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U.S. Attorney Jonathon Luna Mystery Murder
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Sun Dec 21, 2003 1:47 am    Post subject: U.S. Attorney Jonathon Luna Mystery Murder Reply with quote

I thought this would be drug and porno bad guys killing a DA when it was first reported. Turns out to be more mysterious than that. A key point here is that the DA was declared missing when he didn't show up for work, and the police went and obtained surveillance tapes right away. That is why it is significant that Chandra lost her internship a week before she disappeared.

rd


from www.washingtonpost.com (fair use)

Luna's Three-State Car Trip A Mystery to Investigators
Amateurs Spin Theories About Killing of Md. Prosecutor

By Susan Levine, Fredrick Kunkle and Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 21, 2003

Half an hour before midnight, the streets of Baltimore were deserted and the temperature had dropped below freezing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan P. Luna paused for the security barricades to open and then turned his silver Honda from the federal courthouse garage onto Hanover Street.

It had been a long day, followed by a late night. After negotiating into the dinner hour over guilty pleas in a heroin-trafficking case, Luna had gone home to Howard County, but returned to his office nearly three hours later to wrap up the legal paperwork. He was due in court at 9:30 the next morning to conclude the drug case after three days of trial in U.S. District Court.

Luna departed again. But instead of heading south toward the townhouse he shared with his wife and two young sons, he joined the stream of 18-wheelers and late-night travelers driving north on Interstate 95.

By 1 a.m., he had crossed into Delaware. Two hours later, he was on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, heading west.

A few hours after that, the 38-year-old prosecutor's body was found in a tiny creek in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Still attired in a business suit, overcoat and tie, his electronic security pass fixed around his neck, he had been stabbed and pricked 36 times with a knife.

His Accord, idling nearby at the edge of the creek near a well-drilling business, was smeared with blood. Across the road, a woman was just beginning to milk her family's cows.

More than two weeks later, the largest team of investigators assembled since last year's sniper attacks has yet to fathom the curious late-night mission that carried Luna through three states and ended with his death in Lancaster County.

It has been an investigation with few leads and many theories. As investigators have pursued them, those theories also have been spun out in popular Internet chat rooms and by the armchair detectives on cable news talk shows.

The early theorists suggested that it was retribution by the seedy sorts whom Luna prosecuted -- drug dealers and consumers of child pornography. But as the slender details of the crime began to emerge, speculation shifted to an encounter of a personal nature. Those details suggested that he had rushed off to meet someone he knew. But whom?

In an electronic age, it seemed likely that cell phone records or e-mails or the vast network of surveillance cameras would lead swiftly to the killer. Investigators pored over telephone records, bank and credit card accounts and the contents of Luna's computer and electronic Palm Pilot organizer as they worked to retrace his steps. Pennsylvania State Police returned to the creek off Dry Tavern Road where his body was found, combing the area with metal detectors.

Investigators puzzled over a credit card debt that Luna had run up without his wife's knowledge, found that someone using his name had posted ads on the Internet several years ago seeking a discreet relationship with a woman and discovered that Luna had adult pornography stored on his office computer that did not appear to be directly related to the porn cases he handled.

And, investigators said, they learned that Luna made several earlier trips to Lancaster County that no one seemed able to explain.

Cash, Gas and Video

The big rest stop on I-95 in Delaware, just outside Newark, is a modest pavilion of food stands bookended by two boldly lighted service stations. By the time Luna passed through that plaza it was 1 a.m. Thursday, and the counters that sell cinnamon buns and burgers, pizza, snacks and souvenirs had closed for the night.

His bank card was popped into one of the two blue Wachovia Bank automated teller machines in the small hexagonal lobby, which is monitored by numerous cameras. Records show a $200 withdrawal. None of the cameras, however, was able to capture a clear picture of the transaction, investigators said.

By Thursday evening, federal agents had arrived at the plaza to question people about Luna, according to an employee, who spoke on condition that her name not be used. The agents returned Friday to collect security camera tapes from Manny Dominguez , manager of the plaza's Exxon gas station.

