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Washington Post
2 days ago
- Washington Post
Interrogating a cold-case killer: ‘Honey, your DNA was in the crime scene'
Eugene Gligor tried to deflect. 'It's guilty until proven innocent. I get it,' he told the detectives. They were accusing him of killing his ex-girlfriend's mother, a crime that went unsolved for two decades. Gligor had never been questioned in the case. And now, inside a small, gray interrogation room, he didn't budge as the detectives bored in. 'Well honey,' one of them said, 'your DNA was in the crime scene.' Gligor, seated on a small metal chair, waved his hands up and down, struggling to collect his words. What came next wasn't a confession. But it wasn't exactly a denial, either. 'I don't remember,' he said, his voice rising. 'I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.' The exchange, recorded on police video obtained Tuesday by The Washington Post, offers the clearest window yet on the day Gligor's 23 years of getting away with murder ended. As he could tell, the detectives knew he'd gotten inside Leslie Preer's home in Chevy Chase, Md., slammed her head repeatedly onto the foyer floor, strangled her and then carried her bloody body to an upstairs shower stall before he vanished. Over and over, Gligor claimed ignorance, repeatedly saying 'I don't know' or 'I don't remember.' He wore black slides, black socks, jeans and a black polo shirt, the same outfit he'd put on that morning before he was suddenly arrested while sitting atop the stairs outside his apartment under bright blue skies. Now, his left ankle chained to a metal hoop in the floor, he tried to keep calm and chose his words carefully. 'I'm really confused, and I'm really at a loss,' Gligor said. 'I don't have any recollection of being involved with any of this.' 'You keep saying you don't remember and you don't have any recollection,' the detective said. 'But if somebody was not involved it would be an adamant, 'I didn't do it.'' 'Oh, I didn't do it,' Gligor responded. 'I definitely didn't do it.' At times the conversation grew testy, as when Detective Tara Augustin suggested his crying was fake. 'There's no tears coming out of your face,' Augustin said. 'I'm very dry right now,' Gligor said, adding that he was tired and drained and didn't know what was going on. 'You want me to drink water so I can tear? … What are you trying to say?' 'I'm just trying to say that this seems a little put on,' Augustin said. Over the 24-minute interrogation, Gligor gave no ground. But the detectives from the Montgomery County Police Department had a lot anyway. For two years, they'd homed in on Gligor by analyzing DNA left at the crime scene against genetic markers in huge databases built in part by the family ancestry industry. And just nine days earlier — to confirm those findings — investigators furtively collected Gligor's DNA at Dulles International Airport during a phony 'secondary screening' they'd set up for him. By that evening, Gligor was locked in jail. He later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and faces up to 30 years in prison at his scheduled sentencing on Aug. 28 — a hearing that could finally answer the big remaining question: Why? In high school, Gligor dated Preer's daughter. After Preer's murder — about nine months into the investigation — his name popped up. A previous neighbor of Gligor's called police to say they 'thought that he may be somehow related to the Leslie Preer murder,' according to court records. But the tip lacked specifics, police have said, and Gligor appears to have never been pursued as a suspect. Instead, he went on to a life of hiding in plain sight in the D.C. area: successful jobs, marriage, divorce, a circle of friends who knew him as warm and gregarious. Preer's daughter, Lauren, never thought he could have done it. A second police video from the case, recorded by an arresting officer not long before the interrogation, shows Gligor's final moments of freedom. He was sitting on his apartment steps in Washington last June, taking a break from his at-home work for a company that operated video surveillance systems. He scrolled his phone and sipped coffee. A team of undercover officers who had been surveilling the building from inside unmarked trucks and a minivan can be seen walking toward him. Their clothing — sneakers, shorts and untucked baggy T-shirts covering their holstered guns — suggested a group of civilians out for a brisk walk. Reaching his steps, they turned to quickly ascend them. 'Hands up!' one of them shouted, cursing loudly as birds chirped. The officers placed Gligor in handcuffs. 'What is this about?' he asked. 'You got a warrant, bro,' an officer answered. They led him down the steps toward a black Ram pickup. A man walking his dog passed and stared at the group. 'Can, can you let my girlfriend know?' Gligor asked, indicating she'd be worried about him failing to return. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah. We will,' an officer answered. Taken together, the two videos show key moments of a homicide case years in the making. They also show the everyday occurrences — a remote worker going outside for a break, concerns over a cellphone left behind, a cop joking about much the job has aged him — that are inevitably mixed into such investigations. 