#jonathan luna

Growing up in the projects in New York, Jonathan Luna always dreamed of going to college and making his family proud. He graduated from Fordham University and the law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He eventually settled down in Elkridge, Baltimore, where he got married and had two sons while working as an Assistant United States Attorney.

The 4th of December, 2003, started just like any other day for Jonathan. He kissed his family goodbye before departing for work. He had been working on a trial which involved two men who were suspected in running a drug ring. One of the men was also facing a murder charge. Jonathan had spent the entire evening working on the case and left a voice message to a co-worker at approximately 9PM that night, saying he was ready to go home and that he would see him the following morning.

They were going to offer the two men a plea deal and Jonathan said he was going to work on it at home throughout the night so it would be ready for the morning. According to the clocking out system in his office car park, Jonathan didn’t leave the officer until 11:38PM, leaving behind his phone and glasses, which he needed to drive.

What happened next is shrouded in speculation.

At around 1AM, Jonathan’s car entered Delaware where $200 was lifted from an ATM. He then crossed into New Jersey and on to Pennsylvania at around 4AM. His E-Z Pass was used on the I-95 into Delaware but after this, he started to purchase toll tickets. His car was then parked behind a Sensenig & Weaver in Denver, Pennsylvania. At around 5:30AM, a worker of Sensenig & Weaver arrived to discover the discarded car with blood smeared all over the door and the front of the car.

When the worker peered into the car window, he found a large puddle of blood on the back seat and back footwell. The car was partially in a creek and underneath the car, the worker discovered Jonathan’s bloody body. He had sustained 36 stab wounds with his own penknife.

The pathologist that performed the autopsy said that Jonathan's hands had been “shredded” and that his scrotum and throat had both been slashed before he drowned to death in the creek. Inside the car, detectives found that the purchased toll tickets had blood smeared on them, indicating that he was already injured when purchasing the tickets. Additionally, the puddle of blood in the back seat indicated that he hadn’t been driving the car, but somebody else.

While the death was initially ruled as a homicide, “law enforcement sources” soon began to speculate that he had taken his life and thus a smear campaign on Jonathan’s reputation was born. It was soon reported that Jonathan had most likely been involved in a robbery case in which $36,000 went missing. The Baltimore Sun implied that Jonathan was involved in the robbery and had ended his life because he feared losing his job. Everybody that knew Jonathan had nothing but pleasant words to say about him and found the allegations to be “a well timed hit job on Luna’s reputation.” The FBI ascertained that Jonathan had ended his own life but the local Lancaster counter authorities were adamant that he had been murdered.

What happened to Jonathan Luna from the moment he left his place of employment until he ended up stabbed and slashed in a murky creek still remains a mystery.

The Bizarre Death of Jonathan Luna

At the time of his death in 2003, Jonathan Luna was a reputable Assistant United States Attorney living in Baltimore, Maryland. On the night of December 3, 2003, Luna left the Baltimore Courthouse late at night, and began a strange trip that ultimately ended in his death at the hands of his own penknife.

Through surveillance cameras and toll stations, authorities were able to piece together most of Luna’s erratic, mysterious evening. After leaving the courthouse, Luna began driving Northeast to Delaware, which was strange, since he lived in Baltimore. He used his EZ Pass toll permit at several stations, but as he traveled further North, he began to pay for paper toll tickets instead.

After making several other strange stops, such as withdrawing $200 from an ATM in Delaware in the early hours of the morning and purchasing gas in Pennsylvania, Luna’s car was eventually parked in a remote parking lot in Denver, Pennsylvania, where it was spotted by a witness.

Approximately two hours after this sighting, employees of a nearby business noticed Luna’s car, driven into a nearby creek, and his body, facedown in the creek and lifeless. Initially, authorities ruled his death a suicide. But this is where the story gets even more eerie.

During the investigation, coroners discovered that Luna had been stabbed 36 times with his own pen knife. He had head injuries as well, and there was evidence that drowning was the ultimate cause of death, to boot. Strangely, the blood in Luna’s car was mostly centered in the REAR seats of the car, lending credence to a theory that somebody else had been driving him around all night. Luna’s blood was found on several toll tickets obtained on the drive, indicating that he had been injured for some time, but in surveillance footage from the gas station he entered shortly before his death, he did not appear wounded. Stranger still, Luna’s glasses – which he needed to drive – and his cell phone were found untouched on his desk.

Sharon-A-Day, Day 397 (2/1/23)

Spider-Woman: Origin 4. On sale 3/15/06.

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artist: Jonathan Luna

Letterer: Cory Petit

Editor: Tom Brevoort