Transcript of Talking Dateline: A Perfect Spring Morning

Hi, everyone. I'm Lester Holt. Welcome to Talking Dateland. I'm with Blaine Alexander today to discuss A Perfect Spring Morning, the title of her latest episode here on Dateland. If you haven't seen it, go to the Dateland podcast feed, pull it up, and then come right back here and listen to the discussion. By the way, you can also stream it on Peacock. So to recap, when loving mother and wife, Leslie Praer, was found brutally murdered in her Maryland home in 2001, investigators zeroed in on her husband, Sandy, only to clear him. As the years passed, the couple's daughter, Lauren, pushed to keep her case alive. And finally, 20 years after the murder, new detectives got the case and found the real killer, Lauren's high school boyfriend, Eugene Glegor. First of all, Blaine, good to have you here. This is one you go in, you think you know pretty quickly where this is all leading. And then there are several points we're just left shaking our heads in this one. Give me your overall impression of doing this episode.

Celesta One, this is our first talking dateland together. So I feel like this occasion should be marked.

This is a special moment. I have no champagne, but I do have a cold It's called Cappuccino.

There you go. And I've got this water right here. So there we go. No, I'm glad to join you, my friend. I mean, this one was a striking episode for me for a number of reasons. I mean, I think at the core of this, this is about a daughter who embarked on this decades long quest to find her mother's killer. In talking with Lauren Praer, it was very clear immediately that she and her mom, Leslie, had the mother-daughter relationship that you dream of having, right? If you're a mom, you dream of having with your daughters, that you dream of having with your mom. They were incredibly close. And I mean, just good friends. She was an only child. And so that made her mother's very sudden, very brutal death all the more difficult for her to deal with over these years, on top of the fact that they were without knowledge of who the killer was for so long.

So I was also struck by what Lauren has gone through in terms of the lasting impact, obviously, of losing her mother, ultimately losing her dad. But she has some real, I think, justified fears now as a result of all this.

Yeah. I mean, I think a couple of things. We talked about in the episode about showers, right? How that was a difficult thing for her. Her mother was found dead upstairs in the shower. And so her best friend Lisa said that she would feel fearful every time she needed to get in the shower. She would call Lisa. Lisa would come over, basically sit with her in the bathroom. I mean, imagine that type of fear for a good majority of your life. The other piece of it is, again, this was an unknown. So there's always the question of who did this and why? And if they were angry enough or whatever it was enough to kill my mother, might they come after me?

Yeah, but people, members of the family, certainly the police, all suspected. In this case, the husband didn't. Not the case here. But the whole family seemed to pay a price because that suspicion went on for a very long time.

It went on past Sandy Preer's death. I mean, he went to his grave with people in the family still suspecting that he could have been the person who killed his wife. He went to his grave not knowing who the real killer was and still feeling like there were all these people and all these eyes on on him. So that's something that Lauren really spoke to when we sat down and talked. And it's clear that that's a pain that she still carries. One of the things that I've been struck with, Lester, when I do these stories is when there are stories that where kids are caught in the middle. Whether it's a spouse did kill the other spouse, and they were faced with the loss of two parents in a way, or if there's suspicion over one of the parents, and they have to deal with that. And that's what Lauren dealt with. But also members of the family. I mean, Leslie's parents wondered, Hey, is our son-in-law a killer? There was just a lot of turmoil that this caused in the family.

Yeah. When Lauren finally confronted her dad and asked him point blank, Did you kill my mom? And he said, No. That was a very powerful segment.

Can you imagine that? I mean, it's one of those things where Lauren admitted she was like... Because the detectives, in her telling, because the detectives were so sure that it was her dad. She started to have that thought in her mind, too. Now, she was pretty clear with me. She never really believed that it was him. She really in her heart. But she did allow doubt to creep in to the point that she sat down and asked her dad. And he said, I'm only going to answer this once. No, it was not me. And she said, from that moment on, I dropped it, believed him. That was it.

Yeah. And I was struck by, man, what if you're the parent and your child ask you a question like that? This is The whole thing is sad in so many ways. How worried was she when the police hit that point where, well, this is what we got. And boy, it sure looks like the dad in this case.

It's hard because she was so sure that it wasn't. Ultimately, once she believed her dad, she was frustrated because she said, Listen, I know it's not him. Perhaps you all are not working the case as well as you should because you are focused on him. And so that did lead to some frustration for her, too, over the years.

