Blood and Water: Eugene

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. The Montgomery County Cold Case Unit began re-examining Leslie Pierce Murder in 2022. It was around this time that Lauren Prior, now in her forties, ran into an old flame at a restaurant in DC.

There is some type of, not like a party, but just a gathering, and Eugene was there. Eugene Gleagore, her high school boyfriend. The two had split up, amicably, some 25 years earlier. Probably, like three years ago, it wasn't that long ago, let me put it that way.

This chance encounter was before detectives had the breakthrough we discussed in the last episode.

Before genetic genealogy led police to a blog, written in Romanian, containing a family's history and the name Gleagore.

“What was he like? Did he say anything to you? What was his demeanor?”

He just came up and he was like, "Hi, I was like, "Hey, see you in so long, look me right in the eyes." The conversation Lauren says was perfectly civil. A brief catching up between 240 somethings who'd known each other a lifetime ago. And I was like, "How have you been?" He was like, "I got married again." I said, "Well, that's great, just casual conversation."

And it wasn't a big deal, I didn't think anything of it. We hugged, like, good to see you, bye.

This would not be the last time Lauren Prier would see Eugene Gleagore.

And the next time would be under vastly different circumstances. Because not long after this chance run in, detectives set their focus on Eugene Gleagore. He would put one persona out there and try to make himself look like one type of person, but behind closed doors he was a different person.

“So who was Eugene Gleagore? And did he kill Leslie Prier?”

From ABC Audio and 2020, I'm Stephanie Ramos. And this is Blood and Water. Episode 5 Eugene As I mentioned, Eugene Gleagore and Lauren Prier broke up a few years prior to Leslie's murder. Before the breakup, the two were inseparable.

They were part of a close-knit friend group. Lauren and her high school friends still remember those times fondly, including one particular night in the spring of 1995. Here you are. This is a night of prom, correct?

And that's Bryce. Bryce Thomas, one of Lauren's friends from high school. Yeah, this was the night of prom, class of the '95. You know, gathered at Lauren's house. A couple of the parents were out front taking pictures.

The photo shows three young couples. The boys are dapper, if a little awkward, and what might be rented took seatos. The girls look pure nineties with spaghetti strap mini dresses and face framing curls. Lauren remembers Leslie playing cool mom that night. My mom had got us, which you shouldn't have done what she did.

It got us of being a wine cooler. So we were having fun, even though we are the under 21.

“Yeah, I remember getting a limousine after them and dancing more than ever dance my life.”

The song atop the Billboard charts for seven weeks that spring was Montel Jordan's. This is how we do it. So yeah, lots of dancing. We had fun. We stayed up all night.

It was a beautiful evening. We had a blast. That was our prom night. And that's my best friend Lisa. That's me.

That's Eugene. There were couples, and then there was Eugene in Lauren type of couple.

And they were together always.

The two began dating in Lauren's junior year. After that, Bryce says they started seeing each other all the time.

It was Eugene and Lauren.

Not just Eugene. It wasn't hanging out with Lauren.

“It was that's going to have Eugene and Lauren.”

He just became part of the group. We just became a crew. It was us. It's like I'm sick in the world. Friends remember Eugene as a talker.

A conversationalist. Good with girls. And good with parents. He was very charismatic. He was a ladies man.

All the girls loved him. But I got up.

So we just became a thing.

I mean, I love him. Back then, I really did. Another friend Lisa Wood saw this young love of close. I would say the relationship between Eugene and Lauren was a serious as one could be for high school. The couple stayed together.

Even after Lauren left for college. I know for her it was, you know, it felt very special and she loved him. They were in a long-term committed relationship for years. Lauren's parents, her mom in particular, was definitely very welcoming of Eugene. Lauren says Eugene even joined the prears on a couple of family vacations.

My mom has just opened door, you know. She loved him. She loved her. And he tempted my parents' house on I was in with home yet. So he would be there at the house sometimes kind of waiting for you to come home. So he'd be there with your parents, just hanging out.

Absolutely. Without you there, correct. So they had their own relationship. I'm sure they had their own conversations, your mom would engage. Right. I'm sure my dad wasn't part of that.

But my mom and Eugene, my dad was like, "I'm going to go sports or something."

Like we said in our last episode, Sandy Prier never liked Eugene.

Whether that paternal instinct was justified or not, it was true that Lauren and some of her friends were no strangers to some light mischief. Rice remembers smoking cigarettes with Eugene after school, and spending time at his place. His house was very, very nice.

