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welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and
00:01:47
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
00:01:55
the C yeah destroying the government from the inside out it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening
00:02:02
and thanks for telling a [Music] friend this week I am very excited to be featuring a seasonal beer from one of
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our very favorite breweries this week look out because we are featuring Peach full by the great Highland Brewing in
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beautiful Asheville North Carolina inspired by the south favorite fruit this ale features the soft sweetness of
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the peach this ale is delicious and refreshing garage grade three and 3/4 bottle caps out of five and we'd like to
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thank some of our friends for helping us out with this week's beer fund first up
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we got a big shout out to Frank in Kingsley Michigan and a big shout out to Nicole in Charlotte North Carolina and
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here's a sunny cheers to Steven in Tampa Florida and a big we like your JY to Kelly and Evansville Indiana let's give
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a cheers to Ruth Anna in chrisfield Maryland and last but C certainly not least we have Joseph and Perth New
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Zealand everyone we just mentioned went to True Crim garage.com and helped us out with this week's beer run and for
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that we thank you yeah say it with me BW r n Beer Run go to the store and get your some hey but if you're not on the
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mailing list go sign up right now because I've been sending out promo codes I'm going to send out another one
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in a couple weeks and so if you're not on the list you're not in the no and Colonel that's enough the
00:03:29
business yes all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:38
[Music] crime [Music] this week's Crime Story reads like some kind of legal thriller or a crime
00:04:17
fiction novel like those by the great John Grisham but trust me my garage friends
00:04:24
when I say this unfortunately is a very real and true story this week we go to the big city of
00:04:33
Baltimore the city that frankly has left us with many a mystery back in February of
00:04:40
2019 we here at True Crime garage told you the story of detective sha suder a young hardworking Baltimore homicide
00:04:48
detective who was killed on the job with his service weapon the Baltimore Police
00:04:54
Department stated they believed his death was a suicide we told you that something fishy
00:05:00
was going on detective sudor was killed just one day before he was scheduled to testify before a Federal grand jury
00:05:09
investigating police corruption in Baltimore to this day many still debate detective suter's
00:05:16
death could the Baltimore Police be correct in their findings or was sudor murdered in the
00:05:23
line of duty or even worse murdered by one of his own in September of 2020 we followed the hit show Unsolved
00:05:34
Mysteries and filled in some blanks in the ray Rivera case Ray was an aspiring screenwriter who recently ended a
00:05:43
long-term position with one of those big financial and investment research firms Ray disappeared after receiving a
00:05:52
mysterious phone call about a week later he was found at Baltimore's Historic badier Hotel
00:06:00
his body somehow Came Crashing through the lower roof of an empty meeting room located on the lobby
00:06:08
level Ray left us with many questions including a cryptic note folded up nice and tight and taped to the back of his
00:06:17
computer alongside of a blank check to this day we still do not know what that note means or why Ry ran out of his home
00:06:27
after receiving that phone call both Ray Rivera and detective Suitor still unsolved unresolved cases read
00:06:35
like a great John Grisham novel this week's case involves a young Federal prosecutor working on a
00:06:42
high-profile trial this young man is working hard probably burning the candle at both ends
00:06:49
when he gets a late night phone call he abruptly leaves his office near midnight
00:06:56
embarking on a late night roundabout Journey punct uated by mysterious transactions and unexplained time
00:07:03
gaps then his body is found in Amish Country someone or someone's stabbed the young prosecutor 36 times yet no one was
00:07:15
seen with him his trip makes no sense and his stab wounds raise even more questions Jonathan Paul Luna was 38
00:07:25
years old when he was killed this case has been called Baltimore's most high-profile and perplexing murder
00:07:32
investigation and this is true crime [Music] garage December of 203 Jonathan Paul Luna is 38 years old
00:07:57
he's an assistant us attorney and at this time he is actively Prosecuting a big case Jonathan left the Private
00:08:05
Practice World 4 years earlier and became a federal prosecutor at the US attorney's office in Baltimore Maryland
00:08:14
in his role he prosecuted many cases against child pornographers drug dealers counterfeits and so on but his current
00:08:22
case involved a locally well-known rap artist whom the government was accusing of running a heroin ring out of his
00:08:29
