A man who claimed his motivation for slaughtering his family was their lack of support for his transgender identity has been quietly marked a “female” in the Maine prison system, and has been transferred to a mixed-sex facility where he is likely being housed with women.
Andrew Balcer, who goes also by the name Andrea, was one month shy of his eighteenth birthday when he murdered his mother, father, and family dog on Halloween night in 2016. According to reports at the time, Balcer had woken his mother and told her that he was having trouble sleeping. Alice Balcer asked her son if he was having a rough night and embraced him and, while she was attempting to soothe him, he stabbed her in the back nine times, killing her.
Balcer went on to murder his father, Antonio, and their pet chihuahua, Lily. The only member of the family Balcer spared was his older brother, whom he allowed to flee after telling him “it’s not your day.”
Balcer reportedly laughed while describing his crimes to a police officer, with the young man calling 911 himself to confess his crimes.
“I snapped. I took my little Ka-Bar [military combat knife] there and I drove it straight into my mother’s back,” Balcer said. “My father came up because he heard her screams and I stabbed the fuck out of him. Oh, I killed the dog, too. It was barking.”
During the years-long court proceedings, Balcer’s attorneys cited his family’s lack of support for his gender transition as a motive for the crime. But just days before he was scheduled to plead guilty, Balcer abruptly began accusing his mother and father of physical and sexual abuse. Disturbingly, Balcer claimed his mother had molested him when he was between the ages of 14 and 16.
The shocking allegations were vehemently denied by his older brother, who rejected the entire claim.
“No. No. No. No. No. That is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard in my life. The man never would have laid a hand on either of us,” Christopher Balcer said during an interview on the accusations.
At the sentencing hearing, Balcer’s older brother asked the judge not to show any leniency in sentencing, calling him a “remorseless murderer.” He also drafted a heart-wrenching victim impact statement, and read it out in court, calling Balcer an “inhuman creature,” and once again rejecting Balcer’s claims of having been abused.
“I still hear our dearest mother’s screams, every night as I fall asleep. Every morning as I awaken, they echo in my head. Her screams as she was stabbed by the son she doted on so much, the son she only wanted the world for, and would accept nothing less. I remember the foul things you accused her of, and the looks of horror upon the family’s faces as they heard about them. You are an inhuman creature and the fact that you continue to pretend otherwise sickens me.”
Even extended family came forward to take issue with Balcer’s claims. His uncle, Carl Pierce, disputed the motive that Balcer hadn’t been “accepted” by his parents, and called it an “insult” to the LGBTQ community. He addressed his nephew’s crimes while using feminine pronouns and his preferred name.
“There was no hatred. There was no malice. There was no ill will. There was resignation to be sure but ultimately there was acceptance. To justify these killings because of sexual identity or gender dysphoria beliefs is truly a cowardly act. Andrea should be ashamed of herself for it,” Pierce said.
Balcer pleaded guilty under an agreement that capped his sentence at 55 years.
The presiding judge took his age, lack of a criminal record, and good grades into account as mitigating factors, but refused to consider his claim of gender dysphoria, saying other young people faced the same struggles and it shouldn’t be used as an excuse for murder. Balcer was sentenced to 40 years in prison on December 4, 2018, and incarcerated at the Maine State Prison, a maximum security facility for men.
While Balcer was initially recorded as “male” in the Maine Department of Corrections directory, he is now listed as a “female” inmate and has been moved to the Maine Correctional Center (MCC) in Windham, a medium-to-minimum facility that houses both men and women. Most inmates at the facility have been sentenced to prison terms of 5 years or less.
Balcer, now 24, is described on his MDOC profile as being 6’1” and 245 pounds. The alteration made to his legal sex suggests he is now being housed with the female inmates at MCC.
Freedom of Access Act requests to the Maine Department of Corrections (MDOC) went unfulfilled, with the Department citing “confidentiality statues” when asked to confirm that Balcer is now housed with female inmates and to specify the exact date he was transferred to the Maine Correctional Center. They have not responded to a second request asking them to cite the “confidentiality statutes” which prevent them from sharing this information.
Balcer’s transfer was likely the result of legislation signed into law last year related to the housing of transgender inmates.
LD 1044, a bill sponsored by Rep. Charlotte Warren (D-Hallowell), requires Maine prisons to “respect and acknowledge an incarcerated person’s consistently held gender identity irrespective of anatomy or physique.” The law specifies that housing placements must align with an inmate’s stated gender identity unless doing so would present “significant management or security problems” or threaten the health and safety of the inmate.
The Maine Women’s Lobby, the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and the ACLU of Maine all sent representatives to the Maine legislature to testify in support of LD 1044. None of their testimony mentioned any potential risk to the female inmates who would be housed with male convicts.
According to the Vera Institute of Justice, 86% of incarcerated women in the United States are survivors of sexual violence. Incarcerated women in other states with prison self-identification policies have reported experiencing trauma when forced to share confined spaces with male inmates, and some have described being subjected to sexual harassment, physical threats, and sexual assaults. Some incarcerated women have even stated they have been penalized for complaining about the behavior of males transferred into their facilities.
Like Balcer, another violent male inmate currently incarcerated at the Maine State Prison may soon be classified as a “female” inmate and transferred.
Walter Moore, who now calls himself Nikki Natasha Petrovickov, killed a woman in 2002 by tying her between two trees and slitting her wrists and throat.
Moore sued the MDOC in 2016, demanding to be seen by a doctor specializing in gender dysphoria and given hormone replacement therapy (HRT). At the time, he threatened that if he had to spend the rest of his life in a men’s prison, he would severely harm himself.
In 2018, the prison began providing Moore with HRT. Although he remained unsatisfied with the type and dosage, a federal judge ruled in 2019 that his lawsuit was moot as he was receiving the requested treatment. As of today, Moore is still listed on the MDOC website as male and incarcerated in the men’s State Prison, but that may change as abruptly as with Balcer.
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