Transcript of Blood and Water: Looking for Leslie New

This is Deborah Roberts. You're about to hear the first episode of the latest true crime original podcast from 20/20 and ABC Audio, a shocking 6-part series called Blood and Water, the story of loss, loyalty, and a family nearly shattered by tragedy. In 2001, Leslie Prier, a mom living in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., was found murdered in the bathroom of her own home. Suspicion fell on her husband, Sandy, and investigators had him in their sights for years. But decades later, innovations in forensic technology give detectives a chance to re-examine the DNA of another unknown person at the scene of the crime. Finally, after more than 20 years, these cold case detectives were able to piece together evidence that revealed the real killer. And brought justice to Leslie's family. Hear what really happened to Leslie Prier. We'll be sharing weekly episodes on Wednesdays right here on the 20/20 podcast feed over the next 6 weeks, starting right now with episode 1. But if you want to get started, you can get new episodes early by following Blood and Water on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening now. Now, here's Episode 1 of Blood and Water.

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May 2nd, 2001 was 25 years ago, but Linda Lyle still remembers what the weather was like that day. It was a beautiful, beautiful May day. The sun was shining. It was, it was just a beautiful day. Back then, Linda was working at an advertising company on the edge of Washington, D.C. It was a small office. And Linda knew all her colleagues by name, including a woman named Leslie Prier. Leslie was a part-time employee. She had been brought in. We were desperate for someone to file. Leslie helped with the administrative side of the business. She'd been with the company for 4 years. She was in her late 40s, but looked a lot younger. A classic Grace Kelly-esque beauty with dark hair and fine features. Oh, she was beautiful. She had a quiet manner. She was dainty to me. But on this particular spring morning in 2001, Leslie was not at work as scheduled. She didn't show up. This was a problem from a business perspective. It was Leslie's job to mail invoices. If no invoices went out, No money was coming in.

This was 2001, where the company had a lot of still paperwork, if you will, because we weren't in quite the digital age.

Brett Reedy was the operations manager in the office. He was also Leslie's boss. Brett had recently had a talk with her about punctuality. Leslie lived nearby, just a few miles away, but she'd been turning up late a lot.

It was odd that she wasn't there, only because She was kind of on probation, if you will, with me. It wasn't a handwritten probation or anything like that. It was just like, look, you got to make it by 10.

So when 10 AM came and went, Brett took notice.

When she didn't show up at 10:15, I just assumed she had a doctor's appointment or something held her up in the bus or something like that.

Brett Reidy is a pretty even-keeled guy, but Leslie's absence that day, it clearly got his attention. At 10:15, he asked around the office, did anyone know where Leslie was? Everyone said no. At 10:30, Brett had his secretary call Leslie's house. No answer. He said, darn it, you know, where the hell is Leslie? Linda says Brett was annoyed, but he was also concerned. He wondered if Leslie's bus had broken down.

I know it only takes about 20, 25 minutes for her to get to the office, so I said something must have happened.

By 11:15, Brett called Leslie's husband, Sandy Preer.

I said, well, you know, I, I I'm calling you because Leslie's not here. And did she have a doctor's appointment I don't know about? And he goes, no, very quickly. And he goes, that's not good. So I'm like, well, wait a— okay, so this— now something's— something's really wrong.

So on that warm May morning 25 years ago, Brett made the decision to go to Leslie Prier's home and try to find out why she hadn't shown up. It was a decision that would land Brett in the middle of a gruesome scene and a bewildering mystery that would take decades to solve.

911, which emergency? There's blood in the foyer. And it looks like something possibly happened.

What happened was a violent secret carefully kept for years until a revolution in how crimes are investigated finally brought the truth to light. From ABC Audio and 20/20, I'm Stephanie Ramos, and this is Blood and Water. Episode 1: Looking for Leslie. Leslie Prier and her husband, Sandy, lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It's a prestigious suburb of Washington, D.C., full of picturesque neighborhoods, And it's a place I know well. When I first joined ABC News 11 years ago, I worked out of the D.C. bureau just a few miles away. Chevy Chase is a place that always seemed to radiate calm, quiet respectability, and wealth. Even in 2001, the average house in Chevy Chase cost 3 times the national average. It's in one of the most educated, high-earning counties in the country. So how far are we from where you and Leslie worked at the time?

Uh, probably at the most 2 miles.

About 2 miles away. Last year, I asked Leslie Prier's boss, Brett Breedy, to show me the neighborhood where the Priers lived. Now in his 60s, Brett drove me, retracing his journey from all those years ago. On that day in 2001 when Leslie didn't show up for work, Brett had driven the long way to her house, checking side streets and Leslie's bus route. If her bus had broken down, perhaps she'd been stranded by the road.

Yes.

This is basically— this is what it looked like back then.