downtown Baltimore music studio the trial was in full swing on Wednesday December 3rd but as happens in many
00:08:37
cases on day three of the trial the parties decided to enter into a plea agreement Jonathan wrapped up court that
00:08:45
day around 6:00 p.m. and he went home Jonathan lives with his family in Elkridge
00:08:51
Maryland this is a family of four we have Jonathan's wife Angela an obstetrician and their two young Sons
00:08:59
5-year-old Justin and 10-month-old Jacob and living with them is his mother-in-law so it's going to seem like
00:09:05
a typical evening they sit down and have dinner then after dinner he explains to
00:09:11
his wife I have to go back into the office tonight this is because of that plea deal Jonathan had to prepare the
00:09:18
plea agreement that would be settled upon in court the next day so he left for the federal courthouse in downtown
00:09:25
Baltimore at 8:48 p.m. now my standing here Captain it's a short drive for him to get to work it's about 10 miles at
00:09:35
some point Jonathan decided to take his work home with him so he's at the office
00:09:41
he's burning the midnight oil as they say and he decides you know what I'm going to finish the rest of this work up
00:09:48
at home so he returns to the house and as he was working now around 11:00 p.m. that night Jonathan received a call on
00:09:59
his cell phone and after he hung up the phone he told his wife Angela that hey I
00:10:05
got to go back to the office again now it's our understanding that late evening phone calls were far from unusual for
00:10:13
his line of work this was a 24hour a day job for the dedicated attorney so one time going back to your office might not
00:10:22
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
00:10:31
the office a second time if I'm the wife two is definitely going to raise a red flag for me however let's keep in mind
00:10:38
that second trip back to the office is spurred by the phone call that he receives and unfortunately we don't know
00:10:46
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
00:10:54
this is because building records show that his Honda that he was driving his vehicle entered the parking garage and
00:11:00
stayed there until after 11:30 it's what happened after that that is really a mystery we have some
00:11:10
information on Jonathan's movements that night but before we get into that we should note that later that night
00:11:18
Jonathan's wife Angela called police this is to report her husband missing when he never came home and she could
00:11:25
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
00:11:35
US attorney's office in Baltimore raised the alarm that a federal prosecutor had
00:11:40
gone missing little did they know that Jonathan's body had already been found and the location where his body was
00:11:48
found and the manner in which he died would raise more questions this case becomes more difficult because he's in a
00:11:55
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
00:12:02
mystery in Jonathan Luna's movements that night so we know Jonathan is a lawyer but Colonel can you give us a
00:12:10
little more background on who Jonathan is Jonathan Paul Luna was born to parents Paul and Rosella he was raised
00:12:19
in the Patterson housing projects in the Bronx where he picked up his Lifelong Love for the Yankees his father worked
00:12:26
as a gentleman waiter at one of those high-end restaurants in the city and his mom stayed at home with the two Luna
00:12:34
boys him and his brother Jonathan was well-liked but was considered a bit of an eggh head he was known to sit in a
00:12:42
closet in the Luna's cramped apartment reading books Jonathan's best friend Daniel Rivera told the Washington Post
00:12:50
quote we thought he was a bit of an oddball end quote young Jonathan was known to his friends by his nickname
00:12:58
Joey again quoting from the post in high school Joey Luna frequently showed up for class wearing suits and ties with
00:13:06
curly hair and a runner's physique the 6 foot tall Luna was handsome Tiger Wood handsome is what they would say now
00:13:14
after working his way through college Captain he set his sights on law school he went to the very prestigious
00:13:20
University of North Carolina law school and graduated in 1992 president of his class after taking a year off to care
00:13:29
for his cancer stricken father so you can see this is a guy he comes from humble beginnings he aims high he shoots
00:13:37
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
00:13:44
his dream of becoming an attorney to take care of his his father who was Ill after law school he worked as an
00:13:53
associate at one of DC's top law firms but soon decid decided he wanted to be in the public sector so he moved to the
00:14:03
Federal Trade Commission and then the District Attorney's Office in Brooklyn again a far cry from the cushy job at a
00:14:11
private firm always found individuals that were bookworms as a child to be very interesting and and very complex
00:14:21
individuals but also individuals that really knew themselves and eventually he gets this opportunity to join the US
00:14:28
attorneys on office in Baltimore as a federal prosecutor and he jumps all over it the Maryland us attorney who hired
00:14:35
him Lyn baglia said of Jonathan quote he had a really vivacious personality pey excited full of vigor he really wanted
00:14:46
the job he really wanted to be an assistant us attorney end quote according to the Post in his four years
00:14:53
at the US attorney's office he prosecuted about 80 criminal cases in six civil cases most were drug cases but
