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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
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And Colonel, that is enough of the BS. All right, everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some
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true crime. Welcome to our little garage show. Where we left off yesterday, Captain, we
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started to get into some dicey business here of some missing money and how it might be tied to our victim Jonathan
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Luna. It's $36,000. That's a lot of rolling papers. That was the amount that had been produced in
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court as evidence in connection with a bank robbery trial that Jonathan prosecuted in September of 2002.
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At the trial's conclusion we have Jonathan. We know he's very successful. He won a conviction against
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the defendant for a series of violent bank robberies in Baltimore County. But at the end of this trial this money
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disappeared. Right? So what we have is $36,000 in cash, three shrink wrapped stacks of
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tens and $20 bills that disappeared somewhere between the courtroom and the government storage area used to hold
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sensitive evidence during trials. Per The Sun newspaper, Jonathan had signed an agreement with other lawyers in the
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case that all exhibits had been properly returned. As the lead prosecutor though, Jonathan
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was reportedly one of the people that would have had access to that money. This sounds very suspicious, right?
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$36,000 missing and it sounds like it's on his watch. Yeah. A lot of cheddar. But I
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want to point out some some things here before we go too far into this missing money situation. We have many other
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people that were involved in this situation that were suspect suspected as well.
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And not for any real good reason. I don't know that Jonathan Luna's suspected for any good reason other than
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he had access to the money just like these other people. So these other people are saying, "Look, it was on a
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handcart in a federal building. Anyone could have taken that money." In fact, The Post reported, "Jonathan was
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troubled because it happened on his watch." said Joseph Evans, Jonathan's supervisor at the time, but goes on to
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say, quote, "But personally I have a hard time thinking he stole the money." Evans pointed out that the money was
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left unattended at times leaving, quote, "So many opportunities for so many people to snag it." end quote. Well,
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basically they're saying you're becoming a suspect because you had access and therefore there's
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a ton of suspects. Correct. And I For me personally, it's hard for me to believe that Jonathan
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Luna took this money or or was involved with others that may have taken this money. I do want to point out some some
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issues here though, too. When we covered the Sean Suiter case, we pointed out a lot
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of the corruption that was going on suspected or otherwise in the Baltimore PD. And look, I'm a
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blue blood. I have the backs of the police and I applaud them when they're good and
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I also smear them when they're bad. There are some people that are just bad at their jobs. Well Right. we've seen
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some problems in the Baltimore Police Department and if you don't want to believe me, that's fine. You can watch
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the show We Own This City on HBO that's coming out April 25th. That's all about the Sean Suiter case and other things
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going on in Baltimore PD at the time. You have to point out what's wrong with these bad cops because those bad
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cops are giving a bad name to all the good cops. Correct. Now there's one aspect of this
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part of the story that does look bad for Jonathan. At least five government employees took polygraph test about this
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theft. Now per The Sun before his death, Luna had postponed an appointment to take a polygraph test but about the
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missing money. But we do have a colleague who says, "Look, I took the polygraph test. I spoke to him and he
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didn't have any concerns about or didn't voice them to me about taking the polygraph test." saying that I know he
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was willing to take the test. Yeah, so so something might have came up in his schedule and now we're going to
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throw him under the bus and say, "Well, he must be guilty cuz he he post postponed the the polygraph test." He
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may have just been busy with his job with with trials and such. I do think that the rescheduled polygraph exam was
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to be shortly after his death. So I don't like the timeline there. Um some more circumstantial evidence that maybe
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he had an interest in taking this money or did. In the course of the investigation of his murder,
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investigators discovered that Jonathan had filled out an online loan application for $30,000
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around September of 2002 and according to The Sun the loan application was canceled not long after this money went
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missing. Hmm. That's a little suspicious. That doesn't look good. A little fishy. One source also said
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that investigators discovered after Jonathan Luna's death that more than $10,000 came into his possession shortly
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after the evidence from the robbery case disappeared. They don't seem to know where this money came from or can't
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conclusively determine how Jonathan Luna and his family obtained this money. Right. And we also want to be clear that
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there's no evidence of a friend or family members coming forward and saying "Hey, we're the ones that were
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responsible for them getting those $10,000." Correct. We do have plenty of friends
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and family members and colleagues coming forward saying, "We don't think he would
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have taken the money. It doesn't make any sense." Then there was the sexy stuff. The
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Baltimore Sun's unnamed law enforcement official source told the paper that the federal agents reviewing Luna's
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case and his Justice Department computers had found a trove of adult porn that did not
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appear to be related to any of the cases that he had ever worked on. And there was more. According to the
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FBI, they found messages on some internet dating site posted by someone using the name Jonathan Luna. According
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to The Sun newspaper, it says the author of the messages from April 1997, so this
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is six and a half years earlier, described him as a discreet 31-year-old married black man seeking a white female
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sexual partner. Now it's it gets really difficult to believe that a man as smart as him would use his real
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name on these dating sites and be married. However however, we have to point out that the
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age almost matches up exactly. So no one's ever saying that these profiles were his or that Jonathan Luna
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used them. They're simply pointing out that we found this from 6 and 1/2 years before his death of
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someone using that name on these dating sites. Could be a catfish. It could be something that he's
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wasn't even aware of. I just saw the other day one of my friends posted in her stories
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multiple Instagram accounts that are using her pictures and and and information from her profile.