'We can't pretend, just because you look like a businessman, that you ain't going to hurt us,' one of the officers said by way of explaining the suddenness and language of the arrest. 'I understand,' said Gligor. The 2001 killing stunned Preer's quiet neighborhood just north of Washington. Investigators found DNA thought to have been the killer's throughout Preer's home and under her fingernails — the latter an indication she had tried to fight off her attacker. But all they knew about who left it was that he was male. The investigators spoke to Preer's family and associates, collecting names of possible suspects. Those men were asked to provide DNA samples. No matches. In 2022, Montgomery County cold-case investigators dove into the case. They obtained a court order authorizing them to conduct genetic genealogy analysis of DNA left at the crime scene. The method doesn't so much lead directly to suspects but can point investigators to possible relatives, even distant ones, who had submitted their DNA for ancestry testing. In this case, it pointed to two women — completely innocent — in Romania. From there, Augustin slowly built out a family tree, eventually learning there were distantly related Americans with the surname Gligor. The name caught the detectives' attention. In the old case records, Eugene Gligor was listed as a former of boyfriend of Preer's daughter. To confirm their family tree work, the detectives needed to get a sample of Gligor's DNA. They didn't want to spook him, so they set up the 'secondary screening' ruse at Dulles, complete with water bottles waiting for him to drink from. Gligor did so, leaving behind the bottle and his DNA. They matched it with DNA evidence from the crime scene, the arrest team went out to pick Gligor up, and they brought him to a police station. He was later moved into the interrogation room equipped with a video camera. The recording would later be submitted as a court exhibit during a Jan. 24 hearing. Gligor's attorneys sought to have the video disallowed at his pending trial, because, among other reasons, the detectives kept questioning Gligor after he repeatedly said he wanted to consult a lawyer. Circuit Judge David Lease agreed and ruled that much of the video could not be played at the trial. The video shows detectives acknowledging that they couldn't continue questioning Gligor after he asked for a lawyer, but the conversation continued — many times after their prompting, sometimes from Gligor himself. Ten days after that hearing, Gligor's attorneys and prosecutors jointly asked Lease to seal the video from public release. They gave two reasons: The video contained several references to specific medical information, and allowing the public to see the video — much of it now ruled inadmissible — could taint potential jurors. Lease granted their request. Gligor subsequently pleaded guilty, meaning there would be no trial and no jurors to possibly be tainted, and The Washington Post asked Lease to unseal the video. Lease granted the request this week, with a small section containing medical information redacted. In the interrogation video, detectives Augustin and Alyson Dupouy can be seen walking into the small room and starting off gently. They advised Gligor of his rights to remain silent and consult an attorney. Then they eased into their questions. 'So we were working on a case that came from Chevy Chase, and when we were going through the case file, your name was in there as someone that was related to the family. We have a big list of people, friends, family,' Augustin said. 'So do you recall back in 2001, Leslie Preer?' Gligor kept his hands clasped on his lap and looked directly at the detective. 'Yes, that she was murdered,' he said politely. The three spoke about him earlier dating Preer's daughter, Lauren, and how he used to hang out at her home. The detectives asked how he'd learned about the murder. From Lauren, Gligor answered. 'She had actually told me that,' he said. 'She had come into where I was working at a restaurant, and she had told me what had happened.' Lauren Preer, in a later interview with The Post, recalled a similar encounter. She said that after her mom's funeral, she ran into Gligor at a bar in Bethesda, Md. She said she told him that her mom had died, and he looked at her and replied, 'I'm so sorry.' The detectives pressed more. 'We wanted to reach out to you and see if you remember or recall anything about the time when Leslie was killed, anything that you remember about your life at the time that, like, could be relevant,' Augustin said. 'I really don't recall,' Gligor said. The detective said that back in 2001, investigators found DNA presumably left by the person who killed Preer. Gligor soon began asking for a lawyer. 'That's totally fine,' Augustin said. 'And we don't have to ask you any more questions, but we are going to just tell you some stuff, okay.' 'Okay,' Gligor said, still seated in the small metal chair. She spoke about secretly collecting his DNA and how it matched DNA from the scene. Gligor kept asking for an attorney and — at times after prompting by the detectives — kept talking. 'I know I wasn't involved, and I just don't understand how this has come to this,' he said. 'I really wish I knew, and I really wish I could tell you, give you some answers and give you more feedback from an honest perspective.' Augustin said there was another person who knew — Leslie Preer. 'And she can't tell us.'
