FORMER DA PASSES AWAY

A former Westmoreland County District Attorney has passed away.  The Trib reports that longtime county prosecutor John Peck died Thursday at a Pittsburgh-area hospital.  He started his career in the DA’s office in 1981 as a part-time assistant then was first elected the DA in 1994.  He left the office in 2021 after failing to secure a seventh term in office.  Fellow attorneys remember him as a man who led by example, and that he never let politics get in the way of doing what was right.  Some of his most memorable cases included taking over prosecution in 1984 in the kill-for-thrill murder case of John Lesko and Michael Travaglia and the prosecution of six Greensburg roomates accused of torturing and killing of a mentally disabled woman.  Peck died at the age of 77.