I'm wondering if he did himself favors the way he handled the police pressure. Obviously, they got him in the interrogation room and laid out their case and said, Facts don't lie. In this case, looks like they got the wrong facts.

Well, watching this, and I'm sure that some of our viewers could agree, there were some seemingly unforeced errors there by Sandy, right? And you never know how someone is going to react when they're in a traumatic situation like that, when they're that their loved one has been killed when they have to answer questions on police. But it seemed like almost every single thing that he could have done wrong, he was almost checking all of those boxes. The reaction that he gave when he was told that Leslie had been killed, just the acting strange at the scene, according to a couple of people's tellings, going to a dump the night before her body was found. Just all of these things that would lead investigators to say, Well, that's suspicious.

We, of course, reported polygraphs are not admissible, not always reliable. But once again, the polygraph started pointing toward the husband.

When you volunteer to take a lie detector test and then you fail it, That just doesn't look good, right?

When he said, I'm going to do it, I'm like, Well, that's a stand-up thing. That's what innocent people do. Yeah, test me. Yeah, test me.

Exactly. That's what you think, too. And then you fail the test. It's like, oh, no, that's what not innocent people do, right? But we know that there are so many different factors that go into a polygraph. Let's say that you take it, but obviously you're nervous, you're upset. Your wife was just brutally killed. Who knows what's going to happen to impact the results? And to your point, that's why Again, these are not full proof. They're not admissible. But again, it just never looks good when you fail one of those.

And I know police don't want to jump to conclusions, but as you point out, this one had a lot of arrows pointed. It seemed to be pointing in one direction. The The use of science, of course, rule the day. They had a lot of evidence in terms of the blood patterns and what they found in the shower and the upstairs. It seemed at one point that that was going to really solve the question of who killed her.

That and once the DNA came, once they said, Okay, we've got DNA. I'm sure a lot of our consistent viewers will know when you hear DNA, it's like, Okay, great. What does that mean? Yes, exactly. Case closed. Let's find this person. But when it doesn't match anyone, then you're left with this question of, Okay, we've got something in our hand that would theoretically solve this case, but we just don't know who to connect it to. For investigators, that's always a very frustrating thing in the first place. But I will say in this case, and I asked Detective Tara August in this, I said, Did the fact that there was DNA that didn't match Sandy Preer, did that keep him out of jail? And she said, Absolutely. He would have very likely been arrested had it not been for the fact that his DNA didn't match. So yes, the DNA was there and in many ways, that saved Sandy.

All right, we'll take a break. When we come back, we have an extra clip of Leslie's brother Bill speaking at Glegor Sentencing. We'll be right back. Do you think that This case would have been solved if not for Lauren's persistence. I mean, she was on the police on a regular basis.

I think that it was certainly her persistence, but I also think that it was the... We always say in Dateland, it takes fresh to crack a case, fresh eyes on this case. This case passed through the hands of eight detectives, ultimately, before it was solved. I think that it was these two new detectives who not only went through the cold case files, saw this, also spoke to Lauren and heard her voice and heard the things that she'd been going through over the years that really lit this fire in them to solve it as well. I want to talk about the detectives themselves. Detectives Augustine and Dupoy, we could have done a whole lot more on them because, yes, they were a dynamic duo. These are two ladies. They're both mothers, working moms, as we said in the piece. They both happen to love Taylor Swift. Who doesn't? Who doesn't? But they have a little banner in their cold case area, cold case office. It's down in the basement of the Montgomery County Police Department. I went down there, and it's nothing but just rows and rows of boxes and files and a few desks. Then they have this little Taylor Swift banner hanging up there in the midst of all of these files.

They are very, very big Swifties. But They really had this fire in their belly of, We are going to solve this case.

We talked a little bit about the science of this thing, but the DNA is obviously very important.

It led them down this path to ultimately this new technology that allowed the investigators to process this DNA evidence in a way that they weren't able to do back in 2001 or back in the years immediately following the case. That's what ultimately led them to be able to find Eugene.

It was really fascinating. I wanted actually more on this issue of genealogy. We've heard about occasionally in stories, but it's fascinating. Not only DNA would link to a specific person, this would link to a family group and march police down a certain direction.

When we talk about that genealogy, it's fascinating, yes, but it's really tedious work. It's not a given that they get to use it. We could have given so much more in this episode on it, but we didn't want to sound like science walks here. But it's this thing of going through and bit by bit looking at names that match family groups that match from all of this information that's available. I mean, it really is this painstaking work that they embarked upon.

