(Photo Provided by the Will County Sheriff's Office) Joliet — Alexa Balen, who’s accused of drug possession and child endangerment along with her fiancé, Edward Weiher, after their 2-year-old daughter died from suspected heroin exposure has received a continuance on her detention hearing after failing to obtain counsel Balen, 27, of Homer Glen, appeared in a Will County Circuit Court on Wednesday before Judge Sarah Jones for a pretrial detention hearing but she said she has not yet hired a lawyer Balen was arrested Nov. 18 after a hospital stay that began after the Nov. 6 death of her daughter, Trinity Balen-Weiher. She and Weiher, 49, were charged Nov. 7 but only Weiher was taken into custody that day Both parents have been charged with possession of cocaine possession of heroin and two counts of endangerment of a child – one felony count for the incident that resulted in Trinity’s death and one Class A misdemeanor charge for the endangerment of Balen’s 6-year-old daughter from a previous relationship Balen’s request to be assigned an attorney from the public defender’s office was denied Tuesday because financial disclosure documents reveal that she, along with Weiher, is the owner of a $1 million home and has a bank account containing about $500,000 She also reported a monthly income of $1,800 The home of Edward Weiher is pictured at 12229 W Weiher is charged with endangering his 2-year-old child who died from a suspected overdose death Nov Despite sharing the home with Balen and owning several cars collectively worth $400,000 Weiher was granted representation by a public defender When asked by Jones whether she had retained counsel “I no longer have that amount of money,” in reference to the information that had been provided to the court saying “you have assets” before temporarily assigning her a public defender for the purpose of the hearing The public defender requested a continuance for the hearing until Friday Before Balen was escorted out of the courtroom by Will County sheriff’s deputies Jones reminded her once again that she needs to hire a lawyer Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Amanda Tasker has requested that Balen remain in pretrial detention on the grounds that she poses an immediate risk to the safety of her 6-year-old daughter, and because she is charged with felony endangerment of a child resulting in the death of a child. According to the petition to deny pretrial release, when officers and paramedics were called to the couple’s Homer Glen home Nov. 6 to attend to the unresponsive Trinity, they discovered severely unsanitary conditions inside. Officers observed “the entire floor was covered with garbage, food, urine and feces,” and “spread throughout countertops and tables was a clear white substance suspected to be cocaine and heroin” including in areas that were reachable by the children, according to court documents. In the petition to deny pretrial release, the state’s attorney’s office noted that both Weiher and Balen confessed to regularly using heroin, and the information also was in Balen’s testimony about the events leading to her daughter’s death. Balen indicated that the 2-year-old had begun showing signs of overdosing almost four hours before she called 911, according to the petition. When Balen and Weiher were taken in for questioning by Will County sheriff’s deputies, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services took custody of Balen’s 6-year-old daughter. She was taken to Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn for a medical examination, where fentanyl and cocaine were found in her system. In the ruling to deny Weiher pretrial release, Judge Dan Rippy ordered Weiher to have no contact with the 6-year-old, even through a third party, according to court documents. Rippy said Weiher posed a risk to the community as well. Balen is being held in a medical unit at the Will County Adult Detention Facility, pending the continuance of her pretrial detention hearing. The reason for her hospitalization and medical unit detention have not been publicly disclosed. Copyright © 2023 Shaw Local News Network and she has been denied pretrial release under the SAFE-T-Act are charged as co-defendants in connection with Trinity's death The Will County Sheriff's Office made the arrests she and Weiher are charged with endangering the life or health of a child on Nov 6 and "said violation was a proximate cause of the death of" Trinity Related: Dead Child's Dad Should Be Freed From Will Co. Jail: Lawyer The Homer Glen parents are also charged with two counts of unlawful possession of a controlled substance accuses Balen of providing an unsafe living conditions for her other daughter Will County's prosecutors noted that Trinity was dying from the apparent drug overdose for approximately four hours before Weiher and Balen finally called 911 Balen used her phone to make her first Google search seeking information on how to stop an overdose at 7:46 p.m. "So this child was lying there dying nearly four hours and they were unable to take care of her," prosecutor Amanda Tasker argued Trinity died of a suspected overdose from ingesting heroin and cocaine The toxicology results are still pending; the child showed so signs of any blunt force trauma Trinity's 6-year-0ld sister was later admitted into Christ Hospital after doctors discovered she had cocaine and fentanyl