http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/44374.htm

HE SLAY, SHE SLAY

By KENNETH LOVETT

April 12, 2005 -- ALBANY — In what may be a first-of-its-kind case, it was revealed yesterday that a New York woman charged with murdering her 86-year-old mother had killed before — as a man.

Prior to a sex-change operation, Corriana Thompson, 45, who was arrested on murder charges Sunday, was Corey Wayne Balashek, who served time in prison for the 1981 strangulation of a female nurse.

Thompson, of Albany, took her mother's maiden name after she had the gender-bending operation sometime after getting out of prison in the 1990s.

"Sounds like a great movie," said Brian MacNamara, an assistant professor of law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

The bizarre case could be a first.

A longtime FBI spokesman, state criminal-justice officials, academicians, and gay- and transgender-rights activists could not recall a similar situation in which a person was twice charged with murder — once as a man and once as a woman.

"It's weird," Albany County Sheriff James Campbell told The Post.

"When you're looking at something like this, you're dealing with a person who had a sex change knowing she's now a female, but you've got to remember she was born a male and has the strength of a male."

Richard Arthur, a spokesman for the Albany County district attorney, said that when an investigator typed in Thompson's male name looking for a prior rap sheet, the computer came up empty.

But when the investigator entered her female name, the past history came up, even though the rap sheet itself listed her as a male.

"That struck me as the computer was confused," Arthur said. "We're all confused."

Thompson was charged Sunday with second-degree murder for the March 13 strangulation of her mother, Jean Balashek, in their New Scotland home.

Law-enforcement officials said the death was set up to look like a suicide, but an autopsy found the elderly woman had been strangled.

Thompson was arraigned and remanded to Albany County Jail without bail after pleading not guilty.

She is in protective custody on a suicide watch and eventually will be transferred to the female section of the jail, Campbell said.

In 1981, Thompson was 21, still a man and living with friends in an Albany apartment when he first went to prison for nine years for strangling a nurse who had made sexual advances toward him. He was charged with murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

The similarities between the two crimes made Thompson an immediate suspect in her mother's death, even though she called police to report finding the body on March 13, Campbell said.

The motive for the killing, he said, was a disagreement over money.

The subsequent investigation led investigators through a maze of seedy characters, including Thompson's friends, whom Campbell described as "heavy crack cocaine users" who lied to protect their friend.

Campbell wouldn't say whether Thompson is a crack user, though he said she did overdose on drugs last Thursday — a day after investigators let it be known that an arrest in the case was pending.

Thompson's lawyer, E. Stewart Jones, represented the woman when she was a man in the first case.

"In 1981, there was no question Corey Balashek had done it, but there were extenuating and mitigating circumstances," Jones said.

"In 2005, I don't believe Corriana strangled her mother."

Thompson was questioned for 10 hours after her mother's body was found, but hasn't been grilled again since hiring Jones.

Very strange. I bet it's happened before though.

Wow.....it probably has happened before, and now attorneys are gonna lose their minds trying to find similar cases. There's a new bandwagon rolling through town, lets sit back and see who all jumps on. Shall we?

Throw him in a male cell with sex hungry psychos and let his new parts get a good useing

A sick bastard I tell you... There should be tougher punishments after breaking laws in my opinion.

There should be but how many jails would one country have to build to put every one that realy should be in jail in jail

And the amount of money training wardens to police them

Thats just... odd.

So he is now a she. What prison do you put him in? A female ar male prison? Weird.