A Maryland man known for his Zen-like calm has shockingly confessed to beating and choking to death the mother of his then-childhood sweetheart — and then hiding in plain sight for nearly 25 years.
Eugene Gligor, 45, pleaded guilty last week to the murder of Leslie Preer, a 50-year-old married mom who was found dead in her blood-spattered home in Chevy Chase on May 2, 2001.
The homicide investigation went cold until investigators matched DNA from under her fingernails to a distant relative of Gligor living in Romania.
The killer was finally arrested outside of his Washington, DC apartment last June — shocking the dead woman’s daughter, Lauren Preer, who had dated Gligor when they were both 15.
The daughter said she even ran into her ex at a DC-area restaurant a year before he was arrested, leaving her now-chilled at how he acted like nothing ever happened.
“He didn’t seem weird and how you could look someone in the eye and know that you committed this crime and act like nothing happened is pretty unreal,” she told Fox 5 last year.
After the killing, Gligor had remained in the DC area for 23 years working at a real estate firm. His colleagues described him as “Zen” and friendly after his arrest, according to The Washington Post.
Gligor’s motive for the murder remains unclear.
He has no criminal record, and there is no sign the murder was “premeditated,” Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said.
Gligor was charged with first-degree murder, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree murder. He faces up to 30 years in prison when he’s sentenced on Aug. 2.
“Lauren, her family, and friends have waited 24 years to finally get closure and justice for this horrific crime that tore her family apart,” family attorney Benjamin Kurtz told Fox News.
“The fact that it turned out to be someone they allowed in their home with open arms, just makes it that much harder to understand,” he added.
