Lancaster County coroner says his office doesn’t have Luna autopsy photos

• By Dan Nephin / LNP | LancasterOnline

Lancaster County Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni said his office has no photographs of the autopsy performed on Jonathan Luna, the federal prosecutor whose body was found in Brecknock Township 22 years ago and whose death continues to be a matter of speculation.

Judge David Ashworth last month ordered Luna’s autopsy records unsealed after the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office dropped its opposition to releasing the records found in county archives in 2020 after being presumed lost or not in the county’s possession.

The district attorney’s office had the records sealed on the grounds that releasing them could jeopardize the investigation into Luna’s death.

LNP | LancasterOnline filed a Right-to-Know request Tuesday with the coroner’s office because photos were not included with the unsealed records, despite the 11-page postmortem report stating Pennsylvania State Police and the coroner’s office took photos of Luna’s body.

“The existing photos were not taken by the County of Lancaster Coroner’s office but rather the Pennsylvania State Police and are not the coroner’s office’s official work product,” the county’s open records officer, Tammy Bender, wrote to LNP | LancasterOnline on Thursday.

LNP | LancasterOnline was evaluating its next step, said Tom Murse, executive editor.

The media outlet filed a Right-to-Know request with state police on Tuesday but had not received a response as of Friday. Agencies have five business days to reply to requests.

Diamantoni said Friday that staff at the coroner’s office looked for photographs and found none.

“Remember, this was before I took office, and things were different then,” Diamantoni said.

The two coroners who preceded Diamantoni have since died. However, Dr. Wayne K. Ross, who performed the autopsy and wrote the postmortem report, remains the county’s forensic pathologist.

Ross “does not have any photographs,” Diamantoni said.

Diamantoni said at the time of Luna’s death, the district attorney’s office and police “would be uncomfortable with the coroner (staff) taking photographs,” but that attitude has since changed.

When the autopsy records were found in January 2020, Diamantoni told LNP | LancasterOnline for a Feb. 6, 2020, article that about 10 years prior, a coroner staffer told him the records were given to the FBI. Diamantoni was elected in 2007

Asked Friday if perhaps the FBI has any photographs the coroner’s office may have taken, Diamantoni said he didn’t know.

LNP | LancasterOnline emailed and left a phone message for the Baltimore Department of Justice field office Friday asking if it had autopsy photographs from the Lancaster County Coroner’s office.

Luna’s death has continued to draw attention because multiple 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 Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office.

In his postmortem report, Ross concluded that Luna died of multiple stab wounds to the neck and drowning. Luna’s body was found face-down in a creek.

Diamantoni said he reviewed the records many times and continues to support Ross’ conclusion.