Mystery of Jonathan Luna persists after 20 years

• By Dan Nephin/LNP | LancasterOnline

Two federal prosecutors.

Two untimely deaths.

Two decades later, no one has been brought to justice in either case.

There, largely, the similarities end.

One case is being actively investigated, regularly making the news. That’s the case of Seattle prosecutor Thomas Wales.

How the other case is being handled is less straightforward. That’s the case of Jonathan Luna, the Baltimore prosecutor whose body was found in Lancaster County 20 years ago.

Wales’ death was clearly an assassination.

Late in the night of Oct. 11, 2001, someone shot Wales through the basement window of his Seattle home. Wales, 49, died the next day in the hospital.

Luna’s death is less clearly defined.

In the early morning of Dec. 4, 2003, Luna, 38, was found face-down in a small stream in a remote area of Brecknock Township in northern Lancaster County.

Though the official cause of Luna’s death was determined to be drowning because of water in his lungs, Luna had also been stabbed 36 times. Most of the cuts were to the neck. According to the coroner at the time, most were shallow and not fatal.

In Wales’ case, the Department of Justice is offering a reward of up to $2 million for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of his killer.

Federal investigators have said they believe Wales might have been killed because of his job. They even have a suspect, according to published reports, and are trying to make the case that the suspect hired a hitman to kill Wales.

There’s no known suspect in Luna’s case, nor is there a reward being offered for information about his death.

Search Wales’ name on Google and, high in the results, is a link to the FBI’s “seeking information” website. Also high in the results is the Department of Justice announcement on the 20th anniversary of Wales’ death that it was redoubling efforts to find the killer.

Search Luna’s name on Google, and while plenty of links will come up — news articles, podcasts and the musings of armchair detectives — the FBI and Justice Department pages about Luna’s death don’t make the first page of search results. That’s odd, considering the FBI purportedly has an active investigation into Luna’s death.

Then again, much of Jonathan Luna’s case is strange. And many questions asked two decades ago remain unanswered.

Among them:

Why did Luna, who was prosecuting two Baltimore men for dealing heroin, leave the federal courthouse in Baltimore about 20 minutes before midnight as he was supposedly finishing terms of plea agreements that would be presented in court the next morning to resolve the case?

Why would Luna leave his laptop, cellphone and eyeglasses behind? It was reported at the time that Luna needed them to drive, though there are many pictures of him without glasses.

Why did Luna take a more than four-hour, circuitous trip from that courthouse to a rural section of Lancaster County, passing through Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania?

And most perplexing: Was Luna murdered? Or did he take his own life?

Who was Jonathan Luna?

Drawing a portrait of Jonathan Paul Luna today must pull information from various newspaper accounts, including LNP predecessor papers, and a book, “The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna” by William Keisling, who extensively interviewed Daniel Rivera, Luna’s best friend from childhood and the best man at his wedding.

Luna’s parents are dead.

His only brother, David Luna, could not be located and apparently last spoke publicly shortly after Luna’s death.

Luna’s wife, Angela Hopkins-Luna, has not responded to efforts to interview her, and no record of her speaking to any reporter, at any time, could be found.

An older woman who answered the intercom at the suburban Baltimore condominium that property records show Hopkins-Luna owns told a reporter on Nov. 2 that Hopkins-Luna no longer lives in the U.S., but she declined to give any contact information. She did not identify herself.

Luna was born in The Bronx section of New York City to Paul and Rosezella Luna. Paul Luna was Filipino and worked in restaurants. Rosezella was Black and worked as a homemaker. Jonathan, his parents and his older brother, David Luna, lived in public housing in the Mott Haven section.

In school, Jonathan Luna was academically oriented and dressed for success.

He wanted to be a journalist at one point, but in high school, he decided to be a lawyer. He enrolled at Hunter College in New York City but transferred to Fordham University.

He was accepted into the prestigious University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill.

There, he met Hopkins, a medical student. He graduated law school in 1992, and they married in August 1993.

Luna worked at a private law firm in Washington, D.C., for about a year, then with the Federal Trade Commission before returning to New York City to work as an assistant district attorney.

From there, he went to work in 1999 in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore, where he prosecuted child pornography and drug cases, among others.

Luna, his wife, mother-in-law and young son bought a townhouse in Elkridge, Maryland, a Baltimore suburb. In 2003, the Lunas had a second son. Luna also moved his parents from New York to an apartment nearby and visited them regularly.

