The After Show: Who Killed Leslie Preer?

Murder in the Heartland explores real crimes across small town America,

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Hi there, everybody. I'm Deborah Roberts and welcome to 2020, the After Show, where we pull back the curtains. Some of our reporting at 2020 to give you a sense of what happens behind the scenes. And today we're going to take you to an affluent, Maryland suburb, Chevy Chase. And our story begins with a 50-year-old married mom,

“who fails to show up for work. Police would find her body on the second floor of her home.”

In the shower, and this was a case that just went unsolved for 23 years until recently, and there were so many questions around this case. Well, of course, we had to dive in.

We focus on this story in 2020's episode called First Comes Love Then Comes Murder.

And of course, you can listen to it right here on your podcast feed or watch on Hulu and Disney Plus. The correspondent in that story is Stephanie Ramos. Hello, Stephanie. Hello. I thought I was the Energizer Bunny. Oh my gosh, you are on World News Tonight, you're on ABC News Live on Prime, you're on Nightline. And now you're on 2020. What was that like for you switching gears? Because doing these shorter stories is so different from an

in-depth to our investigation. Oh, absolutely. And as a national correspondent here at ABC News, I mean, a lot of the work that I do is day of news coverage. So this is actually something that I wanted to do for quite some time. Be part of a project, a long-term project, where you can really get into the details and sit down for these interviews and spend some time with the individuals that are really sharing their life story. So it was it was great to be a part of this team,

and it's they brilliantly put together all of the pieces. And it took several months. But we were able to tell this story, what happened to Leslie Prier and and speak to friends and family and just really get into it. Well, to call your team brilliant, I got to tell you, you're already scoring some points here at 2020 because, you know, they do so good. They do a great job. Well, let's jump into this because Stephanie, this story, I remember reading about in a couple of magazines,

and I thought, wow, that's very strange. Leslie Prier found murdered in the shower in our home. The shower is still going. And, you know, it was just such a bizarre mystery. There were a little

“clues here and there. But what was your first take when you heard about this story down in Maryland?”

I found it fascinating that after so many years, more than two decades, these two detectives, these two women, moms, just hard-charging women, were able to put the pieces together. Of course, there are a lot more technological advances now compared to in 2001 when this border took place, but just fascinated that there was justice at the end of this. Even though it was an unsolved case, a cold case for so long, Lauren Prier, who we spent a long amount of time with, her life was

just turned up. The daughter of Leslie Prier, just to see it all come together because these two women were assigned this case and they said, we're going to help this, we're going to help this family. We're going to find out who did this. We're going to solve it. You know, I've done stories

before with a pair of female detectives and it's always interesting sometimes the women's intuition

might be a little bit different from some of their male detectives in the same department. And sometimes there's something there that they just can think of and see that others don't. Let's talk about Lauren Prier. She was about 23 years old when this first happened, obviously her world was turned upside down shattered, very close to her mom, investigators as they often do, began looking at her father, Sandy Prier. They started looking suspiciously at him, but she was

not having it. She defended both of her parents vigorously, didn't she? Oh, absolutely. I mean, she told us that it crossed her mind that perhaps her father may have had something to do with it, but it she did not think about that for long. She said her parents loved one another and after giving it further thought, she said there's absolutely no way that her father could have hurt her mother. And like you said, she mentioned and in officers mentioned that Sandy himself,

you can say that there were some marital issues and in that Leslie had a problem with drinking

dad would never do this to her mom. She was confident that he couldn't even after a year or so

“when police sat down with Lauren and said, this is what we think happened. We think, Sandy,”

did this share mother, here's why, here's how, and we need to get it out of him. And she's she can see her in that interrogation room, just shaking her head. She's like, I just can't, I can't. She can't, she couldn't fathom it. And she was right all along. Well, because also, too, the way, I mean, she was so brutally murdered. I mean, it was really kind of a brutal scene there. And for her to think that her father could have possibly done that, I can only imagine what you you spoke with

her in your interview was so moving. And we have a clip actually of her talking about the moment

that she learned of her mom's death. Let's take a listen.

