Aug 1, 2025 By Mike Jones 7 min read

The admission by Coroner Timothy Warco that he filed a fraudulent death certificate with the state Department of Health – allegedly at the behest of District Attorney Jason Walsh – will likely have legal “reverberations” for past and future homicide cases in Washington County, according to a law professor and former federal prosecutor.

“You have something absolutely unusual to the point of being bizarre happening here,” said Bruce Antkowiak, a law professor at St. Vincent College who has been watching the situation unfold from afar.

Warco submitted a sworn affidavit July 25 alleging that Walsh coerced him into filing a death certificate for 11-week-old Sawyer Clarke in which he ruled the infant’s May 24, 2022, death as being a homicide despite his own apparent misgivings. Warco’s affidavit is part of a petition by the Philadelphia-based Atlantic Center for Capital Representation asking the state Supreme Court to restrict Walsh from pursuing the death penalty – claiming he has used it for political purposes – but it has now raised questions about the legitimacy of other homicide cases involving the current coroner and county prosecutor.

“It is certainly going to call upon the credibility of other cases, not just death penalty cases, but any case the coroner has been involved in, questioning whether reports of an autopsy were accurate,” Antkowiak said. “It’s a situation where, honestly, it calls for some third-party intervention to review these matters and see what, if any, impact these allegations have on the cases that are pending trial and have been tried.”

Sawyer died at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh a day after his father, Jordan Clarke, is accused of causing the fatal injuries at his Peters Township home. Clarke, who is facing homicide charges and the possibility of the death penalty if convicted, is one of the petitioners being represented by the Atlantic Center in its July 22 filing to the high court.

Because the death occurred in Pittsburgh, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office had jurisdiction and ultimately decided it could not determine the child’s manner of death. But according to Warco’s affidavit, he claims Walsh misled a judge about the location of the child’s death to bring the jurisdiction back to Washington County and then coerced him into ruling it as a homicide, although Warco does not specify how he forced him to file the fraudulent certificate.

“You know that I need this to be a homicide. I need it to win an election,” Warco claims Walsh told him, alluding to the upcoming political campaign in 2023.

Warco admitted in his affidavit that the cause and manner he wrote in the “fraudulent death certificate were wholly in contravention” with what the autopsy revealed. That death certificate he submitted to the state Department of Health was ultimately rejected because the Allegheny County Medical Examiner correctly had jurisdiction reviewing the child’s death.

Antkowiak called the situation “deeply problematic” for any homicide cases in the county moving forward, along with those that have already been prosecuted.

“When I saw this story, I just tried to remember any parallel, and I couldn’t,” Antkowiak said. “It really stands out on its own as a truly unusual circumstance.”

Antkowiak, who before teaching law at St. Vincent served as both a federal prosecutor and defense attorney, suggested the state Attorney General or possibly even the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pittsburgh should become involved to review every homicide case in Washington County to ensure the cases are being handled correctly. An email sent to the state Attorney General’s press office Thursday asking for comment on the situation was not returned.

“This is not a situation where the (contrasting) statements of the coroner and the district attorney can be rectified. Somebody is going to have to make a determination, and the reverberations of that can be substantial,” Antkowiak said. “If you find a problem with one autopsy and one finding, you will invite that there could be similar problems with others. This could really cause an upheaval in the court system. People are going to have to revisit these.”

Contacted by telephone Wednesday afternoon, Warco said he was “refraining from commenting” due to the pending litigation, but said he would not resign from office despite his admission of filing the fraudulent death certificate.

“Absolutely not. I have no intention of resigning,” Warco said. “I don’t know where that is coming from.”

The coroner’s solicitor, Timothy Uhrich, did not return a phone message seeking comment.

Walsh, who has denied that he coerced Warco into ruling that Sawyer’s death was a homicide, acknowledged in a phone interview Thursday that the coroner’s credibility could become an issue in future homicide cases.

“It’s a concern, obviously, when the coroner admits to perpetrating a fraud and lying,” Walsh said. “But we’ll have to deal with it on a case-by-case basis.”

But Walsh also noted that the autopsies themselves are performed by independent pathologists contracted by the coroner’s office, so he thinks those reports would not be easily discounted as evidence.

“That could be a factor that helps,” Walsh said. “But obviously it’s a concern.”

Antkowiak said while a coroner’s testimony is rarely disputed, any defense attorney who cross-examines Warco will try to “impeach his credibility” and raise questions about his findings.

“No defense attorney is going to pass up on a chance to question him,” Antkowiak said.

Or the situation could potentially lead to outright case dismissals, including the one at the heart of the matter.

Bill Difenderfer, the defense attorney for Clarke, said his team plans to file a motion for dismissal next week in light of the new information that has come out recently about his client’s case, including the death certificate for Sawyer.

“That’s what we’re working on now and what we’ve been working on,” Difenderfer said.

He directed his ire at Walsh rather than Warco, and said the coroner’s affidavit lends credence to the notion that the district attorney has been overzealous in pursuing the death penalty.

“All the circumstantial history I think lends tremendous credibility to what Warco said and what his affidavit says,” Difenderfer said. “If true, it’s outrageous. If true, there are not only problems with my case, but with (Washington County’s) prosecutor. If you read what (Walsh) did before, this fits like a glove.”

Because of that, Difenderfer agreed that there needs to be an independent examination of many homicide cases in Washington County.

“I definitely think there needs to be a review,” he said.

Meanwhile, the county commissioners are holding a special emergency meeting at 1 p.m. today to hire special legal counsel to represent Walsh after he requested it recently. The special counsel – which will be paid through the county’s insurer – is needed to represent Walsh in the petition filed with the state Supreme Court, and the emergency nature of the meeting is required since a response is due by Tuesday.

“At this time, the district attorney has reached out to us asking to provide outside counsel and we are working to get counsel to represent the distinct attorney’s office,” Washington County Commissioner Chairman Nick Sherman said Wednesday, but declined further comment due to pending litigation.

Regardless of what happens with the litigation, Antkowiak said the county must also request an independent evaluator to come in to review all of the homicide cases to regain the public’s trust.

“Getting a neutral third party to investigate the matter is probably the only way you can move forward in this situation that is just to all people concerned,” Antkowiak said. “Someone from the outside will have to come in and wipe this slate clean, one way or the other.”