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The Trail Went Cold

The Trail Went Cold - Episode 82 - Jonathan Luna

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.53.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2018

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

December 3, 2003. Baltimore, Maryland. While working on a plea agreement, 38-year old prosecutor Jonathan Luna leaves his office at the Federal District Court Building shortly before midnight. The following morning, Luna’s vehicle is discovered over 90 miles away in a rural creek in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and his body is lying in the water. He has been stabbed 36 times with his own penknife, but while the Lancaster County Coroner’s Office are certain Luna was murdered, the FBI believe his death might have been a suicide. An investigation into Luna’s movements only opens up more questions, as he inexplicably made a detour through Delaware before travelling to Pennsylvania. Was Jonathan Luna a victim of foul play? And what was the purpose of his lengthy road trip? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” examines one of the most baffling unexplained deaths we have ever encountered. Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Luna https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/a-decade-later-prosecutor-lunas-death-still-a-mystery/2013/12/10/211e2ab8-f563-11e2-aa2e-4088616498b4_story.html?utm_term=.d5e0800ed279 https://lancasteronline.com/news/the-curious-case-of-jonathan-luna/article_4e09be61-673f-54a5-a19b-ef95f509e542.html https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog885/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.geog885/files/file/Luna%20Case%20Study/CS10.pdf https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog885/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.geog885/files/file/Luna%20Case%20Study/CS10-2.pdf “The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna” by William Keisling “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

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0:00.0

December 3rd, 2003.

0:04.4

Baltimore, Maryland.

0:07.4

While working on a plea agreement, 38-year-old prosecutor Jonathan Luna leaves his office

0:12.4

at the federal courthouse shortly before midnight.

0:15.6

The following morning, Luna's vehicle is discovered over 90 miles away in a creek in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and his body is lying in the water.

0:25.2

He has been stabbed 36 times with his own penknife, but surprisingly, the FBI leaned toward

0:31.0

his death being a suicide. However, a check of Luna's movements that night

0:35.7

show that he made an unexplained detour through Delaware before he wound up in Lancaster County,

0:40.7

and the local coroner's office continues to insist that he was murdered.

0:45.0

After that, the trail went cold. Oh, uh, yeah.

0:53.0

Oh, uh, and uh,

0:55.0

and uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

0:58.0

uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

1:04.0

uh,

1:05.0

uh, uh, uh, uh,

1:08.0

uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of The Trail went cold.

1:28.0

I'm your host Robin Warder and today we're going to be covering one of the more baffling cases I've ever featured on this podcast,

1:35.3

the unexplained 2005 death of Jonathan Luna.

1:39.6

This is the story of a federal prosecutor who drove away from his office late one night, and was found dead the following morning in an entirely different state under very bizarre circumstances. Some of the strangest mysteries I've ever encountered are those in which the victim makes a lengthy unexplained trip to a location they have no reason to be at before they wind up dead.

2:00.0

As examples, I've previously done episodes on the mysterious deaths of Judy Smith, who vanished during a business trip to Philadelphia before her remains were found on a North Carolina mountain months later, and Blair Adams, who made a cross-country trip from British

2:15.4

Columbia to Knoxville, Tennessee before he was killed by an unknown assailant.

2:20.6

The death of Jonathan Luna is particularly odd, not only because he inexplicably traveled from Baltimore to Lancaster, Pennsylvania,

...

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