Big back yard was concealed in with bushes around the back. So he's at a height from the parents. We were probably in a, you know, we could cut class together, eventually. And go hang out at his house and play video games the afternoon. You guys were rebels. I mean smoking cigarettes.

We got in class. Yeah, let's just say we were a little bit more resourceful. And not that a lot of other kids at that area age. But some teenage mischief aside, Bryce was clear about who Eugene was.

He had to be the last person to jump. And if we got a scuffle with any guys from a different school and like, there was any altercation, he would be when the last people you want to have your back. Not really a fighter.

No, not a fighter right off. And by all accounts, Eugene and Lauren's breakup for four years or so together was amicable. We just had a talk and we both kind of agreed like,

“we just had a mutual breakup where she'll remember kids.”

The two went their separate ways. Their lives went on. And then Lauren lost her mom. By the time Leslie Prier was murdered, Lauren and Eugene had been broken up for about three years.

For all intents and purposes, Eugene was out of the prayer's lives and had been for years. But as cold case detectives looked into Eugene Glygors' history, one date in particular stood out. May 11, 2001.

The day of Leslie Prier's funeral. I remember the church service, and my dad and I were obviously sitting together and we sang Beatles songs. Lauren and her dad were surrounded by loved ones that day.

Just the amount of people there, a lot of friends from high school. It was very well attended and very well attended. Lauren's friend Bryce was there, along with droves of others.

Friends, family, acquaintances, all there to pay their respects. But Bryce noticed, one person was missing from the church.

“And remember asking Lauren specifically,”

I was like, "Where is Eugene?" And her saying to me, that it was too much for him to handle. And I just remember me so upset to spend. I can't believe that he would make this about him.

That's the most selfish thing I've ever heard. It just rubbed me so wrong. I was like, "Where the hell is Eugene?" Sure. Eugene and Lauren had broken up a few years earlier.

But other members of the Gligore family

Eugene's parents and brother were there.

Two decades later,

“when cold case detectives were looking into Eugene,”

his absence on this day was suspicious. Detective Tara Augustin. His mom and dad and brother went to the funeral. Thought compelled because their families had this close relationship at one point. But, yeah, Eugene decided he didn't want to go.

And they know signs. So where had Eugene been? Just a few days after the murder, he had been pulled over by police in the middle of the country.

No, we were near here. And later on after talking to some of his friends, we realized that he took a spur of the moment trip to Oregon all the way across the country to visit a friend that had moved there.

And he called him while he was on the way and said, "Oh, I'm in Iowa. I'll be there in however many hours and caught the friend by surprise." So he took off right after the murder.

He was on the road. He had it west. Yep. It was a troubling detail. And there would be others.

“Authorities scrutinized what Eugene Gligore had been up to”

in the years after Leslie Priya's death. What kind of man had he become? And what exactly was he capable of? Hey, fleece and Walter. My new comedy special,

it was an accident is now streaming on Olive. I'm pissed off so often lately. Despite knowing we were headed toward the handmaid's tail and I was going to be wearing that big red cape, I've wouldn't have cut out carbs.

I mean, I know what my fullness is because 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 fellow. Don't miss?

It was an accident. Now streaming on Olive and Hulu on Disney plus for fun, they'll subscribers. Terms apply.

It's my first day of work and I need to make a big impression.

From executive producer Mindy Kaley. This is our sexual harassment training. Hands off your co-workers. Now sign this saying that I trained you or your fire. Yes, ma'am.

Work relationships are too messy. I just met the woman of my dream. You've got to chill out and now come on too strong. That goes against my entire personality but I'll try. Watch the new Hulu original series

not suitable for work premiering June 2nd on Hulu and a Hulu on Disney plus for fun subscribers. Terms apply. Mr. Sugar, we've run out of places to hide our money. We can do really bad things together.

On Thursday, May 28. Crime is on the rise in Philly. Say hi to you, wife. Hulu's hilarious comedy. In the middle of crisis here.

Delhi boys is back with it all new season. You can't more about the business than you do your own brother. No money, no problems. We people dark on our own. No help from any mad man.

Delhi boys season two. Streams May 28 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus for fun subscribers. Terms apply. In the years after high school, Eugene Glee Gore worked in the food service industry

in New York City. At one point, he was a matri-dee at a Michelin-starred restaurant. He reportedly hosted Super Bowl parties and joined fantasy football leagues. He was married twice, divorced twice.

And by 2018, he was back living around Washington, D.C., working at a tech startup.