in her system $1M Trust Fund House Of Terror: Dad Denied Pretrial Release In Toddler's Death Toddler Dies In Filthy Home, Parents Had Cocaine, Heroin: Sheriff Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts. You are viewing your 1 free article this month the debut adult novel by award-winning children’s author Katya Balen Editor-at-large Leah Woodburn bought world rights from Catherine Clarke of Felicity Bryan Associates Our Numbered Bones follows novelist Anna as she leaves London for a winter spell at a remote writing retreat in boggy She arrives determined to cure her writer’s block which stems from recent trauma—but that healing is interrupted when a body is unearthed in the wetlands near her cottage remarkably preserved by the bog after remaining buried for thousands of years and as past and present collide she comes to a profound recognition that it holds the key to reconciling her with grief" London-born Balen is the author of several books for children most of which have been published by Bloomsbury’s Children’s was a highly commended for the Branford Boase Award; Foxlight won this year’s Wainwright Prize for Children’s Writing; and October October bagged the 2022 Yoto Carnegie Medal and has subsequently been optioned for film Balen’s upper middle-grade novel Ghostlines the first in a new kids’ deal with Bloomsbury which was announced at FBF 2023 Woodburn said: "Our Numbered Bones is a spellbinding story and Katya’s writing is incredible—urgent visceral and imbued with a deep fascination with history and our relationship with the earth It’s a real thrill to see her turn her hand to adult fiction and do it so very well and hugely exciting that a whole new raft of readers will soon be able to discover her." Balen said that she is "so excited" for her first adult novel praising Canongate for "how instinctively they understood my writing Chris Fite-Wassilak Features17 September 2024ArtReview “The work often starts from an obsession with something; after that we’ll make our way through associations that may shed light on a more emotional experience of it” HEAT WAVE.’ These words appear as subtitles towards the end of Daughter of Dog (2024) an enigmatic short video by Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen shown as part of their exhibition of the same name at Mostyn The unlikely sequence of images conjured up by this incongruous phrase make me think of a whimsical version of the ‘what3words’ geolocating tool the novel mapping-app that enables any three-metre square on Earth to be located using a unique combination of three words It’s as if the words listed in the video might lead us to some specific of nonsense poetry being used to map ourselves onto the globe feels appropriate in the context of Cohen and Van Balen’s practice sculpture and performance to create expanded collages that trace the wider economic and ideological structures that hold us Creating juxtapositions and conceptual collisions of what seem to be unrelated things – things like a field of mustard flowers robot dogs getting pushed around and dancers enacting a formalised version of a mosh pit as we see in the Daughter of Dog video – whether in a room or a film becomes a way to trace the infrastructure of global commodities The video continues as a fever-dream daze of quickly interspersed images driving drumbeat and the subtitles’ elusive foreboding poetry: ‘Now the earth is formless and empty’; ‘how do I make pearls out of the stress’ Outside the darkened projection room stood plinths bearing pots of carnivorous pitcher plants and various iterations of snakelike sculptures their bodies cartoonishly made up of thin steel bars their heads more realistically cast out of resin each embedded with the small reddish dot of an Atlas moth egg These elements might be there for a reason but my enjoyment of their work derives more from how it doesn’t quite add up suggesting a series of layers that might be peeled back to reveal yet another problem or illusion My first encounter with the work of the London-based duo was their film Trapped in the Dream of the Other (2017) in which a camera navigates a series of trenches and a labyrinth of rocky enclosures while blue and pink smoke bombs and sparkling fireworks go off apparently indifferent to and unengaged by the explosions taking place it becomes evident that this is a working mine the long single take capturing a senseless The wordless spectacle of the piece is enthralling while the exhibition text provided further context: Trapped in the Dream of the Other was shot in a coltan mine in Congo from where 80 percent of the world’s coltan is sourced The artists describe the work as a performance: arranging for the fireworks to be made then shipped back to Congo and set up as a sequence of explosions triggered remotely by Cohen back in the UK their earlier work 75 Watt (2013) involved designing a piece of useless technology an object that looked like a rhomboid handheld vacuum cleaner that simply held a few whirring fans But the point was to enable a ‘performance’ at the factory where the device was put together a group of workers carrying out a series of exaggerated movements as part of its assembly line What appears on the surface as a research-laden practice dense with collaborations (genetic scientists gives way to a more open exploration of how it feels to live in a world of global