00:15:03
there were also many tough draining cases such as the conviction Jonathan obtained of a man who sexually abused
00:15:10
his seven-year-old daughter and a man that Jonathan got sentenced to0 months for sexual exploitation of a
00:15:18
minor meanwhile Jonathan met medical student Angela on a blind date and as they say
00:15:26
it was love at first sight they were married on August 29th 1993 they moved to Elkridge Maryland where Angela was
00:15:35
from and eventually listen to the character of this young man eventually Jonathan paid for his parents to move
00:15:43
nearby and help subsidize their home payments that's just the kind of person he was he was going to take care of Mom
00:15:51
and Dad all of his colleagues seem to like him and it does sound like Captain around the time of his his death that
00:15:59
might be a little more debatable but for the most part he's there for a 4-year span we couldn't really find anybody to
00:16:07
publicly say a bad word about him and on the contrary he was called special he was exciting and idealist a former
00:16:16
prosecutor who worked with Jonathan named Joe Evans said he was wonderful upbeat person who was supremely
00:16:24
dedicated to his mission and to his profession even a defense attorney on the trial that Jonathan was working on
00:16:32
when he died mhm he said he was a very decent person and this is opposing Council you know even some of the
00:16:40
defendants he worked so hard to put away I guess they affectionately called him Tito because they thought he because
00:16:47
they thought he might look like Tito Jackson opposing Council but they work in the same field they're they're
00:16:54
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
00:17:00
walk into a room and light it up you might want to watch your back thankfully for me I don't have that problem MH you
00:17:08
dark in the room uh he was an athletic guy though Captain he was an avid marathoner he
00:17:14
loved to organize the office softball team and throw dinner parties I guess he joined the barristers Club in November
00:17:22
the November before he was killed this is a fraternity for judges and lawyers and his violent lonely death in that
00:17:30
cold stream in the middle of nowheresville Pennsylvania was really was the last thing that anyone would
00:17:37
have expected just this initial introduction makes me think of the the movie The Firm mhm but let's dive into
00:17:46
what we know about the crime scene yeah so at 5 a.m. on Thursday morning this is
00:17:54
December 4th we have a drilling employee there's a company there I'll avoid their
00:18:01
name but we have an employee he's starting out his day as usual in the pre-dawn hours the company was located
00:18:09
on Dry Tavern Road in Lancaster County Pennsylvania the worker parked his truck went inside you know did the normal
00:18:18
stuff got coffee went back outside to fill the company's trucks with fuel for their daily rounds when he's doing this
00:18:26
he spots a red light in the darkness off the road near a wooded area so next we have a coworker
00:18:35
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
00:18:43
they were startled to see that they had come upon what appeared to them and what
00:18:48
I'm sure they assumed was a car crash they see a silver3 Honda Accord that is 75 yd off
00:18:56
of the road the vehicle's from front wheels are in a small Creek the headlights were off but the engine was
00:19:04
still running the red light they had seen was coming from the dashboard indicator light concerned the men peered
00:19:13
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
00:19:21
could see what looked to them to be Blood on the front seat and a child's unoccupied car in the back of the
00:19:30
vehicle the workers called 911 and reported what they had found when asked on the phone by the
00:19:38
operator they said no we did not see the driver of the car anywhere the area of Pennsylvania where we're talking about
00:19:49
here Captain is 100 miles from Baltimore this is Amish Country it was so Rural and peaceful that no one was on duty
00:19:58
from from the local Township police force so instead the state police handled the 911 call so now very quickly
00:20:06
we have Pennsylvania State Police Troopers who arrived on the scene they had no trouble locating the cars
00:20:13
presumed operator he was lying face down in the Stream basically under the front
00:20:19
of the running Honda he had no pulse EMT EMTs noticed right away that the dead man appeared to be riddled with
00:20:29
stab wounds now back in Baltimore Jonathan's failure to appear in court was a big deal and word spread
00:20:37
quickly that he was missing when word came in that he had been found dead 100 miles away there was an immediate call
00:20:45
to action his boss us attorney for Maryland held a press conference on the steps of the federal courthouse building
00:20:54
and swore to solve Jonathan's murder saying quote let there be no doubt that everyone in law enforcement local police
00:21:01
State Police United States Marshals ATF FBI are united we will find out who did this we are dedicated to bringing the
00:21:12
persons responsible for this tragedy to Justice that's a commitment from me that's a commitment from every law
00:21:19
enforcement officer in the state of Maryland Jonathan's funeral would be attended by over a thousand individuals
00:21:26
here's where we start the have a bunch of problems with our true crime story this week here Captain it's when you
00:21:33
really try to dive into the details to figure out what happened and a spoiler alert here for those of you that don't