There's no evidence from that morning that Luna bought gas at the Exxon, but two hours later his credit card was used for a gas purchase at a Sunoco station in King of Prussia, just northwest of Philadelphia. An attendant told investigators Luna was alone when he paid for the gas, but a video camera from the store did not record Luna, and a law-enforcement source said the attendant's description of Luna was a bit inaccurate. The attendant, who has since quit for reasons unrelated to the case, could not be reached to comment. Other attendants declined to comment.

The unexplained late-night foray to Pennsylvania puzzled many of Luna's friends and colleagues, who remember him as a conscientious prosecutor and doting father, a loveable man with a winning smile. A handsome man, his looks were likened to those of Tiger Woods.

He organized the office softball team, ran marathons, loved the New York Yankees and listened to any kind of music from classical to bluegrass to Luther Vandross. Days before Thanksgiving, he joined the Baltimore chapter of the Barristers Club, a group of judges and lawyers.

"I never saw anything that indicated anything but the highest principles," said U.S. District Judge William L. Osteen, who hired Luna as a law clerk years ago.

Reginald Shuford, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, said Luna's friends and family have been distressed by speculation over the circumstances leading to his death.

"Jonathan was an honorable and always dignified man," said Shuford, who roomed with Luna while they were students at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Back then, he never knew Luna to have any debts other than student loans, and he never so much as saw Luna with a pornographic magazine. "He was devoted to his family. He was absolutely committed to them and adored them."

The rush judgments by Internet gossips and cable show speculators do not fit the profile of the son of a restaurant steward who pulled himself up from the Bronx, interrupted law school to care for his cancer-stricken father, helped move his parents from New York to Maryland so they would be closer to him, and contributed to the rent on his parents' Columbia townhouse. They don't match the public profile of a young man who gave up his job in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office and moved away from his beloved New York because his wife's large family was from Maryland and because he believed the area was a better place to raise a family.

'He Was Very Courteous'

The Peter J. Camiel Plaza rest stop sits beside the Pennsylvania Turnpike about halfway between Philadelphia and the place where Luna died. In addition to a Roy Rogers, a Sbarro, a TCBY and Starbucks coffee shop, the plaza offers a Sunoco gas station.

Luna had been stopping there for gas and coffee about once a month during the last six months of his life, Carly Caduto said last week. A service station attendant who works the midnight shift for Sunoco, Caduto said she could not recall whether Luna passed through on the night of his death, but she did remember that he always used a credit card if he bought gas and always paid cash if he bought coffee.

They often made small talk, and his dapper attire made him stand out.

"He was very courteous," she said.

Caduto's boyfriend and colleague at the service station, Mark Reilly, said an FBI agent passed through after the slaying. Luna had been seen the night he died at a gas station 23 miles to the east. Had he also been here? asked the agent, who carried a Post-it note with the words "3:26 a.m.," "credit card" and "TPK7" scribbled on it.

By then, investigators already had a rough reconstruction of Luna's movements to that point. After meeting in Baltimore with a defense lawyer about 6 p.m. to work out a plea, Luna promised to draw up the legal papers that night and went home to the townhouse in Elkridge where he lived with his wife, Angela, their sons -- 5-year-old Justin and 10-month-old Jacob -- and his mother-in-law. Luna returned to the federal courthouse on West Lombard Street at 8:48 p.m.

At 9:06 p.m., Luna placed a 10-minute call with his cell phone to one of the defense attorneys, Arcangelo M. Tuminelli. Luna told the lawyer that he needed to go home again but that he planned to return to the office to complete the paperwork.

About 9:30 p.m., Luna left a voice message on the cell phone of attorney Kenneth W. Ravenell, who represented the second defendant in the drug-trafficking case. Once again, Luna said he planned to wrap up the legal paperwork that night and fax copies to Ravenell.

But investigators apparently had learned nothing that could explain why Luna would be driving west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike about six hours later.

His car left the turnpike after 3:30 a.m. at Exit 286, south of Reading. The ticket turned in to the tollbooth worker had a speck of blood, a law enforcement source said, and DNA tests are being conducted to determine whether it was Luna's.

