WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: The suspicious death of Jonathan Luna 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.360 This episode of Thinking Sideways is not brought you by 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:09.200 Screaming Measles, a kazoo band inspired by the bubonic plague. Instead, 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.120 it's sponsored by talk Space, the online therapy company lets 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:16.920 you message a licensed therapist from anywhere, at any time. 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.320 Can't imagine fitting another appointment in your life well With 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.480 talk Space, therapy is as easy as sending your therapist 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:27.360 a message. No commutes, no leaving the office, and no judgments. 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:30.000 To match with a perfect therapist for a fraction of 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.680 the price of traditional therapy, go to talk space dot 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.239 com slash sideways and use the code sideways to get 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:40.519 off of your first month and show your support for 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:52.760 the show that sideways and talk space dot com slash sideways. 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.880 Hi there, Welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:15.679 am Joe, joined as always by Steve and and we've 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:18.440 got another cool mystery to talk about this week. We're 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.040 going to talk about the very strange death of prosecutor 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:25.360 Jonathan Luna. Yeah, yeah, interesting case, this one. It really 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.080 it's it's it's a twisty turney one for what appears 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:30.560 to be so simple on the outside. Yeah, it's it's 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.640 still confounding people. Fifteen years later. The case is still open. 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:37.040 It's still a reward out for information. Before I get 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:38.920 into our story that I want to just give a 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.280 shout out to our listeners. Several people suggested this, including 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:46.839 Robert Stan, Judith and Monique and probably a few others. 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:48.880 It's yeah, we've had it on our radar for a 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:53.040 long time here at tsph Q. So let's start our story. 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.720 Our story begins on the morning of Thursday, December four, 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:01.960 two thousand three, five thirty am, Jonathan Luda, federal prosecutor, 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.480 was found dead in a ditch in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:09.000 just south of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. His body was faced 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:11.200 down in a very small creek. He had been stabbed 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.520 thirty six times with a small knife and also had 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:16.760 what was described as a traumatic wound on the right 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:19.000 side of his head. So, okay, there we go. We 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:32.079 got our body. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay. Before we start 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.160 telling all the great gory details, I want to talk 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:37.800 a little bit about Jonathan Luna. He was thirty eight 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:40.480 years old, an assistant U S Attorney at the Baltimore, 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.600 Maryland office. He was married. His wife was a doctor. 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.560 They had been married for ten years. They had two kids. 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.920 They had a townhouse in a suburb just southwest of Baltimore, 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.680 and Luna was actually kind of from humble beginnings. He 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:55.799 was born and raised in the South Bronx, New York, 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.359 kind of a tough neighborhood. And but he was always 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:02.679 kind of vocation into school unlike a lot of his classmates, 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.560 and got himself through law school past the bar, had 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.720 several different attorney jobs until you got this. What I 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:10.359 have heard is a really good job at the U. S. 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.600 Attorney's Office. Apparently it's it's a considered to be a 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.520 great opportunity, pretty high at the ladder it is. Yeah, 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.800 so he'd done well for himself considering where he came from. 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:22.320 So he's been doing that job for several years. But 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:24.720 unfortunately it all came to it end. On the morning 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.120 of December four, two thousand three, Jonathan Lena's body was 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.799 found behind a well drilling business. I'm not going to 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:33.079 name them because poor guys, they probably got enough phone 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.800 calls about this one. I'm gonna I'm not but that 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.640 they were on lookated on Dry Tavern Road, which is 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:42.880 less than a thousand feet south of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, uh, 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.200 and just on the eastern edge of the town of Denver, Pennsylvania. 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.760 Tire tracts indicated that Luda had driven onto the property 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.640 and passed the building, parked behind the building for a 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:55.360 little period of time, and then from there the car 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.120 was driven further west to the end of the site 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.040 and into this sort of cricks last ditch at the 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:03.280 rear of the property. And they call it a creek, 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:05.240 but you know, and I guess it is a very 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:07.880 tiny little creek. And it wasn't as if the car 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.800 had driven into the just kind of tipped over the 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.400 edge and front stopped, front tires kind of went over 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:16.360 the edge. Yeah, the engine was still running. The car 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.160 was not you know, wrecked or anything like that. And 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.120 then Jonathan Luna's body was found below the car, faced 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:25.159 down in the water. Driver's side door and the fender 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.720 were smeared with blood. There was blood inside the car, 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:29.919 including some on the floor on the back seat of 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:33.839 the car, a fair amount from like a pool of 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.160 blood back there, yeah yea uh. And the blood in 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.520 the back seat, of course, led law enforcement to wonder 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.240 if perhaps Luna had been abducted, maybe forced to lay 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.560 down in the back of the car for a while. Yeah, 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.440 maybe maybe not, we'll see. Um, he was well dressed. 