Mother wants OD victim's death ruled homicide

The mother of a North Side woman who died of a drug overdose is waging a legal battle against the Cook County medical examiner's office over its decision to classify her death an accident rather than a drug-induced homicide.

In late 2016, Valerie Teper, 33, was found dead in her apartment in the 1900 block of West Belmont Avenue. An autopsy found she died of poisoning from fentanyl, a powerful drug that dealers sometimes use to boost the potency of heroin.

Teper's family says her death should be classified as a homicide under Illinois' drug-induced homicide law.

Calling her death an accident stigmatizes Teper because it implies she died from a bad choice, says attorney Terry Slaw, who is suing the Cook County medical examiner's office on behalf of his wife Irene Rodik, who is Teper's mother.

"The fact is that Teper did not die by choice," Slaw says in a court filing. "She was murdered by someone who delivered her furanyl fentanyl."

He says the police might take fatal overdoses more seriously if the medical examiner were to rule those deaths to be homicides.

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