Worries That Linger

Jonathan Luna died in a lonely, ugly place -- a long, shallow creek that winter has turned brown and bare. The tires of his car cut into the cold ground as it swerved off Dry Tavern Road, leaving tracks down to the very edge of the creek in the hours before dawn Dec. 4.

There are a couple of houses in the distance, and the Sensenig and Weaver Well Drilling building is a stone's throw from where the car came to rest.

At about 5:30 a.m., Daniel Gehman, a Sensenig and Weaver employee, was prepping the rigs when he noticed an odd-looking red light glowing in the darkness. He maneuvered a drilling truck's headlights onto the area and saw what he thought was an accident involving a Honda Accord. He called police, who discovered a body in the creek.

In Baltimore, Luna was reported missing after he failed to show up for work. But it wasn't long before the body in the creek was identified as his.

A Sensenig employee named George, who spoke on condition that his last name not be used, said people who live near where Luna's body was found also have their theories on how a man from Baltimore came to be killed in an area where slayings are rare.

"I'm using the theory that he was meeting someone halfway" between Baltimore and the place where he died, George said. He said many residents felt the killer had to have known the area to find the creek from the turnpike.

"You just don't run into this place" by happenstance, George said. "The community's fearful."

Fred Martin, another worker at the well drilling company, said people were baffled by the slaying. "That's the big question: Why here?" Martin said. "It's a complete shock, nothing much really happens around here. It's a big mystery to us."
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2004 12:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The conclusion? The Assistant DA committed suicide. Of interest is that only recently was his knife found in mud at the creek. Is using a metal detector that hard? Also, now suspicious, they are looking back at cases Luna was involved in and note an unsolved theft of $36,000 in missing evidence in one of his cases.

Allan Lengel, who covered Chandra's case, covers this mystery as well.

rd


from www.washingtonpost.com (fair use)

Prosecutor May Have Killed Self
Lack of Evidence Fuels Theory in Luna's Death

By Allan Lengel and Eric Rich
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 8, 2004; Page B01

After three months and with no evidence pointing to a suspect, investigators in the Dec. 4 death of Jonathan Luna increasingly are looking into the possibility that the Baltimore federal prosecutor committed suicide, law enforcement sources said.

The theory, not shared by all investigators, comes after months of exhaustive examination of e-mails, phone records, videotapes at turnpike toll plazas and lab tests -- all of which have failed to point to a killer, said sources who spoke on the condition that they not be identified.

Luna, 38, who became an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore in 1999, left his office about 11:30 p.m. Dec. 3. About six hours later, he was found drowned, facedown in a shallow creek in Lancaster County, Pa., about 100 miles from his office. He had been stabbed 36 times, though many of the wounds were superficial. His car was partially in the creek.

At one point, authorities hoped for a promising lead from a toll ticket, dotted with a speck of blood, that Luna is believed to have given to a toll booth operator while exiting the Pennsylvania Turnpike south of Redding. But lab tests showed that the blood on the ticket was Luna's and that it might have come from a minor cut, law enforcement sources said.

Investigators have not ruled out homicide, sources said. They are following leads and trying to determine whether Luna was with anyone between when he left his office and when his body was discovered.

Luna's parents, who live in Howard County, declined to comment on the case. Attempts to contact his wife at home were unsuccessful.

The absence of evidence pointing to another person has fueled the suicide theory, law enforcement sources said.

Investigators and a pathologist have found no obvious signs -- such as defensive wounds on his arms -- that Luna put up a struggle. The stab wounds, many of them superficial, were on his chest and neck. Results of an autopsy on Luna have not been made public and it is unclear whether the manner of his death initially was ruled a homicide or whether it was left undetermined.

Two forensic scientists not connected with the case said the number of stab wounds -- which a coroner initially said suggested that Luna had been tortured -- does not rule out suicide. Known as hesitation marks, shallow wounds are sometimes seen in suicides, though rarely in such number, said Henry Lee, a Connecticut forensic scientist who often testifies as an expert witness in criminal cases.

Another frequent expert witness, forensic pathologist Howard C. Adelman of New York, said only rarely does a suicide include more than 10 hesitation marks.