It looked out the window and I saw a police car pull up and I saw my dad and a police officer got out of the car and I said, oh, God, what the hell's happening? My dad was like, talk, he was just talking, but everything was in slow motion. He's like born. Your mom has been in an

“accident. I think we'll see in like a bus accident or she got on a car, a guino. I wasn't thinking”

the work or that. And then he goes, um, she's no longer with us anymore. I was like, what? And so I ran into my bedroom and he screamed, like screamed, like the way you hear, I'm like the horror movies. I get deep down into your stomach scream. And I said, I understand. And we should point out to that she lived just a few miles from her parents. I mean, she's in her 20s and she's recalling this. You can still hear the pain in her voice. How, how is she doing

all these years later? This really changed her life trajectory. I mean, you can hear in her interview and even spending several hours with her. You can tell that the emotion is still very raw, that her mother was her best friend. And I mean, you can imagine as a young woman, she's the only child, she didn't have any, she doesn't have any siblings. This, this changed her and it traumatized her and the weight of not only the loss of her mom, but also not knowing who did this to her mom

has been with her ever since her dad had been out shopping for a battery or something and police thought it was a little strange. His whereabouts tell us a little bit about that. Right. So the night before Leslie's murder, police say that Sandy had been out and Sandy himself was reported saying that he went out that I before to buy something for a camera. He had been out for several hours. He went from store to store and officers weren't really buying that. It seemed as though he was giving them

some sort of an alibi of some sort that just didn't make sense. So officers at this point when they're meeting with Lauren, they're under the impression that Sandy possibly found Leslie the night before she was killed with someone else murdered her that night and then police found her the next morning. But we know now that's not the case. That's not what happened. Yeah, so that was really kind of the theory they were operating on. So this was years ago, fast forward a few years later,

tooth detectives pick up this case. When we come back, we're going to talk about the evidence that led them to less this killer. So don't go anywhere. Three decades ago, a young woman named Angie Dodge is found brutally murdered in her bedroom in Idaho Falls. It was the probably the worst case I've ever seen. It is the one that sticks with me. Please, zero in on a suspect and put a man behind bars. I don't know what the hell you guys want.

“Do you think we'd be wasting our time and wasting your time if we didn't think you're involved?”

But as the years pass, doubts emerge about whether the real killer was ever caught. That's when Angie's own mother embarks on a decades-long mission to uncover the truth. Twenty-three years, I've been trying to put this puzzle together and

the center's missing. I've always been told the truth will come out. You can't hide the truth.

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Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for Bundle subscribers, terms apply. Welcome back to 2020, the after show. I'm here with my colleague Stephanie Ramos, who reported on the case of Leslie Prear, a woman, a Maryland woman who was found dead in her shower and a case that went unsolved for years. Stephanie, this happened in 2001. The case goes cold.

And then in 2022, two new detectives assigned to the case, Montgomery County Police Department detectives Tara Augustin and Allison Deploy. And things start to advance in the investigation. You talked to both of these detectives and what I thought was so fascinating. You know, these are women who are very tough and fierce. They're both moms. But they had some instincts that were a little bit different that allowed them to go in

some different directions. Right. They had also worked with genetics and genealogy in the past. They had taken some courses here and there. They were patrol officers. They moved through the ranks. We're now detectives. They joined the Montgomery County department and they're assigned to the cold case unit. They're assigned to this particular case, the Leslie Prear case. And as they're looking through, they realized we have the tools where we can figure out who did this.

At the time, at the crime scene, DNA was found underneath Leslie Prear's fingernails that had been sent to a private lab, kept all of these years. So they were able to, and it was unknown DNA. It certainly was unknown to husband and it certainly caused a little bit more of a mystery around this case.

Exactly. This is why they were never able to charge Sandy Prear with the murder, that DNA that

unknown DNA didn't match his. They had nothing on him. So these two detectives, they called Lauren Prear and said, "We're now making any promises, but we can promise you that we will try to find out who did this. We're going to work on this. We're going to open this up again." And that's where the plot began to thicken. What is so fascinating and so many of our

“stories is DNA. And where we've come now technologically and how have they are able to pinpoint?”