supply-chains more a porous set of juxtapositions that only get us more deeply entangled in the issues raised Their earlier ceiling-projected video Heavens (2021) might have begun with research on octopuses and the panspermia theory of the nonearthly origins of life but it becomes a fragmented meditation on our place in the cosmos The Odds (Part 1) (2019) is ostensibly about gambling as a contemporary condition but then the video poses a series of unlikely bedmates: a man stalks an empty bingo hall intercut with doctors anesthetising a horse It’s up to us to piece together where this leaves us ArtReview A few of your videos over the past decade Trapped in the Dream of the Other and most recently Daughter of Dog as if signalling a warning or a call for help As one of several recurring images – like horses what is the significance of smoke as a motif drifting through your work Revital Cohen Daughter of Dog came from a period of grief I couldn’t really make work at that moment and I was writing an elegy of sorts without knowing what would come from it collecting images and texts in a weird associative loop The smoke you refer to came from a found photograph of a military training session with mustard gas Mustard gas is something that’s lodged deep in my psyche; I grew up in Jerusalem during the Gulf War we were all given gas masks and told about mustard gas I found out there was mustard gas in the chemotherapy he was receiving There was something intriguing about the use of poison as cure But the fact that this particular poison – of which I was so terrified as a child and felt oddly related to – was now something with a kind of hope attached to it When I saw those training images with yellow coloured smoke it also brought me back to our years of working with firework manufacturers in Liuyang in China There are some materials we work with for so long that when I see them again Tuur Van Balen Part of the motivation of Trapped in the Dream of the Other was to activate a supply chain between a coltan mine in Congo and where the coltan ends up – in electronics mostly made in China We were also intrigued by the history of fireworks and the invention of gunpowder as a substance that can be so spectacular and yet so violent A lot of the fireworks we made were more like stage pyrotechnics because they needed to be safe enough for the miners and for me to be filming nearby AR Following on from how you’re discussing grief your installations seem to have certain starting points – say the theory of octopi originating from an extraterrestrial virus (in Heavens) or gambling in The Odds (Part 1) – that don’t necessarily feature directly in the work itself How do you decide if an idea is going to be a method RC The work often starts from an obsession with something; after that images or associations that may shed light on a more emotional or personal experience of it – so the starting point won’t be reproduced directly in the work is never to tell a story but more to open up a feeling How do I translate that feeling into words we wanted to think about the octopus without the octopus ever being present There was a point where we had eight or nine other people involved because the octopus has eight or nine brains; so for each work the subject matter affects the structure and how it gets made For me the making of the work is often just an excuse to follow my curiosities and dance within entanglements that are both personal and political but the focus for me is the question I find hard to answer although the work started from a place of grief the question became: where can I find a balance between what appears to be very violent and aggressive Where is a place of ambiguity between these two opposites AR There’s a particular use of metaphor in your work; gambling as a symbol for economy and capitalism or minerals as a symbol for the technology they end up in you quote the anthropologist Rebecca Cassidy who writes that the ‘Thoroughbred [horse] is essentially an expression of empire’ a stand-in for my experience of being an artist – being competitive but very performative: everyone’s commenting on you but I can’t help finding certain things to be deeply meaningful I’m drawn to anything that holds symbolic meaning or stands in for complicated ideas TVB I’m more interested in the tension between the symbol and what it represents a Thoroughbred racehorse is defined through the male bloodline which itself can be traced back to three historic stallions The Thoroughbred is seen as an English icon If you can actually read the DNA of the horse Sometimes there’s a tension between what the thing is and what it somehow represents RC None of this would be at all interesting if these were not animals creatures that have deep relationships with people It only becomes meaningful because the creature is meaningful and how these wider systems are experienced on a personal level: what are the contradictions speculation is an important driver of the economic system we live in A psychologist we spoke to explained that a gambler never feels like they’re losing: they’re always nearly winning This constructed feeling is inherent in the architecture of casinos RC The body of work around gambling started from an interest in the Sands casino in Macau It appears to be a lighthearted hall of entertainment a place that is extravagantly ornate and openly masquerading: everything’s fake and in your face But it’s a profoundly real place in terms of its effect on geopolitics because so much money made from it goes to create serious realities; it was where billionaire Sheldon Adelson made most of his money He’s not a rich person who just invests in AR But even from everything that springs from that horse symbology how does that then lead to the Roan (2020–24) series where you grind up a horse and spray it on some steel TVB We both have a background in design and an affinity for materials Powder coating is just an industrial process for coating metals; it historically used bone ash You can still buy a bag of bone ash for ceramics and you don’t really know where it comes from The animal remains in the industrial process – it was just this small nugget in the back of our minds and then when we were working with the racehorses and the history of horse paintings and the arts Cassidy writes in her book on horses that Stubbs and the nineteenth-century horse painters were brand managers for the product that is a Thoroughbred racehorse We think of the Roan series as horse paintings being traversed in each work; but like the weird celebration of fireworks in a mine I’m wondering about the effect of such placements and displacements on people experiencing one of your installations How much is the experience of these cumulative dispersals the work itself TVB With the works we made in Congo or in China it’s like this object [points at smartphone on table] is already bringing up issues – of labour and extraction – that come with their own politics and history It doesn’t have to be technological artefacts – it could be animal breeding or family histories Once you start to scratch at the surface of these realities you end up in different places and different times The work can sometimes be an excuse to go down these rabbit holes But sometimes it can also be used to enact a form of intervention to short-circuit some of the connections in order to see how this network responds RC We’ve used the term ‘apophenia’ to describe the experience of our exhibitions – the feeling of seemingly disconnected things being somehow related I don’t mind if the connections are clear or not it’s the alchemical outcome of these collages that matters In recent years I’ve been more interested in how musicians make albums than in how artists make exhibitions or artworks I found Björk’s podcast about making her albums inspiring and oddly liberating things occupy you and you accept them as your current internal monologue: the work comes out of that because it drove the creation of a particular thing I’ll be in a different place and another form of work will emerge that the viewer should piece these disconnected things together It made me think of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s diagnosis of paranoia as a leading aspect of critical theory defined by suspicion and a negative view of the world; or Thomas Elsaesser’s writings on the ‘mind-game film’ which trains you to problem-solve and face a capitalist world Are these mind-game installations training us to seek out global entangled conspiracies Or it offers an experience similar to a song you hear and suddenly feel it’s about me.’ I love to be able to find myself in somebody else’s work the work can also be experienced without being interpreted AR Given the temporal and global sprawl of your work TVB We’ve been making more and more film recently and we’ve just started a long research project working with choreographers thinking of moving image as a form of choreography we would always have one shot where Tuur ends up chasing something and it would make quite a weird These would often be our favourite moments in the films I really like it when the camera takes on the presence of Tuur as its operator We were going to film the breeding of camels in Dubai next We’ve been planning to film with a group of scientists who invented a camel semen-harvesting sex doll There’s something in their contraption which feels sinister RC And we’re not nearly done with the horses Yuwen Jiang Features J.J. Charlesworth Features Munem Wasif Features Stephanie Bailey Features Fi Churchman Features ArtReview Newsartreview.com02 May 2025 The painting, worth €50 million, has sustained visible scratches The 10 Exhibitions to See in May 2025 ArtReview Previewsartreview.com02 May 2025 Our editors on the exhibitions they’re looking forward to this month, from the Venice Architecture Biennale to Gallery Weekends in Berlin and Beijing AdvertisementHow the Museum Became a Weapon William Shoki Opinionartreview.com02 May 2025 In apartheid South Africa, museums glorified white settlement and erased Black history; in the US today, they are again being captured under the guise of neutrality Vyjayanthi Rao to curate 2026 Sharjah Architecture Triennial Mia Stern Newsartreview.com02 May 2025 She will be joined by Tau Tavengwa as associate curator Ari Emanuel buys Frieze from Endeavor ArtReview Newsartreview.com01 May 2025 The entertainment company’s own former chief executive has acquired Frieze for a reported $200m Inaugural Annie Leibowitz prize awarded to photographer of migrant experiences ArtReview Newsartreview.com01 May 2025 Zélie Hallosserie to receive $10,000 for her documentary work in Calais Helmut Lang Has Always Been Provocative Claudia Ross ReviewsArtReview01 May 2025 Lang’s newest artwork, like his clothing, explores the uncanny ways that industrial refuse can interact with and even evoke human flesh IKOB Feminist Art Prize announces winners ArtReview Newsartreview.com01 May 2025 Matt Copson: Never Grow Up Martin Herbert ReviewsArtReview30 April 2025 “What’s living with no hope?” asks the artist’s big animated baby at KW, Berlin. One thing is certain: we can’t stop watching Disability Is Not a Separate Category of Personhood Alice Hattrick Opinionartreview.com30 April 2025 The disabled experience is increasingly visible in the artworld yet an ableist political landscape is constantly on the attack. This affects us all We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. This includes personalizing content. