Murder of Leslie Preer: How DNA linked her daughter’s ex-boyfriend to the case

Now she was 46 years old, had good friends and a successful career. She had a 9mm Taurus pistol at home and pepper spray in her purse. And she still hoped that one day there would be an arrest and that this whole thing – or something like it – might come to an end.

On Tuesday, the call finally came, just like in the movies. On the other side, there was not freedom, but shock – then betrayal and anger.

“We have evidence,” she recalled a detective saying. “It’s Eugene Gligor.”

He was the boy she fell in love with when she was 16.

“No,” said Preer. “No.”

The Gligor she knew was compassionate and warm-hearted. Now he is charged with first-degree murder and faces trial in Montgomery County, where he has not yet confessed, according to court records. His attorneys did not respond to requests for comment Friday evening. A family member declined to comment.

In high school, Preer said she liked Gligor because of his good looks – dark brown hair and a big smile – and because everyone liked him. He was gregarious and sweet. He was friends with her friends at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, where they were both students. They enjoyed going to hip-hop concerts and sneaking into country clubs to sledding down snowy hills. He wanted to be a computer engineer.

Their families lived nearby, Preer said, so they spent time together. Her father grilled, her mother cooked pasta and they ate together at the kitchen island.

He would accompany her family on trips to a lake near the Outer Banks and to beaches in Delaware and Maryland, she said. where the four played the games “Life” and “Ludo”.

She never noticed anything unusual.

“We were still children,” she said.

Preer said that in the five years they were together, saw Gligor struggling with his parents’ divorce and knew that certain of his relatives had a hot temper. However, she said she had never experienced violence from him and did not believe he was capable of it.

Preer said her mother always spoke lovingly about Gligor. Her father always said, “Lauren, there’s something wrong with him.”

They broke up after two years of long-distance dating, shortly after Preer’s sophomore year of college. The conversation took place outside Madam’s Organ, a bar in Northwest Washington.

She remembered saying something like, “We’re so young. Let’s see what’s out there,” and that Gligor agreed.

They haven’t spoken to each other for three years.

Then, one Wednesday in May 2001, Leslie J. Preer didn’t show up for work at Specialties Inc., a DC advertising production company. A worried co-worker and her husband went to her home in the 4800 block of Drummond Avenue. They found blood in the foyer. Shortly thereafter, police found Leslie Preer dead in a bedroom. A detective later told a reporter it was “a pretty brutal crime scene.”

Preer said police asked her for a list of close family members. She said Gligor was among them.

On Thursday, Montgomery County Police spokeswoman Shiera Goff said that “a tip was received for Eugene Gligor from one of his neighbors” and that the original file included “the tip, an interview with the whistleblower, as well as his criminal history and incident reports in which his name was mentioned.”

According to the police, he was neither questioned nor had a swab taken from him. The police did not want to say when the tip-off was received.

Hundreds of friends and family members of Lauren Preer came to her mother’s funeral to show their support. Gligor, Preer said, was not there.

Shortly after the funeral, Lauren Preer recalled, she ran into him by chance at a bar in Bethesda, Maryland. She told him that her mother had died, and he looked at her and replied, “I’m so sorry.”

Years passed. Their mutual high school friends remained close friends. She said she saw him a few times at events with mutual friends. Then, three years ago, she said, his brother texted her saying he was worried Gligor would hurt him.

Preer, unsure of what to do and focused on taking care of herself, said she decided not to respond.

His brother, reached by phone Thursday, declined to comment.

She said she last saw Gligor in 2019 at a Washington DC restaurant after a memorial service for a mutual friend. She said they had spoken in private. Her mother was not mentioned in the conversation.

In the meantime, she thought, the investigation into her mother’s murder had gone cold. The police immediately suspected her father, Carl “Sandy” Preer. Lauren Preer was convinced of his innocence.

He died of septic shock in 2017. Preer said it was really from a broken heart.

She also said her father had mentioned Gligor several times as a possible suspect. No way, she thought.

So they said she kept calling the police. She kept asking for answers. She kept praying to God and talking to her mother in her sleep.

In September 2022, police said, investigators sent blood from the crime scene to a lab for “forensic genetic genealogical DNA analysis” – a tool that has proven effective for investigators in recent years.

Police did not provide details on how the blood given to the lab helped investigators identify Gligor. But it helped.

Earlier this month, police said, investigators “collected DNA evidence from Gligor and compared it with DNA recovered from the crime scene. The analysis showed a positive match.”

Investigators obtained an arrest warrant on Saturday and arrested Gligor in DC on Tuesday. His bail hearing is scheduled for Monday.

“I want to see him,” she said. “I want to tell him what I think.”

Because right now, she said, she just wanted to scream.