Steve and Wendy Reid were swiftly and deliberately executed, but not by Logan Clegg, his defense attorneys argued during closing arguments in his murder trial Thursday.

“How simple this trial must have seemed to you,” defense attorney Maya Dominguez said to jurors. “But every time [the state] came out with a piece of evidence that seemed like it might mean something, we had an answer and we had more information to give you.”

She painted a picture of a young man in the wrong place at the wrong time who lied about his identity because he was afraid of the police due to his criminal past.

Prosecutors maintained that Clegg was a highly calculated individual, who fled Concord and lied to police about everything in an attempt to cover his tracks after killing the Reids.

“He lied because he was guilty, and he knew it,” refuted Assistant Attorney General Josh Speicher during closing arguments. “The police were asking about the people that he killed and then he ran. When Concord Police found him in Burlington, Vermont, he had a one-way ticket to Germany, thousands of dollars in cash, a fake ID from Romania and the murder weapon.” 

When asked by Concord detectives if he lived in Concord during the time of the murders or if he owned a gun while living in Concord, he said no. When asked if he shopped at Walmart or was familiar with the Broken Ground Trail system and the Marsh Loop Trail, he said no. When asked if he’d spoken to police while living in Concord or gave police the alias “Arthur Kelly,” he said no. The defense acknowledged that his denials were lies. 

He lied because he was scared that he’d be caught for violating his probation out of Utah, scared that he was being questioned by police and scared that he’d be sent to federal prison, his lawyers said.

“[Clegg] was at a library in Burlington, Vermont, when six or more armed officers approached him, placed him under arrest and he ended up in an interrogation room with a Concord detective who told him he’s investigating a double homicide,” Dominguez said. “He lied because he was scared and when he was being confronted, he said whatever he could to help distance himself from that crime.”

Jurors will begin their deliberations on Friday.

Turning to the timeline of the homicides, Dominguez argued that there was not enough time for Clegg to shoot the Reids, drag their bodies off the trail and conceal them in the five minutes between when Nan Nutt heard five shots and when she saw a man looking into the woods off the Marsh Loop Trail where the bodies would be recovered three days later.

She said the person that Nutt saw couldn’t be Clegg because that man was wearing tan khaki pants and carrying a plastic grocery bag with a cylindrical item pressed against the side while Clegg was seen on surveillance wearing black pants and carrying two plastic grocery bags that visibly contained a large bottle of Mountain Dew, Dominguez said.

Speicher told jurors that claim was nonsense.

“Does it make any sense that there was another man, wearing identical clothing with the same type of grocery bags with the same backpack and the same sweatshirt heading the same way on the Marsh Loop Trail that also had a Glock 17 in that backpack?” Speicher asked the jurors. “There was no other person wearing the same thing, carrying the same objects and moving in the same direction but Logan Clegg.”

Dominguez said the evidence analyzed by ballistics and DNA experts did not clearly link Clegg to the crime.

Prosecutors took a different view.

“We have casings from Vermont, we have 18 casings from the burnt tent site and we have casings from the trail that all came from the same gun, specifically the Glock that was in his backpack,” Speicher argued.

In reference to the DNA results, Speicher argued that it made sense most of the samples came back inconclusive since the bodies and the evidence were exposed to the rain and the elements for three days before they were found.

“The samples don’t exclude him,” he said. “They sat in the rain and they decayed. Of course, there wasn’t enough DNA,” he continued.

Additionally, Dominguez continued to push the theory that someone planted two shell casings recovered from the scene more than a month after the murders were committed.

“The casings at the scene were not found until May because they were not there in April. I can’t tell you who, when or why those casings were planted, but they were,” she said.

Speicher argued that when Clegg returned to better conceal the Reids’ bodies and clean up the spent shell casings in the hours after the murders, they must not have been in plain view because they were missed by Clegg and the detectives. The shell casings recovered were a match to the gun found in Clegg’s possession when he was arrested.

“How could someone else get shell casings from Clegg’s gun – the person who lived alone, didn’t have any friends and didn’t talk to anyone – take them to the trail and just happen to sprinkle them on the ground where the Reids were murdered?” he said. “There were six shell casings at that scene. Clegg came back to the scene, got rid of the first four, buried the bodies and missed the other two.”

Rounding out her closing argument, Dominguez said the state failed to prove without a reasonable doubt that Clegg killed the Reids and asked jurors to dismiss the charges against him.

“When police investigated this case, instead of looking at evidence with clear eyes, they speculated, assumed and theorized. They saw only what they wanted to see and they got the wrong guy,” she said. “If ever there is a case with reasonable doubt, it’s this one.”

In asking jurors to find Clegg guilty, Speicher urged them to consider his actions and decisions following the murders as consciousness of guilt. The burning of his tent site, the concealment of the bodies, the removal of evidence from the scene and his personal computer, the aliases given to police, his abrupt departure from Concord, the purchase of a one-way ticket to Europe.

“He knew he was guilty and that’s why he did these things,” he said. “When he pulled the trigger of his gun and fired those six shots, he knew what he was doing and that it would cause their deaths. He was aware of the nature of his conduct, shot the bullets and knew he would cause their deaths. Find him guilty for the reckless murders and extreme indifference to the value of human life.”

Clegg, 27, is facing four charges of second-degree murder, four charges of falsifying physical evidence and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, felonies. At the beginning of closing arguments, Clegg pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. If found guilty of murder, he faces life in prison. He has remained held without bail in Merrimack County House of Corrections in Boscawen since his arrest in October.

The Reids were known for their years of humanitarian work around the world and had moved back to Concord to retire. They were outdoor enthusiasts who frequently walked the Broken Ground trails, family and friends said.