Blood and Water: Dead End

Remember, you can get new episodes early by following Blood and Water on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening right now.

“Here's the next episode of Blood and Water.”

I've been hearing for decades that the markets can solve climate change. Today, we have more incentives for market solutions than ever, and emissions are rising. On this season of Drilled, Carbon Caboys, the story of three market solutions, colliding in one multinational boom-double. Listen, anywhere you get podcasts.

In the days after his wife's murder, Sandy Prears spoke to detectives several times. It's water, and he has please. Leslie's body was found on May 1st, 2001.

“On May 4th, he met with detectives, and he told them intimate details about his marriage.”

He described arguments and told them how much Leslie's drinking bothered him. On May 8th, Sandy asked to see detectives again. Okay, you said you wanted to talk to us about a lot of message on my voice mail order today about Brett reading. Sandy said he remembered detectives telling him, "If you think of anything, let us know." Well, now he was back, and he was thinking about Leslie's boss, Brett reading.

Leslie said that she thinks Brett's a control freak, especially with her. According to Sandy, Leslie had told him about arguments she said she'd had with Brett. He said she described one in particular, where she said things had gone heated. I'm not sure what the incident was, but afterwards, Leslie turned around and said something along the lines of saying, "In you're going to do what Brett."

Sandy wonder to police.

“Why was Brett, who wasn't a close friend of theirs, so interested in coming over to the house the day Leslie didn't turn up for work?”

Don't 100% understand that. Why didn't he just let me go to the house? But the detectives didn't seem all that interested in Sandy's questions about Brett reading. Well, what you described really doesn't-- I know. Why didn't you see it? I know. I know. I know. I'm a homicide. I understand that it's just that the eat it's made to let the hero out of your turn. Exactly, exactly. Like I said, I feel kind of scoot to talking about this glitchy. Sandy told detectives that Leslie said she felt Brett singled her out at work.

If Sandy was trying to shift to some of the suspicion off of him, it didn't seem to be working. And just by being there, back in the presence of the detectives, Sandy opened himself up to another round of questions about his marriage. There's no pattern. What she'd like when, you know, she starts trying to figure it out. She can be-- she can be-- how much she must have inferred, is what-- that she can be demanding. I would say argumentative, but just demanding of my time where I've been.

Here's what detectives weren't telling Sandy prayer. He wasn't just the number one suspect in the case.

He was the only suspect. The investigation was leading detectives toward a common true crime trope. The husband did it. That is, until the evidence said otherwise. From ABC Audio and 2020, I'm Stephanie Ramos, and this is "Lond and Water." Episode 3

Dead End There were three formal sits-down interviews between Sandy and the detectives.

The first was two days after Leslie's death, which we talked about in our last episode.

The second was the one you've just heard a few days later, and the third interview came three weeks after Leslie's death. That was a traffic light coming out. Trying to come out wasn't bad. Going back in, it was pretty bad. In this last interview, Sandy wore a white shirt and black tie. It was a little after five-thirty in the afternoon, and he'd come straight from work. In the weeks since that second interview, and as the target on his own back, grew bigger and bigger,

The detectives' notebook from the prayer case is littered with calls to Sandy.

“Visits to his work and lists of information the police wanted from him.”

He'd given them everything they'd asked for, but everyone has their limits. And Sandy's prayer was about to reach his. The detectives had called him in. This time, to ask about some messages on the prayer's answering machine. They wanted Sandy to bring in the tapes. And have you erased that or any of the stuff that was on there that passed two weeks since it's still there?

You guys, I don't mean to show me this respect. But I've been cooperating with you since day one. And I think I've answered enough questions. Just about the answer machine? I don't understand.

My attorney said not to answer any more questions. You can hear in the tape. This isn't what detectives expected. Sandy, their number one suspect, was been eager to cooperate for weeks. Suddenly, mentions a lawyer and declines to say anything.

The change in Sandy brought a change in the detectives too.

They finally spelled out what had gone unsaid in all their other conversations.

