More than twenty years after the killing of 49-year-old Leslie Preer shocked her Maryland community, the man responsible has finally been sentenced. On Thursday, 45-year-old Eugene Gligor appeared in a Montgomery County courtroom, where a judge sentenced him to 22 years in prison for second-degree murder.

Preer was killed in May 2001 inside her Bethesda home. She was beaten, strangled, and slammed to the ground multiple times, fighting back until the end. This was a deeply personal attack.

The case initially went cold despite investigators collecting DNA evidence from under Preer’s fingernails. For years, it failed to match anyone in law enforcement databases. Then, in 2022, detectives turned to forensic genetic genealogy. By tracking distant relatives’ DNA profiles and building out family trees, they eventually zeroed in on the Gligor surname. Investigators soon realized the suspect had once dated Preer’s daughter when both were in high school.

To confirm the link, authorities staged a sting at an airport. As Gligor returned from international travel, agents directed him into a screening area stocked with water bottles. When he took a drink and discarded the bottle, it provided the DNA sample that finally tied him to the crime scene. He was arrested in June 2024, more than two decades after the murder.

Even with the guilty plea and sentencing, one question lingers: why? During the trial, Gligor’s attorneys claimed that on the night in question he was drinking heavily and he may have even been using cocaine. They insisted that there was no motive. Prosecutors argued that the defense was trying to downplay the brutality of Gligor’s attack.

For Lauren and other loved ones, the absence of an explanation has compounded the grief. Prosecutors noted how deeply traumatized she was in the aftermath of her mother’s death, unable to shower alone and fearful of what lay behind a closed curtain. That fear, they said, has followed her into adulthood.