My first impression of Eugene was that he was a very bubbly,

friendly, gregarious person. You know, a classic salesperson. Jordan Wires had just begun working at the same startup as Eugene. People liked him a lot.

Everyone was like, "Oh, you know, that's Eugene." He was like a salesy kind of guy.

“I think probably that turned some people off.”

I was like, "Okay, well, you know, he's a fast-talker and that kind of a thing." In the way that like, a lot of salespeople will turn people off, you know. But Jordan liked Eugene.

You know, I boss the time set up some time with him to say, you know, talk to Eugene about what he does and his job. And I just remember leaving the meeting with good vibes. And like, I mean, I was a young employee navigating how to be a professional.

You know, I want him for advice all the time. There office had a workplace mentorship program. And Eugene became Jordan's mentor. Over countless trips to a Starbucks near their office, Jordan's mentor, told out what seemed like hardened wisdom.

I didn't probe too much into his background. Everybody knew it was open knowledge that he didn't drink. He was a recurring alcoholic. He had clearly been to AA and internalized a lot of self-help best practices, so to speak.

Jordan says that at one point Eugene gave him a gift.

It was a copy of the self-help classic. Before agreements, a practical guide to personal freedom. Can I remember the four agreements right now? No.

“Some of the things I remember are you need to agree”

to not take anything personally. How other people interact with you and go through the world is not a reflection of you. It's a reflection of them. Jordan says Eugene talked about concepts like self-actualization

and the importance of impulse control. I remember distinctly having lunch with him and him telling me, having control over your thoughts and being able to see them as they come in and not just impulsively react to them is the first step toward being able to have control over your life.

There's clearly a guy who had done some readings, some self-help books, who had, like, assumed been to therapy. Maybe a little woo-woo, not in the sense of, like, you know, he was into, like, mysticism or anything. But like, he just wasn't afraid to have conversations

about difficult topics, he goes setting your ego aside about things.

“I mean, he really taught me a lot, he did.”

But a few years later, as detectives continued their investigation, they found more details that suggested Eugene.

Might not always have been as zen as he seemed.

No, no. Welcome to Get Real. I go something to say. A weekly talk show for the reality TV of Seth. Oh, my God.

He's going to be deliciously desperate. The final news broadcast for Get Real. She has a soft spot for trouble, man. 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. This is what everyone's talking about. Every day is on the table. This is what champions come to take.

This is what everyone came to see. No duel. No second chance. No more Mr. Knife sky. This is winner take ball.

“And it's all happening now on the home of the NBA 5th.”

Don't miss it. June 3rd on ABC and the ESPN app. Star Wars is back on the big screen for the Mandalorian and Grogo. Gangster's war criminals take out every bad guy in your deck of cards. Now, feel the force.

On the biggest screen possible. The old protect the young and the young protect the old. This is the way. Buckle up.

Always wear your seatbelt.

Star Wars, the Mandalorian and Grogo, ready PG-13. Maybe an appropriate for children under 13. Now playing in theaters. Cold case detectives Tara Augustine and Allison DuPoy had their big breakthrough in June 2024.

That was when genetic genealogy led them to the name "Blee Gore." As they looked into Eugene, they found hints of a volatile past. So this is a petition for a protective order. And this was from his second wife after they got divorced. The petition was one of the documents laid out on a table during my interview with detectives last summer.

It was filed in Maryland Court in 2021. There's a lot of details in here about the verbal and emotional abuse. So she was frightened. Yeah. She was afraid of something.

She thought he might go after her. Detectives Augustine and DuPoy would interview the woman who filed this petition. I felt scared when I went to do the protective order. It was actually because he had threatened my boyfriend at the time. In the petition, she said Eugene came into her home unannounced.

The home he used to share to collect his belongings. He had moved out and he showed up. He was supposed to let me know. I grew up before coming over and he just came in. And it was very scary. And I had to go call the police. And I ended up leaving that house that night.

I didn't stay there. Okay. I was afraid of him. Yeah. He was afraid of the only time that I was like, "Oh my God, this is really scary."

Eugene is an addict and has two guns.

“His behavior has been erratic and scary for a couple of years often on.”

Eugene repeatedly calls me a whore and yells into my face. He throws objects, punches walls, and I fear for my safety when he has these outbursts. I am seeking protection from this verbal abuse and escalation.