USA Today
5 days ago
- Business
- USA Today
Water and wealth: Here are the 10 richest suburbs in America
New York State, California and Texas are home to eight of the 10 wealthiest suburbs in America, according to a new ranking drawn from Census data. The nation's wealthiest suburb is Scarsdale, in New York's leafy Westchester County, with an average household income of $601,193, according to an analysis released July 16 by the personal finance site GOBankingRates. The Westchester suburb of Rye ranks second, with an average household income of $421,259. No two suburbs are alike, but the cities near the top of this ranking share some features in common. Many are on the water, or near it. Several are college towns. Affluent suburbs tend to sit a good distance from the urban center, but close enough for a sane commute. 'You can stay in your bubble, but also get out of your bubble and still get the things you need,' said Rudri Patel, a senior financial expert at GOBankingRates. The ranking is based on average household incomes for suburbs of at least 5,000 households, according to the 2023 American Community Survey. If you don't see your favorite wealthy suburb on the list, that may be the result of statistical choices that shaped the results. This GOBankingRates ranking considers mean household incomes, which can be skewed by the ultra-rich. Other rankings have looked at median incomes, which are often lower. By median income, the wealthiest U.S. city is Sammamish, Washington, a Seattle suburb, according to a U.S. News analysis. The median household income in Sammamish is $238,750. Some wealthy suburbs were too small for the GOBankingRate ranking. The Chicago suburb of Kenilworth and the Washington, D.C., suburb of Chevy Chase, for example, have fewer than 5,000 households each. Here are the 10 wealthiest suburbs in America Here are mini-profiles of the 10 wealthiest suburbs in America. Here are the richest suburbs of other big cities Don't see your city or suburb on the Top 10? Here are some other wealthy suburbs attached to big metros.
6 days ago
- Climate
Severe weather, flash flood threat impact eastern half of US
Around 11 million Americans are under flood alerts Saturday evening as a "ring of fire" weather pattern continues to impact the eastern two-thirds of the country through the weekend. A flash flood emergency was issued near the Washington, D.C., area, including suburban Maryland, such as Chevy Chase and Silver Spring until 9 p.m. ET. The National Weather Service called it a "particularly dangerous situation" and said flash flooding was already occurring. Between 3 to 5 inches of rain has already fallen, but additional rainfall amounts between 1 to 2 inches are possible. Meanwhile, a flood watch was issued for Washington, D.C., until 10 p.m. ET. Overall, locally heavy downpours associated with showers and thunderstorms will continue to raise concerns in regard to flash flooding. Plenty of atmospheric moisture and already saturated grounds will only increase the likelihood of flooding and will exacerbate flooding that is ongoing. Flood watches also remain in effect across portions of Iowa, western Illinois, and northeastern Missouri through Sunday, and for portions of Virginia, and northeastern North Carolina through Saturday night. Areas under a flood watch could see between 2 to 4 inches of rain. A number of Flash Flood Warnings are also in effect across portions of southern Illinois, southern Indiana and northern Kentucky, where heavy rain from thunderstorms moved through. Much of the heavy rainfall and flooding will be localized -- not everywhere will be impacted. However, the potential for heavy rainfall stretches across a good portion of the eastern U.S., which remains under a slight risk for excessive rainfall through tonight. Between 1 to 3 inches are possible depending on where storms track, but locally higher amounts are possible in some spots. Portions of western and central Kentucky, southern Indiana and southeastern Illinois have been elevated to a moderate risk -- level 3 of 4 -- for excessive rainfall through Saturday evening. Rainfall totals between 3 to 5 inches are possible, with rainfall rates potentially reaching 2 to 3 inches per hour. Elsewhere, high pressure centered over the Southeast will keep dangerously hot and humid conditions in that region, but strong to severe storms along the perimeter of the high will remain possible across portions of the Plains, Midwest and even across portions of the East Coast. Severe thunderstorm watches remain in effect for portions of southern Maryland, northeastern North Carolina and Virginia until 10 p.m. ET Saturday. The primary threats include damaging winds, with gusts up to 65 mph possible, and isolated large hail up to an inch in diameter. To the west, portions of Nebraska remain under a tornado watch until 11 p.m. CT Saturday. A severe thunderstorm watch is also in effect for portions of eastern Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and far northeastern Wyoming until 12 a.m. MT. Damaging winds, with gusts up to 70 mph are possible, along with the potential for very large hail measuring as much as 2.5 inches in diameter. Over 13 million across 13 states are under a slight risk -- level 2 of 5 -- for severe weather through the night. Damaging winds and the potential for flash flooding remains a threat for all areas, but powerful storms that develop over parts of the Plains and Midwest could generate large to very large hail and even a few tornadoes. While parts of the Dakotas are under a slight risk for severe weather on Sunday, parts of Northeast could also encounter strong to severe storms as well. This includes big cities like New York City, Boston and Albany -- which are all under a slight risk, mainly for damaging winds and the potential for hail.