00:21:41
know the Jonathan Luna case at some point the his whole death you know he is found stabbed and in this shallow Creek
00:21:52
in the waters of this shallow Creek but there will be debate in this case over the years as to was this a suicide or a
00:22:02
homicide now things were back then and are still to to this day very complicated by the refusal of law
00:22:11
enforcement to release the autopsy report in the absence of actual information from that report Anonymous
00:22:19
sourced comments and rumors have skewed The Narrative of the autopsy findings as
00:22:25
a result there was a ton of misinformation at the beginning of this case and I'm going to go through some of
00:22:31
that misinformation right now so for example we have judge corals this is the judge that's presiding over Jonathan's
00:22:40
current trial when he's killed this judge tells the Associated Press that the prosecutor Jonathan had suffered
00:22:47
multiple stab wounds and gunshot wounds someone else said that Jonathan appeared to be the victim of a quote an
00:22:55
execution style murder sources told ABC News another bit of information here or misinformation a search warrant
00:23:05
affidavit by the Pennsylvania State Police said that Jonathan had suffered a traumatic wound to the right side of his
00:23:12
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
00:23:20
actually know with the caveat that the reports have never been officially released so we only quote know this
00:23:29
stuff from people in the know who have commented or from leaked information well a lot of this
00:23:37
information is going to come from the Dr Barry wal so he's a family doctor but also works at the lanaster county or
00:23:45
works as a Lancaster County coroner and the way that this comes out as said the the autopsy has never been officially
00:23:52
released also they've refused to release it but he's answered some question on the record he was present when the
00:24:00
forensic pathologist conducted the autopsy now while the actual pathologist refus to discuss the results Dr walp has
00:24:09
talked and he said to the Baltimore son that Jonathan was found dressed in a business suit shirt and tie an Overcoat
00:24:18
socks and shoes that there was no wallet or cell phone in Luna's Pockets but he was wearing a work identification badge
00:24:27
around his neck he was also wearing his wedding ring at the time of his death now back to the
00:24:34
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
00:24:43
much not located we'll get into the cell phone in a little bit Dr walp also reported that Jonathan died from
00:24:50
drowning and had suffered multiple stab wounds in the neck and upper chest he was not shot his death was was ruled a
00:24:58
homicide so no matter what we want to debate it was ruled a it was ruled a homicide multiple
00:25:08
sources say that Jonathan suffered 36 puncture wounds to his upper chest neck and head more than half of the wounds
00:25:15
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
00:25:23
options that's on the table is possible suicide this is not suicide period and how do we know that we have evidence of
00:25:32
36 puncture wounds that's what they're telling us you you don't puncture yourself 36 times so you can take
00:25:40
suicide off the table this lawyer Jonathan Luna was viciously [Music] murdered this show is sponsored by better help do
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windows to the walls love you all I love that music Captain Crank It Up in my headphones tall cans in the air cheers
00:28:55
to everybody for joining us in the garage once again this week he was shaking his
00:29:00
tush in his seat that's right I'm the best chair dancer you've ever seen now Captain these stab wounds are very
00:29:08
interesting to me and I think you were touching on that just before the break there because there were so many of
00:29:15
these puncture wounds it's been reported by multiple sources Jonathan suffered 36
00:29:21
puncture wounds let's get into some of the details about that so this Dr walp said that Jonathan had suffered a number
00:29:30
of shallow quote prick marks on his chest and neck in addition to several deeper more serious stab wounds most of
00:29:39
the stab wounds to Jonathan are now largely reported as mostly superficial this is from the post a federal
00:29:48
prosecutor found stabbed and drowned in a rural Pennsylvania Creek suffered numerous shallow puncture wounds
00:29:54
described as prick marks on his chest neck and head suggesting that he had been tortured now according to the
00:30:02
coroner who examined his body said of these this referring to the numerous prick marks said you would think that
00:30:10
they were perhaps after information from the guy when you see something like this
00:30:16
or perhaps for kicks meaning these are just little little Jabs and little stabs and maybe somebody was holding him down
00:30:24
and trying to get information out of him or there was some kind of torture that was being performed on this young man as
00:30:32
for Jonathan's several severe stab wounds some penetrated at least 4 in deep deep enough to cause hemorrhaging
00:30:40
on both sides of his neck the post reports that Jonathan's left cored artery had been punctured causing him to
00:30:47
bleed to death in minutes now basically what they're saying here Captain is he the water killed him he drowned in that
00:30:57
small amount of water right cuz he's found face down in the water but they're letting us know that these stab wounds
00:31:04