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies, revised Privacy The BBC is in trouble over its Middle East coverage — yet again the row is over the documentary Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone and the fact that its 14-year-old narrator was the son of a senior official of Hamas when BBC chairman Dr Samir Shah and director-general Tim Davie turned up at the Culture away from the rhetoric surrounding the documentary wider inquiry into the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East and its independence and impartiality — or lack of it The instant reaction of many will be: not another inquiry — and into such a fraught area when matters such as clarity independence and balance are beyond difficult to ascertain There is an absolute need for such an inquiry although setting out its terms of reference and personnel will be a monumental challenge And as the talking continues over many months and possible years the killing in the Middle East will continue As with most matters involving the Middle East and coverage of its conflicts which carries echoes of Charles Dickens’ Court of Chancery in Bleak House was asked in 2004 by then BBC director of news and current affairs Richard Sambrook to review the BBC’s Middle East coverage for signs of bias After looking at and listening to hundreds of hours of coverage Balen produced a comprehensive 20,000-word report because the report was not published and — much worse — the BBC used up considerable numbers of BBC licence fees in legal fees to prevent its publication the BBC fought freedom of information requests through the courts on a point of principle that you might think rather narrow Its case was that the report was an internal document designed to inform its journalism and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act was that Balen actually found no evidence of systemic bias in the BBC’s Middle East coverage So the BBC may have spent a lot of our money and pulled down a lot of unnecessary opprobrium on its head in defence of arguments closely related to angels and pinheads There must be no repeat of such performances and a starting point for any new inquiry should be the full publication of the Balen Report as a sort of informed introduction to the issues involved The scale of the challenge involved can be seen from reactions to the Gaza documentary More than 500 people have complained about the programme and Lord Grade former chairman of the BBC and now chairman of Ofcom has warned the communications regulator will get involved if necessary including many from the media and artistic community have complained about Davie’s decision to pull it from iPlayer — at least for now The effect of this decision is more than a little unfortunate Those who first heard about the documentary because of the rapidly spreading row after its broadcast cannot now look to see whether the furore is justified or not They have to rely on published facts and comments rather than their own eyes This may not be quite as big a deal as first appears if the main issue is merely one of perception rather than reality it was daft to hire the son of a Hamas official and possibly pay the family what appears to be a relatively small sum precisely because of the perception problem It might have been the best documentary ever made about the sufferings of the children of Gaza — and yet it would have been hopelessly tainted by those involved in its making that is the greatest tragedy of all in broadcasting terms: that the reality of life for thousands of Palestinian children should have been overshadowed by flaws in programme-making As United Nations agencies have pointed out more than 13,000 young people are believed to have died in the Gaza enclave Some critics have argued that they have not received the same recognition as the smaller — but equally tragic — number of Israelis who died reports that the BBC repeatedly asked the independent production company involved for the background of those involved but allegedly did nothing when there was no answer is astonishing Everyone involved has known from the outset that this was a potentially controversial project and therefore one that merited particular care and attention What happened is not an example of bias but of a failure of editorial systems or BBC bureaucracy — or both Without information on such background checks even if it meant pulling it at the last minute This is one of those cases where the ongoing internal inquiry will want to establish how far up the BBC’s editorial pyramid information about potential problems actually got to Shah has a background in news and current