Cause for concern

Though Luna was well-liked by colleagues, news accounts also reported he was concerned he’d fallen out of favor when a new boss, Thomas DiBiagio, took over in 2001. He had even hired a lawyer.

Luna apparently had cause for concern.

The drug trial Luna had been handling hadn’t been going well. The government’s key witness changed his testimony, and it was revealed in court that the prosecution had known the witness had escaped supervision and gotten arrested with heroin, but that information wasn’t immediately turned over to defense attorneys.

And Luna, in September 1992, tried a bank robbery case in which more than $36,000 of evidence money went missing.

Though investigators told The Baltimore Sun shortly after Luna’s death that there was nothing connecting him to the missing money, The Washington Post reported in December 2005 that Luna had been scheduled to take a lie detector test shortly after the drug trial and had already postponed it at least once, citing work.

Other people were given lie detector tests, but the case has never been solved.

Luna’s last hours

On Dec. 3, 2003, Luna and the two defense attorneys in the drug case told the judge they believed they had reached a plea agreement. The jury trial was recessed until the next morning, a Thursday, so the attorneys could hammer out the details.

Luna went home for dinner, then returned to the office, telling one of the defense attorneys in a phone call about 9 p.m. that he was finishing the agreement text and would fax it to the attorney by midnight. It never arrived.

Federal investigators, using Luna’s E-ZPass information, toll tickets and credit card, put together a timeline of Luna’s final hours.

At 11:38 p.m. Dec. 3, 2003, Luna’s silver 2003 Honda Accord departed the Baltimore federal courthouse and headed north on Interstate 95. Just before 1 a.m. Dec. 4, he withdrew $200 from an ATM at a rest stop in Newark, Delaware.

An hour and 40 minutes later, Luna drove onto the New Jersey Turnpike near Florence. Ten minutes later, he entered the Pennsylvania Turnpike at the Delaware River Bridge, heading west.

Luna’s card was used at a gas station in King of Prussia at 3:20 a.m., and he exited the turnpike at 4:04 at the Reading/Lancaster interchange. Later, a spot of his blood was found on a toll ticket. Why a ticket was used is unexplained, considering he had an E-ZPass.

There is at least one unexplained gap in the timeline and another potential gap.

The drive from Newark to the turnpike should have taken about 40 minutes, according to investigators: That left an hour unaccounted for.

The drive from the Reading/Lancaster interchange to Sensenig & Weaver Well Drilling on Dry Tavern Road, where Luna was found, should take fewer than 10 minutes — if taking the most direct route.

Employee Daniel Gehman arrived about 5 a.m. and said he didn’t see any unfamiliar vehicles. He went into the office to make coffee and get ready.

When he went outside about half an hour later, he noticed a flashing red light on the edge of the property next to a creek. It was from the dashboard of Luna’s Accord. The car’s front end hung over the creek.

Gehman turned his truck’s lights toward the car and noticed blood on the back seat.

He called police, and two Pennsylvania State Troopers arrived about 15 minutes later, around 5:45, according to a search warrant affidavit for the Accord.

The Accord was running. Trooper James Fassnacht noticed blood smeared on the driver’s side door front fender.

A large pool of blood was in the right rear passenger floor board. Cash was strewn about.

Luna’s body, dressed in a business suit, was face-down in the creek, close to the front wheels and undercarriage.

Around 11 a.m., Dr. Wayne K. Ross, Lancaster County’s forensic pathologist since 1993, examined Luna’s body on scene and noticed a traumatic wound to the right side of the head.

More than 100 state police cadets helped search the area, as a snowstorm was expected the next day. Nothing was immediately found.

In February 2004 authorities announced they had recently found Luna’s penknife in the stream near where Luna’s body was discovered. When exactly the knife was found was never publicly specified.

Autopsy findings

Ross performed the autopsy later on Dec. 4.

Dr. Barry Walp, who was Lancaster County’s coroner, and Ross re-examined Luna’s body the next day, Dec. 5.

In a Dec. 6, 2003, article in The Intelligencer Journal, Walp said Luna had been stabbed 36 times.

Luna, Walp said, “was alive when they put him in the creek. Several deep cuts caused internal hemorrhaging, and the water in the lungs caused the drowning.”

