Dec 17, 2024 By Mike Jones 5 min read

A Peters Township father charged with homicide in the alleged shaking death of his 11-month-old son is suing Washington County’s district attorney, coroner and former president judge claiming they withheld releasing the child’s remains for nearly seven months and wrongly came to the conclusion that the manner of death was homicide.

Defense attorney Noah Geary filed the lawsuit Friday on behalf of his client, Jordan Clarke, who is facing the possibility of the death penalty if he’s convicted of first-degree murder in connection with the death of his son, Sawyer, inside the family’s home in May 2022.

Clarke, 38, who is charged with homicide and other felony counts, is accused of shaking Sawyer inside the Pleasantview Drive home in Peters Township on May 23, causing severe injuries that eventually led to the child’s death. However, Clarke told investigators that he tripped on a plastic bag and fell while holding Sawyer, injuring the infant. Geary has claimed the boy’s death was an accident and said there was no evidence that it was a homicide.

The lawsuit contends that District Attorney Jason Walsh worked independently with then- President Judge John DiSalle on court orders to have Sawyer’s body removed from the custody of Allegheny County – where he died in a Pittsburgh hospital a day after being injured – and brought back to Washington County for an additional autopsy.

The child’s body was in the custody of Coroner Timothy Warco’s office for four months when DiSalle signed another order in September – the lawsuit claims at Walsh’s direction – to hold the remains “until the disposition of the criminal case,” which could take years because it is being tried as a capital offense.

After multiple requests to return the body, Geary said he and prosecutors finally settled on a resolution on Dec. 15, 2022 – nearly seven months after Sawyer died – when the child’s remains were finally turned over to the family following DiSalle’s court order. But by then, the child’s body had badly decomposed, and the grieving family had already waited months for a funeral service.

Geary wrote in his lawsuit that it would be “ludicrous” to keep Sawyer’s body in evidence until the end of the case because it could take years before it would be completed.

Reached for comment Monday morning, Walsh said he hadn’t yet seen the lawsuit but defended the handling of the child’s remains because it was considered evidence in the case.

“It depends on the case,” Walsh said when asked whether it’s typical to keep possession of a body for that length of time. “It depends on the circumstances.”

Geary also questioned why Walsh decided to seek the death penalty against his client before a cause and manner of death were established. He pointed to a death certificate from Allegheny County officials filed Dec. 23, 2022, stating Sawyer died of an intracranial hemorrhage, but the manner of death was listed as “could not be determined.” Two weeks later, Warco’s office issued its own death certificate reporting the manner of death as homicide.

Geary argued in his lawsuit that the Washington County coroner’s office had no jurisdiction in determining the cause and manner of the child’s death because the boy died in Allegheny County, meaning the medical examiner there was in charge of the pathology report. Geary accused Walsh of being “extremely unhappy” with Allegheny County’s autopsy that produced an “undetermined” finding, prompting the district attorney to allegedly direct Warco’s office to report a different finding, the lawsuit claims.

“In addition to all of the above misconduct, Walsh’s unlawful withholding of the body caused unnecessary decomposition of the body, which constitutes spoliation of evidence and hampers Jordan Clarke’s ability to defend himself in his criminal case against murder,” Geary wrote.

Geary claims in the lawsuit that the “bogus” death certificate claiming shaken baby syndrome allowed Walsh to continue pursuing the death penalty against Clarke.

“This is unconscionable,” Geary wrote in the lawsuit. “Walsh has sought the Death Penalty in a totally disproportionate number of homicide cases purely for cheap political effect to dupe Washington County citizens to think Walsh is ‘tough on crime.'”

There are currently 12 defendants connected to nine separate homicides in Washington County that are currently under consideration for the death penalty. Those figures include Walsh’s decision Monday to pursue capital punishment against Brooke Whitehead, who is accused of assaulting and killing her 14-month-old son in Charleroi last year.

Geary has sued Walsh and DiSalle in the past, including last year when he accused them of holding one of his clients in contempt for invoking his Fifth Amendment rights. That case, which was filed in federal court, was ultimately dismissed, although Geary is appealing the ruling.

Walsh denied any wrong-doing with the Clarke case.

“It’s meritless nonsense,” Walsh said. “That’s par for the course coming from Noah Geary.”

Warco said he was unaware of the lawsuit when reached for comment Monday so he could not discuss its specifics, while DiSalle did not return a phone message.

Geary filed the lawsuit Friday afternoon in Washington County Court of Common Pleas on behalf of Clarke and Allisha Moomau, who is Sawyer’s mother, along with two others. The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages, attorney fees and court costs.

Clarke has been held without bond at the Washington County jail since his arrest two weeks after Sawyer’s death.