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That's some weird and that's some weird stuff right there. Now, we mentioned a February 2004 news
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conference. At this event, the FBI's assistant director denied a report by CBS News that there was a main suspect
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in the case. A female agent in the FBI's Baltimore field office. Okay, so they're denying that we have a
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suspect and we're denying that hey, the rumor that the suspect is an FBI agent, a female FBI agent,
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they're denying that direct rumor. But, the FBI went on to conduct an internal investigation according to the
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Washington Post that stemmed from a complaint by a female agent that investigators were overly aggressive
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when they questioned her about possible romantic involvement with Jonathan. This
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was a woman who had worked closely with Jonathan on numerous cases. It's unclear whether she was
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romantically involved with him, but clearly the FBI thought she was or there was enough information there for them to
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really look into it. And she files a complaint against her own saying that they aggressively pursued her and they
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searched her computers and such without consent. I believe that the FBI did admit some wrongdoing in
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regard to questioning this woman. It seems like this information would be pointing towards the idea that Jonathan
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was having an affair or maybe multiple affairs. So, the reports that he had at least two
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entanglements have never been refuted. I don't think they've ever been fully proven though, either. But, what's key
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here to me, Captain, is it appears at this point in the investigation that the FBI investigators seem fixated
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at least by this point on the murder being rooted in a personal matter. That this was some type of
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private dispute or something going on in his life and had nothing to do with the
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FBI. Right. Had nothing to do with his line of work directly. But, we have these
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weird unexplained trips to Pennsylvania or explained trips to Pennsylvania depending on who you believe and how you
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want to look at it. As part of the probe, investigators were looking into at least
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two trips that Jonathan made to Pennsylvania in the weeks before his death. And they were trying to figure out
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whether he went there to actually meet somebody. They stopped at motels along the route and looked at guest registers
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and surveillance video, inquired at gas stations, and canvassed businesses along this
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route. But, it gets it gets weirder. As the investigation unfolded, additional trips to Pennsylvania were
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uncovered. So, on the first anniversary of Jonathan's death, this was reported in the paper that a gas station employee
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on the Pennsylvania Turnpike said that she saw Jonathan Luna at the gas station late at night about once a month
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over a 6-month period. This was a Sunoco station attendant who worked the midnight shift. She told the post that
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Jonathan always used a credit card if he bought gas and always paid cash if he bought coffee.
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She said that she remembers him specifically because he was always sharp dressed and he made small talk with her.
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She said that he was a very courteous and polite individual. This sharp dressed really goes along with everything we've
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been told about Jonathan Luna. So, it it would appear to me that she is talking about him. On his profession, he's
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supposed to dress a certain way. Correct. And even before he went into that line of work, he was always said to
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have, you know, wear dress shirts and ties and such. Correct. Investigators really
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couldn't figure out any work-related reason or at least publicly said they couldn't find any work-related reason
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that Jonathan went to Pennsylvania. We don't know who he visited, what he did, or really anything else. It's hard
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to believe that the FBI doesn't know. But, at least in the week after his death, one official said, "We don't have
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any indication what the purpose was of the drive." But, if he had actually been going to Pennsylvania
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on the regular, that would obviously be quite important to the case and maybe what happened to
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him. That's where he dies. That's where his body is ultimately found 100 miles away from Baltimore.
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Investigators looked closely to see if Jonathan had gone to meet up with anybody on the night he died. But,
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again, his cell phone was left at the office. So, if he was meeting somebody, he didn't
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have the ability to talk to anybody or communicate with anybody via phone after leaving his office that night,
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again, leaving the office for really unexplained reasons. But, also, it's a way for people not to be able to track your
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actions through your GPS on your phone. Right. There has been some speculation. People wonder, "Well, maybe he had some
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type of burner phone and made sure he had the burner phone and that's why he kind of forgot his
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his regular cell phone." Right, but we don't have any evidence that he had a phone on his person when
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he was found. Correct. Yeah, nobody's saying that he had one. It's just simple speculation really at this point.
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There's no evidence to suggest that he did. His father did say that hey, on at least
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one occasion they had a conversation about trips to Pennsylvania when Jonathan Luna told his father that he
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was working on a case and for that reason he had to go to Pennsylvania. Now, the father did say, "Look, Jonathan
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wasn't commonly telling us information about the cases that he was working, which he's not
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supposed to, and said that, you know, that's really he'd like to offer up more information,
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but that was the vagueness of the information that Jonathan related to him. So, according to the father and
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according to what he's saying his son told him, these trips were or at least one of the
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trips was related to his work. But, then we have some other information that's interesting in regard to those trips.
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So, the informant in the case that he was working on at the time of his death was being held in Philadelphia,
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Pennsylvania. So, maybe these trips are directly related to that trial that he was working on at
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the time. Right. Now, do you want to get into this timeline here, Captain, because one we cannot overlook it. It's
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very important people want to know the details of the timeline of that night. But, I got to warn everybody, there's
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gaps. There's blanks that need to be filled in and I really believe in this case and like many other cases out
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there, if you could complete this timeline, well, then we would know what exactly
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happened to Jonathan Luna that night. Right. So, be prepared to take notes, my friends.
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If you're driving, just pull over and join us for the next 45 minutes. A piece of paper and some pens and All
00:17:56
right, so let's start on the the day that he was killed on December 3rd at 8:48 p.m. We know
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that Jonathan went to the office to work on that plea agreements. At 9:06 p.m., Jonathan calls one of the attorneys
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for the guys that he's going to trial against and tells him, "Hey, I had to leave the office and go home."
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He said he would return to his office in the federal courthouse later that evening and finish the documents and fax
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them to the attorney's office. That call lasted 10 minutes. At 9:30 p.m., Jonathan left a voicemail for the other
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attorney in the case saying he would be faxing the plea agreement later that evening.