The petition was ultimately denied by the court,

which said there were, quote, "no reasonable grounds to believe that abuse, as to find in the statute, occurred." Detectives also spoke with Glee Gore's other ex-wife. She said Glee Gore could be a different person when he drank. Was he like a danger to himself like saying he would like harm himself or just being impulsive going out,

drinking and driving, or what kind of stuff? It's like a ladder, no problem.

He definitely started taking two different directions,

where Mike Bredch was making celery juice in them. His was hiding a bottle under the kitchen counter while working kind of thing. But he did really get involved with, I guess, drug one hiding, I don't know what you want to call that. He got to a point with both of them that they ended up getting divorced because of his substance abuse issues. Four detectives, an image of Eugene Glee Gore was coming into focus.

Seeing that one of his ex-wives had filed for a petition for a protection order, immediately that kind of put red flags in my mind, because I'm like, "Okay, well, that's because of either a threat of violence or a fear of violence." When detectives suspected that Glee Gore might have killed Leslie Prayer, they still needed more evidence.

“Remember, at this point, the detectives have the crime scene DNA from an unknown male.”

They had used genetic genealogy to find possible relatives of whoever's DNA that was. That process led them to the name Glee Gore. What detectives did not have was Eugene Glee Gore's DNA. Without that, they couldn't be sure that his DNA matched what was out the scene. But as detective Augustine points out, getting a suspects DNA is no easy task.

It can quickly go sideways. In similar cases to this, when a suspect has been identified, there have been a couple of times where it hasn't worked out well.

A person who thinks they've gotten away with a crime for 20, 40 years, the police are coming to finally ask them for their DNA.

They know why, because they killed someone, and that it turns into a bad situation sometimes. We wanted to try to do it in the safest way possible before we confronted Eugene with any of the evidence. So, we decided that we were going to have some officers follow him and try to obtain a discarded DNA sample. Toothbrushes, discarded chewing gum, flicked cigarette butts. Police have served tishously recovered DNA from all these objects and used them to crack cold cases.

Detectives Augustine and DuPoi decided to do something similar to obtain a sample of Eugene Glee Gore's DNA. Doing our research, I realized that he was a frequent traveler, and we got information that he was actually overseas, and that he would be returning to the United States on a certain date, and we had the flight information. Detectives learned that Glee Gore would be flying into Dallas Airport in Virginia. I really did that information to our officers, and they decided, "Okay, well, we'll pick up on them at the airport and see if we can get them getting rid of anything."

According to court documents, when Glee Gore arrived at customs, he was pulled out of line by customs and border patrol officers. They took his passport and escorted him to an interview room. The room was mostly bare. There was a couch in a coffee table, stocked with snacks, and miniature bottles of water. Glee Gore sat on the couch while a CBP officer interviewed him.

At some point, Glee Gore drank one of those bottles of water and left it on the coffee table. Sometime after that, the officers let Glee Gore leave.

“He disappeared among the throngs of anonymous travelers, seemingly unaware that Montgomery County Police had collected a potentially key piece of evidence.”

They were able to obtain a discarded water bottle, and we collected that, submitted it to the lab.

Finally, after more than two decades, you finally have a DNA match.

Yeah. What was that like?

“I mean, it's always a huge sense of satisfaction when you can finally say, "Oh, we solved it. We know who did it."”

For detectives, there was no longer any doubt.

Eugene Glee Gore had killed Leslie Prier.

The DNA proved it. The news spread to the county prosecutor's office. State's attorney, John McCarthy.

“The lead prosecutor, she literally was jumping up and down. My God, we got to hit on this case.”

You put two years in your life as an investigator, and it's a prosecutor into building problems because for an arrest.

It's a pretty joyful moment to realize you've got, you've got your guy. Being able to give that answer to the entire family, to Lauren, and to clear her dad's name is huge. It was just really satisfying on multiple levels. But before detective Augustin could share the news with Lauren, and with the world, there was one more thing to do. Hey, it's up!

“With Eugene Glee Gore in custody, detectives finally have the opportunity to talk”

to him face-to-face and confront him with what they had found. Eugene Glee Gore. It's an interrogation unlike any other. Blood and water is a production of ABC audio and 2020, hosted by me, Stephanie Robos. Produced by Madeleine Wood, Shane McKinn, 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. Special thanks to Katie Dendos, Janis Johnston, Sean Dooley, Chris Donovan, Camille Peterson, Christina Corbin, Gale Doic, Amanda Carr, Ellie Joe Stad, Angie Adam, and Michelle Maruos. Josh Cohen is our director of podcast programming.

Amy McNiff is our executive producer. [BLANK_AUDIO]