Court records show that a 37-year-old man was re-indicted by an Ector County Grand Jury for his involvement in a death of an unborn child from 2018.
Joel Luna, 37, was re-indicted with capital murder individual under age 10, capital felony.
Bond for Luna’s capital murder charge totals $1 million and he was still in custody as of Friday afternoon, jail records show. He was charged with capital felony on June 19, 2018.
Luna is also being held for going off bond after he was charged with aggravated assault (family violence), a second-degree felony, on May 1, 2018. That bond totals $100,000.
Court records show that Luna has a pretrial scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Aug 27 in the 70th District Courtroom of Judge Denn Whalen. Luna is also scheduled to have a jury trial in the same courtroom at 9 a.m. Aug. 30.
According to a previous Odessa American article that was posted Aug. 23, 2018, police were first called to Medical Center Hospital on May 1 (2018) in reference to an assault victim, an Odessa Police Department news release stated.
Investigation reportedly showed that Luna had gotten into an argument with his 33-year-old wife, before he reportedly began choking her, causing her to lose consciousness.
The OPD press release detailed that Luna then kneeled on her abdomen and repeatedly applied force while stating he wanted to kill her baby.
Luna’s wife reportedly sought medical treatment and was told by medical personnel that she was five weeks pregnant and had lost the child she was carrying, the release stated. Investigation showed she sustained a traumatic miscarriage due to the injuries inflicted by Luna.
