A simple plastic water bottle found in the garbage at Washington Dulles Airport has revealed the solution to a 23-year-old cold case.
Eugene T. Gligor, 44, was charged with the murder of Leslie J Preer by Montgomery County, Maryland, police on June 18.
Preer, 50, was discovered dead in the bathtub of her home outside Washington, DC. Signs of a struggle were found throughout the house, and another person’s DNA was discovered under her fingernails, but authorities were unable to match the samples.
Then, in 2022, analysts discovered a partial match in commercial DNA databases created by ancestry research organizations from millions of client samples. DNA in the database belonged to a relative of Gligor, who had dated Preer’s daughter while both attending Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Maryland.
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As it occurred, nine months after the 2001 murder, authorities got an anonymous tip stating that Gligor, who was 21 at the time, “maybe somehow related” to the crime.
An investigation eventually led Gligor to Dulles Airport. Investigators observed from airport surveillance cameras that the guy drank from his plastic bottle and threw it away in a garbage container.
Officers then collected the vial and extracted a DNA sample, which matched the genetic material discovered under Preer’s fingernails over two decades ago independent stated.
“It’s been a hell of a day!” Lauren Preer, Preer’s daughter, spoke out after learning that Gligor had been detained. “He was my ex-boyfriend.”
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Montgomery County Assistant Police Chief Nicholas Augustine stated that tracing Gligor had been arduous, but that his department would work for as many years or decades as it took to “find the answers and hold people accountable”.
Gligor was scheduled to make his first appearance in court on Monday.