We think you killed your wife. They asked Sandy to come clean. It's a terrible thing.

“It is a terrible thing, and you have to be able to face it.”

The more I need to know, it's going to hurt her, but she needs to know she has to book closure on it, man. I want closure on it. You're the only one that can give it. I repeat what happened. See, I would just respect.

No, don't do that. No, don't do that. There's no respect taking Sandy. Sometimes I answer any questions. Just be a man and tell us what happened.

I told you exactly what happened.

But you haven't told us the truth. I told you exactly what happened. Here, the investigators ramp up the pressure. As if they know, this might be their last chance to try to get Sandy prior to confess. You're the only one that has to keep you all this.

And why won't you help yourself, Sandy? Why won't you just talk to us just tell us what happened? Sandy eventually says he'll answer questions if his lawyer can be present. OK, the detective said, seizing the opportunity. Call him and ask.

Carmen? I'm still here. And did you say you want the lawyer to come down? Yes. I didn't want to know if the lawyer can come down.

Is it my being detained? No. No, I'm not. No. Can the attorney come in at another time?

Sure. Uh, friend, yes, though. I mean, yes, sir, sir.

“But if you want to talk, if you want to tell us what happened, OK?”

Then have your attorney here. Am I free together? Yes. Yes. Well, I don't know that.

The detectives have no choice but to let Sandy leave. Yes. But not before he made one last bid for connection. Well, you said one time, I hope one day that would give us to get a hand of rich yet. And I honestly hope so.

But it's not working for us right now. Sandy walked out the door, taking any hope of a confession with him. Now, all the attention was on the crime scene evidence. Investigators wondered if that would prove that Sandy prior killed his wife. But what it proved wasn't what detectives expected at all.

Hi, I'm Pedro Pascal. And I can't wait for you to see my new movie, The Mandalorian and Broken, getting theaters on May 22nd. See you there. What are you waiting for?

I like this game. This summer, Star Wars is back. We have to stop the empire on the big screen. Are you scared? You should be.

Like never before. Hang on. Good job, baby. The Mandalorian and Grogo rated PG-13 may be an appropriate for children under 13. And theaters and IMAX may 22nd get tickets now.

Sunday nights on ABC.

Turns out not to be who you think they are.

Everything he told me was alive. I was portrayed from the number one true crime podcast, The Trail.

“She's been living a secret double life. My marriage ended with a 911 file.”

The tape is blood curdling. The trail. Secrets and lies. So many people are living with their own betrayal. Sunday nights at ten and central on ABC and stream on Disney Plus and Milo.

Roll to the NBA finals is happening now on ESPN and ABC. It's make a break now. Best on best now. Watch 'em sit with us. It would have chestnuts.

Brainous is up for grabs. And the world is watching. Just wait. On the home of the NBA finals. All the work.

All the sucker. The NBA player, presented Baguette, continued. ESPN and ABC. As we've covered in previous episodes, there was blood visible throughout the prayer house.

In the days after the murder,

“investigators meticulously combed through the crime scene,”

collecting samples of that blood to test for DNA. State's attorney John McCarthy says his county was uniquely equipped to handle it. We here in Montgomery County were blessed

because when DNA first began,

there was only one DNA lab in the United States of America. It was sell mark. And it was on Golden Rod Lane and it was in Gathesburg in the middle of my county. DNA was first used in criminal cases in the late 1980s.

But many people got a crash course on how it actually worked in the mid-1990s. May 18, 1995. Tonight, the state versus O.J. Simpson, the continuing skirmish over DNA.

Six years before Leslie Pierce murder, the lab director of Selmark was called to the stand in the so-called trial of the century. Selmark became very famous because they were the ones who performed the DNA in the infamous O.J. Simpson case.

This is the DNA evidence. The best evidence the prosecution has to link O.J. Simpson to the murders. In O.J. Simpson's trial, the Selmark lab in Maryland was asked by the prosecution to verify the DNA results

of the LAPD crime lab. Which they did pointing to a one in 530 billion chance of error. And despite the fact that O.J. was acquitted by the jury, the case still proved just how compelling DNA evidence could be.