New York Post
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
‘Jaws' turns 50: How other classic movies bit off the shark's signature riff — from ‘Caddyshack' to ‘Clerks'
Like the killer great white shark, the 'Jaws' theme song took a big bite out of movie history. The terrifying two-note theme of the 1975 summer blockbuster — which turns 50 on June 20 — has been riffed on in other classic films for its cultural impact that is still striking fang-crunching fear in the masses five decades later. Composer John Williams' menacing motif has been referenced — and ripped on — in other big films that have taken it from horror to humor. 9 'Jaws' defined the summer blockbuster after its release on June 20, 1975. Courtesy Everett Collection 'I think it's a compliment when anything becomes parodied that much, like, if you work your way into a popular comedy movie or something,' film music historian Tim Greiving — who wrote the upcoming biography 'John Williams: A Composer's Life' — exclusively told The Post. ''It's, like, acknowledging that this is something that is so culturally important, or that everybody recognizes it, that you can kind of play on it. If it was a little more obscure, the reference wouldn't work. I'll take it as a compliment.' But while the theme has been spoofed, Williams — who won his first of four Oscars for Best Original Score for 'Jaws' — took it very seriously. 'I think that serious intention comes through in the music and keeps it from being campy,' said Greiving. 9 Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider co-starred in 1975's 'Jaws.' Courtesy Everett Collection Still, the theme has been played for laughs in classic comedies such as 'Airplane!' and 'Caddyshack.' 'The funny thing is, John Williams has talked about [how] sometimes he plays it in concert, and people start laughing, and it's not supposed to make you laugh, although it made ['Jaws' director] Steven Spielberg laugh when he first heard it,' said Greiving. 'So it has this interesting psychological effect now.' 'But I think at its core, it still does what it was supposed to do — which is freak you out.' Here, we dive into seven films that have sunk their teeth into the 'Jaws' theme. '1941' 9 Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi co-starred in the 1979 war comedy '1941.' Courtesy Everett Collection The opening scene of Spielberg's 1979 war comedy pays homage to the 'Jaws' theme. with Susan Backlinie — who played Chrissie Watkins, the shark's first victim in 'Jaws.' 'Airplane!' 9 Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen and Peter Graves took 1980's 'Airplane!' to comic heights. ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Col As what appears to be a fin — but turns out to be a 747 — cuts through the clouds, the sinister riff of 'Jaws' takes this 1980 disaster comedy off in its opening credits. 'Caddyshack' 9 Ted Knight and Chevy Chase were golfing goofballs in 1980's 'Caddyshack.' ©Orion Pictures Corp/Courtesy Everett Collection When a candy bar is mistaken for a turd in a swimming pool, the 'Jaws' theme heightens the horror in the 1980 comedy starring Billy Murray and Chevy Chase. '9 1/2 Weeks' 9 Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger steamed up the screen in 1986's '9 1/2 Weeks.' ©Orion Pictures Corp/Courtesy Everett Collection When a kid claims that his friend can fart the 'Jaws' theme in this 1986 erotic drama, Mickey Rourke mimics it. How sexy. 'Spaceballs' 9 Bill Pullman and John Candy parodied 'Stars Wars' in 1987's 'Spaceballs.' Mel Brooks' 1987 'Star Wars' parody plays off the menacing motif from 'Jaws' while chasing a rebel ship. 'Back to the Future II' 9 Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd reunited for 'Back to the Future II' in 1989. The shark tale's theme plays as Michael J. Fox's Marty McFly encounters an advertisement for 'Jaws 19' — the 18th sequel to the original — when he travels to 2015. 'Clerks' 9 Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson co-starred in Kevin Smith's directorial debut 'Clerks' in 1994. Jeff Anderson's character in Kevin Smith's 1994 cult classic dips into the 'Jaws' theme as his triangular tortilla chip cuts through some 'thick & chunky' salsa.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Boil Water Advisory issued in Northwest DC
WASHINGTON () — A Boil Water Advisory was issued on Thursday, impacting several people living and working in Northwest D.C. DC Water said the advisory was issued as a precaution, due to a loss of water pressure. Nearly 5,000 customers were impacted in neighborhoods including: Chevy Chase Friendship Heights Tenleytown AU Park Spring Valley Cleveland Park Woodley Park Van Ness Glover Park Wesley Heights Cathedral Heights Summer Street Festival returning to Downtown Hagerstown Customers in the area were advised to discard any beverages and ice made after 2:27 p.m. on June 12 and to run cold water until clear before boiling. If sources of lead are present, customers should run cold water for at least two minutes before boiling. Prior to consuming or using water, customers should let it boil for at least one minute and let it cool. Then, you should store it in a clean, covered container. Cooled, boiled water or bottled water should be used for: Drinking Brushing teeth Preparing and cooking food Washing fruits and vegetables Preparing infant formula Making ice Washing dishes by hand Giving water to pets Even if you use a home filtering device, you should still first boil water. DC Water said a water pump station lost power during the afternoon on Thursday, resulting in pump failures and a loss of system pressure. Pressure has since been restored and returned to impacted customers. Due to the time during which pressure was lost, however, contaminants may have entered the distribution system, leading to the Boil Water Advisory as a precaution. For more information and updates, click . Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