Still, he said, "Thirty-six times is a lot, but if they were all superficial and scratch-like, they could be considered hesitation wounds."

Additionally, investigators believe Luna's pocketknife was used in the stabbing, law enforcement sources said. After repeated searches of the area where his body was found, investigators recently found the knife embedded in mud in the creek, the source said.

About 90 minutes after Luna left his office, his ATM card was used to withdraw $200 from a bank machine at a toll plaza in Newark, Del., law enforcement sources said. They said that a couple of hours later, a credit card of Luna's was used to buy gas in King of Prussia, Pa.

Authorities have not been able to determine why he traveled that route and why he would withdraw the money if he was contemplating suicide.

Luna faced financial problems and -- unbeknown to his wife -- had run up a $25,000 credit card debt, law enforcement sources have said.

As the FBI looked into Luna's background and financial situation after his death, agents reopened a probe into $36,000 in missing evidence in a bank robbery case that Luna prosecuted in September 2002. As the trial ended, authorities discovered that the money had vanished while being transported from the courtroom to a storage area. The FBI investigated the disappearance, but the case is unsolved.

Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.


© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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jane



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
Posts: 3225

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2004 2:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the update, rd. I had been wondering what was going on in that case. I still wonder whether it's as simple as it seems, though.
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rd



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PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2004 3:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's one super strange place to commit suicide, jane. No indication he had ever been to this precise out of the way place, yet had it been forgotten he was a regular visitor up in these parts for no known reason? Was that supposed to be "hesitation" suicide drives for several months?

rd
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blondie



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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 5:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

2 different medical examiners have said it is not suicide. The authorities have posted a 100K reward.
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peripeteia



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
Posts: 1173
Location: Nova Scotia

PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 9:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

maryland news
Blood found on slain prosecutor's Pa. toll ticket
Evidence suggests Luna may not have been driving

Feature
By Gail Gibson
Sun Staff
Originally published December 17, 2003
Authorities have found blood on the Pennsylvania Turnpike toll ticket that
was turned in at rural Ephrata, Pa., when federal prosecutor Jonathan P. Luna's car exited the highway on the night he was killed, according to two law enforcement sources.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the paper toll ticket could be an important clue in a case that remains a mystery.

Evidence of blood on the ticket could suggest that Luna was attacked well before his car reached the field where his body was found shortly before dawn Dec. 4. The 38-year-old Baltimore prosecutor had been stabbed 36 times and left facedown in a small creek, where he drowned. He was found less than two miles from the Ephrata exit. His car was nearby, its engine running.

The ticket also suggests another possibility for investigators - that someone other than Luna was driving his silver-colored Honda Accord when it entered and left the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Luna's car had an EZ Pass card, which meant it could have entered the highway without stopping to take a toll ticket, something that a driver unfamiliar with the vehicle might not have known.

One law enforcement source told The Sun that the large amount of blood found on the floor of the back seat of Luna's car also was consistent with the theory that Luna was lying wounded and dying as his attacker drove, looking for a place to abandon the body and car.

Authorities still had not identified yesterday a suspect in Luna's slaying, however, and continued reviewing details of Luna's personal life for possible clues to his death. Investigators have not found evidence linking the slaying to Luna's work.

Luna, who was married with two young sons, had worked as a federal prosecutor in Baltimore for the past four years. He was buried Monday.

Maryland U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio, speaking to reporters about an unrelated indictment, declined to comment yesterday on the Luna investigation. A spokesman for the FBI's Baltimore field office said investigators were continuing to pursue all leads.

As the investigation approached the two-week mark, sources indicated that the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania was expected to play a more prominent role in the probe and could assume responsibility for it in the near future. The case also could be turned over to a state prosecutor and pursued as a local homicide investigation.

A spokeswoman for DiBiagio declined to comment on that issue. In Philadelphia, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan said, "We're here, at this point, to assist the investigative agencies.

"Our primary focus is helping solve the case," said Rich Manieri, the spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office in Philadelphia.