affairs but it would be wrong of him to ask to see controversial programmes in advance or try to block shows before transmission Then BBC vice-chairman Lord Rees-Mogg tried that in 1985 over an Ulster documentary with disastrous consequences But surely someone senior in BBC editorial should have viewed the programme before transmission and asked enough questions to set the alarm bells ringing what had been revealed was “a dagger at the heart of the BBC’s claim” to be impartial and trustworthy and the BBC board was determined to get to the bottom of what happened and “take appropriate actions” And after the long gap since the Balen Report independent look at the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East — not least to silence some of its disputatious critics Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays — bookmark his column here Data-led charts from across the UK media landscape Find out more about the UK's most comprehensive aggregator of media data ExpandThe home of Edward Weiher at 12229 West Thorn Apple Drive in Homer Glen Weiher charged with endangering his 2-year-old child who died from a suspected overdose death on Nov Homer Glen — The Homer Glen parents charged with child endangerment in the death of their 2-year-old daughter have once again been denied pretrial release by a Will County judge Alexa Balen, 27, and Edward Weiher have both been charged with two counts of child endangerment and possession of both cocaine and heroin after their daughter “They [the defendants] have at the least exhibited no care whatsoever if the allegations presented are true,” Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak said at a hearing on Tuesday was also in the home at the time of the incident and a medical exam revealed she had both cocaine and fentanyl in her system After previously appearing in court separately Balen and Weiher were represented Tuesday by attorney Cosmo Tedone who said that both of his clients plan to plead not guilty and argued that the state had not presented “clear and convincing evidence” that the couple presented an ongoing danger to the community that could not be mitigated by conditions put on their release He argued that neither of his clients had a history of violent behavior or previous convictions and suggested possible conditions including home confinement, electronic monitoring, drug testing, and a prohibition on access to underage children—including Balen’s daughter and Weiher’s children from a previous marriage Edward Weiher (Photo provided by Will County Sheriff's Office) Tedone noted that Weiher had attempted CPR on Trinity Balen-Weiher when she stopped breathing and had called 911 and that both defendants had cooperated with the authorities allowing police to inspect the home when they arrived Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Amanda Tasker challenged this description of events though, saying the 911 call was “not a valiant effort on his part” since the couple did not call emergency services until Trinity Balen-Weiher had stopped breathing. This was nearly four hours after she had first become unresponsive and Balen and Weiher had tried and failed to revive her with Narcan ordered through Door Dash. Tasker also classified the delivery as “exposing another person to their house of horrors.” Will County Assistant State's Attorney Amanda Tasker in court in Aug. 2023. (Gary Middendorf – gmiddendorf@shawmedia/Gary Middendorf) While Tedone pointed out that the highest offense the couple is charged with is a Class 3 felony, Tasker said that it is likely further, more serious charges will be brought after the autopsy report is completed. “It’s looking pretty good for that based on the toxicology report,” Tasker said, noting the toxicology report on Trinity Balen-Weiher showed the presence of cocaine and fentanyl in her system which was five times the lethal dosage for an adult. “In order to challenge a detention status, new information needs to be available, or something needs to have changed,” Tasker said. “The only new information is the toxicology report which, if anything, makes things worse.” The full toxicology report on Trinity Balen-Weiher has not yet been released by the Will County Coroner’s Office. Court documents describe the scene witnessed by Will County sheriff’s police inside the house at 12229 West Thorn Apple Drive on the night of Nov. 6 as “unkempt and in complete disarray” with Tasker describing it as “complete and utter squalor.” Court documents state “the entire floor was covered with garbage, food, urine, and feces,” with drugs and drug paraphernalia found throughout the home in easy reach of the two children. Tedone argued that on home confinement with regular drug testing and with Balen’s 6-year-old daughter in the care of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, the couple would “pose no threat to society.” Tasker said that the couple’s neighbors could be at risk. Tasker cited text messages from Balen’s phone which repeatedly directed her drug dealer to leave drugs on the porch or in the open garage for her at all hours of the day, suggesting the substances were within easy access of the public, including other neighborhood children. “They’re heroin addicts,” Tasker said. “They’re going to continue to try to use if they are released. There are other children in the neighborhood who could be at risk, and other