Jonathan Luna /// Part 1 /// 572 | Forensic Files

[Music] do [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
for listening i'm your host nick and with me as always is a man who shops at food and stuff it's where he gets his
food and his stuff ladies and gentlemen the cap yeah destroying the government from the inside out it's good to be seen
and good to see you thanks for listening and thanks for telling a friend [Music]
this week i am very excited to be featuring a seasonal beer from one of our very favorite breweries this week
look out because we are featuring peachful by the great highland brewing in beautiful asheville north carolina
inspired by the south's favorite fruit this ale features the soft sweetness of the peach this ale is delicious and
refreshing garage grade three and three-quarter bottle caps out of five and we'd like to thank some of our
friends for helping us out with this week's beer fun first up we got a big shout out to frank in kingsley michigan
and a big shout out to nicole in charlotte north carolina and here's a sonny cheers to steven in tampa florida
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last but certainly not least we have joseph in perth new zealand everyone we just mentioned went to
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beer run go to the store and get you some hey but if you're not on the mailing list go sign up right now
because i've been sending out promo codes i'm gonna send out another one in a couple weeks and so if you're not on
the list you're not in the know and colonel that's enough the business all right everybody gather round grab a
chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] this week's crime story reads like some kind of legal thriller
or crime fiction novel like those by the great john grisham but trust me my garage friends when i
say this unfortunately is a very real and true story this week we go to the big city of
baltimore a city that frankly has left us with many a mystery back in february of 2019
we here at true crime garage told you the story of detective sean suiter a young hard-working baltimore homicide
detective who was killed on the job with his service weapon the baltimore police department stated
they believed his death was a suicide we told you that something fishy was going on detective suiter was killed
just one day before he was scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury investigating police corruption in
baltimore to this day many still debate detective suiter's death could the baltimore police be correct in
their findings or was suiter murdered in the line of duty or even worse murdered by one of his own
in september of 2020 we followed the hit show unsolved mysteries and filled in some blanks in the ray
rivera case rey was an aspiring screenwriter who recently ended a long-term position
with one of those big financial and investment research firms ray disappeared after receiving a mysterious phone call
about a week later he was found at baltimore's historic belvedere hotel his body
somehow came crashing through the lower roof of an empty meeting room located on the
lobby level ray left us with many questions including a cryptic note folded up nice and tight and taped to
the back of his computer alongside of a blank check to this day we still do not know
what that note means or why rey ran out of his home after receiving that phone call
both ray rivera and detective suiters still unsolved unresolved cases read like a great john grisham novel
this week's case involves a young federal prosecutor working on a high profile trial
this young man is working hard probably burning the candle at both ends when he gets a late night phone call
he abruptly leaves his office near midnight embarking on a late night roundabout
journey punctuated by mysterious transactions and unexplained time gaps then his body is found in amish country
someone or someone's stabbed the young prosecutor 36 times yet no one was seen with him
his trip makes no sense and his stab wounds raise even more questions [Music] jonathan paul luna was 38 years old when
he was killed this case has been called baltimore's most high profile and perplexing murder
investigation and this is true crime garage [Music] december of 2003 jonathan paul luna is 38 years old
he's an assistant u.s attorney and at this time he is actively prosecuting a big case
jonathan left the private practice world four years earlier and became a federal
prosecutor at the u.s attorney's office in baltimore maryland in his role he prosecuted many cases against child
pornographers drug dealers counterfeiters and so on but his current case involved a locally well-known rap
artist whom the government was accusing of running a heroin ring out of his downtown baltimore music studio the
trial was in full swing on wednesday december 3rd but as happens in many cases on day
three of the trial the parties decided to enter into a plea agreement jonathan wrapped up court that day around 6 pm
and he went home jonathan lives with his family in elkridge maryland this is a family of four we have
jonathan's wife angela an obstetrician and their two young sons five-year-old justin and 10 month old jacob and living
with them is his mother-in-law so it's gonna seem like a typical evening they sit down and have dinner then after
dinner he explains to his wife i have to go back into the office tonight this is
because of that plea deal jonathan had to prepare the plea agreement that would be settled upon in court the next day so
he left for the federal courthouse in downtown baltimore at 8 48 p.m now my understanding here captain it's a short
