Introducing "Blood and Water"

Picture yourself alone in the middle of nowhere, and somebody's following you.

“On Deadly Nightmares, a podcast from ID, you can hear real stories from ordinary people”

who were stalked by predators. On each episode, survivors describe the moment they sent something was wrong and how they managed to escape. Then investigators and family members speak to the details of each case sharing exactly what happened. These terrifying stories are the stuff of nightmares, and they're all completely real.

Listen to Deadly Nightmares wherever you get your podcasts. May 2, 2001, was 25 years ago, but Linda Lyle still remembers what the weather was like that day.

It was a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful May Day. The sun was shining. It was just a beautiful day.

Back then, Linda was working at an advertising company on the edge of Washington, D.C. It was a small office, and Linda knew all her colleagues by name, including a woman named Leslie Prier.

“Leslie was a part-time employee. She had been brought in.”

We were desperate for someone to file. Leslie helped with the administrative side of the business. She'd been what the company for four years. She was in her late 40s, but looked along younger. A classic, Grace Kelly-esque beauty, with dark hair and fine features. Oh, she was beautiful. She had a quiet manner. She was dainty to me.

But on this particular spring morning in 2001, Leslie was not at work as scheduled. She didn't show up. This was a problem from a business perspective. It was Leslie's job to mail invoices. If no invoices went out, no money was coming in. This was 2001, where the company had a lot of still paperwork, if you will, because we weren't in quite the digital age.

Brett Vrede was the operations manager in the office. He was also Leslie's boss. Brett had recently had a talk with her about punctuality. Leslie lived nearby just a few miles away, but she'd been turning up late a lot. There was odd that she wasn't there, only because she was kind of on probation. If you will, with me, it wasn't a handwritten probation or anything like that.

It was just like, "Look, you got to make it by 10." So when 10 a.m. came and went, Brett took notice. When she didn't show up at 10, 15, I just assumed she had a doctor's appointment or something held her up in the bus or something like that. Brett Vrede is a pretty even killed guy, but Leslie is absent that day. It clearly got his attention. At 10, 15, he asked her on the office.

Did anyone know where Leslie was? Everyone said, "No." At 10, 30, Brett had his secretary called Leslie's house. No answer. He said, "Don't you know where the hell is Leslie?" Linda says Brett was annoyed, but he was also concerned.

He wondered if Leslie's bus had broken down. I know only takes about 20, 25 minutes for her to get to the office, so I said something must have happened. By 1115, Brett called Leslie's husband, Sandy Prier. I said, "Well, you know, I'm calling you because Leslie's not here, and she have a doctor's appointment, I don't know about."

He goes, "No." Very quickly. He goes, "That's not good." So I'm like, "Wait a minute, okay." So now something's really wrong. So on that warm, May morning, 25 years ago,

Brett made the decision to go to Leslie Prier's home and try to find out why she hadn't shown up. It was a decision that would land Brett in the middle of a gruesome scene and a bewildering mystery that would take decades to solve.

“What happened was a violent secret, carefully kept for years,”

until a revolution in how crimes are investigated,

finally brought the truth to light.

From ABC Audio and 2020, I'm Stephanie Ramos, and this is Blood and Water. Episode 1, Looking for Leslie.

It's a prestigious suburb of Washington, D.C. full of picture-esque neighborhoods. And it's a place I know well. When I first joined ABC News 11 years ago, I worked out of the D.C. Bureau just a few miles away.

Chevy Chase is a place that always seemed to radiate calm,

quiet respectability, and wealth. Even in 2001, the average house in Chevy Chase cost three times a national average. It's in one of the most educated high earning counties in the country.

“So how far are we from where you and Leslie worked at the time?”

Probably at the most two miles. About two miles away. Last year, I asked Leslie Prier's boss, Brett Brady, to show me the neighborhood where the Prier's lived. Now in his 60s, Brett drove me, retracing his journey from all those years ago.

On that day in 2001, when Leslie didn't show up for work, Brett had driven the long way to her house. Checking side streets and Leslie's bus route. If her bus had broken down, perhaps she'd been stranded by the road. Yes.

This is what it looked like back then. Well, absolutely. Like many other suburbs across the country, Chevy Chase is full of lush green lawns, and lots of helpful signs, telling you to look out for children playing.

And neighborhood watch. The Prier's lived on Drummond Avenue, where a row of large houses sit behind tall trees. It's an area Brett reading knows like the back of his hand. That's, and this is my house where I grew up in.

Sorry here. Next one on the right. Oh, it's lovely. But this is, yeah, great neighborhood.