people who don’t want drug dealers on their street in the middle of the day.” She also noted that, if released, they could try to seek supervised visits with their other children. Currently, Weiher’s children are with their mother and Balen’s daughter is in foster care. Tasker said that she was not with family since DCFS had already removed both Trinity and her older sister from Balen and Weiher’s care and placed them with their maternal grandmother in May 2023. However, the grandmother had apparently brought both girls back to the Homer Glen residence in August and allowed them to live there in the months leading up to Trinity’s death, Tasker said. DCFS was apparently unaware of the girls’ changed living situation. Additionally, Tasker said that Balen and Weiher could pose a threat to Balen’s brother, who Balen said in her texts had been at the house during one of her drug dealer’s deliveries and who Tasker said is disabled and in need of regular assistance. While Tedone said that it was unfair to “punish the defendants for their addiction,” Bertani-Tomczak said, “I stand by my original ruling.” A discovery hearing is scheduled for Dec. 17, and a hearing is slated for Dec. 10 regarding the requested return of personal property by Weiher. Sign in or register below for free to unlock 2 articles each month and receive personalised newsletters to your inbox.ORHelp support our journalism and subscribe with unlimited access.Subscribe from less than £3.50 Homer Glen (Photo Provided by the Will County Sheriff's Office) a Homer Glen woman charged with drug possession and child endangerment after her 2-year-old daughter died of a suspected overdose earlier this month was denied pretrial release by a Will County judge Friday Balen, 27, and her boyfriend Edward Weiher each are charged with two counts of drug possession after cocaine and heroin were found in their home One of the child endangerment charges is a felony because it resulted in the death of the couple’s young daughter The other is a Class A misdemeanor and relates to Balen’s 6-year-old daughter from a previous relationship being in the home at the time of the toddler’s death. Balen was arrested Nov. 18 after a hospitalization following the death of her daughter, Trinity Balen-Weiher, on Nov. 6. Weiher was arrested Nov. 7. He remains in the Will County jail after being denied pretrial release. Balen’s pretrial detention hearing in Will County initially was scheduled for Wednesday but was postponed after Balen failed to hire an attorney Her petition to be assigned a public defender was denied; however she was granted one for the purpose of her detention hearing while she seeks other representation The Will County State’s Attorney’s Office sought to deny pretrial release for Balen on the grounds that the endangerment charge was a serious felony and argued that, if released, she would pose a continued threat to her 6-year-old daughter and the community. Assistant State’s Attorney Amanda Tasker on Friday presented photographs and evidence from Balen and Weiher’s home at 12229 W. Thorn Apple Drive in Homer Glen on the night of Trinity’s death as well as text messages from Balen’s phone to illustrate the defendant’s drug addiction and neglect of her daughters. “The house was in completely despicable condition,” Tasker told the court. “Every inch of the home was covered in garbage, and drugs were all over the home in reach of both children.” The home of Edward Weiher sits at 12229 W. Thorn Apple Drive in Homer Glen. Weiher is charged with endangering his 2-year-old child, who died from a suspected overdose death Nov. 7, 2024. (Photo by Felix Sarver) Tasker reported that cocaine and 9 grams of heroin were found at the scene – including next to a container of chocolate milk and near a child’s doll – when police and firefighters responded to Balen’s 911 call on Nov. 6 that her daughter was unresponsive. “There were drugs on the mattresses, in the bathroom, on the kitchen counter and the coffee table,” Tasker said. “There was one room with a gaming area, which looked pristine, so [Balen and Weiher] were capable of cleaning. It’s just obvious they did nothing to keep drugs away from the children in this home.” There also were several spent containers of Narcan, a medication used to reverse opioid overdoses, around the room where Trinity was found, which the parents admitted they had unsuccessfully tried to administer before calling 911, according to court records. Tasker noted that a search of Balen’s cellphone showed she had first searched for instructions on how to use Narcan at 7:46 p.m. before buying a second dose using an Uber delivery driver at 8:14 p.m. By the time emergency services were called at almost 11:30 p.m., the child had been unresponsive for three hours and 41 minutes, according to court records. “The defendant waited over three hours before calling for help while this baby was lying there dying,” Tasker said. Balen, who was escorted into the courtroom by Will County sheriff’s deputies, stood with her head down, crying as Tasker made her presentation to the court. Tasker also noted that Balen’s 6-year-old daughter was taken into the custody of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and underwent a medical examination that showed she had fentanyl and cocaine in her system. Tasker said that allowing Balen to be released, even on home confinement