20/20 - Blood and Water: Dead End

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

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This is Deborah Roberts here with another weekly episode of our latest true crime series from ABC and ABC audio, Blood and Water. Remember, you can get new episodes early by following Blood and Water on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening right now. Here's the next episode of Blood and Water. I've been hearing for decades that the markets can solve climate change. Today, we have more incentives for market solutions than ever and emissions are rising. On this season of drilled, Carbon Cowboys, the story of three market solutions colliding in one multinational boondoggle. You got to get Bruce in the guy's credit.

They're Republican. They don't get a bit of money. Listen anywhere you get podcasts. In the days after his wife's murder, Sandy Prier spoke to detectives several times. You got some more honor? Yes, please. Leslie's body was found on May 1st, 2001. On May 4th, he met with detectives, and he told them intimate details about his marriage.

He described arguments and told them how much Leslie's drinking bothered him. On May 8th, Sandy asked to see detectives again. Okay, now you said you wanted to talk to us about, and you left a message on my voicemail earlier today, about Brett Reedy. Sandy said he remembered detectives telling him, if you think of anything, let us know.

Well, now, he was back, and he was thinking about Leslie's boss, Brett Reedy. Leslie said that she thinks Brett's a control freak, especially with her. According to Sandy, Leslie had told him about arguments she said she'd had with bread. He said she described one in particular, where she said things had gotten heated.

I'm not sure what the incident was, but afterwards, Leslie turned to ran and said something along the lines of saying, and you're going to do what, Brett? Sandy wondered to police. Why was Brett, who wasn't a close friend of theirs, so interested in coming over to the house the day Leslie didn't turn up for work?

Don't 100% understand that. Why didn't he just let me go to the house? But the detectives didn't seem all that interested in Sandy's questions about Brett Rady. Well, what you've described really doesn't. I know, I understand. It doesn't have a lot of a homicide. I understand it. It's just that it's...

Maybe letting the air out of your tires. Exactly. Exactly. Like I said, I feel kind of astute to talking about this, but she... Sandy told detectives that Leslie said she said she found. she felt Brett singled her out at work. If Sandy was trying to shift some of the suspicion off of him, it didn't seem to be working.

And just by being there, back in the presence of the detectives, Sandy opened himself up to another round of questions about his marriage. What she like when, you know, she starts trying to be. She can be, she can be, um, hopefully. I'm going to shoot myself in front on this one, but she can be demanding. I wouldn't say argumentative, but just demanding of my time and where I've been.

Here's what detectives weren't telling Sandy Pryor. He wasn't just the number one suspect in the case. He was the only suspect. The investigation was leading detectives toward a common true crime trope. The husband did it. That is, until the evidence said otherwise. From ABC Audio and 2020, I'm Stephanie Ramos, and this is Blood and Water.

Episode 3, Dead End. There were three formal sit-down interviews between Sandy and the detectives. The first was two days after Leslie's death, which we talked about in our last episode. The second was the one you've been. just heard a few days later. And the third interview came three weeks after Leslie's death. What was traffic? It was like coming out. Coming out, it wasn't bad. Going in and going back in, it was pretty backed up. In this last interview, Sandy wore a white shirt and black tie. It was a little after 5.30 in the afternoon, and he'd come straight from work. In the week since that

second interview, and as the target on his own back grew bigger and bigger, Sandy kept responding to the investigator's requests, and there were a lot. The detective's notebook from the Prier case is littered with calls to Sandy, visits to his work, and lists of information the police wanted from him. He'd given them everything they'd asked for, but everyone has their limits, and Sandy Prier was about to reach his. Detectives had called him in, this time to ask about some messages on the Prier's answering machine. They wanted Sandy to bring in the tapes.

Have you erased that or any of the stuff that is on there in the past few weeks since it's still there? You guys, I don't mean to show any disrespect, but I've been cooperating with you since day one. And I think I've answered enough questions. Just about the answering machine? I don't understand. attorney said not to answer any more questions. You can hear in the tape. This isn't what detectives expected. Sandy, their number one suspect who has been eager to cooperate for weeks, suddenly mentions a lawyer and declines to say anything.

The change in Sandy brought a change in the detectives too. They finally spelled out what had gone unsaid in all their other conversations. We think you killed your wife. They asked Sandy to come clean. It's a terrible thing. It is a terrible thing. And you have to be able to face it. Lorne needs to know.

It's going to hurt her, but she needs to know. She has to put closure on it, man. I want closure on it. You're the only one that can get. I repeat, no disrespect. No, there's no, I'm not. There's no disrespect taking me, Sandy. I'm not answering any questions.

