Eugene

It was around this time that Lauren Priars, now in her forties, ran into an old flame that a restaurant in DC.

“There is some tape of not like a party, but that just a gathering, and Eugene was there.”

Eugene Gleeghor, 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, ran in Romanian, containing a family's history, and the name Gleeghor. "What was your life, did you say nothing to you, what was your dream?" He just came up and he was like, "Hi, I was like, "Hey, it's seen you in so long, look me right

in the eyes." The conversation Lauren says was perfectly civil, a brief catching up between 240 something who'd known each other a lifetime ago. And I was like, "How have you been?"

He was like, "I got married again."

“And 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 Gleeghor. And the next time would be under vastly different circumstances. It has not long after this chance run in, detectives set their focus on Eugene Gleeghor.

He would put one person 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 Gleeghor? 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 Gleeghor 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.

“So here you are, this is the 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 1995, you know, gathered at Lauren's house, a couple of the parents were out 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 and I 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.

I remember getting a limousine after then 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 and Lauren take a couple, and they were together always. The two began dating in Lauren's junior here. After that, Bryce says they started seeing each other all the time.

"It was always though, let's go hang out, it was Eugene and Lauren, not just Eugene.

He wasn't hang out with Lauren, it was that's who he was Eugene and Lauren." He became part of the group, we just became a crew, it was us, it was like I'm sick and it's the world, friends remember Eugene as a talker, a conversationalist, good with girls,

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 love him, back then I really did.”

Now the front, Lisa Wood, saw this young love of close. I would say the relationship between Eugene and Lauren was a serious one could be for high school. The couple stayed together, even after Lauren left for college. I know for her, it felt very special, and she loved him. They were in a long-term committed relationship for years.

Her parents' 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 and you know, she loved him, she loved her, and he tempted my parents' house when I was in with home yet. So she 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, their mom would engage.”

Right, I'm sure my relationship parted that. But my mom and Eugene, my dad is like, I'm going to get West sports or something.

Like we said in our last episode, Sandy Prear 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 backyard with concealed in with bushes around the back, so he's at a height from like the parents.

We were probably in a, you know, we would cut class together, eventually, and go hang out at his house and play video games after noon. You guys were rebels, I mean smoking cigarettes, kind of glass. Yeah, let's just say we were a little bit more resourceful in that a lot of other kids at that energy age.

But some teenage mischief aside, Bryce was clear about who Eugene was.

He would have been the last person to jump, and if we got a scuffle with any guys from a different school and like there was any like an altercation, he would be when the last people he wanted to have your back. Not really a fighter. And by all accounts, Eugene and Lauren's breakup after 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, we were shopping for kids. The two went their separate ways, their lives went on, and then Lauren lost her mom. By the time Leslie Prayer 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 Prayer'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, very well attended. Lauren's friend Bryce was there, along with droves of others.

Friends, family, acquaintances, all there to pay their respects. And Bryce noticed, one person was missing from the church. I 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 mean to be so upset just being, "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 Glygors family did attend the funeral.

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.

yeah, Eugene decided he didn't want to go, and they know science.

So, they are had Eugene bin. Just a few days after the murder, he had been pulled over by police in the middle of the country. 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, headed west. He was a troubling detail, and there would be others. Authorities scrutinized what Eugene Gleegore 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?”

Welcome to Get Real, I go something to say, a weekly talk show for the reality TV of Seth. Oh my god, he has put a beat in viciously desperate. 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+. And this is what everyone's talking about. This is what champions come to take.

This is what everyone came to see.

No dual, no second chance, no more Mr. Knife Sky.

This is Winner Take All, and it's all happening now on the home of the NBA 5th. So Mr. June 3rd on ABC and ESPN app. Star Wars is back on the big screen with the Mandalorian and Grogo. Now, feel the force on the biggest screen possible. In the years after high school, Eugene Glegor worked in the food service industry in New York

City. At one point, he was a matradite 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. George and 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 guy, so I think probably that turned some people off of 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."

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 went to him for advice all the time. Their 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, "Would

seemed like hard-earned wisdom." I didn't probe too much into his background, but I, everybody knew it was open knowledge about 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 described Eugene as having a certain Zen quality.

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.

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, you know, having control”

over your thoughts as and being able to see them as they come in and not just impulsively react to them is, you know, the first step toward being able to have control over your life. You're just clearly a guy who had done some reading, some self-help books who had, like, I seemed to be into therapy, maybe a little woo-woo, not in the sense of, 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 a zen, as he seemed.

Hey, fleecy and Walter, my new comedy special, it was an accident, is now streaming on Olive.

“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 witnessed cutout carbs. I mean, I don't 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 Foulouf and Hulu on Disney Plus for Fundal Subscribers, Terms Apply.

Mr. Sugar, we've run out of places to hide our money, but can do really bad things together. On Thursday, May 28th, crime is on the rise in Philly, say hi to you, wife, who's hilarious comedy. Now, sign this saying that I trained you, or you're fired. I just met the woman of my dreams.

“You got a chill out, and I'm not coming on too strong.”

That goes against my entire personality, but I'll try. Watch the new Hulu original series, not suitable for words, premiering June 2nd on Hulu, and a Hulu on Disney Plus for Fundal Subscribers, Terms Apply.

Cold case detectives Tara Augustin and Allison DuPoy had their big breakthrough in June

2024, that was when genetic genealogy led them to the name Glee 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 Detective

Flas 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. She was afraid of something, she thought he might go after her. Detectives Augustin 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, and get my approval before coming over and he just came in.

And it was very scary, and I had to do corporate places, and I ended up leaving that house that night. I didn't stay there. Okay. I was afraid of him.

He was afraid of the only time that I was like, "Oh my God, this is really scary." She wrote in the petition, Eugene is an addict and has two guns. His behavior has been erratic and scary for a couple of years off and 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.

grounds to believe that abuse, as defined 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 seeing impulsive

“going out drinking and driving or what kind of stuff?”

Second letter. Okay. He definitely started taking two different directions where Mike French was making salary juice and his was hiding a bottle under his kitchen counter while working kind of thing. But he didn't 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. Before 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. And 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 at the scene. But as detective Augustine points out, getting a suspect's 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 where 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. So 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.

Youth brushes, discarded chewing gum, flicked cigarette butts, police have served tirelessly recovered DNA from all these objects and used them to crack hold 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 Delus 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. On time 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. We obtained the sample on a Sunday and by Friday we had reports saying that it was a match. 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.

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.

“If you put two years in your life as an investigator and a prosecutor into building,”

probably because for an arrest, it's a pretty joyful moment to realize 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.”

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. 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 McKeon, and Kira Powell, with help from Emily Schutz and Katelyn Schiffer. Edited by Gianna Palmer, our supervising producer is Susie Lu.

Music by Evan Viola, mixing and mastering by Bob Mallory, scoring by Kira Powell. Special thanks to Katie Den Doz, Janice Johnston, Sean Dooley, Chris Donovan, Camille Peterson, Christina Corbin, Gale Doich, Amanda Carr, Ellie Joe Stad, Angie Adam, and Michelle Marulus. Josh Cohen is our director of podcast programming. Amy McNiff is our executive producer.