and where the injuries were on his body especially that cored artery were enough
00:31:09
to kill him so he would have died from the stab wounds it's just the water killed him first makes you wonder
00:31:17
because in this case they were going to reach agreement so normally when that is
00:31:24
happening both sides are like going to be happy about something they're making a compromise mhm it's not wanted oh well
00:31:32
this guy did a bad job and now I'm going away for for life and I think he screwed
00:31:37
it up and so I'm going to make him pay it it seems like like we said in this case they were coming to agreement right
00:31:44
and you're jumping to what was everyone's first suspicion in this case right you got this prosecutor he's
00:31:52
actively working this big case well it must involve the case that he was currently working on and you know we
00:31:59
said that him being found in this Creek 100 miles away murdered this way was the
00:32:06
last thing that anybody would have expected well that's not entirely true there is a certain amount of danger that
00:32:14
comes with this job right you're putting away bad people who probably would like
00:32:19
to do something bad to you so it's not the last thing that anybody would expect we're we're spoton with our statement
00:32:26
because of the way that he is found and where he is found nobody would have expected him to be killed this way and
00:32:33
so far from home now back to some more of this information regarding the Never released
00:32:41
autopsy again Dr walp said in an interview cited by the post that Jonathan was still breathing when he was
00:32:47
dumped face down in the frigid water so that goes back to the idea that the water killed him first but he certainly
00:32:54
would have died from these puncture wounds BR the doctor also said that there was a considerable amount of
00:33:00
congealed blood which indicated to him that Jonathan had probably been lying there in that position for a period of
00:33:09
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
00:33:15
time or a short period of time yeah at least give us that yes Dr walp corrected the statement in the police affid davit
00:33:23
citing the traumatic injury to Jonathan's head he said said that there was no there was no such injury however
00:33:31
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
00:33:38
landed in the creek that maybe it wasn't somebody striking him over the head with
00:33:43
something it's simply when he fell face down into the creek that's when he had this injury to the Head
00:33:54
defensive wounds were there any we this is what we want to know especially when people were going to argue suicide so
00:34:02
the post reported that there were cuts to Jonathan's hands and a fingernail Mark near his wrist but there were no
00:34:10
cuts to his arms and most Reports say citing Anonymous law enforcement sources that there were no defensive wounds I
00:34:20
debate that a little bit based off of the information that there were cuts to his hands but again without this docu
00:34:27
being released we don't know exactly what is fact and what is fiction here yeah is the doctor telling us the truth
00:34:34
or is he just speculating on what he believes happened now the vehicle Jonathan's vehicle is going to be of
00:34:42
major import to this case of course the Maryland tags on the Honda stood out right away to the Pennsylvania State
00:34:49
Police tracks on the ground showed how the Honda had turned off of the road and ended up Creekside the car's doors were
00:34:58
closed the headlights were off the engine was idling I'm assuming it was in park or was stuck in a way that it
00:35:06
couldn't move the front wheels were reportedly right on the edge of the short embankment to this this very
00:35:13
shallow stream leaving indentations in the soft mud a police affidavit indicated that there was blood in the
00:35:21
car and we know that we have the two gentlemen that call 911 they say that they saw blood in the vehicle as well
00:35:29
but according to this police affidavit Captain along with the blood inside the car there was Cash scattered inside the
00:35:36
vehicle mhm the post reported that about $200 in cash was found in the vehicle and also something that they're calling
00:35:44
cell phone equipment was found in the back of the vehicle I'm guessing that might just be cell phone charger was
00:35:50
found in the back ofic maybe it's old Zack Morris phone right well it's 2003 three uh the affidavit also said that he
00:35:59
was holding on to his vintage you know the affidavit also said that the investigators found blood smeared on the
00:36:05
outside of the driver's side door and left front fender of the vehicle inside the car the affidavit said that there
00:36:14
was a large pull of Blood on the right rear floor of the car so we know that he has 36 puncture wounds he's going to be
00:36:25
unfortunately leaving lot of blood at this scene it's really interesting to me where they're finding
00:36:32
a lot of this Blood it would appear to me that he suffered a lot of these wounds before exiting the vehicle and he
00:36:40
might at some point have been in the rear seat of this vehicle right the FBI conducted DNA tests on the blood found
00:36:49
in the Honda it looks like they were looking to see if all of the blood found was Jonathan's or perhaps someone else
00:36:58
someone else's blood as well had been bleeding in the car there were many early reports the this is incredibly
00:37:06
interesting to me how these things seem to go away in this case but early on Captain there were many early reports