The next day’s Lancaster New Era, citing a New York Daily News story, reported that Walp said while most of the 36 wounds were shallow, “several were deep enough to cause internal bleeding. We see these so-called knife-prick wounds when a person is being teased or questioned. It’s a form of torture.”

The New Era article continued, “Federal officials said some of the wounds were defensive, indicating that Luna tried to fight back.”

But Walp told The Associated Press that no defensive wounds were observed during Luna’s autopsy and that all his wounds were to his neck and upper shoulder area.

It would not be the first inconsistency in the case.

Shifting theory

In the immediate days after Luna’s death, investigators treated the case as a homicide.

Luna’s boss, DiBiagio, told reporters outside Baltimore’s federal courthouse, “Let there be no doubt that everyone in law enforcement — local police, state police, United States marshals, (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), FBI — are united. We will find out who did this. And we are dedicated to bringing the persons responsible for this tragedy to justice. That’s a commitment from me. That’s a commitment from every law enforcement officer in the state of Maryland.”

Investigators examined the cases Luna was prosecuting for possible leads but came up with nothing.

The two drug dealers Luna prosecuted were not believed to be connected: The plea deal they ended up getting matched what they had sought before their trial even started, one of their attorneys told The Baltimore Sun. They had no reason to see him dead. They’d also been in jail when Luna’s body was found.

Investigators also turned to Luna’s personal life.

Through leaks largely to Baltimore and Washington media, investigators soon hinted that there might be more to Luna than the picture of a loving, dedicated husband, father and son.

On Dec. 8, 2003, The Sun reported that Luna had about $25,000 in credit card debt.

The article also said that Luna had expressed concern that his job was at risk, though The Sun noted that DiBiagio denied that speculation. Later, it would be reported that DiBiagio privately admitted he lied about that to protect Luna’s family — something he also denied.

DiBiagio, who has long been out of public office, did not respond to repeated efforts for comment, nor did Donald Totaro, then-district attorney for Lancaster County.

The Monday after Luna’s death, The Sun reported, many employees in his office wore black ribbons, and courthouse flags flew at half staff.

On Dec. 12, 2003, The Sun reported — again citing an unidentified law enforcement official — that investigators found blood and DNA evidence from a second person in Luna’s car. The Associated Press reporting at the time said investigators “suspect they found two types of blood in Luna’s car and were performing DNA tests.”

If those tests were ever done, results were never definitively announced or reported, but a Jan. 15, 2006, Lancaster Sunday News article reported, “Early assertions that Luna paid for two tanks of gas at King of Prussia, and that a second blood type was detected in the Honda, haven’t panned out.”

Other reports from soon after Luna’s death said investigators were looking into an online dating profile by the name of Jonathan Luna, supposedly a Black professional interested in white women. The reports said the profile was from 1997 and had not been definitively linked to Luna.

On Feb. 13, 2004, The Baltimore Sun was the first publication to report that investigators were considering the possibility of Luna’s suicide: “In FBI reports over the past month, authorities have raised the possibility that Luna, 38, could have killed himself, according to three law-enforcement sources who spoke with The Sun on condition of anonymity. The controversial theory has met sharp skepticism internally, however, by a number of investigators who maintained that the evidence points to homicide.”

Investigators also were looking into a loan application Luna filled out for about $30,000; it was canceled not long after the $36,000 from the bank robbery was found to be missing, The Sun reported. Authorities also found Luna had as many as 16 credit card accounts, some taken out without his wife’s knowledge.

On March 12, 2004, investigators publicly acknowledged they were considering that Luna might have taken his own life.

“The task force is looking at every possible scenario,” Pennsylvania State Police Capt. Steven McDaniel said during a news conference in Baltimore.

Authorities announced a $100,000 reward and said for the first time that they had no evidence that Luna had contact with anyone from when he left Baltimore to when he was found in Brecknock Township.

Case grows cold

Lancaster County’s then-current and past coroners stuck to their homicide determination.

Walp, then-retired, told the Intelligencer-Journal in 2004, “It’s still a homicide. I don’t know where this stuff about suicide is coming from.”

Dr. Gary Kirchner, who took office in January 2004, told the paper, “Luna was stabbed 36 times and died from freshwater drowning. There just isn’t any way this is a suicide.”

Walp and Kirchner have since died, but they never wavered in their assessment.

Kirchner said he was asked by the FBI to change the cause of death to suicide but refused, the Lancaster Sunday News reported Jan. 15, 2006.