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.120 He was dressed in a business suit, tie, black overcoat. 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:53.479 His wallet was still in his pocket. There were twenty 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.760 dollar bills strewn about the inside of the car. Uh 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:58.839 So robbery did not appear to be a motive in 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.160 this particular crime. But it did, and I frankly look 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.280 like a murder. Yeah. Although oddly, when the autopsy results 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:07.480 came back, it turned out that Jonathan Luna had died 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.200 from drowning and not from being stabbed thirty six times, 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:11.760 which is kind of odd when you think about it. 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:14.000 But you can. You can drown in an inch of water. 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.240 Oh yeah, it's possible, and this is an example of it. Yeah. Well, 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.520 you know, he would have died of his wounds probably, 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:21.440 it was just the water got him first. Yeah. I 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:23.440 was gonna say, it's pretty easy to drown when you've 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.400 been stabbed so much that you're just dying from good 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:30.480 point that too, if you're just totally passed out, you've 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:32.719 lost so much blood and you're just laying face down 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.440 in a creek, pretty easy way to drown. That's a 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.359 good point. Well, so, how did he get to that point, 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.960 Let's start at the beginning. The last time, the last 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:44.200 night he was seen alive. The night before December three, 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.360 he was at home working. He'd been prosecuting a drug 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:50.080 trafficking case, and on the third day of the trial, 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:52.799 he had decided to kind of plea agreement with the defendants. 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:54.400 There were two of them in this case. He was 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:56.960 writing up these agreements, one for each, so you can 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.640 have them ready in court. The next morning, he left 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.800 us how us around eleven PM and went into the office. Uh. 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.080 Live very far away, not that far away now, pretty quick. 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:07.840 I mean, actually he was really close to a major 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.719 road free with slash freeway that dumped out right downtown 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.680 near his office. Uh. And then after that he left 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.680 his office at p M. He left his glasses and 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:20.800 his cell phone on his desk, which is considered odd 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:24.520 by a lot of people at work. At work. Yeah, um, 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.839 it's believed that he needed his glasses for driving, although 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:30.760 I'm not sure how badly he needed his glasses for driving. Apparently, 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:32.560 like I see that actually some driving that night, and 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:34.840 apparently he did just fine, So I don't think he 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:36.840 needed him all that bad. It might have been like 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:39.520 some My wife wears glasses, but she doesn't need them 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.280 all the time, but she really likes to have her 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:46.720 glasses at night because it helps cut down the glare 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:48.440 and and that and you know, makes it easier to 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:53.800 understand road signs. But she can still drive as if 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:55.320 she was you know. It's not as if he was 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:57.560 blind as a bat without that. No, no, exactly. I 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.200 mean I I don't have to wear my glasses when 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.000 I drive, but especially at night, I do prefer to 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:05.480 you because yeah, probably now, it's just it's really a 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:07.720 pain to try to read signs after dark, you know, 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.520 without your glasses on. Anyway, back to enough of that, 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:12.720 but also the phone is considered odd by people. That's 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:14.840 but that's people who are posting on Reddit in the 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.080 year twenty seventeen or eighteen, and people they can't imagine 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.000 being away from their phone. Yeah this was, yeah, this 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:24.280 was two thousand three. When this happens, people weren't, you know, 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:26.680 as married to their phone. So I don't put a 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.720 lot of weight on that. Well, obviously, the police were 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:34.400 interested in knowing where Jonathan Luna went between p m. 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:36.480 When he left his office and five thirty A and 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:40.920 when his dead body is discovered, so naturally, Uh, they 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.040 checked of course bank and credit card debit card records, 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.360 and also toll road receipts, because there's a lot of 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:49.600 toll roads on the East coast. We have none out 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:51.560 here in the West, but they're just all the well 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.400 bridges and that's about it. Yeah, and even those are 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:57.400 few in farms between. Yeah, they kind of are. Yeah. Actually, 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:01.440 we California has tolls. Yeah, four years chuck full of tolls, 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.200 and the Oregon doesn't. That's why they have better roads 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:08.520 than we do. That trap, yeah, but they have they've 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.160 easy passes, yeah, exactly, that's that's that's what people do 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.200 because otherwise if you have to stop and actually give 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:18.360 some change to a guy, oh my god, yeah, I'm 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.920 fifty cents short, Yeah, which means waiting in line and stuff. 