00:37:14
that it was determined that there was blood from a second person found in the vehicle but nothing else about this has
00:37:20
ever been released to the public right what was not found in Jonathan's car again his cell phone it was sitting in
00:37:30
his office at the courthouse and so were his eyeglasses you would think that if he met somebody at his office they would
00:37:38
have record of this or have some kind of CCTV surveillance you would be shocked at the
00:37:46
lackluster security setup at the courthouse I was really surprised when you have these people who are working
00:37:55
with dangerous individuals that probably receive threats on the rag that there's
00:38:00
not better security or better surveillance at this area now his cell phone and his eyeglasses being found at
00:38:10
the office could be an indicator of either he rushed out of the office for some reason or if he were to have been
00:38:18
abducted at some point that night maybe it happened at the office or he simply just forgot them it's really conf
00:38:26
confusing but I think it's a piece in this case that we cannot Overlook and it should not be
00:38:31
understated well it's strange though because he had two important calls that we know of that altered the events of
00:38:40
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
00:38:48
in case he gets another call well since Jonathan Luna is a federal employee the FBI is going to head up this
00:38:57
investigation and it looks like a field agent in Baltimore her name Jennifer Love handled the case she made a public
00:39:04
requests for information saying that the agency was aggressively investigating the circumstances surrounding Jonathan's
00:39:12
death they looked at his computer files emails Financial records past trials and
00:39:19
prosecutions they poured over his phone logs and Palm Pilot information I forgot
00:39:25
all about Palm Pilots they interviewed his family friends colleagues and Associates and so on just like we would
00:39:32
expect them to do investigators descended on this Lancaster County in the days after the death showing
00:39:42
Jonathan's photo to motel desk clerks and gas station attendants and asking for guest logs and video security camera
00:39:51
footage the only Avenue that bore fruit was when they started retracing his steps after he left the office on that
00:40:00
fateful night Jonathan's car had in it what in the state of Maryland and other states is called an Easy Pass
00:40:08
transponder so this allows one to do automated payments at toll booths so that you don't have to stop and throw
00:40:16
change in the bucket or hand over some cash to the toll booth operator investigators gathered the
00:40:23
electronic toll records from his transponder and the security video of the transactions at toll booths where
00:40:31
payments were registered that night they also pulled his ATM and credit card records and looked to see where those
00:40:40
cards were used if they were used that night and and they were and the picture that started to emerge of Jonathan's
00:40:48
last hours well frankly they're very very confusing well before we dive into the events of that night let's go back
00:40:56
back to this trial because they're set to make a deal mhm which like I said sets his evening in motion so what was
00:41:06
this whole trial about okay so your spot on here Captain because this was everyone's first assumption in Luna's
00:41:14
death and in fact so much so that as soon as his body was found his co-prosecutor on the drug trial and his
00:41:23
family and Luna's family were all placed under immediate law enforcement protection Judge Lynn baglia who had
00:41:31
hired Jonathan in 1990 when she was a US attorney for Maryland told the post quote I was fearful that he had been
00:41:38
killed in relationship to the job which is what everyone thought end quote so these guys that he worked this deal with
00:41:47
Walter and Dion we know that they were both behind bars at the time of Jonathan's death so
00:41:54
they physically weren't the ones who killed him but could they have arranged for some type of hit now this would make
00:42:01
a lot more sense as you're pointing out here Captain if there were no plea bargain on the table right and Jonathan
00:42:08
Luna is the one that made the plea bargain to them and so we have one of the attorneys for these guys that goes
00:42:15
well out of their way to point out look Not only was this a plea agreement in in
00:42:21
favor of these two guys that were facing all these charges it was a really good deal for both of them more serious
00:42:30
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
00:42:38
to say look they're not involved they didn't have anything to do with it because if something happened to
00:42:44
Jonathan Luna they run the risk of something happening to that really good deal that they were going to get I do
00:42:50
want to point something out here though before we move off of this idea I don't think that this should be so quickly
00:42:56
dismissed I agree because look a lot of criminals are pretty dumb people all right and what happened if they ordered
00:43:04
some kind of hit and the information of the plea deal being offered that same day never makes it its way to the person
00:43:12
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
00:43:18
was a dramatic turn in their favor an Abrupt turn in their favor so what if that information didn't reach the right
00:43:25
set of ear balls and some monster goes out there and handles things the old dirty way before they receive the
00:43:33