Just be a man and tell us what happened. I told you exactly what happened. But you haven't told us the truth. I have told you exactly what happened. Here, the investigators ramp up the pressure, as if they know this might be their last chance to try to get Sandy Prier to confess. You're the only one that has to be. key of all this.

And why won't you help yourself, Sandy? Why won't you just talk to us? Just tell us what happened. Sandy eventually says he'll answer questions if his lawyer can be present. Okay, the detective said, seizing the opportunity.

Call him and ask. Carmen, I'm still here. And did you say you want the lawyer to come down? Yes. They want to know if the lawyer can, if Howard can come down. Am I being detained? No. No, I'm not.

No. Can't the attorney come in at another time? Sure. The thing is, though, that, like, I mean, say if you want to talk, if you want to tell us what happened, okay, then have your attorney here. Am I free to go? Yes. Yes. Well, okay, I didn't know that.

The detectives have no choice but to let Sandy leave. Yes. But not before he made one last bid for connection. Well, you said one time, I hope one day that we can't sit down and have a drink yet. And I honestly, I hope so. It's not looking good right now. Sandy walked out the door, taking any hope of a confession with him. Now, all the attention was on the crime scene evidence.

Investigators wondered if that would prove that Sandy Prier killed his wife. But what it proved wasn't what detectives expected at all. Hey, it's Lisa and Walter. My new stand-up special, It Was an Accident, is coming to Hulu, May 15th. I'm pissed off so often lately. If I had known we were headed toward the Handmaid's Tale and I was going to be wearing that big red cape, I wouldn't have cut out carbs. I mean, I know what mindfulness is because my kids told me,

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Continue on ABC, ESPN, and the ESPN app. As we've covered in previous episodes, there was blood visible throughout the prayer house. In the days after the murder, investigators meticulously combed through the crime scene, collecting samples of that blood to test for DNA. State's attorney John McCarthy says his county was uniquely equipped to handle it. We here in Montgomery County were blessed because when DNA first began, there was only one DNA lab in the United States of America. It was Selmark, and it was on Goldenrod Lane, and it was in Gathesburg in the middle of my county. DNA was first used in criminal cases in the late 1980s, but many people got a crash course.

on how it actually worked in the mid-1990s. May 18th, 1995. Tonight, the State v. O.J. Simpson, the continuing skirmish over DNA. Six years before Leslie Prier's murder, the lab director of Selmark was called to the stand in the so-called trial of the century. Selmark became very famous

because they were the ones who performed the DNA in the infamous O.J. Simpson case. The DNA evidence is the best evidence the prosecution has to link OJ Simpson to the murders. In OJ Simpson's trial, the Salmark Lab in Maryland was asked by the prosecution to verify the DNA results of the LAPD crime lab, which they did, pointing to a one in 530 billion chance of error. And despite the fact that OJ was acquitted by the jury, the case still proved just how compelling DNA evidence could be. In 2001, that same lab, Selmark, analyzed the DNA samples found in the Prere home, and they discovered something important. A lot of the blood found at the scene came from Leslie Prier, but not all of it.

Three blood samples came from someone else. One was found on a baseboard in the dining room. One was taken from the door to the kitchen, and one was discovered on the back door leading to the yard. And crucially, these three samples all matched DNA that had been found on Leslie Prier's fingernails. Whoever's DNA this was was likely the person Leslie had struggled with

right before her death, and that person could be her killer. On June 18th, detectives got a warrant to take samples of Sandy Prier's blood and hair, which would be analyzed to see if they were, were a match with the blood found at the crime scene. Investigators waited. And then, the results finally came back in late July.

State's attorney, John McCarthy again. The blood that was on the scene, that was not the victim's blood, came from a male, and it was not Mr. Prayer. This information changed everything. Investigators had been laser focused on Sandy Prier for weeks. But this crime scene DNA belonging to an unknown male was not in fact from the number one suspect in the Leslie Prayer case. And if it wasn't Sandy's DNA,

whose was it? Initially, I did not think that I was going to be a suspect in all of this. This is Leslie's boss, Brett Rady. Sandy and some of Leslie's relatives found it odd, even suspicious, that Brett had turned up at the Pryor's house the day Leslie's body was discovered. So they brought up the idea, well, what was Brett doing there? And who was Brett? Well, okay, I'm just somebody who cared.

Remember, when Sandy mentioned Brett, back in his second police interview in May, detectives had been skeptical. Now, a few months later, the Brett Reedy theory sounded a lot more interesting to them. The police came to us in August telling us there was DNA found in Leslie's fingernails,

not Sandy's DNA. So we would like to take swabs of all the males in the office to eliminate you all. All right, well, my first thought was that probably won't eliminate me, only because I was there. And I said, fine. And they took swabs of, you know, our cheeks, and then off they went.