drive for him to get to work it's about 10 miles at some point jonathan decided to
take his work home with him so he's at the office he's burning the midnight oil as they say and he decides you know what
i'm gonna finish the rest of this work up at home so he returns to the house and as he was working
now around 11 p.m that night jonathan received a call on his cell phone and after he hung up the phone he told
his wife angela that hey i gotta go back to the office again now it's our understanding that late
evening phone calls were far from unusual for his line of work this was a 24 hour a day job for
the dedicated attorney so one time going back to your office might not seem like
that big of a deal but two maybe raises a red flag here or there but we do know that he did go back to the
office a second time if i'm the wife two is definitely going to raise the red flag for me however
let's keep in mind that second trip back to the office is spurred by the phone call that he
receives and unfortunately we don't know who was on the other end of that call and as you
said captain we do know for a fact that he did go back to the office this is because building records show that his
honda that he was driving his vehicle entered the parking garage and stayed there until after 11 30. it's what
happened after that that is really a mystery we have some information on jonathan's
movements that night but before we get into that we should note that later that night jonathan's wife angela called
police this is to report her husband missing when he never came home and she could not reach him on his cell
or at his office when jonathan failed to show up for court the next morning at 9 30 a.m the u.s
attorney's office in baltimore raised the alarm that a federal prosecutor had gone missing
little did they know that jonathan's body had already been found and the location where his body was
found in the manner in which he died would raise more questions this case becomes more difficult because he's in a
line of work that you don't share the details with your spouse there's a lot of mystery in this case there's a lot of
mystery in jonathan luna's movements that night so we know jonathan is a lawyer but
colonel can you give us a little more background on who jonathan is jonathan paul luna was born to parents
paul and rosella he was raised in the patterson housing projects in the bronx where he picked up
his lifelong love for the yankees his father worked as a gentleman waiter at one of those high-end restaurants in the
city and his mom stayed at home with the two luna boys him and his brother jonathan was well liked but was
considered a bit of an egghead he was known to sit in a closet in the luna's cramped apartment reading books
jonathan's best friend daniel rivera told the washington post quote we thought he was a bit of an oddball
end quote young jonathan was known to his friends by his nickname joey again quoting from the post
in high school joey luna frequently showed up for class wearing suits and ties with curly hair and a runner's physique
the six foot tall luna was handsome tiger wood handsome is what they would say now after working his way through
college captain he set his sights on law school he went to the very prestigious university of north carolina law school
and graduated in 1992 president of his class after taking a year off to care for his
cancer-stricken father so you can see this is a guy he comes from humble beginnings he aims high he
shoots for the stars but at the same time he never lose loses track of who he is and where he came from taking time
off from his dream of becoming an attorney to take care of his his father who was ill
after law school he worked as an associate at one of dc's top law firms but soon
decided he wanted to be in the public sector so he moved to the federal trade commission and then the district
attorney's office in brooklyn again a far cry from the cushy job at a private firm i always found individuals
that were bookworms as a child to be very interesting and and very complex individuals but also individuals that
really knew themselves and eventually he gets this opportunity to join the us attorney's office in baltimore as a
federal prosecutor and he jumps all over it the maryland u.s attorney who hired him lynn battaglia said of jonathan
quote he had a really vivacious personality peppy excited full of vigor he really wanted the job he really
wanted to be an assistant u.s attorney end quote according to the post in his four years at the u.s attorney's office
he prosecuted about 80 criminal cases in six civil cases most were drug cases but there were also
many tough draining cases such as the conviction jonathan obtained of a man who sexually abused his
seven-year-old daughter and a man that jonathan got sentenced to 120 months for sexual exploitation of a
minor meanwhile jonathan met medical student angela on a blind date and as they say it was love at first
sight they were married on august 29 1993 they moved to elkridge maryland where angela
was from and eventually listen to the character of this young man eventually jonathan paid for his parents
to move nearby and help subsidize their home payments that's just the kind of person he was he
was going to take care of mom and dad all of his colleagues seem to like him and it does sound like captain around
the time of his death that might be a little more debatable but for the most part he's there for a
four-year span we couldn't really find anybody to publicly say a bad word about him and on the contrary he was called