information I think that that should still be a possibility however however the big butt on that one
00:43:40
is duh this is investigated by the FBI and others this is the angle that they would have pursued first and that they
00:43:48
would have really looked at the most severely early on in this case and so while I don't think we can so quickly
00:43:56
dismissed this idea I a firm believer that this was thoroughly looked at and considered maybe not ruled out
00:44:05
completely but but really strongly looked at in this case let me just say I like big butts and I cannot lie but
00:44:13
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
00:44:20
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
00:44:30
message to everybody else I mean who knows but it seems like they were involved in quite a bit of wrongdoings
00:44:39
yeah so the the way these guys were violent individuals as well they weren't just selling drugs they were also
00:44:45
violent one in fact was accused of of murder but the thing here though Captain is when I say dramatic and abrupt shift
00:44:53
in the case it was very much that because what ended up happening was the witness that was going to put these guys
00:45:00
away was an informant that was working for the FBI and gathering information on these
00:45:08
types of people right but at the same time this individual was slipping out of their their ankle monitor that they were
00:45:16
supposed to stay at home and continue to sell drugs themselves continued to do violent behavior and break the law all
00:45:24
while being on the table from the FBI the problem with this then becomes for the prosecution because it it's going to
00:45:33
look to everyone like hey there is an incentive for this guy to testify against these people he's he's doing the
00:45:41
FBI a favor they're taking care of him and he's putting away these these other two bad guys meanwhile he's committing
00:45:47
all these same crimes himself so it's a big big problem for the prosecution and it's my understanding I did not pour
00:45:56
through all of the court records on this situation but it's my understanding that
00:46:00
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
00:46:08
what brought on the plea agreement because it looks to me like he failed to disclose that the prosecution it's a
00:46:17
whole team so I shouldn't just say he but they failed to disclose that information to the
00:46:24
defense and which is some big wrongdoing yes yes here in the United States you got to share the information so when
00:46:32
they have that they're like oh well maybe we can plea this thing out give these guys a really Primo deal they take
00:46:38
it and nobody no one's the wiser yeah maybe they maybe these individuals figured out that this guy had
00:46:46
information that he lied about and then we shouldn't limit the possibility of a Revenge Type killing for his job to just
00:46:53
this one trial I mean think about how many people he had put away in his four years working for or working as an
00:47:01
attorney it looks to me like the the overall consensus regarding these individuals in that trial are the
00:47:08
investigators decided that Jonathan's murder was not connected to that trial and they even go out of their way to say
00:47:16
that his murder was not connected to his work so then they're going to have to start really looking elsewhere for an
00:47:24
explanation well we have evidence that he is not disclosing information that he should have been
00:47:31
disclosing so that starts making me question his character and like we said he could have had one character for most
00:47:38
of his life but some of these guys they they they start compromising their character to try to get ahead yes and
00:47:47
this is going to require the law enforcement to look into why there might be a personal motive to murder Jonathan
00:47:55
Luna so again per the post investigators have interviewed Luna's wife Angela as well
00:48:00
as his friends and Associates Paul Luna the prosecutor's father who was 83 at the time of uh when he was interviewed
00:48:08
said Federal investigators questioned him and his wife for three hours at their apartment in Colombia the
00:48:14
investigators asked detailed questions about Jonathan's personal life they asked whether Jonathan had financial
00:48:21
problems they asked if he had girlfriends or boyfriends that maybe Angela doesn't know about and the
00:48:29
digging did expose some Secrets some deceptions also some rumors and allegations and unfounded accusations
00:48:38
all of which were seized on by the media and the public this is why Jonathan's family would eventually stop talking
00:48:46
about the case Al together the officials who were involved refused to address it
00:48:52
any further and the whole thing today remains a sword in impenetrable mess it's almost impossible to determine what
00:49:01
is true what isn't what's significant and what's a total and complete red herring or even outright fallacy so in
00:49:09
February of 2004 this is at a news conference FBI assistant director Cassandra Chandler said that the agency
00:49:19
had been looking into more than 600 leads and explained that it's delving into Jonathan's personal life was
00:49:27
necessary to find answers the Baltimore son reported that while Jonathan was said to be outstanding at and dedicated
00:49:35
to his job that maybe things were not so bright and shiny on the inside co-workers told the
00:49:43
paper that Jonathan had fallen out of favor with his boss but we do have his boss who publicly denied Whispers that
00:49:50