Yeah. And then when they find, they think the match, the description of that moment was really, I think it was very It was.

It was. I was in their cold case office, so I was able to see her desk is in the back of this room. And I can't emphasize enough, this is a basement. Imagine being back there, pouring over this information for days, days, days on end. And then finally, she shouts out, I got it. I got it. You feel that electricity of like, oh, is there something?

It's the movie moment.

It's the movie moment. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And sure enough, she had it.

So what do we know about Eugene Glegor? What's his story?

So one thing that we've learned from him in speaking with Lauren, speaking with Lisa, speaking with other friends of theirs, is that I think the biggest chilling thing is that he was able to proceed and live this life for more than two decades as though nothing had happened. Married, divorced, traveled a lot. I mean, it was an airport return that ultimately got him. Lauren had come face to face with him several times, and at one point, he even comforted her. And that always seems to just be so chilling to me that not only can you commit this crime, but then proceed to live your life as though nothing had happened and even come face to face with the people that you hurt so badly.

And it really justified Lauren's sense of looking over her shoulder, literally, figuratively, with that same knowledge that this person is likely somewhere in my circle. That's frightening.

And can you imagine ultimately finding out who that is and realizing this was a person that was in my house, this was a person that I saw? It messes with your internal barometer of how do I trust people.

The knowledge that the killer was someone she knew. That's a pretty heavy burden to carry around.

Not only knew, but had spent time in the house, would go on vacations with them. I mean, Their house, when you think back to your high school years, most friend groups have a house where all the friends would go, whether you had a pool there or the parents were really cool and will let you hang out and didn't mind the noise, whatever. Their house house was like that cool house. That was the hangout house. And so Eugene was, of course, part of their friend group, was part of that group. So he was always at the house. He would be there hanging out. So he was familiar in the sense that Leslie was always very welcoming, would talk to the kids when they were there. So when you think about all of that, all of the motherly love that Leslie poured into any kid who was in her house back in the day, including Eugene, then that just heightens the sense of betrayal here that Lauren certainly feels.

The question that hovers over the whole thing is why? Why did she die?

So prosecutor's theory of this was that Eugene had a drug habit back then and was trying to rob the house to get money to feed his drug habit, was surprised by the fact that Leslie was there in the house when he went there and turned on her. They kept the back door unlocked. That's something that he would have known. They believe that's what he used to come in, go out, use the path to get away. And so they believe that he was possibly thinking, Hey, I can go and grab some things. Leslie was there, and then it just unfortunately went downhill from there.

Okay, so the suspect in this case, of course, confesses. So there's no trial, but there is a sentencing in court, and that always provides, I think, some really telling moments in any case. We've got some sound here that did not make this episode. It's the family. It's the brother, in this case, of Leslie addressing the court on the issue of sentencing.

Here it As we were part of sentencing the Leslie's killed, do you hear the word closure? The word closure, euphemistically, attempts to give some language to Leslie's family on the planet. But to notice that Wesleyan was a blessing well-dressed, a person who never had a name, never meant a strange kowit is impossible. Our pain was ready for the rest of our lives. There was no closing to proceed in court. Leslie Gill had, who went to his grade in 2017. Nor was there closure for my term. He went to their grade, never knowing if your son had always been leveled or possibly accused. May second, 2001, Sandy Praer was sentenced to life without his loving wife and his ghost spirit. May second, 2001, Lauren Gooder was sentenced to life without her mother and dearest friend. A sentence of pain and soil she will carry as long as she lives. May second, 2001, less than seven brothers and sisters just went to life without his belief on loving and caring system. The horror of this murder should be reflected in a sentence.

He makes a good point, Blaine. How is the family supposed to find closure in a case like this, especially one that's dragged out over years and has implicated many people at points along the way.

I always think that closure is one of those words, Lester, that it's often difficult to apply because what does closure really mean? I think that, yes, do they know who killed Leslie? Yes. Has he been sentenced? Has he admitted to his crime and messed up to it? Yes. But that almost opens up a whole new set of questions and feelings. I can speak only from having sat down with Lauren for an extended period period of time twice. Closure, maybe in the sense of what we think about it, that's not going to exist here. I think that a piece of the nightmare for her is over in that she's able to have that question not hang over her head. Certainly a big relief that she can now say with certainty that her father didn't do it and have the world know it, too. But finding any closure or relief, that's going to be a hard fight ever.

