The ‘Stranger’ in the House | The Case of Leslie Preer | UNSEEN

I'm Harvey Guillen and this is Killer Stories. Every Monday I'm cutting the lights and telling you a bedtime story. Except these stories are all real. We're talking brazen heists, devastating cons, serial murders, and cases that defy tidy categories. So join me for new episodes of Killer Stories with Harvey Guillen every Monday. No, I don't have any recollection of being involved with any of this. I don't know. I wish I could tell you. For 23 years, this man has managed to fool the police. My eyes are bloodshot red because I'm just tired and drained. I don't know what's going on. But this time, he just met the wrong detectives. There's no tears coming out of your face. I'm very dry right now. You're dry? I'm very dry. George, I'm dehydrated. You're tired. My eyes are. I'm just trying to say that this seems a little put on. Are you kidding me? No. They've been trying to catch him because they believe he has gotten away with murder while someone else was blamed for it. We have physical evidence that shows that you are the one who did it. 23 years earlier, police had found the body of a woman brutally murdered inside her home. Almost immediately, they focused their attention on her husband. Just 48 hours after the murder of his wife, he was brought in for questioning. And something about his calm demeanor alarmed investigators. I told you everything exactly how it happened. And I don't have anything else to say. To determine if he was telling the truth, detectives had him take a polygraph. When the results had come back, it only reinforced their suspicions. He failed. We can prove that you haven't told us the truth, Sandy. And that don't lie. People lie. For 23 years, everyone in the community believed he killed his wife. But in reality, he's innocent. While the real killer has been getting away with it all this time. We believed you had something to do with this. Oh my God, you're so full of it. You're just, you're after it. Detectives are closing in because while the killer thought he committed the perfect crime, he forgot one thing. And 23 years later, he's about to walk straight into their trap. Well, there's actually a little more to it than what we told you so far. Leslie and Sandy are married in 1974 and begin building their picture-perfect life. They settle in a cozy Maryland suburb and, a few years later, welcome their daughter Lauren. As soon as she is born, Lauren is the center of her parents' world. Her parents are known among Lauren's friends for welcoming everyone into their house, always there to make jokes and cook food for them. Lauren's parents, her mom in particular, just welcomed everybody with open arms and made sure that they were fed. Lauren's father could be described as like the life of the party. Very, very involved in Lauren's life and they had a really great relationship. He was a really great guy. Before we continue Leslie's story, we'd like to thank this episode's sponsor. 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It's time to turn those what-ifs into With Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com/unseen. Go to shopify.com/unseen. That's shopify.com/unseen. I think that's shopify.com/unseen. point they started to realize more details were coming out and it's conflicting with how he originally presented things. The most violent ever got was I'd grab her and just say, you know, you gotta snap out of it. On top of everything else, the autopsy report comes back and suggests Leslie may have died the night before, but Sandy had told them Leslie was alive when he left for work around 8 that morning. To detectives, the timeline doesn't add up. I told you everything. Exactly how it happened. We have physical evidence that shows Leslie was dead before 7 o'clock in the morning. And that don't lie. People lie. Sandy still insists he's innocent though, so detectives have him take a polygraph test. The results only confirm what they already believe. He fails. By that point, cops are convinced Sandy Prier, is a murderer. But with no murder weapon or physical evidence tying Sandy to Leslie's killing, they would need a confession from him to go to trial. And since Sandy is still claiming he's innocent, investigators decide to speak with his daughter, Lauren, to see if she knows anything that could prove Sandy's guilt. Well, I know this has got to be rough on you. And it's frustrating for us because my gut feeling is that your dad had something like this. I've just been a cop too many years. I've worked too many cases. It is so bizarre to think that this could be someone else. Even when the labs discover a crucial new detail extracted from under Leslie's fingernails, the DNA of an unknown man, detectives still remain complete. They're not completely convinced of Sandy's guilt, and simply develop a new theory that Sandy had an unknown accomplice in Leslie's murder. How is it possible? First thing, Lisa, that you found some evidence of another person being there. But that's like, to me, that's like the most bizarre thing. In spite of Sandy and Lauren's insistence, investigators simply won't consider any other possibilities. I knew my dad loved my mom so much. I mean, I had my moment where I questioned, could he really go that far? I'm like, no, my dad loved my mom, loved, adored her. That's impossible. To the cops, Sandy is still the only real suspect, and it takes a toll on the family. Some members of Leslie's family even agree with the police. The grieving husband is endlessly scrutinized after 16 years of living under the weight of suspicion, abandoned by nearly everyone except Lauren. Sandy dies. My mom's family believed he killed her, and so they were out of touch with