Jonathan wasn't cutting it but again it's been kind of privately confirmed but that's after the fact correct and
00:49:57
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
00:50:07
bigger and better things and then he gets a new boss and some of us have experienced this where maybe the old
00:50:14
regime really likes you and likes the cut of your jib and how you do things and maybe the new regime does things
00:50:19
differently and doesn't like the cut of your jib that's what it sounds like to me but again on the public
00:50:25
level his boss at the time of his death was saying you know everything was fine he was a good employee mhm well what
00:50:32
about some other rumors or speculation that we've heard well this also kind of stems from his job too so even if we
00:50:42
have the boss saying everything was fine again privately people were saying no things weren't so fine that his boss
00:50:50
didn't like him we also have three legal sources who spoke to the son that told the the paper that Jonathan was not
00:50:56
acting like himself as of late leading up to his death he they said he was distracted and disorganized which
00:51:05
doesn't sound like him at all based off of what we've already discussed I wonder
00:51:09
if there's any possible drug use well keep in mind just on the morning the morning before that fateful drive that
00:51:18
later that night on December third Jonathan was late to court and of course judges do not like that so the judge
00:51:25
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
00:51:33
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
00:51:39
the hospital all night with his son who was Ill this is difficult this could just be you know you're caught in the
00:51:46
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
00:51:54
was at the hospital that the night before the other thing too keep in mind his wife is a doctor mhm so she could
00:52:01
provide uh Medical Care and assessment of the son at home better than most of us of course uh the judge did hand out
00:52:12
the fine regardless of the excuse but the son's legal sources say that the rumors of Jonathan not being a good fit
00:52:20
at the US attorney's office were right again three people said that he had Ed that he was getting ready to leave the
00:52:27
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
00:52:35
being done within this office are kind of off limits to the public they're all going to kind of be very secret stuff
00:52:42
we're not going to know all of the ins and outs of what everybody was doing or their performance reviews and the like
00:52:51
now you asked about other things well of course the police are asking about other
00:52:55
things too one thing in particular was debt that they wanted to know about yeah financial troubles this can be a reason
00:53:03
for murder or suicide or the Baltimore Sun reported that law enforcement sources said that Jonathan Luna was
00:53:11
$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
00:53:21
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
00:53:30
has law school debt right maybe not here's where the problem comes in the sun says that he had as many as 16
00:53:39
credit cards that's what the newspaper says as many as 16 credit cards and some that maybe his wife didn't know about
00:53:47
okay that's a lot of cards right um I don't know if I picture of the George castanza wallet when I hear that but
00:53:54
some some people are better with money than others some people like to carry credit cards for the points Jonathan's
00:54:02
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
00:54:08
they had plenty of money coming in one thing that I've always kind of thought about this when you see very
00:54:14
successful people that are carrying debt that might be a little higher than one would expect a couple of things one are
00:54:23
these just little debts that mounted up to much larger debt at some point and it
00:54:28
kind of got forgotten about because they're successful people that are working very difficult demanding jobs
00:54:34
and they have two small children and he's taking care of his parents these are little things that are just part of
00:54:41
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
00:54:47
was a bad year or boom over the last few years we racked up all of this debt the
00:54:52
other thing though too when we talk abouted credit cards that his wife did not know about this goes out to the the
00:55:00
married people out there or the people that have been married this has never been my experience but I have heard and
00:55:07
been involved in conversations throughout my years on this Big Blue Marble where people have told me so and
00:55:13
so's been married for years and found out oh we were not in as good of standing as I thought we were we were
00:55:20
behind on our bills or we had a lot more debt than I thought when I go wh why didn't you know what was going on
00:55:28
well my husband handles the finances or my wife handles the finances and I just didn't pay any attention to it I thought
00:55:35
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
00:55:44
that people have been killed over a lot less money but when we talk about money troubles I think the only reason why
00:55:51
this is a factor here and this number is mentioned this 25 ,000 and so on is mentioned here in Luna's case is because
00:56:00
then there was suspicions that he could have been involved in a theft that there
00:56:04
were whispers about a possible [Music] theft thank you so much for joining us here in the grounde today so much more
00:56:22
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