Lancaster County DA asks judge to lift seal on federal prosecutor’s autopsy records of Jonathan Luna

Request comes 6 years after records had been sealed

• By Dan Nephin / LNP | LancasterOnline

Nearly six years after having them sealed, the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office has dropped opposition to the release of autopsy records in the 2003 death of federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna.

In a court filing Friday, the office asked a judge to vacate the seal.

“Following thorough review and investigation, the District Attorney is no longer concerned that disclosing the aforementioned records poses a threat of substantially hindering or jeopardizing the investigation,” the filing said.

The decision marks a significant development in LNP | LancasterOnline’s yearslong effort to learn more about the autopsy and what it may say about how Luna died. The body of the 38-year-old Baltimore prosecutor was found on Dec. 5, 2003, after state police were called to a Brecknock Township well drilling company in the northern part of the township. His body had 36 stab wounds and was found face-down in a small creek.

“I’m pleased that the district attorney’s office has chosen a path of transparency on this 22-year-old unsolved case,” Tom Murse, executive editor of LNP | LancasterOnline, said Friday. “I also appreciate the fact that our county prosecutors have been responsive to our requests for the information and have been willing to have reasonable discussions with us about the potential release of these records over the past many months.”

Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, called the decision a win for LNP and the community it serves.

“I commend the DA for recognizing the importance of public access, but it is critical to recognize that the DA’s decision was made only because LNP took the issue to court and had stellar legal representation from Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press,” Melewsky added. “Without LNP’s efforts and RCFP’s skills, the Luna records would remain in the dark.”

Paula Knudsen Burke, the Pennsylvania staff attorney for the Reporters Committee and a former LancasterOnline editor, said: “We are glad to have helped LNP get one step closer to obtaining these records, which it has sought to access for many years in an effort to more fully inform the public about this case.”

Murse said the records are critical in understanding now Luna died, “particularly as they relate to the coroner’s office’s determination that his death was a homicide and not, as some have suggested, suicide.”

22-year mystery

Luna’s death has continued to draw attention and speculation because different investigators arrived at different conclusions about how he died.

Federal investigators in Baltimore initially viewed Luna’s death as a homicide, but they later suggested through anonymous sources that personal troubles may have led Luna to take his own life, either intentionally or accidentally.

However, in Pennsylvania, the case remains an open homicide under the jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania State Police and the DA’s office.

Officially, the cause of Luna’s death was determined to be freshwater drowning because his body was found in water.

The coroner who made the initial homicide ruling, based on the findings of Dr. Wayne K. Ross, Lancaster County’s forensic pathologist since 1993, has since died, but his two successors, including the current coroner, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, have maintained that finding.

In Pennsylvania, autopsy records are presumed to be part of the public record. Luna’s records had long been thought to be lost. Then, in January 2020, they were found in the county archives.

Soon after their discovery, the DA’s office had them sealed on the grounds that releasing them could jeopardize the investigation into Luna’s death.

William Keisling, who wrote the 2004 book, “The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna,” and was associate producer of a 2024 movie by the same name, said more about the investigation needs to come out.

He said he recently submitted a Right to Know Law request to the state police for more records.

“The release of the autopsy report doesn’t go far enough,” he said. “The public deserves to know that the state police professionally and adequately investigated the case and that’s why things like the log files, the jurisdiction communications with the FBI also have to be released. The FBI told the state police that Luna did this to himself. That’s why they’re releasing the autopsy report. They don’t believe it’s a murder. They don’t believe it’s a homicide. They’re not investigating.”

He remains skeptical that Luna killed himself.

“Let’s see what the autopsy report says. Why would somebody, why would somebody vanish from their office drive across four states stab himself in the back and throw himself in the creek in December? Yeah it looks like murder to me,” Keisling said.

LNP | LancasterOnline fought to obtain the records when they were first rediscovered and sealed, but Lancaster County Judge David Ashworth sided with the DA’s office in 2021, determining that releasing them could hinder or jeopardize the investigation.

Last November, LNP renewed its request to unseal the records. It cited continued public interest in the case and an apparent lack of movement and said Ashworth had the authority to consider whether the case should remain sealed.

In January, Ashworth asked the DA’s office for a detailed update of the investigation and said he would review the records “in camera,” meaning in his chambers, not in open court.

Ashworth has since met with the DA’s office and LNP representatives. In August, he scheduled an evidentiary hearing to hear arguments from LNP and the DA’s office for Monday, Nov. 24.