In 2001, that same lab, Selmark, analyzed the DNA samples found in the prior home,

“and they discovered something important.”

A lot of the blood found at the scene came from Leslie Prear, but not all of it. Three blood samples came from someone else. One was found on a base board in the dining room.

One was taken from the door to the kitchen, and one was discovered on the back door leading to the yard. And crucially, these three samples all matched DNA that had been found on Leslie Prear's fingernails. Whoever's DNA this was

was likely the person Leslie had struggled with right before her death. And that person could be her killer. On June 18th, detectives got a warrant to take samples

of Sandy Prear's blood and hair, which would be analyzed to see if they were a match with the blood found at the crime scene. Investigators waited. And then,

the results finally came back in Lijelai.

Seeds attorney John McCarthy again. The blood that was on the scene that was not the victim's blood came from a male and it was not Mr. Prear.

This information changed everything. Investigators had been laser focused on Sandy Prear for weeks, but this crime scene DNA belonging to an unknown male was not in fact from the number one suspect in the Leslie Prear case.

And if it wasn't Sandy's DNA, who's was it? Initially, I did not think that I was going to be a suspect in all of this.

This is Leslie's boss, Brett Rady. Sandy and some of Leslie's relatives found it odd, even suspicious, that Brett had turned up at the Prear's house,

the day Leslie's body was discovered. So they brought up the idea, well, what was Brett doing there? And who was Brett? Well, okay, I'm just,

I'm just somebody who cared.

back in his second police interview in May,

detectives had been skeptical. Now, a few months later,

“the Brett Rady theory sounded a lot more interesting to them.”

The police came to us in August, telling us there was DNA found in Leslie's fingernails, not Sandy's DNA. So we would like to take swabs of all the males in the office to eliminate you all.

Well, my first thought was, they probably want to eliminate me, only because I was there. And I said fine. And they took swabs of,

you know, our cheeks, and then off they went. Soon, the DNA would reveal to investigators

whether Brett was somebody who cared

or somebody who may have killed. And Brett wasn't the only person detectives were taking a closer look at. For the rest of 2001, investigators cast their net wider and wider.

“The interviewed Leslie Prears former colleagues and friends,”

almost everyone with a connection to the family was now scrutinized. Lauren Prear had been heartbroken by the investigators focused on her dad as a possible killer. And even when the police expanded their investigation,

Sandy wasn't officially let off the hook. Once the DNA came back, and I wasn't Sandy, my dad, and I were really contacted us. Sandy wasn't called into the station for any more interviews,

but he wasn't clear either. And Lauren thought some of the people investigators were now speaking to, seemed far-fetched. My uncle Frank was even interviewed, which is ridiculous.

I mean, I understand, because he would travel a lot, but he would stay at my parents house when he was coming through. I mean, everyone was on the list.

Uncle Frank wasn't their guy,

“but in order for Sandy's name to be cleared,”

the police needed another strong suspect to focus on, and Lauren felt she had one, an older neighbor around her mom's age. As Lauren explains it, right before her mom's death,

the two of them were walking together in the neighborhood when they bumped into this neighbor. He's like, hi, Lauren. I was like, this is my mom, and he's like, oh no,

I don't know when to get your good looks from that kind of thing.

And my mom was always loved to be charmed.

She was just that kind of moment. But she was an arrogant. She was just, she'd like to be flattered. She, that's just how she was. People's a very, very handsome.

Anyways, so time on out. He was like, maybe we should go walk the dogs together sometime. Lauren could see that her mom was flattered by this handsome neighbor. And after her mom was murdered, she wondered if something had happened between them.

The only thing I could thought of was did they have an affair, and then my mom tried to cut it off, and like, end the affair, and he murdered her.

