An unsolved murder case in which a mother was killed in an affluent Maryland neighborhood more than two decades ago was solved Tuesday when authorities arrested the former boyfriend of the victim’s daughter, police said.
Eugene Grigger, 44, was taken into custody by a U.S. Marshals Task Force and charged with the first-degree murder of Leslie Prior, 50, whose body was found in her Chevy Chase home on May 2, 2001. Montgomery County Police said.
The case remains open, but police say DNA evidence recovered from the crime scene in 2001 was sent to a lab in 2022 for forensic genetic genealogy analysis.
Police said investigators collected DNA evidence from Grigor on June 9 and found a match with blood taken at Prior’s home. It is unclear how they obtained DNA from the murder suspect.
Griger was reportedly once in a relationship with the victim’s teenage daughter, Lauren Prior.
Prior He told Fox 5DC She and Grigor lived in the same area and began dating when she was 15. Both families knew each other.
“It’s been a rough day,” her daughter told the station. “He was my ex-boyfriend.”
The two also met by chance at a restaurant in Washington, DC last year.
“He wasn’t a strange person and to look someone in the eye, know that he committed this crime and act like nothing happened is quite surreal,” she added.
Prior’s body was discovered at her home after she failed to show up to work.
Montgomery Homicide Detective Tara Baione said the crime scene was “brutal” and there was “a lot of blood.” It will air on Fox 5 DC in 2022.
Griger is being held in Washington, D.C., but extradition proceedings will begin to bring him back to Maryland, Montgomery police said.