“I had about probably six friends that lived on this street”

from elementary school. And right here at this intersection, I was often a patrol for a elementary school right here for this crossing. I remember this.

He's two. I was a patrol. I was a fifth grade patrol. Yeah. The patrol kid.

Right. I was six grade. Yeah. I had to fold the patrol belt a certain way. Leslie's daughter.

The Prier's only child had attended that same elementary school. Brett said the reason he went to Leslie's house that day is because he knew the neighborhood so well. Even the street they lived on was familiar. Brett drove me the length of Drummond Avenue

to where the cold second did.

This is where the house would have been. So you see it's obviously read done. The Prier's home was knocked down a few years ago and a different modern house. Now sits in its place.

Crime scene pictures show that the Prier's house was a colonial style red brick home. Two stories tall with white columns flanking the front door. In the photos, the house looks perfectly symmetrical. Neat as a pin.

Brett and I stopped right out front where the Prier's house once stood. And then if I get right here, this is where I would think about Leslie. Brett's tour of the neighborhood

had ended right where he was 25 years ago. Looking up at a perfect house on a perfect street totally unaware of what was lurking inside. Here comes the city of Möder, Mr. Komöde in the city.

Based on the best, Glänkel, a church, Grimmie. This city is no unique city. They are seductive. They look like a tree. And nobody cares about it.

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It's about 30 million dollars.

They have our motifs. With the stem from Anke Engelke and Bastia Pastefka, Glänkel, a church creville. Uplet are my new imkino.

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He knows, how did you blow? No. The Devil wears Prada too. He's the movie event 20 years in the making.

“Honestly, can't put the secrets anymore,”

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That's a nice story. The Devil wears Prada too, where he beat you their team.

“Maybe inappropriate for children under their team.”

In theaters, Friday. On the morning of May 2, 2001, it was sunny, warm, and approaching 11.30 a.m. When Brett Reidy pulled up at the prayer house and walked up to the front door,

Brett recognized Leslie's husband when he pulled into the driveway just after him. Sandy Prayer was broad shouldered with reddish hair and thick glasses. The two men weren't friends,

but they'd met before. Sandy worked in an office nearby. When Brett told Sandy that Leslie hadn't shown up at work, Sandy told his boss he had a family emergency

and left immediately to go to the house, arriving moments after Brett. He walked up to me and he said, "Hey, Brett, how you doing?" He opens the door and he's yelling,

"Lessly, Leslie, Leslie." And as soon as I walk in, I look to my right, and there's a large pool of blood.

“I mean, it's a significant amount of blood.”

Maybe about a three-foot diameter of pooled blood. Brett later told police that he felt he saw the blood moments before Sandy. When Sandy did notice it, he said, "Oh, my God.

The men were standing in the foyer. From there, they had a view of most of the house. The living room was on their left.

The stairs to the second floor were straight ahead

and the dining room was to the right with the view of the kitchen toward the back of the house. In the foyer, blood was smeared around the floor as if someone had tried to wipe it up.

It was also spattered on the walls. A small welcome mat stained with blood laying a heap in the living room. A table that usually stood in the entranceway had been knocked over.

They noticed a lot of blood on the steps leading upstairs. A splattered blood all over the steps. Okay. Something's happened here.

It looked bad,

“like the aftermath of something violent.”

Brett didn't want to move. He didn't want to find Leslie. He said, in some kind of compromised position. So he stayed in the foyer

while Sandy walked up to the second floor,

calling for his wife. Brett looked into the dining room. And saw something peculiar, a pool of water on the floor. He bent down to take a closer look.

And I'm still kind of knelt down. And as I'm knelt down, I noticed something moved down the hall. It was the door to the basement. And that door was slowly opening.

I was like, oh, no, you know, the way it slowly opened the can. I think, oh, it's Leslie. She's probably hurt. And something's happened.

But it was not. He was the dog. The prayers elderly black lab, Boomer. The dog had pushed its nose open the door and then started walking towards me.

So there was a little bit of that heart

that heart presentation there for a second.

Sandy went down the basement steps to check things out. But soon came back up. Still no sign of Leslie. Brett started pointing out the blood smears to Sandy. Blood on the floor.

Blood on the walls. Blood on the stairs. Sandy had noticed them. But he kept insisting that there had been an accident. Perhaps on the stairs.

And that Leslie had been hurt. To Brett, it felt like Sandy hadn't grasped the seriousness of the situation. And he goes, she must have fallen. Well, that's, you know,

my reaction probably was a tale of a fall. Where Brett found the situation shocking, he says, Sandy seemed calm. Sandy did not seem to react to what I was pointing out. It was a little strange.

