Colton Lee “Train” Balasko was an 18-year-old White/Caucasian male from Morgantown, West Virginia, whose life ended unexpectedly on Friday, February 20, 2015. Born in Morgantown on August 26, 1996, he was the son of Jeffrey B. “Jeff” Balasko and Tonya Cress Balasko. The publicly available obituary announcing his death described it only as unexpected and did not provide a cause of death, a specific location where he died, or circumstances explaining what happened in the hours leading up
to his death.
Balasko had attended University High School in Morgantown and was working for W.A. Contracting before his death. He was remembered as an outdoorsman who spent much of his free time hunting, fishing and camping. He also enjoyed riding a four-wheeler and going mudding. Those who knew him remembered an outgoing personality, a generous nature and a playful sense of humor. His obituary emphasized the impact of his personality on the people around him, describing the smile and spirit that his family and friends would miss after his sudden death.
His immediate family included his mother, Tonya Cress Balasko; his father, Jeff Balasko; and his younger siblings, Shane and Faith Balasko. His surviving relatives also included grandparents Raymond and JoAnn Balasko, Liz Brown and George Cress Sr.; great-grandmothers Betty Balasko and Rose Savage; and several aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. His death came before that of his cousin Brieanne Nicole Dietz, whose 2018 obituary later specifically listed Colton among the relatives who had preceded her in death.
Friends and relatives gathered at the Fred L. Jenkins Funeral Home in Morgantown on February 25, 2015, with additional visitation and funeral services held the following day. Pastor Ray Fluharty officiated the service, and Balasko was laid to rest at Beverly Hills Memorial Gardens. The family also established an account through Tri-Ag WV Federal Credit Union for memorial contributions.
Despite searches of publicly available online records and news references associated with Balasko's name and the date of his death, no reliable online source located identifies his death as a homicide or names another person as being responsible. No publicly indexed report located provides information about a suspect, an arrest, criminal charges, a trial or a conviction connected to his death. The surviving online material therefore establishes that his death was sudden and unexpected, but it does not provide enough verified information to describe the medical cause or to attribute his death to another person.