Well, absolutely.

Like many other suburbs across the country, Chevy Chase is full of lush green lawns and lots of helpful signs telling you to look out for children playing, and neighborhood watch. The Priors lived on Drummond Avenue, where a row of large houses sit behind tall trees. It's an area Brett Reedy knows like the back of his hand.

That's— and this is my house where I grew up in. Oh, this one right here, the next one on the right.

Oh, it's lovely.

But this is, uh, yeah, great neighborhood. I had about, uh, probably 6 friends that lived on this street. From elementary school. And right here at this intersection, I was often a patrol for elementary school right here for this crossing.

I remember those days too.

I was a patrol. I was a 5th grade patrol, patrol kid.

Right.

Well, I was—

mine was 6th grade. You had to, had to fold the patrol belt a certain way.

Leslie's daughter, the Priors' only child, had attended that same elementary school. Brett said the reason he went to Leslie's house that day is because he knew the neighborhood so well. Even the street they lived on was familiar. Brett drove me the length of Drummond Avenue to where the cul-de-sac ended. Okay, this is where the house—

this is where the house would have been. So you see, it's obviously redone.

The Priors' home was knocked down a few years ago, and a different modern house now sits in its place. Crime scene pictures show that the Pears' house was a colonial-style red brick home, 2 stories tall, with white columns flanking the front door. In the photos, the house looks perfectly symmetrical, neat as a pin. Carol, Brett and I stopped right out front where the Pears' house once stood.

And then if I get right here, This is where I would think about Leslie.

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Hey, it's Nikki Glaser. My new stand-up special, Good Girl, is now streaming on Hulu. Every single woman loves "good girl." And guys don't want to say it because they're like, "It sounds like I'm her dad." And it's like, exactly. Okay, just be my dad. At Starbucks, this girl came up to me and she was like, are you? And I was like, yeah. And she was like, are you aware there's a Band-Aid in your hair? Don't miss Good Girl, now streaming on Hulu. Terms apply. On the morning of May 2nd, 2001, it was sunny, warm, and approaching 11:30 AM when Brett Reidy pulled up at the prayer house and walked up to the front door. Brett recognized Leslie's husband when he pulled into the driveway just after him. Sandy Preer was broad-shouldered with reddish hair and thick glasses. The two men weren't friends, but they'd met before. Sandy worked in an office nearby. When Brett told Sandy that Leslie hadn't shown up at work, Sandy told his boss he had a family emergency and left immediately to go to the house, arriving moments after Brett.

He walked up to me and he said, "Hey, Brett, how you doing?" He opens the door and he's yelling, "Leslie, Leslie, Leslie!" And as soon as I walk in, I look to my right and there's a large pool of blood. I mean, it's a significant amount of blood, maybe about a 3-foot diameter of pooled blood.

Brett later told police that he felt he saw the blood moments before Sandy. When Sandy did notice it, he said, "Oh my God." The men were standing in the foyer. From there, they had a view of most of the house. The living room was on their left, the stairs to the second floor were straight ahead, and the dining room was to the right with a view of the kitchen toward the back of the house. In the foyer, blood was smeared around the floor as if someone had tried to wipe it up. It was also spattered on the walls. A small welcome mat stained with blood lay in a heap in the living room. A table that usually stood in the entranceway had been knocked over.

I noticed a lot of blood on the steps leading upstairs. Splattered blood all over the steps. Oh, God. Something— something's happened here.

It looked bad, like the aftermath of something violent. Brett didn't want to move. He didn't want to find Leslie, he said, in some kind of compromised position. So he stayed in the foyer while Sandy walked up to the second floor, calling for his wife. Brett looked into the dining room. And saw something peculiar: a pool of water on the floor. He bent down to take a closer look.

And I'm still kind of knelt down. And as I'm knelt down, I noticed something move down the hall.

It was the door to the basement.

And that door was slowly opening. I was like, oh, no. You know, the way it slowly opened again, I'm thinking, uh-oh, it's Leslie. She's probably hurt and something's happened. But it was not. It was the dog.

The Priors' elderly black lab, Boomer.

The dog had pushed its nose open the door and then started walking towards me. So there was a little bit of that heart palpitations. There for a second.

Sandy went down the basement steps to check things out, but soon came back up. Still no sign of Leslie. Brett started pointing out the blood smears to Sandy. Blood on the floor, blood on the walls, blood on the stairs. Sandy had noticed them, but he kept insisting that there had been an accident. Perhaps on the stairs, and that Leslie had been hurt. To Brett, it felt like Sandy hadn't grasped the seriousness of the situation.