him. I mean, I think my dad died of a broken heart. At this point, Lauren is forced to wonder if the truth will ever come out, or if her mom's case will remain unsolved forever. It's now 2022. Leslie Prier's case has now been sitting on a shelf in the Montgomery County Police Station for over 20 years, and the case is handed to detectives Tara Agustin and Allison Dupuy from the Cold Case Unit. Ever since I joined the police department, I think my career goal was to get into the Cold Case Unit because these are all major crimes, and I like the challenge of trying to look at everything with fresh eyes and not take the same viewpoints that the previous investigators had. For years, prior investigators have been blinded by their conviction of Sandy's guilt, but Agustin and Dupuy decide to take a different approach. They reopen the case with one guiding question: What if Sandy was innocent? Detective Agustin calls Lauren to tell her the case is being reopened. It was just something that I never expected to hear, ever, and I couldn't believe it. We have some ideas of things that we can do now that had never been done before, but it's a very long process, so we had to really urge her to be patient with us. In the years since the crime, science has evolved, new DNA technologies have emerged, and, thankfully, the unknown DNA collected from under Leslie's fingernails has been preserved in the case's evidence file. In 2001, it was useless without a direct match. So, in 2022, the lab utilizes a technique called genetic genealogy to create a DNA profile of the unknown person. We were determined to finish this. We had the DNA, and it was just a matter of narrowing it down and finding that needle in a haystack. The way it works is by using publicly available DNA databases, the same ones people use to trace their own family history. If investigators find a genetic link, they begin building a family tree using additional information they can find online about the relatives. But if that lead goes nowhere, they'll have to start again with another match. She was relentless. She sat there and built family trees for days and didn't give up. After over a year of pursuing every possible partial match in the U.S., Detectives Agostin and Depoy still haven't identified their suspect, but they refuse to give up. They decide to look at international databases, too. In hopes of finding a better match, We had a couple of particularly high matches. They were from Eastern European descent. We decided, "Okay, well, let's just work with these high matches and see what we can do." And once we did that, within two weeks, we came up with a match that was based out of Romania. And with it, a family name: Gligor. Gligor popped up, and knowing that that family lived in this area at the time, it's like, "This is a really good match." I remember I said, "Ali, come over here and look at this." I think I really have a break. It's like, "Oh, this is serious." Not only did the family live near the Priers, but a student named Eugene Gligor even attended high school with Lauren Prier. However, the DNA from the genetic genealogy implicates the whole family tree. It can't specifically point to one person. At this point, the next step is clear. Investigators need a full DNA sample from Eugene to either match him or rule him out. The question is, how can they get a sample without him? And how do they find out if he's the real killer? It's now early in the morning on June 18th, 2024. A task force of U.S. Marshals is quietly waiting outside a home in Washington, D.C. Inside the house is Eugene Gligor. The moment he steps out the front door, agents move in. Hands up! Hands up! Within seconds, he's in handcuffs. What's going on? What is this about? He was shocked. So you didn't know anything about the swarm? He wasn't expecting this. Eugene is brought in right away for questioning. Inside the small windowless interrogation room, the atmosphere is tense. He doesn't know it yet, but Augustin and DuPoy are determined to unmask a killer. Hi, I'm Detective McCrafton. This is Detective DuPoy. Hi there. From Omery County. Okay. I'm sure you're wondering what this is all about. I'd really like to know. This has been really, really hard, whatever's happened. Do you recall back in 2001, Leslie Prier? Yes, that she was murdered. Yes. Okay. So that's the case that we are investigating. So you went to BCC with her daughter at the time? Correct. Is that correct? Okay. And what was your relationship with Lauren, the daughter? We had dated. As it turns out, Eugene and Lauren were high school sweethearts. They dated for five years and even went to prom together. His parents' house was only about a seven-minute walk from the Priers. Eugene was a familiar face around his girlfriend's family home, often stopping by and sharing meals cooked by Lauren's mom. But Lauren's father, Sandy, never liked Eugene. He believed he was a bad influence. In high school, Eugene was a person of interest in a few burglaries and had several other run-ins with the law but was never charged with anything. So you and Lauren had dated well before her mother was killed. Do you remember? Like, were you still in touch with Lauren when this stuff happened to her mom? Um, no. We had broken up a couple years before, at least. I believe I reached out just to send my regards and maybe saw her a couple times, but that was it. Another detail quickly catches their attention on the day of Lauren's mother's funeral. Strangely, Eugene was nowhere to be found. I was trying to reach out to Lauren specifically. I was like, "Where is Eugene?" And her saying to me that it was too much for him to handle. That's the most selfish thing I've ever heard. Why the hell is Eugene not here? Eugene's absence didn't raise any alarms back then, but now, 23 years later, it's all beginning to make sense. Before arresting Eugene, detectives had dug into his background, speaking with people who knew him best, including his two ex-wives. In fact, one of his exes had filed for a protection order. She filed a protection order against him, where she outlined a disturbing pattern of behavior. 