The jurisdictional question is important because the investigation is focused primarily on Delaware and Eastern Pennsylvania, not Maryland. On the night before he was found dead, Luna had traveled from his home in Elkridge to the federal courthouse in downtown Baltimore to complete paperwork for an expected plea agreement the next morning.

Authorities think he left the courthouse about 11:30 p.m. and drove toward Philadelphia willingly. Electronic records indicate that Luna withdrew $200 from an automated teller machine in Newark, Del. His credit card records also reflect a gasoline purchase at a Sunoco gas station in King of Prussia, Pa., along the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

A gas station attendant reported last week seeing someone who looked like Luna enter the station's convenience store about 3 a.m., but authorities have discounted that account and have not found evidence on the store's grainy surveillance video suggesting Luna was inside.

It was unclear yesterday exactly where Luna's car entered the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It was also unclear whether the blood evidence found on the turnpike toll ticket at Ephrata belonged to Luna or a second person.

When his car was discovered in Lancaster County, Pa., investigators identified blood and DNA evidence from a second person - possibly Luna's attacker, who could have been cut in a struggle over the knife used in the attack. Investigators have not found a weapon. They have said Luna's wounds appear to have been from a small blade, possibly a penknife.
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peripeteia



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 9:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

U.S. prosecutor fatally shot, stabbed


By Matthew Cella and Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIME



A federal prosecutor who failed to show up in a Baltimore courtroom to seal a plea deal in a drug conspiracy case against a local rap performer was found yesterday fatally shot and stabbed in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania State Police found the body of Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan P. Luna at 5:30 a.m. in a stream bed about six miles northeast of Lancaster, Pa. Mr. Luna, 38, had suffered gunshot wounds and multiple stab wounds to the neck. His car was found nearby.
His boss, U.S. Attorney Thomas DiBiagio, said preliminary evidence points to murder, but he did not say if authorities believe the killing is connected to any case on which Mr. Luna was working.
"Let there be no doubt that everyone in law enforcement, local police, state police, the United States Marshal's Service, ATF, FBI, are united," Mr. DiBiagio said during a brief news conference in Baltimore. "We will find out who did this, and we are dedicated to bringing the person responsible for this tragedy to justice."
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft pledged that "all appropriate resources will be dedicated to investigating this matter."
"Today, we learned of the tragic death of District of Maryland Assistant United States Attorney Jonathan Luna," Mr. Ashcroft said in a statement. "On behalf of the entire United States Department of Justice, I express our deepest condolences to Jonathan's family, colleagues and friends."
Prosecutors in Mr. DiBiagio's office notified the FBI's Baltimore field office yesterday morning after Mr. Luna failed to appear for court.
Mr. Luna got a phone call Wednesday night at his home in Elkridge, Md., and left the house about midnight, a federal law-enforcement official told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. His wife reported him missing.
Since Monday, Mr. Luna had been prosecuting Baltimore rapper Deon Lionnel Smith and his one-time associate, Walter Oriley Poindexter, for running a violent drug ring, in part from their Baltimore-area recording studio. They were accused of heroin distribution and conspiracy.
U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles Jr., who was presiding over the case, said yesterday that Mr. Luna had reached a plea agreement with the defense team Wednesday afternoon and that all the parties were expected to appear yesterday morning to enter the agreement.
Smith and Poindexter entered their guilty pleas at 11:30 a.m. — about 21/2 hours before Judge Quarles was notified that Mr. Luna's body had been found. The pair remained in custody last night.
Smith's attorney, Kenneth Ravenell, said Smith agreed to plead guilty to one count of distribution of heroin and to possession of a firearm for the purposes of drug trafficking. Poindexter agreed to plead guilty to three counts of distribution of heroin to a government witness. Conspiracy charges against the men were dropped.
"It's a shock," Mr. Ravenell said. "For all of us who knew him, it's a shock."
Court papers say Smith and Poindexter profited from a violent heroin business that operated from various locations in the Baltimore area. The records say Poindexter sold the group's heroin under the name "9-11" and he used violence to protect turf and maintain loyalty within the group.
Poindexter, known by the nickname "Fella," also was accused in the January 2001 killing of Alvin "L" Jones over what authorities said was Poindexter's belief that Mr. Jones had burglarized one of the drug group's stash houses. Poindexter had not been charged in that killing.
Last year, Mr. Luna was the lead prosecutor in a case involving Eric Bennett, the leader of a violent crack-cocaine outfit known as the "Old York & Cator Boys," named for the Baltimore neighborhood where Bennett grew up.
Bennett, Solomon Jones and Tavon Bradley pleaded guilty about a week after trial began in January 2002. Bennett also admitted ordering a series of violent acts to further his narcotics-trafficking enterprise, including several shootings and assaults.
Mr. Luna, who grew up in the Bronx, attended Fordham University and the University of North Carolina law school. He was an associate of the Washington law firm of Arnold and Porter in 1993 and 1994 before becoming a staff attorney with the Federal Trade Commission's general counsel office from 1994 until 1997. He then worked as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y., before coming to Baltimore.
Mr. Luna was married and had two children.
The FBI's phone line for tips is 410/265-8080.
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A vision sent me on the path of seeking justice for Chandra, nothing I've seen in print to date has diminished the vividness but only served to reaffirm the validity of this vision.
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 9:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There was a large amount of blood on the backseat floor? What, he was supposed to have committed suicide in the backseat and then stumbled out of the car to the creek?

