A man who lived in a tent in the woods of New Hampshire has been found guilty of killing a retired couple who had gone for a hike nearby last year.
After three weeks of trial, a jury convicted Logan Clegg of four counts of second-degree murder as well as four counts of falsifying physical evidence and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm Monday.
New Hampshire's attorney general's office said the 27-year-old had an "extreme indifference to the value of human life" when he "knowingly and recklessly" caused the deaths of Stephen and Djeswende Reid on April 18, 2022.
The couple had been walking on a trail near their home in Concord when Clegg shot them — Stephen four times and Wendy twice, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by Court TV.
Several days later, authorities discovered their bodies dragged into the woods and covered with leaves and sticks.
Clegg introduced himself as "Arthur Kelly" to detectives who later found him living in a tent near the Reids' apartment. Police later returned for further investigation to find the tent, soda cans, pots and cooking equipment all burned and cans of Mountain Dew Code Red cans that were initially scattered nearby gone, Court TV reported.
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Police used surveillance footage from stores that sell the soda to identify "Arthur Kelly" as Clegg, which led them to learn of his long criminal history, which included convictions for theft and stolen weapons in Utah, the affidavit says.
Detectives described Clegg as a globetrotter, with recent travels to France, Portugal, Germany and Iceland prior to his taking a job at a Concord McDonald's in 2021.
And he was just about to set off on another trip, with a one-way ticket from New York to Berlin on Oct. 14, when investigators eventually found and arrested him in South Burlington, Vermont. Prosecutors said he had a gun and a fake passport at the time.
Clegg's attorneys said he had been leaving New Hampshire to hide after violating his probation for the Utah charges, not because of the murders, the Associated Press reported.
He maintained his not guilty stance, despite shell casings and bullet fragments found at his tent matching those found in the autopsies. His defense argued these were placed there after the shooting because officers didn't initially find them and that authorities had charged the wrong person, but prosecutors said his attempt to flee armed and his lies showed his guilt.
Clegg is now being held without bail and faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced on Dec. 15.
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