special he was exciting and idealist a former prosecutor who worked with jonathan named joe evans said he was
wonderful upbeat person who was supremely dedicated to his mission and to his profession
even a defense attorney on the trial that jonathan was working on when he died he said he was a very decent person
and this is the opposing counsel you know even some of the defendants he worked so hard to put away i guess they
affectionately called him tito because they thought he because they thought he might look like
tito jackson opposing counsel but they work in the same field they're they're colleagues right
but also what we've learned in the last seven years is if a bunch of people like
you and if you walk into a room and light it up you might want to watch your back
thankfully for me i don't have that problem you darken the run uh he was an athletic
guy though captain he was an avid marathoner he loved to organize the office softball team and throw dinner
parties i guess he joined the barristers club in november the november before he was
killed this is a fraternity for judges and lawyers and his violent lonely death in that
cold stream in the middle of nowheresville pennsylvania was really was the last thing that anyone
would have expected just this initial introduction makes me think of the the movie the firm
but let's dive into what we know about the crime scene yeah so at 5 00 a.m on thursday morning
this is december 4th we have a drilling employee there's a company there i'll avoid their name but we have an
employee he's starting out his day as usual in the pre-dawn hours the company was located on dry tavern road
in lancaster county pennsylvania the worker parked his truck went inside you know did the normal
stuff got coffee went back outside to fill the company's trucks with fuel for their daily rounds
when he's doing this he spots a red light in the darkness off the road near a wooded area
so next we have a co-worker that shows up and the two men walked over to see what this light was it's not supposed to
be there as they approached they were startled to see that they had come upon what
appeared to them and what i'm sure they assumed was a car crash they see a silver 2003 honda accord that is 75
yards off of the road the vehicle's front wheels are in a small creek the headlights were off
but the engine was still running the red light they had seen was coming from the dashboard indicator light
concerned the men peered into the window of the vehicle but the car was empty in
the dim light keep in mind it's still dark at this time they could see what looked to them to be
blood on the front seat and a child's unoccupied car seat in the back of the vehicle
the workers called 9-1-1 and reported what they had found when asked on the phone by the operator
they said no we did not see the driver of the car anywhere the area of pennsylvania
where we're talking about here captain is a hundred miles from baltimore this is amish country it was so rural and
peaceful that no one was on duty from the local township police force so instead the state police handled the
9-1-1 call so now very quickly we have pennsylvania state police troopers who arrived on the
scene they had no trouble locating the car's presumed operator he was lying face down in the stream
basically under the front of the running honda he had no pulse emt emts noticed right away that the dead
man appeared to be riddled with stab wounds now back in baltimore jonathan's failure to appear in court
was a big deal and word spread quickly that he was missing when word came in that he had been found
dead 100 miles away there was an immediate call to action his boss u.s attorney for
maryland held a press conference on the steps of the federal courthouse building
and swore to solve jonathan's murder saying quote let there be no doubt that everyone in law enforcement local
police state police united states marshals atf fbi are united we will find out who did this
we are dedicated to bringing the persons responsible for this tragedy to justice
that's a commitment from me that's a commitment from every law enforcement officer in the state of maryland
jonathan's funeral would be attended by over a thousand individuals here's where we start to have a bunch of
problems with our true crime story this week here captain it's when you really try to dive into
the details to figure out what happened and a spoiler alert here for those of you that don't know the jonathan luna
case at some point the his whole death you know he is found stabbed and in this shallow creek in the waters of the
shallow creek but there will be debate in this case over the years as to was this a suicide
or a homicide now things were back then and are still to to this day very complicated by the refusal of law
enforcement to release the autopsy report in the absence of actual information from that report anonymous sourced
comments and rumors have skewed the narrative of the autopsy findings as a result there was a ton of
misinformation at the beginning of this case and i'm gonna go through some of that misinformation right now
so for example we have judge corals this is the judge that's presiding over jonathan's current trial when he's
killed this judge tells the associated press that the prosecutor jonathan had suffered multiple stab wounds and
gunshot wounds someone else said that jonathan appeared to be the victim of a quote an
execution-style murder sources told abc news another bit of information here or misinformation a search warrant
affidavit by the pennsylvania state police said that jonathan had suffered a traumatic wound to the right side of his