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At 10:30 p.m., Jonathan spoke to one of the attorneys again promising him the plea agreement
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before midnight. At 11:00 p.m., Jonathan was at home at this time. He received that call. We don't know who from.
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He receives a call on his cell phone and told his wife that he had had to go back to the office.
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You got to believe, right, in 2003 that they would know what number called his cell phone?
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Yeah. I mean, that doesn't necessarily tell us who called him or what the call was about, but at least
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the FBI's involved in this thing. Unless they blocked the number or they called 2003,
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chances of there being a pay phone, not great, but did somebody go into a gas station and say, "Hey, can I use your
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phone real quick?" But, nobody seems to be disputing that this call happened, right? We don't have and I know that his
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family has shut down and not been talking to the press for the longest time, but we don't seem
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to have anybody saying that this call didn't happen. So, I'm led to believe that it did and I believe that the FBI
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probably has some further information on this call, but again, they're not releasing it. Now, according to his
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father, Jonathan didn't did not say who was on the phone that night, but told his wife, quote, "Honey, I'm sorry. I
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have to go back to the office." Offering up no more no further information. At 11:38 p.m., Jonathan drove away from
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the US District Court building in Baltimore. I I should correct that statement. He He left. He left the
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courthouse sometime that night. We don't have anything to say that he was the one
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physically driving or anybody to dispute that he was driving. Right. At 11:49 p.m., he passed through
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the Fort McHenry Tunnel Toll Plaza in Baltimore northbound on Interstate 95. Now, this is going to lead us past
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midnight. So, now technically we are December 4th. At 12:28 a.m., his car passed through
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the Perryville Toll Plaza and continued northbound. At 12:46 a.m., his car passed through the Delaware Line Toll
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Plaza. Again, we have this information because of his Easy Pass transponder that is in his vehicle. And
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thankfully we had that or we may not know the route that he took or these other stops that seem to have been
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involved on his weird trip that night. Right. At 12:57 a.m., Jonathan's debit card was used to withdraw $200 from a
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bank ATM at the JFK Travel Plaza in Newark, Delaware. This is at I-95 exit 3. Some reports are that the recording
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is not good and it's not clear whether this is Jonathan using the card. Okay, so
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they would have surveillance footage of the person using the ATM. And the story has always been that
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something's wrong or screwy with that footage or with the camera and so we don't have video confirmation
00:21:59
that it is Jonathan Luna using the ATM card. Make sense? Yeah, it makes sense, but
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it's hard to wrap my head around this idea of why would you leave the cell phone behind?
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Did he forget about this Easy Pass being able to track him or did he not care if the vehicle was being
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tracked? It's That's why I wonder if leaving the phone behind was not his choice. Yeah. It was either an accident
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that he forgot the phone in some kind of hurry to get out of the building or it's also a possibility that he was
00:22:34
abducted from his office. Yeah, but wouldn't they have wouldn't we have some kind of
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like I said, technology or or or something showing that he actually met somebody there? So, what we do have,
00:22:47
Captain, is we have surveillance footage of his vehicle leaving the courthouse parking garage,
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but you cannot see who's driving the vehicle Right. based off of off of the angle. Now, so we got a lot of movements
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here and this to me is where things start to get really weird and part of this just may be my
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not fully understanding this Easy Pass and how they work, especially back in 2003, you know,
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uh 19 years ago. So, name in high school, Easy Pass. Right. At 2:47 a.m., his car entered the Pennsylvania
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Turnpike exit 359, the Delaware Bridge, going over the Delaware Bridge, but he did not use the
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Easy Pass on the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Turnpikes. I don't know if these things have like a
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a proximity limit. You know, like I I don't know that an Easy Pass will just work everywhere that they're required.
00:23:53
You know, we're talking about he's going to other states and in accessing their turnpikes by this point. Maybe they
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don't work there. I I would like a better clearer understanding of that because it seems to me if he's driving
00:24:08
and he's the one making the decisions on where they're going or where he's going
00:24:13
that he would just use that pass if he's able to to use it. Yeah, anybody out there that has access or uses one of
00:24:20
these Easy Passes that doesn't just stay within their city, but travel with the Easy Pass, please leave
00:24:28
that information on our blog at True Crime Garage. And specify if your information is
00:24:33
coming from current day or 2003 cuz that could have changed over the years. The other thing that I call into question,
00:24:39
too, and this is something that uh somebody may know better, is there a chance that his Easy Pass was
00:24:46
issued to him by his work and therefore only work in certain areas because they don't want to pay for everything,
00:24:55
right? They want to pay for his travels for work purposes, but they don't need him using his Easy Pass two or three
00:25:01
states away if that's even a thing. Right. So, what I'm getting at, Captain, is one
00:25:06
of two situations is going on. Either he can't use that pass. I guess I should say three. Either he can't use
00:25:14
that pass in those locations or he's choosing not to use that pass in those locations because he doesn't want
00:25:20
to be tracked. Again, going back to the idea maybe he left his cell phone on purpose.
00:25:25
Or three, somebody else is calling the shots and is not aware that he has this Easy Pass
00:25:33
or somebody else is driving the vehicle. Remember we did say that the reports stated that Jonathan Luna's blood was
00:25:42
found in the backseat of that vehicle. Is there a chance at some point somebody intercepted him or he met with somebody,
00:25:49
they abducted him and he's in the backseat while the killer or killers are in control of the
00:25:56
vehicle's movements. This leads us to 3:20 a.m. when Jonathan's debit credit card was
00:26:03
used at a Sunoco gas station at the King of Prussia, Pennsylvania Service Plaza to buy gas. According to the attendant,
00:26:12
it became clear from sales records, this is one of the most bizarre things in the
00:26:17
whole thing. It became clear from sales records that Jonathan used his credit card to pay at the pump for his car,
00:26:25
but also a second vehicle. And of course, as you all guessed, there was no camera
00:26:33
at the gas station. Investigators later seemed to downplay the second gas purchase.