Holy cow, another coverup.

rd
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peripeteia



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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 9:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Someone Killed the ProsecutorNewsweekDec. 15 issue - It began with an early-morning mystery: a silver Honda idling on a creek embankment in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish country. A curious worker from a nearby well-drilling company thought there had been an accident until he peered in the window and noticed the passenger seat was smeared with blood and there was no one inside. He called police, who found the body of federal prosecutor Jonathan P. Luna, 38, face down in the icy stream nearby, roughly 70 miles from his home.

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The Assistant U.S. attorney for Maryland, who had left his office the night before around 11:30, was dressed for work, his government ID still dangling from his neck, according to the Lancaster County coroner, who concluded the married father of two had died from 36 stab wounds, and drowning.

Attention immediately fell on the pair of would-be rap impresarios being prosecuted by Luna last week on drug and weapons charges. But the duo, still in government custody, had made plea agreements with Luna on Wednesday, and were waiting to finalize their deals in court the morning his body was discovered. They denied involvement with the murder.

Luna, a former rising star, had lately been in a slump. A Democrat, he didn’t get along well with his Republican boss, Thomas DiBiagio; relations had dipped so low that Luna had retained a lawyer and considered filing a complaint against the office, although he ultimately decided against the move. In recent days Luna seemed increasingly “depressed” and “stressed-out,” according to friends and colleagues still stunned by his death.

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.

I think this is the third version of Luna's death I've quoted in as many articles, superficial wounds, a gunshot and now drowning. WOW! and how Ironic he is the district attorney and no one seems to have it straight how he died!
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rd



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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 9:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No, kate, the 36 stabbings and being found in the creek face down drowned was reported from the beginning. I missed anything about a gunshot.

rd
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peripeteia



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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 9:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/LAW/03/12/luna.reward/

FBI reward 100k

thanks for the info Blondie. It is curious that the forensic evidence is so poor. What does the FBI mean when it says that he was in contact with someone, are they guessing or do they mean physical, like sexual. There are 2 two hour gaps of time that are not accounted for this evening? How come the forensics don't say how he died, the question
still remains as to cause of death.
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A vision sent me on the path of seeking justice for Chandra, nothing I've seen in print to date has diminished the vividness but only served to reaffirm the validity of this vision.
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peripeteia



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 9:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/10/eveningnews/main599344.shtml

This case gets weirder, the FBO were investigating a possible relationships with one of the investigating officers in the case, that she LOVE (no less) may have been having an affair with LUNA>! Oh, MY!
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A vision sent me on the path of seeking justice for Chandra, nothing I've seen in print to date has diminished the vividness but only served to reaffirm the validity of this vision.
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peripeteia



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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 9:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-12-08-luna-mystery_x.htm
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rd



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PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 9:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I came to post the CNN story and found kate's find of the CBS story to be very strange. Good find, kate.