Lauren told police about this neighbor. Law enforcement would later get a sample from him. It didn't match, and he was eliminated as a suspect. Meanwhile, investigators were entertaining another idea

that this case could be bigger than Chubby Chase. If you lived in Washington DC and knew about Chandra Levy, it was in the news constantly. I guess in any who done it murder, anybody in homicide would have to see

if there were any relationships between what happened there, and then this case. Chandra Levy was a 24-year-old student at the University of San Francisco, who moved to Washington DC for a federal internship.

She had told her parents she was about to return home, but mysteriously, she disappeared, and now she's the focus of a nationwide search. When she went missing in 2001, Chandra's parents appeared on national television,

begging for information about their daughter. If anyone has any way of returning her, they get to reward money. There's returning her, please. Chandra was last seen on May 1st,

just one day before Leslie Prizbody was discovered. Chandra's apartment was in downtown DC, but her laptop's browser history showed that she had been researching Rock Creek Park, a large wooded area that extended past

the neighborhood of Chubby Chase, within a few miles of the Priz home. Detectives and Leslie's family had talked about a possible connection

But as the months ticked on,

“the investigation into Leslie's murder's load.”

In the detective's notebooks and trees went from multiple notes a day to having a month-long stretch between them. By October of 2001, Brett Readies DNA results were back.

He wasn't a match with the DNA from the crime scene. None of his colleagues were either. They were all eliminated as potential suspects. In February of 2002, the unknown male DNA was sent to codice,

the national DNA database that holds records of convicted offenders, but it didn't get a match there either.

And when Chandra Levy's body was found in May of 2002,

it didn't reveal any new information about Leslie's murder. Detectives determined there was no connection between the two cases. The investigators increasingly

“wider search for answers had turned up nothing.”

The detectives had gone quiet. And Lauren Prier soon got tired waiting for them to call. No, no. Welcome to Get Real.

I got something to say. A weekly talk show for the reality TV of SES. Oh my god. He's gonna be deliciously desperate. The final day's broadcast for Get Real.

She has a saucepot for trouble, man. Boo, fatty. This is your show. Find Get Real wherever you get your podcasts. Love runs deeper than we know.

And stream new episodes Thursdays on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. ESPN presents the Stanley Cup playoffs. The most exciting playoffs out there. A two-month roller coaster filled with sudden death over times

and good old-fashioned chaos. Every shift matters. Every series is a statement and everyone gets their shot at the cops. The Stanley Cup playoffs presented by Guy Go.

Continue on ABC, ESPN and the ESPN app. Whoa. We need some water. I need a martini. Yeah.

I love just sign up cooking. It's not talking music. It is. I'm Stanley Tucci. And I want to invite you on a journey

through the country that I love. Italy. Join Stanley Tucci for a new season. You're a good cousin. I'm a bad.

Of National Geographic, Tucci and Italy. All right, should we eat? National Geographic, Tucci and Italy. And all new season is now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu.

Well, first of all, I guess you called me.

And we said that you wanted to come by and talk to some boards. So here we are. A year after Leslie's murder, Lauren Prayer met with the two detectives in charge of the case. She'd come to find out what was new in the investigation. But they only wanted to rehash an old theory.

The detectives were still convinced Sandy was the killer. And it's frustrating for us because I just, my gut feeling is that your dad had something to do with it. I've just been a cop to many years. I've worked too many cases. It is so bizarre to think that this could be so well.

The unknown male DNA hadn't shifted the suspicion from Sandy at all. It had just added another layer of complexity. Detectives had a whole timeline of how they imagined Sandy had carried out Leslie's murder. Their theory was that on Tuesday, May 1, 2001, after eating pasta for dinner, Leslie Prayer had an unknown male guest over.

When Sandy got home, there was a confrontation. During which the unknown male had been injured and left through the back door. This would explain the unknown man's blood being found in those three locations and his DNA on Leslie's fingernails. According to their official report, the detectives believed that Sandy had then turned his anger on Leslie, killing her in the four-year area, and spending the early hours of Wednesday morning cleaning up,

before leaving for work as usual. The report also speculated that the biggest wrinkle in Sandy's plan was Brett Rady. He didn't expect Brett to insist on coming over and see the blood that Sandy hadn't finished cleaning up.

