Five years later, FBI admits Luna case is ‘inactive’
Five years after the mysterious death of Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Luna, the federal prosecutor’s father is still searching for answers.
In a rare telephone interview with The Examiner, Paul Luna said he is angered by law enforcement assertions that his son killed himself.
“That’s not true,” he said. “He was killed.”
Jonathan Luna, 38, was found dead in a shallow Denver, Pa., stream on Dec. 4, 2003. The married father of two boys had 36 stab and cut wounds from his own penknife. The former Lancaster County coroner who first examined Luna’s body, Barry Walp, is still adamant that Luna was a homicide victim.
“I made my ruling back in 2003 and it stands,” Walp said from his Pennsylvania home.
But Federal Bureau of Investigation officials say they’re no longer investigating the case, based on the agency’s belief that Luna likely committed suicide.
“It’s a pending-inactive,” said Richard Wolf, spokesman for the Baltimore field office of the FBI.
In a half-hour conversation from his Howard County home, Luna, 88, recounted the pain of losing a son.
“We were very close,” Paul Luna recalled. “I lived in New York, and I moved here to be near him. He was a very good guy; every time he came over, he hugged me and kissed me. Before he died, he was supposed to take me to the Philippines. Three days before he was murdered, he reminded me about my papers and passport, and I told him ‘Yes, I have them.’ ”
The FBI’s current stance on Luna’s case is a stark reversal from the days after Luna’s death — when the assistant director of the FBI, Cassandra Chandler, swore she would find justice for Luna. She said her agency’s investigation had uncovered 600 leads and was “intensive, thorough, and far-reaching.”
Luna was prosecuting drug dealers at the time of his death, but “most of the early information that led people to believe it was a work-related murder has turned out not to be true,” said Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein. “There’s information to suggest it might have been a suicide. I’m not sure we’ll ever get a satisfactory answer.”
As for Luna’s family’s concerns?
“Mysterious suicides are often very strange, and often families are reluctant to accept that,” he said.
TWO LEFT INVESTIGATING
Only two people are known to be still probing the case: private investigator, Ed Martino, and author William Keisling, who wrote “The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna.”
“They’re stone-walling. This is not a case that’s hard to solve,” Martino said of the FBI. “It would be one thing if he was found in the middle of the road with a gunshot wound, but he was found in a stream carved up like a turkey,” Keisling said.
They say much of the information leaked about Luna at the time of his death, such as claims he was in terrible debt, don’t make a strong case for suicide.
Court records reviewed by The Examiner suggest Luna’s debts were certainly no secret to his wife, an obstetrician-gynecologist, and hardly insurmountable for an accomplished prosecutor who, according to his father, was considering accepting a lucrative position in private practice.
A probate court filing on Luna’s estate listed two credit cards debts — an American Express card with an balance of $9,034 and an MBNA debt of $8,500 — as well as a $7,000 loan from Sallie Mae that was in good standing when he died.
SUICIDES BY CUTTING ARE RARE
Martino, who has launched a court battle in an attempt to gain access to sealed medical examiner records about Luna, said the location of the wounds makes suicide nearly impossible.
“He had deep wounds and he had hard-to-get-at wounds. Bad wounds in the groin,” he said.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that of the roughly 32,000 suicides in 2003, less than 2 percent were categorized as “cutting” or “piercing.” From 1979 to 1994, “cutting” suicides were consistently the rarest manner for self-inflicted death.
Despite the evidence, forensic specialists say the manner of Luna’s suicide can be explained.
The 36 stabs and cut wounds could be “hesitation cuts” — self-inflicted wounds as the person builds up the courage to deliver the fatal blow.
“You will sometimes find that there cases where people hesitate or nick an area repeatedly before completing the act,” said Dr. David Fowler, the Chief Maryland Medical Examiner.
Paul Luna said he was constantly worried that his son’s prosecutions of violent criminals would result in an attack. He said he tried to persuade his son to change jobs.
“He was trying to leave the government and try to go into private practice,” Paul Luna said. “I can’t understand why they assigned him to these dangerous drug people. When he was assistant D.A. in New York, he was trying the same kind of people.
“He never suspected anything like that. Basically, he was killed by one of the guys that he prosecuted. One of them hired someone to kill him.”
Timeline for Jonathan Luna’s “Midnight Ride”
Dec. 3, 2003:
• 11:38 p.m. Jonathan Luna’s vehicle left the U.S. District Court in downtown Baltimore, where he had been working on a rushed plea deal in a drug case.
• 11:49 p.m. His vehicle passed through Fort McHenry Tunnel Toll Plaza in Baltimore, northbound on I-95.
Dec. 4, 2003:
• 12:28 a.m. Luna’s vehicle passed through the Perryville Toll Plaza in Maryland, still traveling northbound.
• 12:46 a.m. The car passed through the Delaware Line Toll Plaza.
• 12:57 a.m. Luna’s debit card was used at an ATM at JFK Plaza in Newark, Del.
• 2:37 a.m. The prosecutor’s vehicle entered the New Jersey Turnpike at Exit 6A, from Route 130.
• 2:47 a.m. Luna’s vehicle got on the Pennsylvania Turnpike at Exit 359, the Delaware River Bridge.
• 3:20 a.m. Luna’s debit card is used again at a Sunoco gasoline station, King of Prussia, Pa., this time to purchase gas.
• 4:04 a.m. His vehicle left the Pennsylvania Turnpike at Exit 286, the Reading/Lancaster interchange.
• 5:30 a.m. Luna’s body was discovered face-down in a steam off Dry Tavern Road in Denver, Pa. His car was idling nearby.
Source: FBI