I remember saying to him, "Look, Sandy, they tried to clean this up." So I think intuitively, I just, somebody hurt somebody and tried to clean it up.

And Sandy's reaction was, she must have fallen down. He kept going that route. Sandy later told police he believed Leslie had injured herself at home,

and a neighbor had taken her to a hospital. He thought she was hurt,

Sandy said that a few minutes after entering the home,

“he decided to call local emergency rooms”

to see if Leslie had been brought in. Sandy and Brett went into the kitchen, where Sandy opened up the yellow pages on the counter. But they soon noticed the kitchen also showed evidence of Leslie being injured.

Blood everywhere. Blood on the appliances. Blood on the back door. Blood. A little bit on the table.

But what I noticed was the back door was a jar a little bit. It wasn't fully closed.

So something I remembered really well.

I thought it was odd. By this time, the men had been in the house for around 15 minutes. From the top floor to the basement, they found no sign of Leslie,

but plenty of blood. At 11.46 a.m. Brett called 911. Well, what was emergency? I worked for a company,

“and we didn't hear a call from employee.”

We just walked in the door. And there was blood in the four-year. And it looked like something possibly happened. Okay. So, are you not in the house anymore?

I'm in the house right now. The house has been looking around. Can't hear you're with us? I'm with the house, but yes. Is there a lot of blood?

Well, it looks like there's possibly, you know, you could just grab a couple things knocked down. Okay. Let's move to the floor.

Can I ask you guys to step out of the house? I said, okay. All right. I said to Sandy, we have to get out.

“Brett and Sandy waited in the front yard.”

It only took 10 minutes for the police to arrive, and by then, it was approaching midday. When they showed up, Sandy, well, they kind of greeted them again a little odd.

And they pulled their guns. And Sandy goes, "Whoa, you guys mean business." Like, kind of a joking way. The officer's asked Sandy if the door was unlocked. And when he said it was, they entered.

I'm outside talking to Sandy. I said, you know, could just something, you know, anything else that maybe she's, you don't know about or, you know, just trying to figure this out.

And I asked him directly. I said, Sandy, "You are upstairs." awfully quick. Did you check everywhere?

And as soon as I said that, put this hand to his head and he goes, "Oh, I forgot to check the bathroom." Sandy told Brett that when he had gone upstairs, he'd briefly looked into the doorway of each of the rooms,

but hadn't gone all the way in. But Brett didn't have long to dwell on that. I would say within a minute, the police came back out. And when they walked out,

the policeman was wearing gloves, and he was taking them off. And I knew, right then, and you walked right up to Sandy, and said, "Sir, your wife is dead."

Brett says that Sandy seemed completely shocked. This belief, what? I don't understand. How can that be? Leslie Prears' body was found lying in the shower of the upstairs bathroom.

The her head was a large pool of blood. The police report from that day described it as a sudden death, undetermined. An autopsy would be needed to figure out the exact cause of death.

The first thing I thought of was Lauren, the daughter.

This was going to be tough. The only daughter, and that's all Leslie talked about.

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The trail secrets and lies. So many people are living with their own betrayal. Sunday nights at 10, 9, central on ABC and stream on Disney Plus and Hulu. Lauren Prier was 23 years old, which she got the news that her mother had died.

So talk to me a little bit about your childhood. How's that for you? Growing up in Maryland with your mom and dad? It's just wonderful. See, I knew it was going to be good.

It's okay. When I sat down with her last year to talk about her mom's death, Lauren was almost exactly the same age her mom had been when she died in her late 40s. She says until that day in 2001,

the Prier's family life had been idyllic. We're on Drummond Avenue, subutiful neighborhood, extremely safe.

I never felt scared there.

And we just would have barbecues and my friends would come over. I guess my parents would, my dad would cook. My mom was actually not the best cook. Not to be mean, but she was. I'm our strengths.

So it was just wonderful with a huge backyard. And my mom and I would plant tulips in the front of the house. And they would grow. So Lauren said Leslie was always there when she needed her. When I was very young, I always had sleep over parties from my birthday.

And I had like eight to ten. You know, there was like a bunch of girls. We had all the sleeping bags and we sleep downstairs in the living room. That's like a girl's dream. Yes.

But anyways, my mom, for some bizarre reason, let me rent the exercises. Actually, it was my dad. It was not my mom. And so my girls and I all watched the exercises.

And then after that, I never slept alone.

