A Westmoreland County DA who helped prosecute two high-profile cases that involved Indiana County has passed away.
Former Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck of New Kensington died Thursday at a Pittsburgh-area hospital. He started in Westmoreland County’s District Attorney’s office in 1981 and was prosecuting cases as a part-time assistant before he was elected DA in 1994. He left the office at the end of 2021 after he failed to win a re-election bid.
In 1984, he took over prosecution on the cases against John Lesko and Michael Travaglia, who were accused of going on a killing spree that started December 27th of 1979 where they shot Peter Lovato near Loyalhanna Dam. The duo would kill three others, including Mount Lebanon church organist William Nichols, who they tortured and bound, drove out to Blue Spruce Lake, weighed him down with rocks and drowned him. The two received death sentences. Travaglia died in prison while Lesko is still on death row.
Another prominent case Peck prosecuted was the triple-homicide case in 2009 where a jury found Kevin Murphy guilty of killing his mother, sister and aunt at the family’s glass business near Saltsburg. Murphy was convicted in 2013 and was ordered to be executed for the death of his mother, Doris, and two life sentences for the deaths of Kris Murphy and Edith Tietge.
Peck is being remembered by his peers as a man who put service before politics, a person who took the more difficult cases, and as a mentor to others.
Peck passed away at the age of 77.