head now here is what we actually know and i'm going to use air quotes when i say the word actually
here's what we actually know with the caveat that the reports have never been officially released so we only quote
know this stuff from people in the know who have commented or from leaked information
well a lot of this information is going to come from the dr barry wall so he's a
family doctor but also works at the lancaster county or works as a lancaster county coroner and the
way that this comes out as said the the autopsy has never been officially released also they've refused to release
it but he's answered some questions on the record he was present when the forensic pathologist conducted the
autopsy now while the actual pathologist refused to discuss the results dr walp has
talked and he said to the baltimore sun that jonathan was found dressed in a business suit shirt and tie an overcoat
socks and shoes that there was no wallet or cell phone in luna's pockets but he was wearing a
work identification badge around his neck he was also wearing his wedding ring at
the time of his death now back to the wallet i have seen reports that say it was not in his pockets but was found in
the vehicle as for the cell phone not so much not located we'll get into the cell
phone in a little bit dr walp also reported that jonathan died from drowning and had suffered multiple stab wounds in
the neck and upper chest he was not shot his death was ruled a homicide so no matter what we want to debate
it was ruled ace it was ruled a homicide multiple sources say that jonathan suffered 36 puncture wounds to his upper
chest neck and head more than half of the wounds were to his neck well i'm going to play a little captain obvious
for you but in a mystery murder case one of your options that's on the table is possible suicide
this is not suicide period and how do we know that we have evidence of 36 puncture wounds
that's what they're telling us you don't puncture yourself 36 times so you can take suicide off the table
this lawyer jonathan luna was viciously murdered [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]
all right we are back cheers to the windows to the walls love you all i love that music captain
crank it up in my headphones talk hands in the air cheers to everybody for joining us in the garage
once again this week he was shaking his tush in his seat that's right i'm the best chair dancer you've ever seen
now captain these stab wounds are very interesting to me and i think you were touching on that just before the break
there because there were so many of these puncture wounds it's been reported by multiple sources jonathan suffered 36
puncture wounds let's get into some of the details about that so this dr walp said that
jonathan had suffered a number of shallow quote prick marks on his chest and neck in addition to
several deeper more serious stab wounds most of the stab wounds to jonathan are now largely reported as mostly
superficial this is from the post a federal prosecutor found stabbed and drowned in a rural pennsylvania creek
suffered numerous shallow puncture wounds described as prick marks on his chest neck and head suggesting
that he had been tortured now according to the coroner who examined his body said of these this referring to the
numerous prick marks said you would think that they were perhaps after information
from the guy when you see something like this or perhaps for kicks meaning these are just little little jabs and
little stabs and maybe somebody's holding him down and trying to get information out of him
or there was some kind of torture that was being performed on this young man as for jonathan several severe stab
wounds some penetrated at least four inches deep deep enough to cause hemorrhaging
on both sides of his neck the post reports that jonathan's left carotid artery had been punctured
causing him to bleed to death in minutes now basically what they're saying here captain is
he the water killed him he drowned in that small amount of water right because he's
found face down in the water but they're letting us know that these stab wounds and where the injuries were
on his body especially that carotid artery were enough to kill him so he would have died from the stab wounds
it's just the water killed him first makes you wonder because in this case they were going to reach agreement
so normally when that is happening both sides are like going to be happy about something
they're making a compromise it's not wanted you know oh well this guy did a bad job and now i'm going away
for for life and i think he screwed it up and so i'm going to make him pay it seems like like we said in this case
they were coming to agreement right and you're jumping to what was everyone's first suspicion in this case
right you got this prosecutor he's actively working this big case well it must involve the case that he
was currently working on and you know we said that him being found in this creek a hundred
miles away murdered this way was the last thing that anybody would have expected well that's not entirely true
there is a certain amount of danger that comes with this job right you're putting
away bad people who probably would like to do something bad to you so it's not the last thing that anybody
would expect we're spot on with our statement because of the way that he is found and where he is found nobody would
have expected him to be killed this way and so far from home now back to some more of this
information regarding the never released autopsy again dr walp said in an interview cited