00:26:39
All right, let me circle back around to something. Yeah, downplay that? Are they downplaying that because
00:26:44
they're trying to keep something to their chest and and they know information that could lead to solving
00:26:50
this? I'm not trying to point out some big conspiracy theory here, but where this becomes an issue is and
00:26:59
you'll see this as we get further into these details. The FBI seems to believe something ha-
00:27:06
you know, they seem to have a theory that they've locked onto. However, the case is still open.
00:27:13
It looks to me like we have a situation where something else may have gone on. Some other people may be
00:27:21
up to no good here, that their dirty deeds may be dragged into the light and become public knowledge, but
00:27:29
we're hiding behind this curtain of mystery by saying, "Look, this case is still
00:27:36
open. We cannot tell the public what was going on. We cannot tell you what our findings were here." So,
00:27:43
when we get to all of these little pieces of information that you go, "Is this something here? Who buys two tanks
00:27:50
of gas?" That would imply that that he is traveling with somebody or somebody's following him or or what have you,
00:27:57
right? It could imply a whole different set of theories, but yet we don't have law enforcement
00:28:03
that will tell us, "Yes, that's exactly what happened." It's like we said, they seem to just
00:28:09
kind of forget about it or not mention it or downplay this second gas purchase. So,
00:28:16
does that mean that they found out that it wasn't true or that it is true and they just don't
00:28:22
want us to know about it for some reason? Welcome back. It's always great when it
00:28:51
gets heated here in the garage. Hold on to your AC. Crank up the AC. Oh, it's snowing in
00:29:00
April. I don't know if you want me to say this or not, but I'm going to anyway. Today is the Captain's birthday, so hit
00:29:07
him up on Twitter with well wishes. Everybody wish the Captain a very happy happy birthday.
00:29:13
on Twitter, not on Instagram or Tik Tok. That's right. He's only celebrating on Twitter. Captain, I wish you a very
00:29:20
happy birthday and many more and and a hopefully a celebration is lined up for this weekend.
00:29:27
Well, the thing is is that Nick is mean and is making me work on my birthday. I quit.
00:29:34
Here at the garage, we do not take birthdays off. In fact, we work extra long days.
00:29:38
Well, happy birthday to everybody out there and uh cheers, mates. Cheers. We're not done with the movements here
00:29:46
that night, Captain. Because at 3:30 a.m. we have Jonathan stopping at the Peter J. Camille, I hope I got that
00:29:54
right, service plaza to buy bottled water. This sighting is not 100% certain. And to be honest with you, I think that
00:30:03
this is just a situation of somebody trying to help out. Hey, I think I saw him that night. We don't have his credit
00:30:10
card or debit card to confirm that he was there. And the other thing, too, is based off of what we know. And again,
00:30:17
there are some missing things here in his timeline, but this place seems to be too far from the previous stop for the
00:30:23
timing to be correct for him to be there at 3:30. It just doesn't line up. But I wanted to include it.
00:30:31
Then we have at 4:04 a.m. his car left the Pennsylvania Turnpike at exit 286. This is the Reading-Lancaster
00:30:40
Interchange. A paper toll ticket was turned in to the toll collector even though, again, Jonathan's car has
00:30:49
that easy pass. What's really interesting here though, Captain, is there's blood on this paper toll ticket
00:30:56
that's turned in. We run some tests, and guess what? It's Jonathan's blood on that toll ticket.
00:31:04
So, we know we don't know what's going on that night, but we do know one thing for
00:31:10
certain. By 4:04 a.m. he's been injured at this point. He's bleeding at this point. But possibly makes sense with the
00:31:18
easy pass that it doesn't work in that location, so he would have to use a ticket. Yeah, so per one study on the
00:31:25
case the exit drops drivers into a small, like well-lit strip of all-night gas stations and motels. Investigators
00:31:36
visited all of them and found no leads. They couldn't find anybody to say, "Hey,
00:31:39
we saw Jonathan here or we spoke with him." The lights quickly disappear as the road winds into
00:31:47
that Amish country area. This is a Brecknock Township where later his lifeless body will be found. They
00:31:56
believe that at 4:05 a.m. Jonathan was alive when his car entered the parking lot and then pulled up to that creek,
00:32:06
right? So, he goes he goes up near this business, then off the road, and then down to that creek. Again, we don't know
00:32:13
who's driving, but his body is found at 5:30 a.m. So, there's not a whole lot of time between
00:32:21
4:04 a.m. when his blood is turned in on a toll to a toll collector on a toll ticket, and then an hour in
00:32:32
less than a half later his body his lifeless body is discovered face down in that shallow creek.
00:32:38
Well, the more I read about this case this week, the more research I did, the more I couldn't believe that this isn't
00:32:44
one of the biggest cases on the internet. It's beyond bizarre. It's beyond fascinating. And let me read
00:32:52
this. This comes from the post newspaper because they they wrote it much better than I could. And I think it it really
00:32:59
sums up the driving and the movements from that night. It says investigators took
00:33:05
special note of the gaps in the timeline when Jonathan's location and activities
00:33:11
are unknown. Of particular interest, they said, are two gaps. The timeline shows that Luna used his debit card at a
00:33:20
toll plaza in Newark, Delaware at 12:57 a.m. And then turned into the New Jersey
00:33:28
Turnpike at exit 6A at 2:37 a.m. Driving that distance would take about 40 minutes.