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.320 So they have easy passes. You just sails through. It's 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.520 just a little like electronic thing and it links up 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.520 to the thing and they do some places they do 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.880 them by um license plate anymore too, because the cameras 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:35.960 can read them, and that reading your license plate all 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.680 the time anyway. So yeah, and of course the extra 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.240 textually mentioning that because it turns out Jonathan Luna had 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.000 one in his car. Yeah, he had an easy pass. Yeah. 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:48.199 So between bank records and his easy pass records, they 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.280 were able to reconstruct his little journey. Uh. And I'm 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:52.840 not going to give you the whole timeline, but but 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:54.520 you can find it online if you really want to 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.000 see it. It's in a lot of different places. The 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:00.000 brief version is he left Baltimore, drove northeast across Maryland 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.360 of Delaware, made his way to Newark, Delaware, where he 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:04.920 took two hundred bucks out of a a t M 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.959 and then from nart to Peers. He continued into maybe 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:13.400 New Jersey, then over to Philadelphia, headed northwest to the 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.679 town of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Welcome up when nast 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:18.480 name by the way, it's great. Yeah, I don't know 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:22.520 if you lived there. You call it kop You just 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:24.800 call it k or Prussia. What do you call yourselves? 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.760 And royalty, that's what you call yourself, your highness. So 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.280 he but he bought gas there. Yeah, he thought there's 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:33.520 a there's a little a little thing right off the turnpike. 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:35.520 There's not even a formal exit. There's just a gas 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.160 station right there. But gas also a snack in a soda, 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:41.880 being paid with his either debity, I think it's debit card. 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:44.800 And from there he continued west on the turnpike to 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:47.520 exit two eighties six, which is just on the front 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:52.560 of the eastern edge of Denver and past Pennsylvania. Yeah, 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.960 Exe Denver. When when there is a town that is 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:59.480 the same name as a major town somewhere else, you 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:01.160 can get can using so I just want to make 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:04.600 sure it's Denver p A. Yeah, it is Denver p A. Yeah, 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:06.840 it's interesting to you. Also went to Newark, Delaware. I 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.720 never even knew until he researched the story there was Newark, Delaware. 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:12.400 Nobody else knew either, even the people that lived there. 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:15.160 At that point he got off the exit, he had 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.240 to pass through a toll booth and pay, and and 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.360 there he presented a paper ticket. And this is this 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:22.200 is one thing that happened is he was using his 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.360 easy pass when he started his little journey, but then 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.160 he switched to cash for some reason. I would wonder 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.240 if maybe it's because his easy pass only has a 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:33.040 certain range. You know, they're only good and certain Remember, 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.120 so you're here tri met the rail system. They used 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:40.040 to have zones and you could pay for zone one, 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.280 zone one and two, zone one, two and three when 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.360 you bought things, and I wonderful, how well, But I'm 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:50.080 wondering if maybe he was in some weird government paid 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:54.240 program that only allowed him a certain radius. Who knows, 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.320 It's probably not that important, or maybe he just didn't 0:10:57.360 --> 0:10:59.240 want people know him where he went. I don't know. 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.600 And here's question too, is um, you know most of 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:06.160 these things would have cameras attached to them. Is it 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:09.040 confirmed that he is the one who you know, went 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:11.560 and took two hundred dollars out that you did all 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:15.680 these little things? Uh, not necessarily, you know. They obviously 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.880 they checked the camera in the A t M. And 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.280 I've heard two versions of this. One says it wasn't 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.800 working period and the other one camera yeah and then 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:25.280 a t M. The other one I heard is that 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:29.120 it was working and that he had nobody, nobody with 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:33.680 him and he appeared calm and normal and uninjured, so 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:35.959 you know, to the two versions of the same thing. 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.320 So I don't know. And then the other other place 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:40.480 they were able to find footage was at that gas 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.679 station that he stopped at in King of Prussia, and 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.080 their camera was working, but he never appears on film there. 