by the post that jonathan was still breathing when he was dumped face down in the frigid water so that goes back to
the idea that the water killed him first but he certainly would have died from these puncture wounds yeah brutal the
doctor also said that there was a considerable amount of congealed blood which indicated to him
that jonathan had probably been lying there in that position for a period of time i hate when they use the phrase a
period of time we know he was there for a period of time was it a long period of
time or a short period of time yeah at least give us that yes dr walp corrected the statement in the
police affidavit citing the traumatic injury to jonathan's head he said that there was no there was no
such injury however and this makes a lot of sense the post reports that there was a head wound
but it's believed to have happened when he landed in the creek that maybe it wasn't somebody striking him over the
head with something it's simply when he fell face down into the creek that's when he
had this injury to the head defensive wounds were there any we this is what we want to know especially when
people are going to argue suicide so the post reported that there were cuts to jonathan's hands and a fingernail mark
near his wrist but there were no cuts to his arms and most reports say citing anonymous law enforcement sources that
there were no defensive wounds i debate that a little bit based off of the information that their work cuts to
his hands but again without this document being released we don't know exactly what is fact and
what is fiction here yeah is the doctor telling us the truth or is he just speculating on what he believes happened
now the vehicle jonathan's vehicle is going to be of major import to this case of course the maryland tags on the honda
stood out right away to the pennsylvania state police tracks on the ground showed how the
honda had turned off of the road and ended up creekside the car's doors were closed the headlights were off the
engine was idling i'm assuming it was in park or was stuck in a way that it couldn't move the
front wheels were reportedly right on the edge of the short embankment to this this very shallow stream
leaving indentations in the soft mud a police affidavit indicated that there was blood in the car and we know that we
have the two gentlemen that call 9-1-1 they say that they saw blood in the vehicle
as well but according to this police affidavit captain along with the blood inside the car there was cash
scattered inside the vehicle the post reported that about two hundred dollars in cash was found in the vehicle
and also something that they're calling cell phone equipment was found in the back of the vehicle i'm guessing that
might just be cell phone charger was found in the background maybe it's old zack morris phone
right well it's 2003. uh the affidavit also said he was holding on to his vintage the affidavit
also said that the investigators found blood smeared on the outside of the driver's side door
and left front fender of the vehicle inside the car the affidavit said that there was a large pool of blood
on the right rear floor of the car so we know that he has 36 puncture wounds he's going to be unfortunately leaving a
lot of blood at this scene it's really interesting to me where they're finding a lot of this
blood it would appear to me that he suffered a lot of these wounds before exiting the vehicle and he might
at some point have been in the rear seat of this vehicle right the fbi conducted
dna tests on the blood found in the honda it looks like they were looking to see
if all of the blood found was jonathan's or perhaps someone else someone else's blood as well had been
bleeding in the car there were many early reports this is incredibly interesting to me how
these things seem to go away in this case but early on captain there were many early reports
that it was determined that there was blood from a second person found in the vehicle but nothing
else about this has ever been released to the public right what was not found in jonathan's car again his cell phone
it was sitting in his office at the courthouse and so were his eyeglasses you'd think
that if he met somebody at his office they would have record of this or have some kind of cctv
surveillance you would be shocked at the lackluster security setup at the courthouse i was
really surprised when you have these people who are working with dangerous individuals that probably receive
threats on the reg that there's not better security or better surveillance at this area now
his cell phone and his eyeglasses being found at the office could be an indicator of either he
rushed out of the office for some reason or if he were to have been abducted at some
point that night maybe it happened at the office or he simply just forgot them it's really confusing but i think it's a
piece in this case that we cannot overlook and it should not be understated well it's strange though because he had
two important calls that we know of that altered the events of his night so you would think that if even if he's
leaving in a rush he's making sure he has that cell phone just in case he gets another
call well since jonathan luna is a federal employee the fbi is going to head up this investigation and it looks like a
field agent in baltimore her name jennifer love handled the case she made a public request for information saying
that the agency was aggressively investigating the circumstances surrounding jonathan's death
they looked at his computer files emails financial records past trials and prosecutions they poured over his phone