00:33:38
Which leaves an hour unaccounted for, they said. In addition, they are interested in the period from when he
00:33:46
left the Turnpike at 4:04 a.m. and when his body was discovered at 5:30 a.m. So,
00:33:54
some big gaps, and I like that they're pointing out to us, "These are the times that we are very concerned about. These
00:34:01
are the times that we know we need to know more about what was going on that night or who may have been with Jonathan
00:34:08
Luna." The gaps are interesting because Jonathan could have met up with someone.
00:34:13
Or maybe he stopped somewhere that wasn't recorded and he didn't use his credit card.
00:34:19
Something that's very interesting to me in this case is his location because we know that he's far away from his city,
00:34:26
but but the route doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not Like if I was going to go to Cleveland, I just take 71 all the
00:34:33
way up there, but if I took different roads than 71, you'd question why. Yeah, and this, per their words, is
00:34:43
referred to as far from the most direct route from Baltimore to Lancaster County. So,
00:34:49
that's why they're interested in his movements and in particular that route. Captain, this is going to take us
00:34:57
to December 2nd, 2004. So, we're a year out from Jonathan's death. Yeah. This is when the
00:35:05
FBI the Baltimore FBI office released a statement concluding because keep in mind the the
00:35:13
one of the items that has been highly debated in this case over the years is was he alone
00:35:20
or was he traveling with someone or was he already abducted during the course of
00:35:25
this this crazy drive that seems to make no sense to anybody. But at the year mark, we have the FBI
00:35:33
that are announcing that from the time he left the courthouse office to the time his body
00:35:40
was found that he was alone. That their findings are that he was alone. Now, it's not real clear how they can be so
00:35:47
certain of this given the gaps in the timeline and the lack of eyewitnesses and surveillance footage, but this would
00:35:57
be the FBI story for the duration of the investigation. So, for the rest of the days, they're
00:36:05
going to say, "We figured out at some point he was alone for that entire trip from the time he left the courthouse to
00:36:11
the time that his body was found, and that's our story and we're sticking to it." In fact, on the 10th year
00:36:17
anniversary, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation, April Brooks, told newspapers, "We're certain that there
00:36:25
was no evidence to show he was with anybody after he left the courthouse." Okay, I get that.
00:36:32
But to me, it's there's a very big difference between saying there's no evidence to show that he was
00:36:40
with anybody after he left the courthouse to saying he was alone that entire time.
00:36:47
Those are two very different statements to me. Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, they're so different that
00:36:53
in one of them could be true and the other one could be completely false. Right.
00:36:59
There you have no evidence that anybody was with him. Well, let's not go out of our way to say
00:37:04
he was absolutely alone from the time he left the courthouse to the time his body
00:37:08
was found. Then how is he then how is he getting these marks on his hands? What What they are implying
00:37:15
is that they are implying that their investigation concluded with him having committed suicide.
00:37:22
And that it was ultimately ruled a homicide to begin with, but they didn't have all the information.
00:37:31
FBI decides he was alone, so it must have been a suicide. And they they're they're not going out of their way to
00:37:38
say that it was a suicide. They're just saying, "Hey, he was alone." They're implying that look, we don't need to be
00:37:46
looking for his killer because he killed himself. But then again, here's where we
00:37:50
have a big problem. They've never closed the case. Right. And then you have to wonder, well, is it
00:37:57
convenient for them that the case remains open so that they don't have to disclose any of this information? Well,
00:38:04
why would they not want to disclose any information? Well, maybe they were up to
00:38:07
no good. So, it's one of those things where it's it's it's like a dog chasing its tail. It
00:38:13
just keeps going around and around and around and around. Every question brings up another question. Every question
00:38:19
brings up another question, and so on and so forth. And here we're sitting all these years later with what I believe to
00:38:25
be a murder, and it's unsolved. And let's not forget, ultimately in the beginning this was
00:38:31
ruled a homicide, and the coroners have stuck with that ruling. Yeah, and the frustrating thing for me is if you're so
00:38:38
sure, if law enforcement is so sure that this is a suicide, then close the case and let that case file be open to the
00:38:44
public. Yeah. And let the public look into it, but they don't want to do that because
00:38:49
maybe there's some errors there. Maybe there's maybe people didn't cross the T's and dot their I's. So, the first
00:38:55
thing that people are going to say, "Well, if this man was stabbed or had these many puncture wounds, well, where is the
00:39:02
weapon? If if he killed himself, you would have found the weapon at the scene." Well, they didn't, and we know
00:39:06
that. However, in February of 2004, they did a they did a recanvassing of that area of where Luna's body was found.
00:39:16
When they recanvassed the area months later, now investigators are saying, "Well, we found a pen knife
00:39:23
that we believe caused the wounds that killed Jonathan Luna." They also said that investigators believe the pocket
00:39:29
knife is the one that Jonathan Luna regularly carried with him. So, they're just assuming that this guy is driving
00:39:36
and then stabbing himself in the hands and and and other parts of his body. Right. So,
00:39:44
this is where things get really This is where things get really dicey. So, obviously, we have
00:39:52
the murder/suicide {question mark} argument, but then we have a different version of
00:39:58
that that kind of falls somewhere in between, right? So, it's not murder, it wasn't suicide. These may be
00:40:05
self-inflicted wounds, and he didn't ultimately plan to kill himself, but did too much damage and accidentally killed
00:40:14
himself. And we're going to get into that in a minute, but before we do, I do want to make sure that we bring up,
00:40:19
while we're on the timeline here, in March of 2004, we have This is a case is now 3 months
00:40:26
old. This is after they find the penknife. It's no closer to being solved. Obviously, there's some kind of
00:40:32
schism amongst the investigators of what actually happened here, murder or suicide.