First the CNN story from www.cnn.com (fair use)

FBI reward in prosecutor's death

From Terry Frieden and Carol Cratty
CNN Washington Bureau

BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- The FBI Friday announced a reward of up to $100,000 for information that will help federal agents determine whether the brutal death of federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna was a homicide, suicide, or a random act of violence.

The FBI says it is pursuing all three theories in the mysterious December death, but still lacks critical information, which investigators hope can be provided by members of the public.

The announcement by Baltimore Special Agent in Charge Kevin Perkins said the financial incentive is intended to encourage someone to step forward with information "leading to the resolution" of the investigation into Luna's death.

Agents especially want information which could explain two separate hourlong gaps in a timeline of Luna's whereabouts in the early morning hours before he was found dead in a creek bed, stabbed 36 times.

"This investigation is open and very active," Perkins told reporters at a Baltimore news conference. But he refused to discuss details of the probe.

"We are following all potential outcomes," said an equally tight-lipped Steven McDaniel of the Pennsylvania State Police.

Federal law enforcement sources told CNN investigators are divided over whether Luna was killed or whether the dozens of small knife wounds on his body were self-inflicted.

Luna's body was discovered the morning of December 4, 2003, in a creek bed in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The discovery, coming at the close of Luna's prosecution of a violent drug trafficking organization, prompted law enforcement officials to initially suspect a connection between Luna's death and the drug case he had overseen.

Justice Department officials, including Attorney General John Ashcroft, expressed outrage, and vowed the killer or killers would be identified and prosecuted.

However, as the investigation began to turn up unusual secret trips to Pennsylvania, personal debts, and private Internet communications, agents became puzzled about a possible motive in the case.

The FBI said investigators have evidence Luna had contact with someone between the time he left his office shortly before midnight, and the time his body was discovered at 5:30 a.m.

They are particularly interested in finding out what may have happened between 1 a.m., when Luna used his debit card at an ATM in Newark, Delaware, and 2:30 a.m., when Luna's vehicle accessed the New Jersey Turnpike. Travel between the two points fails to account for the nearly hourlong gap.

The second unexplained gap occurred between 4 a.m., when Luna's car exited the Pennsylvania Turnpike at the Lancaster interchange, and the 5:30 a.m. discovery of his body off a nearby rural road.
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 9:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

and now the CBS story, among indications Luna met someone at 1am after withdrawing $200, and also that finding the penknife has led to a suspect. Those are both new pieces of information, as well as the FBI agent witchhunt. I'm still trying to figure that out.

rd


from www.cbsnews.com (fair use)

Feb. 11, 2004
D.C. Murder Mystery


(CBS) Last December when an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore was found stabbed to death, the FBI made the case one of its highest priorities. Now there are troubling developments that suggest it has become a major embarrassment, reports CBS' Jim Stewart.

Sources tell CBS News that only a few weeks after the body of Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Luna was found face down in a creek near his parked car in rural Lancaster, Pennsylvania, supervisors at the FBI's Baltimore field office began focusing on one of their own female agents as a possible suspect in the murder.

The rationale appears to have been that it was not Luna's work as a prosecutor which led to his death, but a personal relationship that went bad.

When an unidentified female FBI agent was found to have "referred several cases to Luna" for prosecution she was "questioned about her private life," "ordered to turn over her private computer for a search" and was "asked if she had been having an affair" with Luna. The agent "denied the implication" and "protested the questioning."

FBI headquarters now admits that interrogation was "wrong," and may have been prompted by "personal" animosities on the part of supervisory agents. The "potentially inappropriate behavior" is now under internal investigation, according to a bureau spokesman.

The Luna homicide had been under the direction of former acting Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Love.

"The FBI is aggressively investigating the circumstances surrounding Jonathan's death," she said back in December.

Now, a senior agent working for Love - and possibly Love herself - appear to be the subject of the internal FBI probe.

Lost in all this was the search for Luna's real killer. Sources tell CBS that while their supervisors were on the witch hunt, field agents continued their work and have recovered a knife that may have been the actual murder weapon - a discovery that has led to what one source calls "a very promising suspect."
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