logs and palm pilot information i forgot all about palm pilots they interviewed his family friends colleagues and
associates and so on just like we would expect them to do investigators descended on
this lancaster county in the days after the death showing jonathan's photo to motel desk
clerks and gas station attendants and asking for guest logs and video security camera footage
the only avenue that bore fruit was when they started retracing his steps after he left the office on that fateful night
jonathan's car had in it what in the state of maryland and other states is called an easy pass transponder
so this allows one to do automated payments at toll booths so that you don't have to stop and throw
change in the bucket or hand over some cash to the tollbooth operator investigators gathered the electronic
toll records from his transponder and the security video of the transactions at toll booths where
payments were registered that night they also pulled his atm and credit card records and looked to see
where those cards were used if they were used that night and and they were and the picture that started to emerge
of jonathan's last hours well frankly they're very very confusing well before we dive into
the events of that night let's go back to this trial because they're set to make
a deal which like i said sets his evening in motion so what was this whole trial about okay
so you're spot on here captain because this was everyone's first assumption in luna's death and in fact so much so that
as soon as his body was found his co-prosecutor on the drug trial and his family and luna's family were all placed
under immediate law enforcement protection judge lynn battaglia who had hired jonathan in 1990 when she was a u.s
attorney for maryland told the post quote i was fearful that he had been killed in relationship to the job which
is what everyone thought and quote so these guys that he worked this deal with walter and
dion we know that they were both behind bars at the time of jonathan's death so they physically weren't the ones who
killed him but could they have arranged for some type of hit now this would make a lot
more sense as you're pointing out here captain if there were no plea bargain on the table
right and jonathan luna is the one that made the plea bargain to them and so we have one of the attorneys for
these guys that goes well out of their way to point out look not only was this a plea agreement in in
favor of these two guys that were facing all these charges it was a really good deal for both of
them more serious charges were being dropped in fact and so it was a really good deal for them and
so the attorney goes out of his way to say look they're not involved they didn't have
anything to do with it because if something happened to jonathan luna they run the risk of something happening
to that really good deal that they were going to get i do want to point something out here though before we move
off of this idea i don't think that this should be so quickly dismissed i agree because look a lot of criminals are
pretty dumb people all right and what happened if they ordered some kind of hit and the information of the plea deal
being offered that same day never makes it its way to the person that's going to
carry out the hit and so what if the hit was arranged before things had turned in
their favor and it was a dramatic turn in their favor an abrupt turn in their favor so what if that information didn't
reach the right set of ear balls and some monster goes out there and handles things the old dirty way
before they receive the information i think that that should still be a possibility however
however the big but on that one is duh this is investigated by the fbi and others this is the angle that they would
have pursued first and that they would have really looked at the most severely early on in this
case and so while i don't think we can so quickly dismiss this idea i'm a firm believer that this was
thoroughly looked at and considered maybe not ruled out completely but but really strongly looked at in this
case let me just say i like big butts and i cannot lie but maybe it's some kind of combination
of that oh yeah okay the the case shifts and you're going to give get me a deal but maybe this criminal from the
beginning said if this guy doesn't get me off then he's he's gone and to send a message to everybody else
i mean who knows but it seems like they were involved in quite a bit of wrongdoings yeah so the
the way these guys were violent individuals as well they weren't just selling drugs they were also violent one
in fact was accused of of murder but the thing here though captain is when i say
dramatic and abrupt shift in the case it was very much that because what ended up
happening was the witness that was going to put these guys away was an informant that was working for
the fbi and gathering information on these types of people right but at the same time
this individual was slipping out of their their ankle monitor that they were supposed to stay at home
and continue to sell drugs themselves continue to do violent behavior and break the law
all while being on the take from the fbi the problem with this then becomes for the prosecution because it's going
to look to everyone like hey there's an incentive for this guy to testify against these people
he's he's doing the fbi a favor they're taking care of him and he's putting away
these these other two bad guys meanwhile he's committing all these same crimes himself so it's a big big problem for
the prosecution and it's my understanding i did not pour through all of the court records on this
