True Crime Collection

Jonathan Luna

Jonathan Luna was born 21st October, 1965, and grew up in the Patterson housing project near Yankee Stadium in the South Bronx, New York City. His father was Filipino, and his mother an African-American from the American South. Jonathan received his undergraduate degree from Fordham University. He later studied at the University of North Carolina School of Law, where he was roommates with Reggie Shuford. He worked at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C. from 1993 to 1994 and the Federal Trade Commission from 1994 to 1997. Jonathan served as a prosecutor in the Brooklyn borough of New York City before moving to Baltimore to become an Assistant United States Attorney. Jonathan married Angela Hopkins, an obstetrician, on 29th August, 1993, and they had 2 children. 

At 11:38pm on 4th December 2003, Jonathan left the Baltimore courthouse and went northeast on I-95. He used his E-ZPass on I-95 into Delaware but not on the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Turnpikes. After 3 toll interchanges, he switched to buying toll tickets.

At 12:57am, $200 was withdrawn from Jonathan's bank account from the ATM at the JKF Plaza service centre near Newark, Delaware. At 2:47am he crossed the Delaware River toll bridge to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and at 3:20am his debit card bought gas at the Sunoco King of Prussia service plaza.

At 4:04am his car exited the turnpike at the Reading-Lancaster interchange. The toll ticket had a spot of his blood on it suggesting that he was already injured. His car was parked at the back of the Sensenig & Weaver Well Drilling company at 1439 Dry Tavern Road, Denver, Pennsylvania before it was later driven into the creek.

At 5:00am the first employee of Sensenig & Weaver arrived, and half an hour later at 5:30am the car was noticed, with its lights off and the front end into the stream. Blood was smeared over the driver's door and the front left of the car. Jonathan was face down in the stream under the car engine. He was wearing a suit and a black overcoat with his court ID around his neck. A pool of blood was found on the rear seat floor. Although stabbed 36 times with his own pocketknife around the chest and neck plus a head injury, the death was due to drowning.

No suspects or motive for murder were determined. The federal authorities lean towards calling it a suicide and came to the conclusion he was alone from the time he left his office until his body was found, but the local Lancaster County authorities, including 2 successive coroners, ruled it a homicide. Additional evidence collected during the investigation captured a second blood type and a partial print, as well as some grainy footage from near the time of the gas station purchase made with Jonathan's credit card at the Sunoco service plaza. The investigation remains ongoing, and there is an unclaimed federal reward of $100,000 for information leading to a conviction. 

Theories

Suicide - It was initially reported that Jonathan did not have the expected substantial defence wounds on his hands and that many of the wounds are shallow which are called "hesitation" wounds in a suicide victim. Some suggested motives for suicide were that Jonathan was to take a polygraph test concerning $36,000 which disappeared from a bank robbery case that he had prosecuted. Jonathan had a charge card which his wife, Angela, did not know about. His name was on a Internet dating site and he had a $25,000 credit card debt. There is also an accidental suicide theory that Jonathan was fabricating a kidnapping and attack and that he went too far.

Homicide - The Lancaster County coroner who performed the autopsy ruled Jonathan's death a homicide by drowning. Jonathan left his glasses, which he needed to drive, and his cell phone on his desk. He had called defence attorneys earlier in the night saying he would fax over documents that night but they never arrived. The pool of blood in the back seat would suggest Jonathan was in the back and someone else was driving.