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.040 So somehow he managed to evade that camera. I don't 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.839 enough intentionally, probably just accidentally. It just wasn't quite putting 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.040 in the right direction. So yeah, they didn't really have 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:59.120 any footage of that there. There were also a couple 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.720 of employees that gas station who remembered him, or at 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:03.960 least they said they did, and they said there was 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.920 nothing odd going on with him. But anyway, he as 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.520 I said, he left the turnpike at ex at two 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.079 six uh, and then he circled back on the south 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.360 side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, went back eastward until he 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:21.120 got the Dry Tavern Road, interesting name, Dry Tavern and 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:24.559 then from there, yeah, I know, what's the point, right, 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:27.600 But then he goes north and turns on to the 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.760 property of the drilling place, and you know, we know 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:34.160 what the rest is. He is stabbed by somebody or 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.400 something and he times weird. But the weird thing about 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:40.200 the timeline of his night is it took him roughly 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:46.640 three hours to arrive on Dry Dry Tavern Road, straight Tavern, 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.199 Dry Tavern Road. He took a round about root, right, 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.640 But if you map the route that he took it's 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:55.360 about an hour and a half drive when there's no traffic, 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:57.880 So there's a lot of unaccounted time there, and I 0:12:57.920 --> 0:12:59.240 think that's one of the things that gives a lot 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.160 of people paw is what was he doing in the 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:04.880 other hour and a half? Well, yeah, there is there 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:06.959 is a chunk of time there which is like, I mean, 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:08.480 a lot of that stuff that he was. Well, we 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:10.920 caught him here going using an easy pass which saw 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.200 the A T M here, So that's kind of accounted 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.200 for because even they would have taken him about that 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.320 one to get from A to B. But there is 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.559 that one little patch whereas about an hour or so 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:21.400 hour and a half maybe even though just totally on 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:23.760 account of time, they don't know where he was and 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.800 what he was doing exactly, which you know, he may 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:30.320 well just have been driving around still or maybe he 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.120 stopped off to buy drugs by a gun. I mean, 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:35.679 who knows, see a movie. I mean, we don't know. 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:38.160 So the so the local authorities, which would be the 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:42.680 Lancaster County Coroner's Office, ruled the case of homicide based 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.480 on their autopsy results. Again, there were thirty six stab wounds, 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:48.360 so that is kind of suspicious. Plus there was that 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.920 head wound, and they don't say, I mean, they haven't 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.400 actually released a lot of information. The case is still open, 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.439 so that means a lot of this stuff is still unavailable. 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:58.199 So when they say head, well, I don't know what 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:00.120 that means. He was hit with a rock baseball all 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.880 bad at Crowbar. You don't know. I mean, we just 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.360 don't know exactly the nature of that wound. Um, so 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:10.040 it sounds like it's notable. Most of the stab wounds 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.960 were very shallow. In fact, you know, almost all of them. 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:15.640 They were what they called pricks, just little teeny stabs 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.520 and so not really deep stabs at all. But for 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:23.080 them were pretty deep. Only one could really be called fatal, 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.120 which was a stab in the neck that partially severed 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.600 one of Jonathan Luna's caarated arteries. Those are pretty important 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:34.840 major so if Luna had not drowned, then certainly he 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:37.360 would have led out from this wound anyway, there's no 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:39.760 doubt about that. And as for the thirty two stab 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.560 wounds that weren't deep, these could be interpreted two different ways. 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.040 One is torture. Somebody's just stabbed him a lot, just 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.760 out of sheer sudism or something, or the other way 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.560 you can interpret them is is hesitation marks, which we've 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:56.080 talked about before, because um, there are those shallow wounds 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.480 that suicidal people make before they finally work up the 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:03.040 will to make a final deep cut. You a lot, 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.840 though it's a lot typically from what I've heard that 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.840 there's usually no more than maybe ten hesitation marks and 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.360 a typical suicide. So thirty two is a hell of 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:13.840 a lot. So that's odd. That would argue kind of 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.440 for torture, wouldn't it, You would think, Uh. And then 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.960 also there was the presence of defensive wounds or maybe not. 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:23.600 There was a leak from a federal law enforcement agent 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:27.160 that to a reporter that his hands were all all 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:29.840 slashed up and everything, although it turns out apparently that's 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:33.480 not true, that the medical examiners said that all the 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:36.920 stabs were basically run his chest, shoulders neck. See now 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.400 there's you gave us that article that was what Mr 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.360 Luna's midnight ride, and the guy who wrote that wrote 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.720 some other articles chasing this story and said that he 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:51.160 actually talked to the mortician that dealt with the body 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.480 and said that the cuts on the hands were so 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.240 much that they had first tried to stitch him together 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:00.400 for the for the you know, for the funeral, and 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.560 in the end for the viewing, they had to put 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.480 his hands in gloves because they were just so sliced 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.320 up they couldn't stitch it closed and hide it. Yeah, 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.760 so that would lead one to believe that they're actually 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.960 caught up more. And that person also indicated that the 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:16.960 cuts on his back, because there were cuts on his 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:22.280 neck and his shoulders, they were more around the middle 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.280 of his back, kind of near his shoulder blades, out 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.440 what appeared