Now we're talking 20 plus years and they are able to find this DNA and track it to a family of Romania. Right. Things are so much more advanced now than in 2001. There were no ring cameras back then. There were really no cell phones. Maybe a few people had cell phones, but it wasn't a common thing. But what they did have from the crime scene was unknown DNA. So what they used in 2022 was genetic genealogy to find the name Klee Gore, to find this distant relative,

which happened to be a Romania. And that's where the mystery really just began to deepen. And then there's this kind of a sting operation and they get some of his DNA from a water bottle. This thing actually takes them on speed, big time. And it's just so shocking because who would have guessed an ex-boyfriend of Leslie's daughter could be connected to this case? And then he apparently when they start talking to him, he seems a little wee, sort of crying, he seems a little confused,

but they don't buy the motion there. Not at all. And in the interrogation room, you can see these two detectives, detectives that got sent in detective DuPoy, and they are just talking to him straight. Let's listen to a clip. There's no tears coming out of your face. I'm very dry right now. You're dry. I'm very dry. I'm very dry. It's like, you're dry, you're dry. I see my eyes are bloodshot red because I'm just tired,

“a trade, I don't know what's going on. You want me to drink water, so I could tear?”

I don't want you to tear, I just don't want you to say. I'm just trying to say that this seems a little put on. So they were talking to him, and he is telling police that he's dry. They don't really buy his story, and they think something is up during that interrogation. Right. He's saying things like, "I don't want to incriminate myself. I don't recall." He says, "I'm dry because he's not shedding any tears. After some time where the

detectives are saying, but you're not saying you didn't do it, then he starts to say, "I didn't do it. I didn't do this." But it took some time, which is odd, and that was a red flight for them. Well, of course, Gligore is eventually charged. And then he would later claim in court that his violent actions toward Leslie would do to drugs and alcohol. And investigators talked to him. They talked to two X-Wives. What exactly did they uncover about his past?

This was Lawrence, ex-boyfriend, and from what she told us is that he was welcomed into the prayer family. He would come over for family dinners. He would go on vacation with them when Lauren and Eugene were dating. And even in court, Eugene talked about how kind Leslie

prayer was to him. In court, when we finally did hear from Eugene Gligore, he doesn't remember

he had been using drugs the night before, possibly that morning as well, and doesn't remember

“anything." Now, police, they believe that he went into the home because he was familiar with the”

home with the intent to steal. And he was surprised to find Leslie. Surprised to find Leslie, shocked Leslie recognizes him. He's now caught in the act. What does he do? If he was indeed under the influence, that's where that came from. Gligore was eventually convicted in this murder and he was sentenced to 22 years in jail. We're going to take one more break, and when we come back, we want to talk about the family. Stay with us.

Welcome back to 2020, the after-show, and I'm here with my colleagues, Stephanie Ramos.

“Stephanie, let's talk about the impact on this family, because at the core of these stories,”

when we're telling them, we're always talking about families. These are lives that are ruptured,

and this particular family certainly was, as you mentioned earlier, Sandy Prior, the husband here, was considered a suspect for a while. Even though they didn't charge him, there was a cloud of suspicion over him. He died in 2017, and there was still questions. Many still wonder to whether he had anything to do with the death of his wife. Over the years, this had a huge impact on him, and as well as his daughter. Oh, absolutely. And the one thing that Lauren shared with me

“was that even though she has some sort of justice now, knowing who did this to her mother,”

she still, I mean, obviously sad, because she doesn't have her mother with her, but is upset that her father wasn't able to see this day. He passed away in 2017, and for that entire time, there was this cloud of suspicion over him. So this is how he lived his life. This is how Lauren lived her life where there were issues in the family, because they were blaming Sandy. So it affected the Prior family significantly, but also Lauren's friends. She says,

they were there. They've been a part of this journey, and at the sentencing hearing, a lot of family members were there. They were in person on Zoom, and they gave some really emotional impact statements just sharing what type of person Leslie was. Yeah, and for Lauren, um, for her to be able to do that, but also to come face to face with the fact that she dated a man who would be a killer later in life. I mean, that had to just be horrific for her. She just wanted to know why,

and that's the one question she will probably never never get an answer to. Why? And she,

she discussed this with us. She just, she knew that Eugene had been welcomed into the family. He spent so much time with them. She just didn't know why he would do anything like this. And while they were together, I mean, they were together all the time during those high school years, and she says she never saw a violent side of him. She never saw him rage out. She never saw him in that light. So this all came as a shock to her. Stephanie, it's a fascinating story, and we just

so appreciate your joining us on 2020, not only on the podcast, but on the program. I'm so excited, Deborah, thank you so much, and thanks to the 2020 team. That does it for us today on the after show, and Stephanie, it was really just a pleasure to have you here. Um, don't forget to stream,

first comes love, then comes murder on Hulu, and Disney plus, along with all of our other 2020

stories. Thanks so much for being with us, and you all take care, have a good day.