situation but it's my understanding that jonathan luna may have been aware of this and
i say may it's very very likely that he was aware of this and this is what brought on the plea agreement
because it looks to me like he failed to disclose that the prosecution it's a whole team so i shouldn't just say he
but they failed to disclose that information to the defense and so some big wrong doing yes yes here
in the united states you got to share the information so when they have that they're like oh
well maybe we can plead this thing out give these guys a really primo deal they take it and nobody no one's the wiser
yeah maybe they maybe these individuals figured out that this guy had information that he lied
about and then we shouldn't limit the possibility of a revenge type killing for his job to just this one trial i
mean think about how many people he had put away in his four years working for or working as an attorney
it looks to me like the the overall consensus regarding these individuals in that
trial are the investigators decided that jonathan's murder was not connected to that trial
and they even go out of their way to say that his murder was not connected to his work
so then they're going to have to start really looking elsewhere for an explanation well we have evidence that
he is not disclosing information that he should have been disclosing so that starts making me question his character
and like we said he could have had one character for most of his life but some of these guys they
they they start compromising their character to try to get ahead yes and this is going to require the law
enforcement to look into why there might be a personal motive to murder jonathan luna
so again per the post investigators have interviewed luna's wife angela as well as his friends and associates paul luna
the prosecutor's father who was 83 at the time of when he was interviewed said federal
investigators questioned him and his wife for three hours at their apartment in columbia the
investigators asked detailed questions about jonathan's personal life they asked whether jonathan had financial
problems they asked if he had girlfriends or boyfriends that maybe angela doesn't know about
and the digging did expose some secrets some deceptions also some rumors and allegations and
unfounded accusations all of which were seized on by the media and the public this is why jonathan's
family would eventually stop talking about the case altogether the officials who were involved refused
to address it any further and the whole thing today remains a sword in impenetrable mess
it's almost impossible to determine what is true what isn't what's significant and what's a total and complete red
herring or even outright fallacy so in february of 2004 this is at a news conference
fbi assistant director cassandra chandler said that the agency had been looking into more than 600 leads and
explained that its delving into jonathan's personal life was necessary to find answers the baltimore sun
reported that while jonathan was said to be outstanding at and dedicated to his job
that maybe things were not so bright and shiny on the inside co-workers told the paper that jonathan
had fallen out of favor with his boss but we do have his boss who publicly denied whispers that jonathan wasn't
cutting it but again it's been kind of private that's confirmed but that's after the
fact correct and some people will not speak of the dead right and it looks like okay so he was hired by one boss that
boss moves on to bigger and better things and then he gets a new boss and some of
us have experienced this where maybe the old regime really likes you and likes the cut of your jib and how you do
things and maybe the new regime does things differently and doesn't like the cut of your jib that's what it sounds
like to me but again on the public level his boss at the time of his death was saying you know everything was fine he
was a good employee well what about some other rumors or speculation that we've heard well this also kind of stems
from his job too so even if we have the boss saying everything was fine again privately people were saying no
things weren't so fine that his boss didn't like him we also have three legal sources who spoke to the son that told
the paper that jonathan was not acting like himself as of late leading up to his death
he they said he was distracted and disorganized which doesn't sound like him at all
based off of what we've already discussed i wonder if there's any possible drug use
well keep in mind just on the morning the morning before that fateful drive that later that night
on december 3rd jonathan was late to court and of course judges do not like that so the judge fined jonathan 25 for
being tardy this is just kind of a little you know slap on the on the hand there to remind you hey you got a job to
do we expect you and everybody else here to be on time right jonathan told the court that he was at the hospital all
night with his son who was ill this is difficult this could just be you know you're caught in the moment and you
tell a little white lie i couldn't find anything to confirm that he was at the hospital or that his son
was at the hospital the night before the other thing too keep in mind his wife is
a doctor so she could provide uh medical care and assessment of the sun at home better than
most of us of course the judge did hand out the fine regardless of the excuse but the sun's legal sources say that the
rumors of jonathan not being a good fit at the u.s attorney's office were right again three people said that he had
