Just before sunrise on Dec. 4, 2003, Jonathan Luna, a federal prosecutor from Baltimore, was found dead — sprawled facedown in a shallow creek next to his idling silver Honda Accord. The car was smeared with blood, and Luna had suffered dozens of small stab wounds around his chest and neck.
Nearly seven years later, the death of the 38-year-old assistant U.S. attorney remains a mystery, and not without controversy.
The coroner ruled Luna’s death was a homicide. The FBI has said that Luna was alone when he died, and unnamed federal sources leaked information about Luna’s personal troubles, prompting an investigation into the investigation.
This is what is known: The day before Luna was found dead, he was wrapping up a plea agreement against two heroin dealers after his case began to falter.
Around 11:30 p.m., Luna drove out of the office garage in Baltimore. Instead of heading home, the car turned north on Interstate 95, and Luna’s EZ-Pass was used to pay tolls in Maryland and Delaware.
Just before 1 a.m., Luna withdrew $200 at an automated teller machine in Newark, Del.
At 3:20 a.m., Luna’s debit card was used at a gas station in King of Prussia, Pa.
Around 4 a.m., his car exited the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The driver had used cash instead of the EZ-Pass to pay tolls on the New Jersey and Pennsylvania turnpikes.
Around 4:30 a.m., Luna was discovered in rural Pennsylvania by a well drilling company worker. Inside Luna’s car, police also found money and a pool of blood in the back seat.
The Lancaster County coroners ruled that the actual cause of death was drowning.
According to newspaper reports at the time, anonymous federal law enforcement sources said Luna had been scheduled to take a polygraph test to answer questions about $36,000 that had gone missing from drug case evidence. Luna also had $25,000 in credit card debt.
The FBI had investigated itself and questioned a federal agent who might have had a romantic link to Luna. Later, a Justice Department inspector general report about the inquiry concluded that there was “credible evidence of serious misconduct” in the way the agency dealt with the internal issue.
A year after Luna’s death, the FBI release a statement concluding that Luna was alone from the time he left his courthouse office to the time his body was found.
But prosecutors in Pennsylvania and Maryland say Luna’s case is still being investigated.