to be out of reach of what a 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:29.760 person could normally reach. You how you get that itch 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.280 between your shoulder blades and you can't get it? That's 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.520 the only place where I get itches. Yes, but that's 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.400 they indicated that there were cuts back there. So that's 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:42.600 why I questioned the wounds weren't as bad as as 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.400 they were. But I've I've seen incredible, very credible sources 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.120 that say that all that is. Who has another another 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:52.080 claim that his crown him was slashed, and I've heard 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:54.880 but then the best it seems like the best sources 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:56.880 I've seen it just say that it was thirty six, 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.920 just around in places that were not impossible or came 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.840 to reach if he had self inflicted. The wounds morticians 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:07.840 also the one who talked about the scrotum having several 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.760 that did not appear to be anything that a man 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:14.400 would normally do to himself. Yeah, now, typically that's that's 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.000 not a place we go to. Uh So, I I've 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:18.720 got to say, that's that's kind of up in the 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:22.080 air for me. It really is. I mean, obviously, if 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:24.000 he has a stab wound, like you know, between the 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.080 shoulder blades where he could not possibly have reached, that 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.720 sort of changes things, do you know, it really does. 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:32.480 But so we're just gonna have to be agnostic on 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.560 that particular one. I think so based on our crime 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.760 scene and the wounds and the evidence of his very 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:41.760 long and explained car ride, it looked like, you know, 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.520 at first blush that Luna had been abducted perhaps and 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.439 then murdered, But then evidence from the car and the 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.560 crime scene didn't totally support that. There actually not at all. 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.119 There was There was nothing found in the car. There 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.760 was a partial fingerprint that was unidentifiable, and a little 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.640 bit of blood that didn't belong to Jonathan Luna. Those 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:02.200 are found in the car, but that was it. And 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:04.560 other than that, there was no evidence that anybody other 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.560 than Luna had been in the car. No d n 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:13.840 A or hair or fingerprints or footprints or anything. But 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.320 most of the blood wasn't also at the crime scene, right, 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:18.400 I mean most of the blood was in the car. Yeah, 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:21.240 most of the blood was in the car. I assumed 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.400 there was. There was some on the ground and near him, 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.160 but it was the evidence. Wasn't that somebody had walked 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.760 up to him there and stabbed him thirty six times 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:34.119 and he had stumbled down right the creek. Yeah? No, no, no, 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:36.440 no evidence for that now, and no evidence that somebody 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:38.960 had been in the car with him either. Yeah, that 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:40.600 would be unfortunate, you know, to be out in your 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:42.919 cruise to go to this total place we'd never expect 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.639 to see anybody and there's Mr. Serial killer waiting for you. 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:48.120 On the other hand, there was no murder weapon there, 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.240 which would argue was kind of argue for murder because 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:53.439 we have a murder we would expect would take it 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:55.440 away with him, right, and no murder weapon there. It 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:57.639 would also explain why most of the blood was like 0:18:57.720 --> 0:18:59.960 in the back of the car, not in the driver's 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:02.840 that would that would maybe be an indicator. Yeah, but 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.040 le's assuming assuming for a second that it was murdered, 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:08.840 than what would the motive be? And of course a 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.359 lot of people wandered, federal prosecutor, did it has something 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:15.840 to do with this job? Maybe? So we'll talk a 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.280 little bit here about his last case because it's kind 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.640 of relevant. I think this is the trial for which 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:23.879 he was writing up the plea agreements on his last evening. 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:26.600 There were a couple of guys Dion Smith, Walter Point 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:31.080 Dexter on federal trial for drug possession and trafficking, and 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.000 this case wasn't going as well as it could have 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.240 for Luna, which is why he was cutting this plea deal. 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:39.359 And you know, people have wondered, could his death have 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.919 had something to do with this trial, for example, because 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.320 these two defendants were drug traffickers, one of them was 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.840 facing the death penalty. Yeah, people were thinking to have 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.160 something to do with these guys, and their lawyers actually 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:55.000 poo pooed the idea because they said, well, naturally, but 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:57.080 actually they make a good argument for this because I 0:19:57.119 --> 0:19:59.320 mean it said that basically these guys were on the 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.600 verge of getting a really sweet plea deal that actually 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:04.040 was very favorable to them, and so they weren't they 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.080 were actually happy, so that that might rule them out. 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.440 I don't know. But then again, he was a prosecutor, 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.119 so he would put other people away, so maybe somebody 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:16.440 else was Yeah, so maybe somebody else was angry. Um. 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.080 But of course all that stuff was looked into, and 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:23.040