Soon, the DNA would have revealed to investigators whether Brett was somebody who cared or somebody who may have killed. And Brett wasn't the only person detectives were taking a closer look at. For the rest of 2001, investigators cast their net wider and wider. They interviewed Leslie Prier's former colleagues and friends. Almost everyone with a connection to the family was now scrutinized. Lauren Prier had been heartbroken by the investigators focused on her dad as the possible killer. And even when the police expanded their investigation, Sandy wasn't officially let off the hook. Once the DNA came back and it wasn't Sandy, my dad, they never really contacted us.

Sandy wasn't called into the station for any more interviews, but he wasn't cleared either. And Lauren thought some of the people investigators were now speaking to seemed far-fetched. My uncle Frank was even interviewed, which is ridiculous. I mean, I understand because he would travel a lot, but he would stay at my parents' house when he was coming through. I mean, everyone was on the list. Uncle Frank wasn't their guy. But in order for Sandy's name to be cleared,

the police needed another strong suspect to focus on. And Lauren felt she had one, an older neighbor around her mom's age. As Lauren explains it, right before her mom's death, the two of them were walking together in the neighborhood when they bumped into this neighbor. He's like, hi, Lauren.

I was like, this is my mom. And he was like, oh, no, when do we get your good looks from? That kind of thing. And my mom was always loved to be charmed. She was just that kind of woman. But she wasn't arrogant. She was just, she'd like to be flattered. That's just how she was.

He was very, very handsome. Anyway, so time when he was like, maybe we should go walk the dogs together sometime. Lauren could see that her mom was, flattered by this handsome neighbor. And after her mom was murdered, she wondered if something had happened between them. The only thing I thought of was, did they have an affair? And then my mom tried to cut it off and, like, end the affair, and he murdered her.

Lauren told police about this neighbor. Law enforcement would later get a sample from him. It didn't match. And he was eliminated as a suspect. Meanwhile, investigators were entertaining another idea that this case could be bigger than Chevy Chase. If you lived in Washington, D.C., you knew about Chandra Levy. It was in the news constantly.

I guess in any, whodunit murder, anybody in homicide would have to see if there were any relationships between what happened there and in this case. Sandra Levy was a 24-year-old student at the University of the University of San Francisco, who moved to Washington, D.C. for a federal internship. She had told her parents she was about to return home, but mysteriously, she disappeared. And now she's the focus of a nationwide search. When she went missing in 2001, Chandra's parents appeared on national television,

begging for information about their daughter. If anyone has any way of returning her, they get the reward money. That is returning her, please. Chandra was last seen on May 1st, just one day before Leslie Prier's body was discovered. Chandra's apartment was in downtown D.C., but her laptop's browser history showed that she had been researching Rock Creek Park, a large wooded area that extended past the neighborhood of Chevy Chase within a few miles of the Pryor's home. Detectives and Leslie's family had talked about a possible connection between the two cases. But as the months ticked on, the investigation into Leslie's murder slowed.

In the detective's notebooks and trees went from multiple notes a day to having a month-long stretch between them. By October of 2001, Brett Reedy's DNA results were back. He wasn't a match with the DNA from the crime scene. None of his colleagues were either. They were all eliminated as potential suspects. In February of 2002, the unknown male DNA was sent to Codas, the National DNA database that holds records of convicted offenders. But it didn't get a match there either.

And when Chandra Levy's body was found in May of 2002, it didn't reveal any new information about Leslie's murder. Detectives determined there was no connection between the two cases. The investigators' increasingly wider search. for answers had turned up nothing. The detectives had gone quiet. And Lauren Prier soon got tired of waiting for them to call. Whoa. You need some water.

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not to be who you think they are? Everything he told me was a lot. I was betrayed from the number one true crime podcast, betrayal. He's been living a secret double life. My marriage ended with a 911 call. The tape is blood-curdling. Betrayal, secrets and lies. So many people are living with their own betrayal.

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Why do these girls forget her? She has a soft spot for troubled men. Boo, bloody, who? This is Yon. your show. Find Get Real wherever you get your podcasts. Love runs deeper than we know. And stream new episodes Thursdays on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Well, first of all, I guess you called me and you said that you wanted to come by and talk or so forth. So here we are. Here we are. A year after Leslie's murder, Lauren Prier met with the two detectives in charge of the case.

She'd come to find out what was new in the investigation. But they only wanted to want to be. to rehash an old theory. The detectives were still convinced Sandy was the killer. And it's frustrating for us because I just... My gut feeling is that your dad had something to do with this. I've just been a cop too many years.