After the break, we're going to hear from some of you via social some of your burning questions about this episode and the way we do business around here. As always, our stories generate a lot of discussion on social media. We've got some questions in there. You want to take a few?

Yes, please. I'd love to.

All right. Our first question comes from Pam on Facebook who asked, why didn't the police follow up with the daughter's list of people like the ex-boyfriends?

Pam, thank you for watching, and that's a great question. That's something that Lauren wanted to know as well. I mean, in her telling, she certainly believes that there was a lot of focus because there was so much focus on her dad, on Sandy, that police just leaned in on that and didn't really go back over some of the other folks. I mean, we mentioned in the story that at the time she mentioned Eugene Glegor's name. He was living out of state. There were a couple of other people that she mentioned that were out of state. It would have taken time. It would have taken resources. It would have taken a lot of things to travel and see them. And investigators really were strapped for resources at different times in this as well because we talked about some of the other high-profile cases that kept popping up, Shadra Levy certainly being one of them. And so put all those factors together, plus the fact that they were looking so closely at Sandy, a lot of those things just slipped through the cracks.

Okay, we have another question. This is from Winston at Peewee Winston, who asked, I've seen several stories on Dateland where the boss goes to the house when the employee doesn't show up for work. Interesting, because this is how this started. The boss wants to check on Leslie as to her whereabouts because she's apparently chronically late. And that obviously led to where we ended.

It's so interesting because this was a... And thank you, Winston, for your question. This was a point of discussion when we were reviewing the story and putting it together. I don't know, Lester. I think our bosses love us. I'm not sure if someone would show up at our house physically if we did not show up to work. I don't know. But I could see on the other side, people saying, No, that's That's completely normal. I'm going to go to my employee's house and check. I'm curious what you thought, though. Did that feel surprising?

Well, I was trying to think what an office, what job is it? Is it a small group of people? But I was hung up on that for a little bit. That's a little suspicious. It's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. But that's why I'm not a police officer. Linda DeForest on Facebook asked, The police seem to go by first reactions of family members way too much. Not everyone has the same reaction. Sometimes they're in He was shocked. And that's a good question regarding the father, the husband in this case. Some might argue, well, he didn't act like someone who's innocent. But then, of course, he consented, as we mentioned, he consented to the lie detector test.

Who knows how someone is going to react in that type of situation, right? You might expect someone to fall over crying. You might expect... You just don't know. And so I completely agree with that. And you've seen people give what you would think could be a spot-on reaction of a grieving family member or grieving spouse, and they're the ones who did it. So you really can't tell.

And Gligor shed a few crocodile tears.

That was one of the memorable moments of this episode. So the crying, the crying. And then finally, the detective was like, you're not... There's nothing coming out of your eyes. And he says, well, I'm dry. I'm parched. So, yeah, certainly a telling moment there. Okay.

Hey, this is fun. We've got a couple of questions from our audiences at the Dateland Live event in Nashville last month. Oh, fun. This is from Simone who asked, how long does it take to put a show together? It depends. We know that we had one already this season that was at least two years in the making because the nature of a lot of these stories, there's trials, there's retrials, there are delays, and we need to know at some point how this story ends. Exactly. That's a big part of what we do. Another audience member named Richie Rich asked, has there ever been a time where any of you were certain that you knew who did it but were totally wrong in the end?

Richie Rich, number one. That's very cute. You raised your hand, Lester. Yes.

I think when we see these stories in advance, sometimes, I try to, before we do these, I try to watch them in isolation as a viewer and try to record my impressions of them. But, yeah, listen, life doesn't follow a smooth track in real life. So Why should it in these cases?

Absolutely. I love that you watch it as a viewer, though. Don't even read into it. You just hit the link and just start watching cold.

It's a fun way to watch. I try to do that much in my career, actually, is watch stuff in real-time. Well, Blaine, absolutely fascinating story. Thanks for bringing it to us.

Of course. Thank you so much for having me, Lester.

All right. Well, that is going to do it for Talking Dateland this week. Remember, if you have any questions about stories on Dateland, we'd love to from you. You can reach us 24/7 on social media at datelandnvc. If you have a question for Talking Dateland, specifically, leave it on a voicemail at 212-413-5252, or send us a video on Socials for a chance to be featured on an upcoming episode. We're going to see you Friday on Dateland. Until then, so long, everybody. Thanks for watching.