And he goes, "She must have fallen." Well, that's, you know, my reaction probably was, "That's a hell of a fall." Where Brett found the situation shocking, he says Sandy seemed calm. Sandy did not seem to react to what I was pointing out. It was a little strange. I remember saying to him, look, Sandy, they tried to clean this up. So I think intuitively, I just— somebody hurt somebody and tried to clean it up. Sandy's reaction was, she must have fallen down. He kept going that route.

Sandy later told police he believed Leslie had injured herself at home and a neighbor had taken her to a hospital. He thought she was hurt but being taken care of. Sandy said that a few minutes after entering the home, he decided to call local emergency rooms to see if Leslie had been brought in. Sandy and Brett went into the kitchen. Where Sandy opened up the Yellow Pages on the counter. But they soon noticed the kitchen also showed evidence of Leslie being injured.

Blood everywhere. Blood on the appliances. Blood on the back door. Blood a little bit on the table. But what I noticed was the back door was ajar a little bit. It wasn't fully closed. So something I remembered really well. I thought it was odd.

By this time, the men had been in the house for around 15 minutes. From the top floor to the basement, they'd found no sign of Leslie, but plenty of blood. At 11:46 AM, Brett called 911.

911, what's your emergency? Uh, we, uh, I work for a company and we didn't hear— have a call from, um, employee. We just walked in the door, her husband and I, and there's blood in the, in the, um, in the foyer, and it looks like something possibly happened. Okay, so, um, um, are you not in the house anymore? I mean, we're in the house right now. Uh, the husband's looking around. You had her— you're with the husband? I'm with the husband, yes. Is there a lot of blood? But it looks like there's possibly, you know, a struggle, a couple things knocked down. Okay. Can I ask you guys to step out of the house? I said, okay. All right. I said to Sandy, we have to get out.

Brett and Sandy waited in the front yard. It only took 10 minutes for the police to arrive. And by then, it was approaching midday.

When they showed up, Sandy, well, he kind of greeted them. Again, a little odd. And they pulled their guns. And Sandy goes, whoa, you guys mean business, like, kind of in a joking way.

The officers asked Sandy if the door was unlocked. And when he said it was, they entered.

I'm outside talking to Sandy. I said, you know, could there's something, you know, anything else that maybe she's— you don't know about? Or, you know, just trying to figure this out. And I asked him directly, I said, Sandy, you were upstairs awfully quick. Did you check everywhere? And as soon as I said that, he puts his hand to his head and he goes, oh, I forgot to check the bathroom.

Sandy told Brett that when he had gone upstairs, he'd briefly looked into the doorway of each of the rooms but hadn't gone all the way in. But Brett didn't have long to dwell on that.

I would say, uh, within A minute, the police came back out. And when they walked out, the policeman was wearing gloves. And he was taking them off. And I knew right then. And he walked right up to Sandy and said, sir, your wife is dead.

Brett says that Sandy seemed completely shocked.

Disbelief. What? I don't understand. How can that be?

Leslie Prier's body was found lying in the shower of the upstairs bathroom. Near her head was a large pool of blood. The police report from that day described it as a sudden death undetermined. An autopsy would be needed to figure out the exact cause of death.

The first thing I thought of was Lauren, the daughter. This was going to be tough. The only daughter, and that's all Leslie talked about.

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Sunday nights on ABC. What happens when the person you love the most turns out not to be who you think they are? Everything he told me was a lie. I was Betrayed from the number 1 true crime podcast, Betrayal. He's been living a secret double life. My marriage ended with a 911 call. The tape is blood-curdling. Leave me alone! Betrayal: Secrets and Lies. So many people are living with their own betrayal. Sunday nights at 10/9c on ABC and stream on Disney+ and Hulu. Lauren Prior was 23 years old when she got the news that her mother had died. So talk to me a little bit about your childhood. How was that for you growing up in Maryland with your mom and dad?

Just wonderful. See, I knew I was going to cry.

It's okay. When I sat down with her last year to talk about her mom's death, Lauren was almost exactly the same age her mom had been when she died, in her late 40s. She says until that day in 2001, The Priors' family life had been idyllic.

We were on Drummond Avenue. It's a beautiful neighborhood, extremely safe. I never felt scared there. And we just— we'd have barbecues and my friends would come over. Like I said, my parents would— my dad would cook. My mom was actually not the best cook, not to be mean, but she wasn't. We all have our strengths, right? But so we— it was It was just wonderful. We had a huge backyard, and my mom and I would plant tulips in the front of the house, and they would grow.

So—

Lauren said Leslie was always there when she needed her.

When I was very young, I always had sleepover parties for my birthday, and I had, like, 8 to 10, you know, there was, like, a bunch of girls. We had all sleeping bags, and we'd sleep downstairs in the living room.

It's like a girl's dream.

