’t bother calling for help, telling police he was due to work a shift as an overnight janitor at a nearby McDonald’s. (His manager there reported to investigators that Clegg had been “an excellent employee.”)
In an interview with the Globe last week, Ward’s mother said she did not believe her son had instigated the fatal fight. “My son was a lot of things. He was a hard-working kid, but when he wasn’t working, like for his job, he was as lazy as the day is long,” she explained. “He would have never come out of his apartment, run down two flights of stairs, just to start a fight.”
At a Thursday press conference, Concord Police Chief Brad Osgood announced Clegg’s charges and said he hoped the news might bring “a sense of healing” to the “shocked” community. State Attorney General John Formella commented that he knew “this has been a difficult few months” for family and friends of the Reids.
“I can’t get into details, but we don’t have any information to believe anyone else was involved,” Formella added, according to The Boston Globe.
Authorities did not detail a motive for the killings.
At an arraignment the same day, Clegg waived extradition, according to WMUR, clearing the way for authorities to bring him back to New Hampshire to face charges.
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