Closing Arguments Delivered In Detroit Jewish Leader's Killing Trial

DETROIT — Closing statements were delivered Tuesday inside a Detroit courtroom in the trial for a man accused of killing a well-known leader in Detroit’s Jewish community.

Prosecutors said Samantha Woll, a Detroit synagogue leader, was brutally stabbed to death by a burglar who broke into her Detroit home after she left her door unlocked in October 2023 when she returned home from a friend's wedding.

Prosecutors said officers found Woll's body lying in a pool of blood from multiple stab wounds from a straight edge knife a few feet from her apartment in Detroit's Lafayette Park neighborhood at 6:38 a.m. on Oct. 21, 2023.

Prosecutors said officers who responded to Woll's home found "a lot of blood" after walking into the apartment, where the front door was left open. They also said there was a lot of blood next to the hallway leading into the living room, and a blood trail leading to Woll’s body outside.

Michael Jackson-Bolanos, 28, was charged with felony murder, home invasion and lying to police officers in connection to the killing. He faces life in prison if convicted on the murder charge. He was arrested in December 2023 after weeks of investigating and pressure from the community.

Prosecutors believe Jackson-Bolanos was out breaking into cars in Woll’s Lafayette Park neighborhood in the early morning hours when he saw her door was left open. They believe he entered the home with the intent to rob her, and eventually stabbed her eight times in the head and neck.

Assistant Prosecutor Ryan Elsey said the security system at Woll's home showed the front door was opened at 1:01 a.m., with no data that it ever closed again. They said there was motion detected in the living room at 1:24 a.m. and then again at 4:20 a.m., before going idle again at 4:22 a.m. Prosecutors believe Woll was killed inside the home during that two-minute timeframe.

Elsey also used video and phone records showing Jackson-Bolanos' movements throughout the early morning hours when prosecutors say he was breaking into cars in the area near Woll’s home around the time of her death.

Elsey went on to say that Woll's blood was found on a black North Face jacket, which they believe was the same jacket that surveillance cameras caught Jackson-Bolanos wearing earlier that morning on Oct. 21, 2023.

"This is a coincidence he cannot overcome," Elsey said. "Reasonable doubt in this case means these coincidences are reasonably explainable. And they’re not."

Jackson-Bolanos, however, testified in his own defense that he had Woll's blood on his jacket because he touched her neck to see if she was alive or dead when he stumbled across her body lying outside her home.

Jackson-Bolanos initially told police he had not come across Woll's body that night, while maintaining he did not kill her. He also said during his testimony that he was not armed the night he found Woll's body and never went into her apartment.

Jackson-Bolanos also said he ran away from the scene without calling police because he was a Black man standing in front of a White woman's body and that he had been out stealing from cars. He also said he saw police nearby and figured someone else would call police.

"They told me that I had went in somebody house. I told them I didn't see anybody. I didn't want to be accused of something I didn't do,” Jackson-Bolanos said.

Prosecutors countered and said Jackson-Bolanos was lying, especially his story about touching Woll's neck to see if she was dead, something he called "nonsense."

"His claim was that he knew he would get in trouble, that he was going to go down for a long time," Elsey said. "The same motive he had to lie was the same motive he had to kill her."

Jackson-Bolanos admitted he lied to police in the past, but maintains he didn't kill Woll.

"I'm here today, as sworn and affirmed, to tell the truth. I may have lied in the past, but today I'm telling the truth," Jackson-Bolanos said.

Jackson-Bolanos' lawyer, Brian Brown, suggested during his closing arguments Tuesday that police had overlooked other suspects, including Woll's ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Herbstman, who told police during a self-described full-fledged panic attack in November 2023 that he thought he killed Woll but did not remember it. He later recanted his story.

Herbstman was arrested in connection with the killing, but was never charged and later released by police after a lack of evidence.

Brown also suggested there was a struggle in the kitchen of Woll's home, including a knocked over fruit bowl, hours before the last motion was detected in Woll's home at 4:20 a.m., suggesting the killing may have happened earlier that morning.

Moreover, Brown said there was too much evidence of a struggle and too much blood inside the home for the killing to have taken place within two minutes. He also said that if Jackson-Bolanos committed the killing, then he would have been covered in blood. Investigators determined there was a small amount of Woll's blood on Jackson-Bolanos' jacket and backpack.

"This did not happen in a matter of two minutes," Brown said. "I believe the blood tells the story in this particular case."

"There's no doubt at all that Mr. Jackson-Bolanos is not just not guilty, he's innocent," Brown later added.

Woll was a prominent Jewish leader in Detroit, serving as president of the board of Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue. Police do not believe antisemitism played a role in the killing.