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. It just showed a completely different side of him that hadn't been exposed before. Once I saw that, okay, well, there is a propensity for violence. and now that kind of changes things. things to where okay he might be capable of actually killing someone i i'm just i'm a little confused so to find out more and talk to me why not just call me and ask me to come in and and talk to me well because we needed to talk to you in a controlled environment and because there's a little bit more to it from the crime scene the dna that was taken we actually have a sample of your dna and it was compared to the crime scene dna but i never gave a sample of dna eugene glee gore is right about one thing he never knowingly gave a dna sample unbeknownst to him on june 9th 2024 just nine days before this conversation detectives augustin and depoy had launched a covert operation to catch their killer that day eugene glee gore had flown back home into dulles international airport as glee gore stepped off the plane an airport agent pulled him aside for what appeared to be a routine check he was then escorted to a small room several bottles of water had been carefully placed on the table in front of him the plan was simple they needed glee gore to drink from one of the bottles once he did the bottle would contain his dna eugene took the bait he drank from one of the bottles throwing it in the trash as he left the room the detectives immediately swooped in collecting their evidence with eugene having no idea that he'd just fallen right into their trap the lab results come back and the proof is undeniable the unknown dna from under leslie's nails is a match to eugene we obtained a sample from a discarded water bottle that you drank out of so your dna matches the crime scene dna why i don't know i don't recall i don't have any memory i didn't do anything that you're talking about so i don't know and i don't feel like i can there's no tears coming out of your face i'm very dry right now you're dry i'm very dry parts like dehydrated my eyes are bloodshot red because i'm just tired and drained i don't know what's going on you want me to drink water so i could tear i'm just trying to say that this seems a little put on are you kidding me are you kidding me no after 23 years the case of leslie preer's murder is finally solved but detectives still have to break the news to lauren about the true identity of her mother's killer when lauren picks up the phone she's relieved to hear detectives finally have new information about the case unaware that what they're about to tell her will turn her world upside down once again she's like just like get a glass of water i'm gonna tell you something and she goes to you you know a eugene glegor i mean when i say i lost my mind i couldn't believe it and she was like he's the one that killed your mom i couldn't believe my ears i had no idea that it was someone that i dated it's insane and then he almost got away with it he almost got away with it just the the horror that he could have done that to to somebody that took care of him and opened their house to him was just shocking now that detectives know who killed leslie one question remains why eugene refuses to explain himself but investigators can piece together what likely occurred on may 2nd 2001. they know eugene had a history of burglaries and that he was familiar with the prayer home he also thought the family had money to detectives that combination indicates a possible motive i think that eugene was breaking into the house thinking no one was home and he encountered leslie and knowing that she would recognize him and he would get in trouble i think that he just panicked and only thought about himself and made a selfish decision to kill leslie in the heat of the moment just so he could get away i think he got scared because he was in the house and she saw his face and knew exactly who he was and then he freaked out and she ran for her life he took her into the shower thinking that the dna was going to be gone on august 25th 2025 lauren walks into the courtroom for eugene's arraignment several days after her mother's murder she'd cried in her ex-boyfriend's arms as he comforted her and that moment was one of the last times she'd seen him until today where she will come face to face with him knowing he's the man responsible for her mother's murder she looks toward eugene he can't even meet her gaze as the hearing begins the judge asks eugene glee gore how he intends to plead and his answer shocks everyone in the courtroom he pleads guilty are you pleading guilty here today freely and voluntarily yes your honor are you pleading guilty because you do believe that you are guilty of second-degree murder yes your honor in that moment the shadow that has followed lauren's family for over two decades is finally lifted her father's name is cleared not only in the eyes of the law but also in the court of public he was never able to see his wife's killer being put behind bars his daughter is there to witness it for him before the judge delivers the sentence lauren is given the chance to speak directly to eugene and address him for the first time since the truth came out so how's that way we let you move through our lives that's eugene and a monster arrives right at the front door someone we