COLD CASE: Leslie Preer | Chevy Chase, Maryland 2001

Leslie Preer was murdered in her Chevy Chase, Maryland home on May 2, 2001. For 23 years the case sat cold. This episode features court audio from the August 2025 sentencing and the genetic genealogy breakthrough that finally identified her killer.

Leslie Ann Jennings Preer, 48, was a wife, mother, and former University of Florida journalism student. Born in North Kingstown, Rhode Island in 1952 and raised across the country in a large military family, she settled in Chevy Chase in 1982 with her husband Sandy and their daughter Lauren. She volunteered at a local library teaching English to immigrants and newcomers. Friends and family remembered her as gentle, intelligent, and kind.

On the morning of May 2, 2001, Leslie did not show up for work. A welfare check at her home on Drummond Avenue revealed she had been beaten and strangled inside the house. There was no forced entry. Blood and skin cells from her attacker were recovered from the dining room, hallway, and near the kitchen. DNA under her fingernails told investigators exactly who did it. The problem was, he was not in any database. Suspicion fell on her husband, Sandy Preer. He was cleared, but the cloud of suspicion followed him for years. Sandy passed away in 2017 before he ever saw justice for his wife.

In 2022, Montgomery County investigators Tara Augustin and Alyson Dupouy reopened the file. They uploaded the crime scene DNA to a public genetic genealogy database. The search traced a distant relative in Romania, which narrowed the field until one name surfaced in old case notes. Lauren Preer's high school boyfriend, Eugene Gligor. For five years he had sat at the Preer family dinner table. He had shared their holidays, their game nights, their home on Drummond Avenue. In June 2024, investigators followed Gligor to Washington Dulles International Airport and retrieved a discarded water bottle. The DNA matched.

On June 18, 2024, federal marshals arrested Eugene Gligor at his apartment in Washington, D.C. In May 2025 he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. On August 28, 2025, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge David Lease sentenced him to 30 years with all but 22 years suspended, followed by five years of supervised probation. Prosecutors Donna Fenton and Jodie Mount handled the case. Gligor remains incarcerated at the Maryland Correctional Training Center. Sandy Preer was posthumously vindicated.

This episode features court audio from the 2025 sentencing hearing and archival case reporting. Listener discretion advised.

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