John Jefferson
Samantha Woll (David Guralnick/Detroit News via AP). Inset: Michael Jackson-Bolanos (Detroit Police Department).
As far as the law is concerned, it is back to square one for Michigan authorities in proving who killed beloved Detroit-area Jewish leader Samantha Woll, 40. Jurors previously acquitted Michael Jackson-Bolanos, 28, of first-degree murder in her stabbing death, and Judge Margaret Van Houten of the Michigan 3rd Circuit on Friday dismissed the felony murder and home invasion charges that remained against him, according to The Washington Post. The jury had been deadlocked on those latter charges.
The legal rationale of dismissal is reportedly based on the 2009 U.S. Supreme Court case Yeager v. United States. In short, the charges got dropped because the jury was hung on them while finding him not guilty on the first-degree murder charge, which shared the same basis.
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Jackson-Bolanos reportedly admitted that yes, he was out on the early morning of Oct. 21, 2023, to look for cars to break into, but that he only encountered Woll’s body. Checking for breath, he got blood on him when he touched her neck, and then he fled the scene, he maintained.
Van Houten in court blasted him as a proven liar, and that he had become a “habitual” offender in light of his prior criminal history.
“If lying was an Olympic sport, you would get the gold medal, sir, because you told lie after lie after lie throughout those interviews and interrogations,” the judge said.
She sentenced him to 18 months to 15 years in prison. Jackson-Bolanos’ defense called the decision unfair and promised to appeal the sentencing.
Cops were initially called out the morning of Oct. 21 after a neighbor found Woll, beloved board president of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, stabbed to death outside her home in the Lafayette Park neighborhood. A blood trail led to her home, where there was evidence of a struggle.
Initially many in the Detroit Jewish community feared Woll’s death could have been a hate crime, though Detroit Police Chief James E. White said that there was no indication of this being an antisemitic murder.
Police eventually took in a person of interest — an ex-boyfriend of Woll — who had called 911 saying that might have killed her but he did not remember. He testified, however, that this call was due to him increasing his dose of a new antidepressant and being high on marijuana, according to the Post. Jackson-Bolanos was the second person of interest brought in, and he was charged in December.
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