00:40:39
That's not helping the investigation. But the Washington Post summed it up very nicely saying authorities announced
00:40:45
a $100,000 reward in the unsolved death of a federal prosecutor, this Jonathan P.
00:40:51
Luna, admitting publicly for the first time that 13 weeks of investigation had not determined whether it was a homicide
00:40:59
or a suicide. Seems like a lot of money to be offered if you're if it's if the FBI's really leaning
00:41:07
toward the suicide angle here. Yeah. Investigators were seeking information from anyone who may have had contact
00:41:13
with Mr. Luna, anyone who may have seen Mr. Luna or his vehicle. So, we've already kind of debated this murder or
00:41:21
suicide thing. And it's it's the FBI's stance that he killed himself. It's the coroner's stance that it was a
00:41:31
homicide. Yeah, and even though that these autopsy reports haven't been released to the public, both of these
00:41:38
doctors have been vocal in in public's eyes and and given their opinions and thoughts on this matter. So, let's get
00:41:46
into the suicide gone wrong theory. This is an interesting angle because this is
00:41:51
a theory that doesn't appear in most of the cases that we discuss here in the garage. So, others
00:41:57
weren't taking a side on suicide or murder, more a little more down the middle, so to speak. They're
00:42:04
formulating a theory that Jonathan, under financial pressure or stressed out about his job and facing possible
00:42:10
accusations about the missing money and a polygraph and all the stress that comes with that, tried to stage a scene
00:42:19
in which he would appear to have been kidnapped and attacked. This getting him out of court the next
00:42:26
morning, maybe getting out of the future polygraph test, and getting him sympathy
00:42:33
from his colleagues and, you know, others involved in the missing money investigation. At the very least, this
00:42:41
would buy him some time to deal with some of this if people fell for it, and it wouldn't be the first time in the
00:42:49
garage that somebody staged a crime that we would later figure out, "Hey, this isn't what they said it was. It wasn't
00:42:57
what it appeared to be." We had the Sherri Papini case, which, I mean, forget about that one. So, the idea
00:43:04
here, Captain, is that he tried to stage an attack and a kidnapping and wanted it
00:43:11
to be severe enough, or at least his wounds, to appear to be severe enough that everybody would buy it, buy the
00:43:18
story, and that in the process of harming himself, that he accidentally nicked that artery,
00:43:27
which caused which would cause his death, but before it did, before he bled out, he fell into
00:43:35
the shallow water, went unconscious, and died. This doesn't seem like it's all adding up correctly.
00:43:43
It doesn't seem super plausible, but I'm going to throw this in here. This was from a web sleuther. The username is
00:43:49
Falcon500. Old Falcon. And this person Falcon500 is claiming or or is verified to be a law
00:43:57
enforcement detective. I'm I'm a little uncertain, unclear how that that was verified, but that's what it says. So,
00:44:03
let's go with that. This individual, this web sleuther, believes that Jonathan likely did steal
00:44:10
the $36,000, that he wanted to deflect suspicion away from himself, so he thought up this
00:44:18
scheme where he would be found in his car and then claim that he'd been kidnapped from his office. He made sure
00:44:25
that he visited several spots where the presence of his car would be documented.
00:44:31
His wounds were superficial, and it's likely that he became confused, got out of his car, and then fell into the creek
00:44:38
and drowned. So, that's how one person puts it that this might have worked out. 36 puncture wounds is a lot. Yeah.
00:44:46
Again, it doesn't make a lot of sense, and it it's the the two cans of gas. Yeah, the two
00:44:52
tanks of gas. Two tanks of gas. And then you also wonder, well, well, did he fill up his
00:44:57
tank? And then did he have a spare gas can in the back that he filled up? Or was somebody traveling with him? Yeah. I
00:45:07
mean, that's what That's where my mind goes, that somebody's traveling with him. And if he's filling up gas for the
00:45:13
other person, it almost implies to me, well, he's not been abducted unless he has been abducted, somebody's holding
00:45:18
him in his car, and they have another car tailing them. It's It's all very confusing, and then
00:45:26
again, we keep have to come back to the idea of this information is not an open book. It's not released to the public.
00:45:33
And when you ask specific questions in this case, you're shot down by the old, "Oh, we're going
00:45:41
to hide behind the idea of it's an open investigation." But everything in your investigation, as far as you're telling
00:45:47
us or implying to us, is that you have decided this was a suicide, and so we're not technically actively investigating
00:45:54
anything. Well, suicide to me seems like it makes zero sense. My only caveat with
00:46:00
that is what the coroner, you know, what the coroners are saying. They're saying
00:46:06
there was a artery that was hit. So, if you're trying to stage a scene to look like possibly you were abducted or
00:46:14
possibly you were attacked or tortured, and then you you end up stabbing yourself in the wrong location,
00:46:21
I could see that as a possibility. Right. Because we have evidence of of a puncture in a main artery.
00:46:28
But what we know of Jonathan Luna, and again, maybe he had some kind of break, we don't know, but
00:46:35
what we do know about him leading up to that point, this kind of idea of, "Oh, I'm going to
00:46:43
stage an abduction and an attack to the point where I I'm unconscious when they find me, or I have my wounds are so
00:46:49
severe that I can claim I don't remember anything or I don't know who my attacker
00:46:53
was, or make make it up who attacked him." It seems incredibly sloppy and dumb based off of what we know of this guy.