hinted that he was getting ready to leave the prosecutor's office and as you pointed out though captain
a lot of this guy's work and a lot of things that the work being done within this office are kind of off limits to
the public they're all going to kind of be very secret stuff we're not going to know all of the ins and outs of what
everybody was doing or their performance reviews and the like now you asked about other things well of
course the police are asking about other things too one thing in particular was debt that they wanted to know about yeah
financial troubles this can be a reason for murder or suicide or the baltimore sun reported that law enforcement
sources said that jonathan luna was 25 000 in debt on several credit cards okay so let's examine this though
this on the surface may seem like a lot but really is it a lot for a man who has
a family a mortgage two cars is helping to support his parents and probably still has law school debt
right maybe not here's where the problem comes in the sun says that he had as many as 16
credit cards that's what the newspaper says as many as 16 credit cards and some that maybe his wife didn't know about
okay that's a lot of cards right um i don't know if i picture the george costanza wallet when i hear that but
some people are better with money than others some people like to carry credit cards for the points
jonathan's friends all said that he never seemed to lack money well of course he's got 16 credit cards his wife
was a doctor so they had plenty of money coming in one thing that i've always kind of
thought about this when you see very successful people that are carrying debt that might be a little higher than one
would expect a couple of things one are these just little debts that mounted up to much larger debt at some point and
it kind of got forgotten about because they're successful people that are working very difficult demanding jobs
right and they have two small children and he's taking care of his parents these are little things that are just
part of everyday life and then one day you you review your finances at the end of the year and you go oh my goodness
well it was a bad year or boom over the last few years we racked up all of this debt
the other thing though too when we talk about credit cards that his wife did not
know about this goes out to the the married people out there the people that have been married
this has never been my experience but i have heard and been involved in conversations throughout my years on
this big blue marble where people have told me so and so has been married for years and
found out oh we were not in as good of standing as i thought we were we were behind on our bills or we had a lot more
debt than i thought when i go why didn't you know what was going on well my husband handles the finances or
my wife handles the finances and i just didn't pay any attention to it i thought that
she or he had it under control and i learned whoa we're in trouble so this this whole thing doesn't
look and i know that people have been killed over a lot less money but when we talk about money troubles i
think the only reason why this is a factor here and this number is mentioned this 25 thousand dollars and so on as
mentioned here in luna's case is because then there was suspicions that he could have been
involved in a theft that there were whispers about a possible theft [Music] thank you so much for joining us here on
the grounds today so much more to get to if you need more true crime garage for your ear balls go to truecrimegarage.com
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you

Jonathan Luna /// Part 1 /// 572

Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

Here in the Garage we have featured more than a fair share of strange and confusing crimes and murders. Each one of these stories and cases are unique but this week we have a real tricky True Crime Story. The homicide of 38 year old Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Luna. Jonathan’s body was found approximately one hundred miles from his home in Baltimore. He had suffered thirty six puncture wounds to his neck and chest area. The debates about this homicide, likely abduction and his movements on the night of his death have puzzled the public since his body was found in December of 2003. Join us in the Garage for a case that is sure to haunt you.

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Brief Summary

Federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna was found murdered with 36 stab wounds, raising questions about his death's connection to his work and personal life.

Key points

The Mysterious Death of Detective Suiter. Detective Suiter was killed just before testifying about police corruption. Was it suicide or murder?
Jonathan Luna's Perplexing Murder Case. Jonathan Luna, a federal prosecutor, was found dead after a mysterious late-night call.
U.S. Attorney's Commitment to Justice. U.S. Attorney vows to solve Jonathan Luna's murder, uniting law enforcement efforts.
Jonathan Luna's Death Ruled Homicide. Jonathan Luna died from multiple stab wounds and drowning, ruled a homicide.
The Brutality of the Attack. Jonathan suffered 36 puncture wounds, suggesting he was tortured before his death.
Confusion Surrounding the Investigation. Investigators are puzzled by the circumstances of Jonathan's death and missing items.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Could the Baltimore police be correct in their findings?

Debating the circumstances of Detective Suiter's death

4:14WatchApr 23, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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