Woman’s Ex-Boyfriend Charged With Killing Her Mom 23 Years Ago
Cold case murder solved with DNA, Family Shocked
A Maryland family is reeling after DNA has linked a woman’s ex-boyfriend to her mother’s 2001 murder.
“It’s been a hell of a day,” Lauren Preer, Leslie Preer’s daughter, told FOX 5 this week. “He was my ex-boyfriend.”
She said the two of them grew up in the same neighborhood and began dating when she was 15, according to the station. She was 24 when her mother was killed.
Leslie Preer was found dead in her home in Montgomery County’s affluent Chevy Chase neighborhood on the morning of May 2, 2001, after she didn’t show up for work that day, the Montgomery County Department of Police — Cold Case Section said in a release on Tuesday.
“This was a pretty brutal crime scene with a lot of blood,” a Montgomery County police detective told Washington’s WTTG-TV, Fox 5, in August 2022, when authorities announced that a cold case team was investigating the case and seeking information from the public.
The Texas-based forensics lab Othram said that it had teamed with the MCPD in September 2022 to build a comprehensive DNA profile for the then-unknown suspect using blood evidence from the crime scene.
Police said genetic genealogy analysis—which uses DNA databases to construct family history profiles—identified Gligor as a potential suspect.
Police said that blood evidence from the scene was submitted to a lab for genetic genealogical DNA analysis and earlier this month Gligor was identified as a match.
“It’s forensic genealogy that helped us get a name or DNA relation to link that to the victim,” Assistant Chief Nicholas Augustine with the Montgomery County Police Department told FOX 5.
“We will go many years, whether it’s 20 or 40 years, to find out the answers and hold people accountable for violent incidents that happened in the past,” he added.
Eugene Teodor Gligor, 44, was arrested on June 18 by U.S. marshals in Washington, D.C., the Montgomery County Police Department announced.
Montgomery County Police Close 23-Year-Old Cold Case
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Gaithersburg, MD — The Montgomery County Department of Police — Cold Case Section has closed a 23-year-old cold case homicide with the arrest of a suspect in the 2001 murder of Leslie Preer.
On Wednesday, May 2, 2001, at approximately 11:47 a.m., Montgomery County Police were dispatched to the 4800 block of Drummond Ave. in Chevy Chase. Leslie Preer was found murdered inside her home after she did not show up for work. Upon arrival, officers discovered Preer and identified a crime scene within the house. Her death was ruled a homicide.
DNA evidence was recovered from the crime scene in 2001, and in September 2022, blood evidence from the scene was submitted to a lab for forensic genetic genealogical DNA analysis. Through the course of the investigation, detectives identified Eugene Teodor Gligor as a potential suspect.
On June 9, 2024, Montgomery County Police detectives collected DNA evidence belonging to Gligor and compared it to the DNA recovered from the crime scene. The analysis generated a positive match.
A warrant for Gligor’s arrest was requested and obtained on Saturday, June 15. Gligor, who is currently 44-years-old, was arrested by the US Marshal’s Task Force in Washington, DC on June 18. Gligor has been charged with first-degree murder.
The arrest warrant will be sent to Washington, DC, to serve as a detainer pending Gligor’s extradition process.
Gligor is being held without bond, court records show. His next court hearing is scheduled for Monday.
More on this case as details are released.
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