“This was all speculation based on key pieces of evidence that for Lauren,”

didn't add up to the same result. The pasta, for example.

She could have had it in the morning.

She could have had it in the morning. We said that can cut both ways. If Leslie ate the pasta for breakfast, as Lauren said she often did, it was totally plausible she'd been killed on Wednesday morning. And Lauren said they still hadn't found the person who left the mystery DNA in the house.

But don't you think that's real over here? Yes.

“And that's why we are here a year later with nobody under a wrath.”

The detectives acknowledged that their theory wasn't perfect, and that the mystery DNA had raised more questions than answers. But they still felt Sandy was the most likely option. I think this was something because we lost it for many seconds. So many people did.

And in that many seconds, they lost it. There was something terrible happened. That idea that anyone is capable of losing it. Lauren had thought about it. I mean, of course, I'm not stupid.

I'm 24. I've heard stories like they were talking about. But people can just laugh. You know, in the time frame, the situation, the house. So those kind of things don't make me think.

“Don't put me at ease of saying, I know for a fact.”

My dad's an assistant. And then the other side is like, it's my father.

And my dad was never a violent person ever.

Lauren was adamant. Her dad just wasn't capable of killing. He never hit me. He never hit my mom ever. At her worth.

And it took the brilliant thing. That next, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that part of it. You see. And I'm like taking your body. There's been going to work.

No way. No way. No way.

“Investigators told Lauren the case was at a sort of holding pattern.”

The cloud of suspicion over Sandy would stay until new information could clear him or confirm him as the killer. And detectives weren't the only ones holding onto their suspicions about Sandy. Leslie's large family devastated by the loss of their sister and daughter had turned on Sandy too.

They basically cut him out, which is sad. And I know it hurt him very much. But my dad and I had each other. So we worked through. And he, I'm sure behind closed doors, he was a mess.

And sad and cry, but in front of me, again, we worked through. But he tried to be strong. Sandy moved away from Chevy Chase to Virginia. Lauren visited him about once a week. They would go out to dinner and talk.

She never asked him about Leslie's murder again.

But she kept reaching out to the detectives, hoping for some update or new lead in her mom's case. So I just kept calling. I knew someone knew something. You don't even mean so I just didn't give up.

And as the years went on, Lauren started to wonder if she would ever learn the truth. I thought I was going to die without knowing. I really truly thought that. And that's when we talked about it. I came to a term where Lauren, you can't do this every single day. You can't.

What's going to kill you? And then I got the phone call. It took 24 years for Lauren to get the call she'd been waiting for. By the time it came, a whole new generation of detectives was on the line. They reached out because they had new ideas, new investigative methods,

and a new mindset about how to solve the crime. And they said they knew who killed Leslie Prier. He almost got away with it. Now he almost got away with it. Blood and water is a production of ABC audio and 2020, hosted by me, Stephanie Ramos,

produced by Madeline Wood, Shane McKin, and Kira Powell, with help from Emily Schutz and Caitlin Schiffer, edited by Gianna Palmer, our supervising producer is Susie Lou, music by Evan Viola, mixing and mastering by Bob Mallory, scoring by Kira Powell,

Chris Donovan, Camille Peterson, Christina Corbin,

Gale Doich, Amanda Carr, L.A. Joe Stad, Angie Adam, and Michelle Marulus.

“Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming.”

Amy McNiff is our executive producer.

Okay, please stand Walter. My new standup special, it was an accident

is coming to Hulu May 15th.

I'm pissed off so often lately.

“To buy it known, we were headed toward the handmaid's tail,”

and I was going to be wearing that big red cape. I've wouldn't cut out carbs. I mean, I know what my fullness is, 'cause my kids told me, but I've seen the way I eat,

“and I'm pretty sure I don't practice it.”

I don't know why I can't find a fella. Don't miss, it was an accident on May 15th, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus or bundle subscribers, terms apply.