Yeah. But anyways, my mom, for some bizarre reason, let me rent The Exorcist. Actually, it was my dad, it wasn't my mom. And so my girls and I all watched The Exorcist, and then after that, I never slept alone. My mom slept in my trundle bed with me, so it was like the pull-out thing, you know, so I had my top part and she would sleep with me until I fell asleep. So she always stayed with me. And that's a scary but wonderful memory.

Lauren said that she and her mom spent a lot of time together. Even after Lauren moved out of the house and into an apartment in nearby Silver Spring, they would take trips to DC to visit the museums. Lauren said her mom especially liked the National Portrait Gallery. Seems like you guys, you both had a very good relationship.

Oh yeah. My mom and I were best friends.

Yeah.

She was everything to me. Everything. And I just couldn't believe it.

On May 2, 2001, in the afternoon, Lauren tried to call Leslie.

My mom and I talked on the phone every single day. That was our routine. I mean, seriously, I would call her office, and her friend Gail worked there. And I called the office, and Gail answered the phone. And I was like, hi, Gail, it's Lauren. I was like, can I talk to my mom? And she was like, oh, she's not in yet. But I was told to tell you that if you called, to call your father. And then I knew something was weird.

Lauren called Sandy on his cell.

I said, Daddy, I was like, hi. I was like, what? Mama's not at work. What's going on? I was confused. And I looked out the window and I saw a police car pull up. And I said something. I said, what's going on? And I saw my dad and a police officer get out of the car. And I said, oh, God, what the hell's happening? My dad is like, talk. He was just talking, but everything was in slow motion. Mm-hmm. He's like, Lauren, your mom has been in an accident. I think I was thinking like a bus accident or she got in a car. Like, you know, I wasn't thinking the word that. And then he said, she's no longer with us anymore. I was like, what? And so I ran into my bedroom and I screamed, like scream, screamed, like what you hear on like the horror movies, like deep down in your stomach scream. And I just waited for a few minutes.

I said, "I don't understand." MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER): Sandy told Lauren that Leslie had died in an accident, but investigators didn't actually know what happened. The scene at the Prier home was full of details that didn't make sense. No signs of forced entry. Leslie— dead in an upstairs shower. Her blood downstairs, some of it hastily cleaned up. Lauren said she and her dad were in shock, and when they went home, they weren't allowed in.

But I saw her— the, the gurney with her body going out. I never saw her dead body. Thank God. I'd be in an institution right now.

Until investigators could find answers, they told Sandy he'd have to find somewhere else to stay. He moved into a nearby hotel while Leslie's body was moved to the county coroner's office. 3 days later, on May 5th, Lauren got news about her mother's autopsy.

The detective came to my place and said this was not an accident. It's a homicide.

Authorities would determine that Leslie Prier was killed in the foyer of her home. She had been beaten and strangled with multiple blunt force trauma injuries. A large V-shaped wound on her head matched the outline of the baseboards near the front door. After her death, investigators believed that her body had been dragged upstairs and put into a scalding shower The water had been so hot, it caused thermal burns. Detectives believed that this was an attempt to clean up the scene. Shock and fear spread throughout the neighborhood. Leslie had been murdered in her own home, and the killer could still be out there. But something else spread too— intense curiosity. Soon the police would be inundated with tips from Leslie Prier's neighbors, co-workers, and friends, all trying to help solve this murder. A murder that seemed from the outset not to make any sense at all. Detectives didn't believe that this crime, committed in one of the safest counties in the country, was random. By the time they told Lauren Prier on May 5th that her mother was the victim of a homicide, they already had a number one suspect in mind.

And the scary part was, is that they tried to put it on my father. I said no. I'm like, my dad loved my mom. Loved, adored her.

But under questioning, Sandy showed that there were secrets in the prayer house, arguments between husband and wife that had been getting worse.

Just bam, bam, bam, just keep coming at you, just keep coming at you.

And it was, it was, uh, uh, it wasn't fun.

This was not an open-and-shut case. The investigation was riddled with unexpected revelations and dead ends that would prevent justice from coming for a very long time. It makes you paranoid in a way to think that there's somebody that could commit this brutal crime and then just be walking free.

In your eyes, it's guilty until proven innocent.

But honey, your DNA was in the crime scene. Blood and Water is a production of ABC Audio in 2020, hosted by me, Stephanie Ramos. Produced by Madeline Wood, Shane McKeon, and Kiara Powell, with help from Emily Schutz and Caitlin Schiffer. Edited by Gianna Palmer. Our supervising producer is Susie Lu. Music and mixing by Evan Viola. Scoring by Kiara Powell. Special thanks to Katie Dendos, Janice Johnston, Sean Dooley, Chris Donovan, Camille Peterson, Christina Corbin, Gail Deutsch, Amanda Carr, Ellie Joestad, Angie Adam, and Michelle Margulis. Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming. Eamon McNiff is our executive producer.

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