I've worked too many cases. It is so bizarre to think that this could be someone else. The unknown male DNA hadn't shifted the suspicion from Sandy at all. It had just added another layer of complexity. Detectives had a whole timeline of how they imagined Sandy had carried out Leslie's murder. Their theory was that on Tuesday, May 1st, 2001, after eating pasta for dinner, Leslie Prier had an unknown male guest over. When Sandy got home, there was a confrontation, during which the unknown.

male had been injured and left through the back door. This would explain the unknown man's blood being found in those three locations and his DNA on Leslie's fingernails. According to their official report, the detectives believed that Sandy had then turned his anger on Leslie, killing her in the foyer area and spending the early hours of Wednesday morning cleaning up before leaving for work as usual. The report also speculated that the biggest ringings, in Sandy's plan was Brett Reedy.

He didn't expect Brett to insist on coming over and see the blood that Sandy hadn't finished cleaning up. This was all speculation based on key pieces of evidence that for Lauren didn't add up to the same result. The pasta, for example. All the time she ate in the morning. Yeah, and she could have had it the morning. Like every day.

Yeah. So it didn't. So it wasn't, I don't know how to wake up. Yeah. And that's what we see. We said that can cut both ways. If Leslie ate the pasta for breakfast, as Lauren said she often did, it was totally plausible she'd been killed on Wednesday morning. And Lauren said they still hadn't found the person who left the mystery DNA in the house.

But don't you think that's really weird? Yes. And that's why we are here a year later with nobody under arrest. The detectives acknowledged that there. Their theory wasn't perfect and that the mystery DNA had raised more questions than answers. But they still felt Sandy was the most likely option. I think this was something where he just lost it for many seconds as so many people do. And in that many second that he lost it, you know, something terrible happened.

That idea that anyone is capable of losing it, Lauren had thought. about it. I mean, of course, I'm not stupid on 24. I've seen, I've heard stories like we were talking about that people can just snap, you know, and then the time frame, the situation in the house, like, so those kind of things don't make me think, don't put me at ease of saying I know for a fact, my dad's innocent. And then the other side is like, it's my father. And my dad was never a violent person ever. Lauren was adamant. Her dad just wasn't capable of killing.

He never hit me. He never hit my mom, ever, at her worst. And it takes a really insane person to just take that next step. Besides, like, beating somebody to Joel Palmer, just drown into almost being dead. I mean, that part of it just seems, and him, like, taking her body doesn't go into work. No way. No way.

Investigators told Lauren the case was in a sort of holding pattern. The cloud of suspicion over Sandy would stay until new information could clear him or confirm him as the killer. And detectives weren't the only ones holding on to their suspicions about Sandy. Leslie's large family, devastated by the loss of their sister and daughter, had turned on Sandy too. They basically cut him out, which is sad. and I know it hurt him very much. But my dad and I had each other. So we worked through it.

And he, I'm sure behind closed doors, he was a mess and sad and cry. But in front of me, again, we worked through it. But he tried to be strong. Sandy moved away from Chevy Chase to Virginia. Lauren visited him about once a week. They would go out to dinner and talk. She never asked him about Leslie's murder again.

But she kept reaching out to the detectives, hoping for some update or new lead in her mom's case. So I just kept calling. I knew someone knew something. You know what I mean? So I just didn't give up. And as the years went on, Lauren started to wonder if she would ever learn the truth. I thought I was going to die without knowing. I really truly thought that.

And that's when we talked about. I came to a term where, Lauren, you can't do this every single day. You can't. It's going to kill you. And then I got the phone call. It took 24 years for Lauren to get the call she'd been waiting for. By the time it came, a whole new generation of detectives was on the line. They reached out because they had new ideas, new investigative methods,

and a new mindset about how to solve the crime. And they said they knew who kill Leslie Prier. He almost got away with it. He almost got away with it. Blood and Water is a production of ABC Audio in 2020, hosted by me, Stephanie Ramos, produced by Madeline Wood, Shane McKeon, and Kiara Powell.

With help from Emily Shutz and Caitlin Schiffer, edited by Gianna Palmer, our supervising producer is Susie Lou, Music by Evan Viola. Mixing and mastering by Bob Mallory. Scoring by Kiara Powell. Special thanks to Katie Dendaz, Janice Johnston, Sean Dooley, Chris Donovan, Camille Peterson, Christina Corbyn, Gail Deutsch, Amanda Carr, Ellie Jostad, NG Adam, and Michelle Margulis.

Josh Cohen is our director of podcast programming. Amon McNiff is our executive producer. Hi, I'm Pedro Pascar, and I can't wait for you to see my new movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu, hitting theaters on May 22nd. See you there. What are you waiting for? I like this kid. This summer, Star Wars is back. We have to stop the empire.

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