00:47:04
It seems too sloppy for for it to be his plan. It seems too dumb to me for it to
00:47:09
be his plan. But again, we can't rule anything out because we're not given Yeah, but it'd be dumb to steal money.
00:47:17
Yes, that is true. And you know, it's it's dumb to get that far behind in debt. I See, with his debt, I actually
00:47:25
don't see an issue with that. It is a lot of money, but having a young family and you're taking care of mom and dad, I
00:47:32
mean, basically, his salary and his wife's salary is providing for three generations. Yeah, I don't see it as
00:47:38
being, again, that that much of debt, but to the point where that Or or what what else was he involved in
00:47:47
that we just don't know? There could be debts that aren't on books. Let's spin this missing money thing a different
00:47:54
way, right? We already have people pointing out the misinformation or the spin factor on the information
00:48:03
that's coming out in this case. So, let's do a little spinning of our own here, shall we?
00:48:08
With the missing money, so many people point out that if he did steal the money, then suicide makes
00:48:15
sense. Or if he did commit suicide, well, it was probably because he was guilty of stealing the money. Those two
00:48:21
things seem to be kind of walking together arm in arm. But let's spin it a different way.
00:48:27
What if he didn't steal the money? What if he didn't commit suicide? What if his apprehension, if he had any, and it
00:48:35
doesn't seem like he had any, about taking the polygraph or doing the interview about the missing money, if
00:48:42
you want to suspect that, well, you should suspect it two ways. Either he didn't want to talk with people because
00:48:48
he stole the money, or what about this? What if he's being accused or believes that he's being accused of stealing
00:48:54
money or doing something that he did not do, and he had suspicions of his own or
00:48:59
information of his own that might lead you to the person responsible for stealing that money. There might be
00:49:06
somebody that would wanted to shut him up in that regard. Like I said, it becomes very confusing because this
00:49:14
guy's whole career, he was surrounded by people that would be capable of doing this. Yes, and I just wonder
00:49:24
I cannot make any sense of his movements that night, and I've tried for the past
00:49:29
10 days, and I'm I'm here to tell you, I can't do it. I've I've tried to figure out do do the movements that night point
00:49:35
more towards an abduction or to him not being in control of his movements. Do they point more toward
00:49:41
somebody's traveling with him that he thought was, you know, a friend or on his side?
00:49:48
Do the movements point to him trying to cover something up or meet with somebody?
00:49:54
I can't make heads or tails of his movements that night enough to decide on where I fall
00:50:02
as far as the theories go about what he was up to that night or if he was even in control of his own movements.
00:50:09
inquest request. Yes, so the way that this works here, Captain, is in January of 2007
00:50:16
Jonathan Luna's parents formally requested that the Lancaster County Coroner conduct an inquest into
00:50:24
Jonathan's death. So, the coroner declined to do so. And then we have private investigator Ed
00:50:33
Martino who was hired by Jonathan's friend. In fact, it was the best man at Jonathan's wedding. Private Eye Martino
00:50:41
dug into the case for months and then believed firmly that Jonathan was murdered because of his work,
00:50:49
specifically his work with the FBI. He believed that the agency had very suspiciously shut down
00:50:57
the death investigation. He said his investigation had not linked Jonathan to any risky or suspicious behavior and he
00:51:06
believed that the FBI was trying to change the narrative. He said, "Quote, they used to call it
00:51:12
disinformation. They call it spin today." In 2009 there was reason to believe that there
00:51:21
was an active grand jury investigation into the unsolved Luna case. Again, this is interesting to me because I keep
00:51:29
pointing out that they could be hiding behind this idea of we can't give you any information because it's an active
00:51:36
investigation. But then at the same time, everything that the FBI is telling us and everything that the FBI seems to
00:51:43
be doing behind the scenes indicates that they've ended their investigation. They've decided that it was suicide, so
00:51:50
much so that they tried to get the coroners to change their ruling, retroactively change their ruling to
00:51:58
suicide. The coroners say, "No, we're not going to." And now the FBI doesn't seem to
00:52:03
actually have an active investigation because they've determined it to be suicide, can't get the coroners to
00:52:10
change their minds. And so, we don't have an active investigation. However, here when you start sniffing around, it
00:52:17
looks like there might be an active investigation because in 2009, and this is evidence of such, there was
00:52:24
a possible existence of a federal grand jury investigation. And look, these are supposed to be secret, right? But at
00:52:31
that time the Lancaster County Assistant District Attorney Susan Moyer wrote a letter to
00:52:38
an author. So, there's this author, William Keisling, who has come up with this big
00:52:44
kind of conspiracy theory that involves the informant and the FBI being involved
00:52:50
in Jonathan Luna's murder. And he doesn't specifically name anybody as far as I'm aware. I've not read his book.
00:52:58
But in 2009, this author is trying to get his hands on the autopsy to write his book.
00:53:05
Well, the district attorney, the assistant district attorney, writes him a formal
00:53:10
letter saying, "I can't give you the autopsy because we have an open federal grand
00:53:16
jury investigation." So, what is it? Is Is this case active and we can't tell you anything because
00:53:23
it's an active case or is it not active and nobody's actually investigating it? Somebody's decided it's a suicide and
00:53:31
the coroners will not change their ruling. It's a very murky situation and unfortunately, I don't feel like we are
00:53:38
getting any clear answers from these these bigger agencies that we are to trust with our safety.