My mom slept in my trundled bed with me. So it was like the pull out thing. You know, so I had my top part. And she would sleep with me until I fell asleep. So she always stayed with me.

And that's a scary, but wonderful memory. Lauren said that she and her mom spent a lot of time together. Even after Lauren moved out of the house and into an apartment in nearby silver Spring, they would take trips to DC to visit the museums. Lauren said her mom is specially liked to the National Portrait Gallery.

“So did you guys sleep both had a very good relationship?”

Oh, yeah. My mom and I were a best friends. She was everything to me. Everything. I just couldn't believe it.

On May 2nd, 2001, in the afternoon, Lauren tried to call Leslie. My mom and I talked on the phone every single day. That was a routine. I mean, serious. I would call her office and her friend Gail worked there.

And it called the office. And Gail answered the phone. And I was like, hi, Gail, it's Lauren. I was like, can I talk to my mom? And she was like, oh, she's not in yet.

But I was told to tell you that if you called to call your father. And then I knew something was weird. Lauren called Sandy on his cell. I said, Daddy, I was like, hi. I was like, where mama's not at work.

What's going on? I was confused. And I looked out the window and I saw a police car pull up. And I said, I said, what's going on? 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 is like, talk. He was just talking, but everything was in slow motion. He's like, Lauren, your mom has been in an accident.

“I think we're seeing like a bus accident.”

Or she got in a car. Like, you know, I wasn't thinking the work or that.

And I was like, what's this?

And so I ran into my bedroom. And these screams, like, screams.

“Like, the way you hear on the horror movies,”

I get deep down in your stomach scream. And I just waited for a few minutes. Well, I don't know, I said, I understand. Sandy told Lauren that Leslie had died in an accident. But investigators didn't actually know what happened.

The scene at the prayer home was full of details that didn't make sense. No signs of forced entry, Leslie dead in an upstairs shower. Her blood downstairs. Some of it hastily cleaned up. Lauren said she and her dad were in shock.

And when they went home, they weren't allowed in. But I saw her, the the gurney with her body going out.

And never saw her dead body.

Think God, I'd be in an institution right now. Until investigators could find answers,

“they told Sandy he'd have to find somewhere else to stay.”

He moved in to a nearby hotel while Leslie's body was moved to the county coroner's office. The three days later on May 5th, Lauren got news about her mother's autopsy. The detective came to my place

and said this was not an accident. I'll tell you. Authorities would determine that Leslie prayer was killed in the foyer of her home. She had been beaten and strangled

with multiple blunt forced trauma injuries. A large V-shaped wound on her head matched the outline of the baseboards near the front door. After her death, investigators believed that her body had been dragged upstairs and put into a scalding shower.

“The water had been so hot, it caused thermal burns.”

Detectives believed that this was an attempt to clean up the scene. Shock and fear spread throughout the neighborhood. Leslie had been murdered in her own home and the killer could still be out there. But something else spread too intense curiosity.

Soon, the police would be inundated with tips from Leslie Pierce neighbors, co-workers and friends all trying to help solve this murder. A murder that seemed from the outset not to make any sense at all.

Detectives didn't believe that this crime committed in one of the safest counties in the country was random. By the time they told Lauren a prayer on May 5 that her mother was the victim of homicide, they already had a number one suspect in mind.

And the scary part was that they tried to put it on my father. I said, "No, I'm like my dad loved my mom, loved a door hurt." But under questioning, Sandy showed that there were secrets in the prayer house, arguments between husband and wife that had been getting worse.

"You're just being a man, being just keep coming out.

Just keep coming out. You're never sick.

There wasn't fun." This was not an open and shut case. The investigation was riddled with unexpected revelations and dead ends that would prevent justice from coming for a very long time.

"It makes you paranoid in a way to think that there is somebody that could commit this brutal crime and then just be walking free." "Your eyes, it's guilty, it's appropriate." "Your DNA was in the crime scene."

Blood and water is a production of ABC audio and 2020 hosted by me, Stephanie Robos, produced by Madeline Wood, Shane McKin, and Kira Powell, with help from Emily Schutz and Katelyn Schiffer, edited by Gianna Palmer, our supervising producer is Susie Lou,

music and mixing by Ebene Vallola, scoring by Kira Powell. Special thanks to Katie Dendos, Janis Johnston, Sean Dooley, Chris Donovan, Camille Peterson, Christina Corbin, Gale Deweych, Amanda Carr,

Ellie Joe Stad, Angie Adam, and Michelle Margulus. Josh Kohan is our director of podcast programming. Amen McNiff is our executive producer.

and the case is everyone is talking about.

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