Over time, the Luna case largely faded from coverage, both locally and nationally.

There were five- and 10-year anniversary stories. And in January 2006, The Baltimore Sun reported that it obtained a Department of Justice inspector general report critical of aspects of the investigation. Largely, it focused on personnel matters, such as the questioning of a female colleague of Luna’s concerning their relationship.

Lancaster papers carried stories about Keisling’s book and the efforts of at least one private investigator.

There also were reports of efforts to gain access to coroner records in the case and unsuccessful efforts by Luna’s father and a private investigator to get Kirchner, the coroner, to conduct an inquest.

Then, on Jan. 31, 2020, apparently prompted by a private investigator’s request to Lancaster County officials, autopsy records that were believed to have been either lost or turned over to the FBI were found in the county’s archives.

Their discovery prompted newly elected District Attorney Heather Adams to have them sealed.

LNP Media Group, the publisher of LNP | LancasterOnline, sought to have them unsealed, but on Jan. 13, 2021, Lancaster County President Judge David Ashworth ruled release would hinder the investigation.

“To permit wholesale disclosure of the contents of the documents as requested by LNP would prejudice the ongoing homicide investigation,” Ashworth ruled.

Active, open investigation

At the October 2020 hearing before Ashworth, testimony revealed that the FBI considered Luna’s case active, despite years earlier telling The Washington Post that it had been “administratively closed.”

State Trooper Chad Roberts, who heads the Lancaster County area’s criminal investigations unit for homicides, missing persons and cold cases, testified that he examines the case annually.

Questions and requests for information to the FBI about Luna’s case were routed to its Baltimore field office, which did not directly answer them.

“The FBI has no additional information to share on the Luna investigation. As a general matter, we are prepared to review and examine new information related to any investigation, should it become available,” the email stated.

A spokesperson declined to elaborate.

Adams, the district attorney, referred questions about the investigation to the state police.

In an emailed response to questions, the state police said, “The case remains under active investigation, and we do not have comment at this time.”

Adams said she has reviewed the autopsy records and does not plan to publicly release them.

“So long as the case is open and active, the commonwealth will not release the autopsy report to the public for the same reason we sought to seal it, that is, releasing such information could substantially hinder the ongoing criminal investigation,” she said.

The autopsy would be released to a defense attorney if an arrest is made as part of discovery, or evidence sharing, Adams said.

LNP Media Group also sought information from federal investigators through the Federal Freedom of Information Act but was denied.

Anniversaries of Thomas Wales’ murder are frequently marked with resolve that the case can be solved and pleas for people to come forward with information.

Two years ago, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco announced the department was adding another $1 million to the reward money — bringing the total to $2.5 million — in hopes it would spur someone to come forward.

“Although two decades have passed, the Department of Justice remains committed to this investigation,” Monaco said in a news release at the time. “Somebody knows something about this murder, and we want to do everything we can to encourage them to come forward now.”

If there is one commonality between the Wales and Luna cases, it’s the use of anonymous federal sources.

While in the Luna case, federal law enforcement sources advanced theories that Luna’s death was likely a suicide, in Wales’ case, sources advanced their theory that a man he had prosecuted in a fraud case used his suspected connections to a drug cartel to arrange for a contract killing, according to reporting by The Seattle Times two years ago.

The man in the fraud case has not been charged in connection with Wales’ death and has maintained his innocence. And that theory leaves open the possibility the contract killer didn’t know who wanted Wales dead, The Times reported.

No definitive answer

April Brooks, a retired FBI agent who headed the Luna investigation, spoke about Luna’s case in a brief phone interview in October.

“I have nothing really to add other than standing by some of our original statements. This was an exhaustive investigation. There is no evidence (Luna) met with or had contact with anybody that evening,” Brooks said.

Brooks declined to answer other questions, in deference, she said, to Luna’s widow and sons.

Brooks said she understands the frustration that the case is not neatly resolved.

“There is not a definitive answer, and there most likely never will be,” she said. “If (local and federal law enforcement) were able to specifically state in unison that there was a common position, that would have already been said,” Brooks said, adding Luna’s case is not the only case in which investigators in different jurisdictions have differing opinions.

The lack of resolution doesn’t bother her, Brooks said.

“I’m actually good the way it is,” Brooks said “The biggest thing we wanted was all the facts that were known at the time to be out. … Unfortunately, this just doesn’t come to a clean resolution for everyone — especially the media.”