with electronic monitoring, could pose a risk to the 6-year-old as well as others in the community, based on text messages exchanged with a drug dealer that were retrieved from her phone. Tasker read several of the messages aloud in court. The often profanity-laced messages detailed Balen’s demands for her drug dealer to provide her with more, stronger heroin and included instructions for him to leave the drugs in her garage, at the door or even to give them to the 6-year-old to bring inside. One message stated that she had spent $6,000 on a single transaction with the drug dealer. “All she cares about is making sure she has the right caliber of drugs,” Tasker said. “Drugs, which ultimately killed her child.” Balen’s temporary counsel, Public Defender Raymond Durrenberger, said that since the 6-year-old was taken into DCFS care, allowing Balen to remain on home confinement with regular drug testing and electronic monitoring would not pose a risk to the child. “Given the defendant’s lack of prior history, we can’t say those conditions won’t work,” Durrenberger said. “I understand she has been – neglectful is an understatement – but there’d be no children present, and the state has not presented clear and convincing evidence these measures would not work.” Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak disagreed with this argument and granted the state’s petition to deny pretrial release. “There is a sustained burden of proof she was involved in these offenses at this point,” Bertani-Tomczak said. “These are serious offenses. There are no conditions that would ensure the safety of her living child [and] the community or that would change these habits.” Balen’s next hearing is set for 9 a.m. Dec. 3. Weiher also is appearing in court separately the same day for a preliminary hearing. Homer Glen — Edward Weiher and Alexa Balen, the Homer Glen couple charged with felony child endangerment in the drug-related death of their 2-year-old daughter will continue to be held in jail at least through the end of the year following a hearing on Tuesday were arrested last month after their daughter died on Nov 6 from ingesting both cocaine and fentanyl which were found in significant quantities around their house was also found with drugs in her system and removed by the Illinois Department of Child Protective Services after the incident Both children had previously been removed from the couple’s custody and placed with their maternal grandmother who had reportedly returned them to the Homer Glen home three months before the death of 2-year-old Trinity Balen-Weiher Weiher and Balen have repeatedly been denied pretrial release following their arrests on Nov The couple’s lawyer Cosmo Tedone submitted a petition on Dec. 6 requesting their release once again after Will County Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak denied a petition for release on Dec. 3. On Tuesday, the couple was back in court before Judge Vincent Cornelius. Alexa Balen, 27, was arrested on Nov. 18. (Photo Provided by the Will County Sheriff's Office) Tedone argued in the petition that under Illinois' SAFE-T Act in order to deny pretrial release “the state must prove by clear and convincing evident ‘the defendant poses a real and present threat to the safety of any person or persons or the community, based on the specific articulable facts of the case’ and ‘no condition or combination of conditions can mitigate the real and present threat to the safety of any person or persons or the community.’” The motion claims since Weiher and Balen are not accused of a violent crime and have no violent criminal records there is no grounds to keep them detained. Tedone also proposed in his petition that they do not pose a threat to anyone because Balen’s surviving daughter has been removed from the home and placed in foster care with non-relatives. At the Dec. 3 detention hearing, Assistant State’s Attorney Amanda Tasker read numerous texts from Balen to her drug dealer which illustrated that drugs were regularly delivered to their home at 12229 West Thorn Apple drive at all times of day and were often left in the open in the home’s garage or on the porch. Tasker argued at the time this proved the couple did create a dangerous situation for neighbors and the surrounding community, especially children. The home of Edward Weiher at 12229 West Thorn Apple Drive in Homer Glen. Weiher charged with endangering his 2-year-old child who died from a suspected overdose death on Nov. 7, 2024. (Photo by Felix Sarver) Tedone said in his motion that “such danger could be mitigated by a condition of release, such as an order barring clients from being around children as well as regular drug testing.” Tasker submitted the state’s response to Tedone’s motion on Tuesday. Since Tedone and Cornelius did not have time to thoroughly review the response, the judge decided the hearing needed to be continued. With the holidays and the end of the year approaching, Cornelius said he would not be available to hear the issue again until Jan. 3, ensuring couple will remain in the Will County jail through the end of the year. If you are the site owner (or you manage this site), please whitelist your IP or if you think this block is an error please open a support ticket and make sure to include the block details (displayed in the box below) so we can assist you in troubleshooting the issue