00:53:48
Well, one of the issues with a case like this is it's where do you lean? Do you lean towards
00:53:53
suicide or murder? My problem with suicide is the evidence that he was in the backseat of his car at some point,
00:54:02
meaning was somebody driving? This really becomes a red light case for me and and one that I'll be thinking
00:54:08
about constantly and probably one that I'll randomly Google for more information because
00:54:15
it's uh it's beyond bizarre. Right, and this case really is a mess of leaked information, misinformation,
00:54:23
backtracking, walking things back, botched crime scenes, internal investigations. I mean, it's a very
00:54:31
complicated case. It's a very complicated story and we know that all of that does
00:54:39
does not help. It certainly muddies the waters big time in this case and in any other case that we've looked into. In
00:54:47
fact, when you have this much going on and this much confusion, rarely do you see an answer, a result, uh
00:54:55
an arrest, somebody being convicted. Personally, I lean toward the side of murder. I I
00:55:02
believe that somebody killed him. I don't I I I still believe that it it has something to do
00:55:10
either directly tied to or loosely tied to his work. Something he was involved in, something
00:55:17
that he was aware of, that that knew about. I can say this, it was on purpose that we bring up
00:55:25
Detective Sean Suiter's death in the trailer. Because that case is just as confusing
00:55:31
as this one and they both took place in Baltimore. Ray Rivera's case is a little
00:55:37
bit different. It seems like all the confusion is really on on his end and what what was going on in his his world.
00:55:44
Right. But again, I'm a blue blood and I have I have the backs of the women and men that
00:55:51
that choose to go into that line of work and that do that job and do it well and
00:55:55
do a good job of it. Every agency has had its black eyes over the years. But the Baltimore Police Department,
00:56:03
especially during this time frame, there's been so much concern about corruption and things that were going on
00:56:10
behind the scenes and a lot of it involves money and drugs. And here we have a situation that seems
00:56:16
to involve or might involve money that people in that line of work may have had access
00:56:23
to and it disappeared. And now we have people being called into question. And I tell you what, believe
00:56:29
you me, if I was accused of stealing money to the point where I I'm maybe not directly being accused, but to the point
00:56:38
where I have to sit down and have meetings about it and take a polygraph test, if I have an
00:56:43
idea or a suspicion of who I think took it or who I think is responsible, you better believe that I'm going to make
00:56:50
that well known to the people that are interviewing me, my suspicions. You have yours, I got mine and I'm not afraid to
00:56:57
tell you what I think. One case that we didn't bring up that I'm sure our listeners are going, "This
00:57:04
reminds me of that other case." Right. Well, it's the case of Ray Gricar who disappeared in April of 1995.
00:57:13
He was a prosecutor as well. Now, what's funny about the idea of that popping into people's heads when they hear this
00:57:21
story is law enforcement, despite admittedly investigating similarities in the cases,
00:57:31
they have denied any possible link between what happened to Jonathan Luna and the disappearance of Ray Gricar.
00:57:39
There seemed to have been thought there that they could possibly be linked because it was investigated.
00:57:46
Now, I'm not sitting here with a high confidence level of knowing what happened to Ray or ever finding out what
00:57:54
truly happened to Jonathan Luna. I hope and pray that we do. Again, I think that he was murdered. I think that
00:58:01
something happened and I cannot explain why he left his office there that night.
00:58:06
He should have stayed and finished. Can't explain why he left his phone. Can't explain why he left his phone.
00:58:12
There have been people that said that he couldn't drive without his glasses. I purposely did not include
00:58:21
that when we were discussing the items left at his office because that seems highly debatable.
00:58:28
Highly debatable because we we know that the glasses were left behind. However, that car did a lot of moving
00:58:36
that night. So, somebody drove it and somebody didn't have any problem driving it 100 miles away. So, if he was in fact
00:58:44
driving his own car, then we know that that's not the case, that he had no problems driving without those glasses.
00:58:51
This is a case, again, too many questions. Too many things left unsatisfied for us
00:58:57
to come up with a great idea of what really happened here. Can't thank you guys enough for joining
00:59:17
us here in the garage. We love your smell. We love We love your smell. What can we say?
00:59:24
If you're digging any of the music for the shows, you can find it all for free on Apple Music or Spotify. Just search
00:59:31
True Crime Garage, and it'll come up under music artists, and you can follow us there on Spotify. And like I said,
00:59:39
it's all for free. Colonel, do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners?
00:59:44
We're going to go with some recommended listening this week here, Captain. We are recommending one of our favorite
00:59:49
shows, the True Murder Podcast. Longtime listeners of our show will know that we
00:59:54
have had the host of True Murder, Dan Zupansky, on our show a couple of times. We like to
01:00:00
call Dan the godfather of true crime podcast. Check out his show, True Murder. In particular, you want to check
01:00:07
out last Tuesday's show. This is when Dan interviewed Ladonna Humphrey, who is an expert on the still unsolved Melissa
01:00:14
Witt murder case. We had Ladonna on our show to discuss Missy Witt's case, as well, but it really made my day,
01:00:21
Captain, when I was listening to Ladonna, who told Dan that after coming on our show, the Melissa Witt Facebook
01:00:28
page blew up. And Dan referred to us as his friends over at True Crime Garage. So, thank you both, True Murder and
01:00:36
Ladonna Humphrey, for the shout-out and the kind words. That's True Murder Podcast, Tuesday, April 12th, The Girl I
01:00:43
Never Knew with Ladonna Humphrey. And until next week, be good, and be kind. And don't litter.