Washington County’s top prosecutor has taken a long-simmering feud with the county coroner straight to Pennsylvania’s highest court, asking justices to referee who controls key death investigation files.
On Friday, District Attorney Jason Walsh joined Peters Township and Washington County in filing a 454‑page King’s Bench petition that accuses Coroner Timothy Warco of refusing to hand over autopsy reports and other investigative materials. The filing argues that the coroner’s tight grip on records has slowed or stalled criminal probes and urges the Supreme Court to spell out what coroners must share with prosecutors and police so local investigations can move.
Walsh is pressing for autopsies and lab testing results to flow directly to his office and to township police in active cases. Petitioners highlight a 2025 death in Peters Township as an example of what they say happens when the coroner’s files are walled off from detectives. Warco’s office has pushed back, calling portions of the petition inaccurate and, in the Peters Township case, saying staff “did not find a medical reason for the death, so we have no manner of death,” according to WTAE.
History of a long-running feud
The latest filing drops into an already bad blood situation between Walsh and Warco that has spilled into court before. In July 2025, the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation added sworn statements from Warco and his deputy to a pending matter, accusing the district attorney of pressuring the coroner’s office to change a death certificate in an infant case. The supplemental filing was released by the Atlantic Center, and the Herald-Standard later reported details from Warco’s affidavit. Walsh has denied coercion and maintains he has acted within the bounds of his prosecutorial duties.
Records fight and search warrants
Questions over who pays for and who sees autopsy records have also boiled over at the municipal level. Peters Township officials pressed the coroner’s office for access, then sued in December 2025 after Warco sought roughly $700 for autopsy and toxicology reports, according to the Observer-Reporter.
The dispute escalated again last November when detectives, Pennsylvania State Police, and local officers executed search warrants at the coroner’s office, seeking autopsy reports tied to multiple deaths, WPXI reported.
Legal stakes
The King’s Bench petition urges the state Supreme Court to use its “extraordinary jurisdiction” to decide whether a county coroner can withhold records from law enforcement and to weigh oversight measures sought by the petitioners and allied advocacy groups. The Atlantic Center has previously laid out possible remedies.
Critics of the status quo point to Washington County’s high rate of capital filings as a reason for closer scrutiny, while Walsh’s attorneys argue that the kind of intervention they are requesting would be unprecedented, citing national reporting on the case. The petition remains under review by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and no hearing date has been set, which could leave local prosecutions that hinge on the disputed records in limbo for weeks or even months, according to AP.