trusted and considered her friends eugene glee gore is sentenced to 22 years in prison followed by five years of supervised probation after a year and a half in prison eugene glee gore is sentenced to 22 years in prison followed by five years of supervised probation after a year and a half in prison eugene glee gore is sentenced to 22 years in prison followed by five years of supervised probation after a year and a half in prison eugene glee gore is sentenced to 22 years in prison eugene glee gore is sentenced to 22 years in prison followed by five years of supervised probation followed by five years of supervised probation after a year and a half in prison eugene glee gore is sentenced to 22 years in prison followed by five years of supervised probation after a year and a half in prison last the preer family can begin to live in last the preer family can begin to live in last the preer family can begin to live in peace peace peace yeah a lot of emotions at play in the yeah a lot of emotions at play in the yeah a lot of emotions at play in the courtroom the family finally today able courtroom the family finally today able courtroom the family finally today able to stand around this picture to stand around this picture to stand around this picture and take a family portrait and say they and take a family portrait and say they and take a family portrait and say they are thankful for some amazing detective are thankful for some amazing detective are thankful for some amazing detective work this is a history-making case work this is a history-making case work this is a history-making case leslie preer's murder isn't just a cold leslie preer's murder isn't just a cold leslie preer's murder isn't just a cold case solved years later it becomes a case solved years later it becomes a case solved years later it becomes a testament to the power of persistence testament to the power of persistence testament to the power of persistence and determination first from a daughter and determination first from a daughter and determination first from a daughter that refused to let her father's name be that refused to let her father's name be that refused to let her father's name be defined by suspicion i can't believe defined by suspicion i can't believe defined by suspicion i can't believe it's over it's been so long it's over it's been so long it's over it's been so long almost 25 years i'm 48 years old i almost 25 years i'm 48 years old i almost 25 years i'm 48 years old i thought i was gonna die without knowing thought i was gonna die without knowing thought i was gonna die without knowing that it's over it's over what's that i that it's over it's over what's that i that it's over it's over what's that i think but hot then from the two think but hot then from the two think but hot then from the two detectives who refuse to let old detectives who refuse to let old detectives who refuse to let old conclusions stand as the final truth conclusions stand as the final truth conclusions stand as the final truth there are a lot of ups and downs and um there are a lot of ups and downs and um there are a lot of ups and downs and um it took a long time but in the end it it took a long time but in the end it it took a long time but in the end it was ultimately was ultimately was ultimately a success and we were very pleased with a success and we were very pleased with a success and we were very pleased with it for years families like the priors it for years families like the priors it for years families like the priors awaiting leads on cold cases were left awaiting leads on cold cases were left awaiting leads on cold cases were left without options and told that there without options and told that there without options and told that there would be no leads left to pursue with would be no leads left to pursue with would be no leads left to pursue with forensic science evolving with every forensic science evolving with every forensic science evolving with every passing year detectives tara augustine passing year detectives tara augustine passing year detectives tara augustine and allison depoy represent a new era and allison depoy represent a new era and allison depoy represent a new era one where the smallest piece of evidence one where the smallest piece of evidence one where the smallest piece of evidence can change everything even decades later can change everything even decades later can change everything even decades later solving cold cases like leslie's proves solving cold cases like leslie's proves solving cold cases like leslie's proves that there's always hope to get justice that there's always hope to get justice that there's always hope to get justice even against seemingly impossible odds even against seemingly impossible odds even against seemingly impossible odds lauren now knows that her mom and dad lauren now knows that her mom and dad lauren now knows that her mom and dad can rest in peace i have pictures of can rest in peace i have pictures of can rest in peace i have pictures of them in the guest bedroom and i them in the guest bedroom and i them in the guest bedroom and i talked to them and i said i wish you talked to them and i said i wish you talked to them and i said i wish you had been here i said daddy thank you had been here i said daddy thank you had been here i said daddy thank you for being such a wonderful father for being such a wonderful father for being such a wonderful father and i'm so sorry that you didn't get to and i'm so sorry that you didn't get to and i'm so sorry that you didn't get to see justice but you're getting justice see justice but you're getting justice see justice but you're getting justice it was 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