Samantha Woll​ Murder Trial: Jury Still Cannot Reach A Verdict

DETROIT — Jurors in the Samantha Woll murder trial are still deadlocked after another day of deliberating Monday, according to news reports.

Jurors have been deciding the fate of 29-year-old Michael Jackson-Bolanos, who is accused of killing Woll, a well-known Detroit synagogue president.

Judge Margaret Van Houten said she doesn't want to retry the case and asked jurors to continue deliberating for another day, Fox 2 Detroit reported.

"We don't want to give up quite yet," she said.

Jurors began deliberating last week and told Van Houten Friday that they were deadlocked. Jurors have now been deliberating for roughly 17 hours. They will return to the courtroom Tuesday morning to try and reach a verdict.

Prosecutors say Woll, 40, a Detroit synagogue leader, was stabbed to death by a burglar after leaving her door unlocked in October 2023 when she returned home from a friend's wedding.

Police found Woll's body with multiple stab wounds lying a few feet from her apartment in Detroit's Lafayette Park neighborhood at 6:38 a.m. on Oct. 21, 2023.

Jackson-Bolanos was charged with first-degree murder, felony murder, home invasion and lying to police in connection with Woll's death. He faces life in prison if convicted on the murder charges.

Prosecutors said video and phone records showed Jackson-Bolanos in Woll's neighborhood around the time of her death. They also said Woll's blood was found on a black North Face jacket he was wearing that night.

Jackson-Bolanos testified that he had been breaking into vehicles near Woll’s home that night, but denied killing her. He said he never went into her apartment that night, but did stumble upon her body outside her home and touched her neck to see if she was alive. That's where he said the blood on his jacket came from.

Jackson-Bolanos' lawyer, Brian Brown, also suggested 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.

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