NEW SCOTLAND — After seven months in jail and no indictment, Corianna Thompson is out on bail. She was arrested in April for the March 13 murder of her mother.

Jean Balashek, 86, was strangled to death in the New Scotland Road home she shared with her daughter Corianna.

Thompson, 46, was released from Albany County’s jail last Thursday on $100,000 bail.

It was Thompson who made the frantic 1 p.m. phone call to police on that snowy Sunday, stating her mother was dead on the bedroom floor.

Thompson’s lawyer, E. Stewart Jones, told The Enterprise on Friday that he is glad the prosecution is starting to "accept our view."

The witnesses that the Albany County District Attorney’s Office were relying on are not reliable or credible, and the office now sees that point, Jones said.

A grand jury has not met at all on the case yet, said Richard Arthur, spokesman for the district attorney.
"There have been certain issues — since the time of the arrest" that the district attorney’s office wants to investigate further, Arthur said.
"There is an ongoing investigation," he said, but he was not willing to say if there are other suspects.

In response to Jones’s saying that the district attorney’s witnesses are not credible, Arthur offered no comment.
"I’m happy that the DA is taking a fresh look at the case," Jones said. He said that the investigation is still ongoing and that he continues to share information.
"We believe that there is a person who is a much more likely suspect than anyone else," Jones said, unwilling to say who.
When asked if he and Thompson were getting restless after seven months, and how long he thought was acceptable for a client to remain in jail without an indictment, Jones responded that, in this instance, "It was necessary to further the investigation."

Thompson has been working with the district attorney’s investigators, and Jones said he has been running his own investigation as well. He was then able to negotiate with the district attorney and secure Thompson’s release, he said.

Jones said that he filed a couple of weeks ago for a bail to be set.
"We are not prepared to take the case to the grand jury right now," said Arthur.

He said, in this case, the defense attorney withdrew the waiver of a speedy trial.

When someone is arrested, after a 45-day period, an attorney can apply for bail, and then the prosecution has two choices, Arthur said: It can bring the indictment right away or it can wait until it has a more sound case and release the suspect on bail.

Thompson is charged with second-degree murder, a felony. This is not the first time that she has faced this charge.

Thompson served time in prison for a strangulation in the past.

In 1981, Thompson, then 21, was a man named Corey Wayne Balashek; he killed an Albany nurse. He was indicted for second-degree murder but pleaded guilty to a reduced conviction of manslaughter, and served nine years in Dannemora Prison, the short end of his eight-and-a-half to 25-year sentence.

The arrest

Thompson was arrested for her mother’s murder on April 10, directly after her boyfriend of four years, Kevin Glover, wrote an affidavit and told investigators that she had confessed to him that she killed her mother, Jean Balashek.

Jones had stated at that time that Glover had no credibility because he had drug issues and a criminal past, so he was vulnerable to police pressure.
He also said Thompson was too close to her mother to kill her — her mother was "her strongest supporter, her best friend," Jones said.

The Albany County Sheriff’s Department said at the time of the arrest that Thompson murdered her mother over a financial dispute.
Glover wrote in his affidavit that Balashek had made an appointment for that Monday, the day after the murder, to go to the bank and have Thompson’s name removed from the bank accounts. "Cori has a lot of money in the bank there," Glover said. He stated that he believed Balashek was trying to help Thompson break her crack cocaine addiction by no longer financially supporting her.

But, Glover also stated that Thompson had told him that her mother was cutting her off from the money because of him.
"I have heard her mother tell her that I’m no good, that she’s (Cori) paying all the bills and basically to get rid of me. Honestly that hurt me, it hurt my feelings, I’m a living person, I may use crack, but I do have feelings," his statement says.

Glover goes on to say that he never wanted to hurt Balashek because of that though.

On March 12, the day before the murder, Thompson and Glover had a fight, he said. He then went in search of her on Sunday March 13, in the late morning, Glover said.
"I’ll be honest, Cori had the money, I was out, I had no money, no gas, and no crack. I wanted to find her and make up," he said in his statement.
Jones had said in April that it was more likely that Balashek was killed by one of Thompson’s friends who knew that she was Thompson’s money source. A number of Thompson’s friends knew that her financial support was coming from her mother and "that provided someone with an opportunity," Jones had said.
A lot of Thompson’s friends, "aren’t working and have needs," he said of their drug addictions.

While Thompson’s permanent residence was at her mother’s home at 2038 New Scotland Road, she spent a lot of time at Glover’s apartment in Cohoes.

A neighbor in Cohoes who lived in the apartment underneath the pair, told The Enterprise after the arrest that she was more afraid of Glover than she was of Thompson. The neighbor was one of the witnesses to their domestic dispute on April 6, which resulted in a cut on Thompson’s lip and forehead and led to Thompson’s taking a drug overdose and being rushed to the hospital the next morning.

"Rough place"
"She was in a rough place in the spring," Jones told The Enterprise this week.

She was dealing with her mother’s death, a boyfriend who implicated her, a near-death overdose, and media attention to her criminal past and sex change.

The Cohoes police said that the couple, Glover and Thompson, claimed at the time that Thompson fell into the door, or that she was accidentally hit by the door.

A mutual friend of Glover and Thompson, Deborah Kirnon, also wrote a deposition to police, signed on April 10. Kirnon said that, when her friends were arguing a few days before and it turned physical, Glover had told Kirnon what had happened.
"Corey (sic.) tried to leave the apartment during the fight and he would not let her. He said that, when Corey opened the door and tried to leave, he grabbed the door pulled it back shut and hit Cori in the head with the door," the statement says.
Glover said in his written statement, "Cori had no problems hitting me when she got real mad...Don’t forget, she was a man at one time and I’m a light weight, there is absolutely no doubt Cori could take me at any time in a physical fight. Her strength is unbelievable. Anyway, I only point this out so you don’t think I’m the tough violent abusive person. I’m not."
When asked this week how Thompson is doing emotionally, and if she is still having suicidal thoughts, Jones responded, "She is beyond that now." He also said, "The drug issues that she had — she has dealt with effectively."
"Jail up to a point was therapeutic for her," Jones said. Being isolated helped Thompson handle her addiction and she is "completely clean now" and seeing things in a new light, Jones said.

She still wants the crime solved, and, as his investigation continues, Jones will share it with the district attorney’s investigators, he said.

Thompson is going to live locally, cooperate fully, and be close to her sister, Sandra Balashek, who has been supporting her, Jones said. Sandra Balashek declined comment to The Enterprise on Friday.

Jones said that $100,000 bail is the amount that he had proposed, because he thinks it is fair. With a murder case, a lesser amount is unlikely to be accepted by the court and the district attorney’s office, and it is also reasonable for her to meet that figure, Jones said.
"She did not have to borrow money from family," he said.

Albany County does not have a will on record for Jean Balashek.