Talking Dateline: A Perfect Spring Morning

Dateline NBC

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True Crime, Culture, Social, Society & Culture, News

4.4 • 38K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lester Holt sits down with Blayne Alexander to discuss her latest episode, “A Perfect Spring Morning.” Leslie Preer was found brutally murdered in her Chevy Chase, Maryland, home in May of 2001. Her husband, Sandy, was investigators’ prime suspect until DNA cleared him and the case went cold. After more than 20 years of persistence fromLauren Preer, the couple’s only child, detectives caught Leslie’s killer: Lauren’s ex-boyfriend from high school, Eugene Gligor. Blayne tells Lester about the lasting effects both the crime and the lengthy investigation had on Lauren and Sandy and shares how a new set of eyes on the case made all the difference. Later, Blayne shares a podcast-exclusive clip ofLeslie’s brother Bill Jennings speaking at Gligor’s sentencing. Plus, Blayne and Lester answer viewer and listener questions. Have a question for Talking Dateline? DM us a video to @DatelineNBC or leave a voicemail at (212) 413-5252. Your question may be featured in an upcoming episode. Listen to the full episode of “A Perfect Spring Morning” on Apple: https://apple.co/3J67KjH Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0q1RPIDq1rMJE5u1GrRJH2

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everyone, I'm Lester Holt.
0:05.0	Welcome to Talking Dateline and with Blaine Alexander today to discuss a perfect spring morning,
0:10.5	the title of her latest episode here on Dateline.
0:14.0	If you haven't seen it, go to the Dateline podcast feed, pull it up, and then come right back
0:19.4	here and listen to the discussion. By the way, you can also
0:21.9	stream it on Peacock. So to recap, when loving mother and wife, Leslie Prier, was found brutally
0:28.0	murdered in her Maryland home in 2001, investigators zeroed in on her husband, Sandy, only to clear
0:34.6	him. As the years past, the couple's daughter, Lauren, pushed to keep her case alive.
0:40.3	And finally, 20 years after the murder, new detectives got the case and found the real killer.
0:46.3	Lauren's high school boyfriend, Eugene Bleigur, first of all, Blaine, good to have you here.
0:52.3	This is one you go in. You think you know pretty quickly
0:56.6	where this is all leading. And then there are several points we're just left shaking our heads in this
1:02.1	one. Give me your overall impression of doing this episode. So, Lester 1, this is our first talking
1:07.9	dateline together. So I feel like this occasion should be marked.
1:15.6	This is a special moment. I have no champagne, but I do have a cold cappuccino.
1:18.9	There you go. And I've got this water right here. So there we go.
1:45.5	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 Prier, it was very clear immediately that she and her mom, Leslie, had the kind of mother-daughter relationship that you dream of having, right? If you're a mom,
1:49.2	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
1:56.5	sudden, very brutal death all the more difficult for her to deal with over these years,
2:02.8	on top of the fact that they were without knowledge of who the killer was for so long.
2:06.5	So I was also struck by what Lauren has gone through in terms of the lasting impact,
2:12.1	obviously of losing her mother, ultimately losing her dad.
	...

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