A man has now been acquitted of murdering the president of a Detroit synagogue after a jury acquitted him on one murder charge but could not agree on another, forcing the judge to dismiss most of the case.
Michigan Third District Court Judge Margaret Van Houten on Friday dropped one count each of first-degree murder and burglary against Michael Jackson-Bolanos, who had been charged with the December murder.
This leaves the question of who killed Samantha Woll unanswered.
Detroit’s Jewish community was deeply shaken on Oct. 21 when Woll, 40, was found stabbed to death in her driveway. Federal officials said anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim attacks increased in October – the same month that Hamas’s attack on Israel led to the war in Gaza – but Detroit Police Chief James E. White said from the start there was no evidence her religion was the motive.
Woll chaired the board of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue. According to her LinkedIn page, she also spent years in Democratic politics, including serving as deputy district manager for Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).
Early on the morning of Oct. 21, Jackson-Bolanos was looking for cars to break into, he told investigators, when he came across Woll’s body. Last month, he testified that he checked for her breath but found none, and that he had blood on his hand when he touched her neck. He then fled the scene to avoid drawing attention to what he was doing in the neighborhood.
Two weeks after the murder, Woll’s ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Herbstman called 911 and said he may have killed Woll but couldn’t remember, the Detroit Free Press reported. At trial, Herbstman said his frantic call was a “side effect” of doubling his dose of a new antidepressant and getting high on marijuana. He was detained for questioning and then released.
Prosecutors announced the charges against Jackson-Bolanos on Dec. 13, less than two months after Woll was found dead. There is no evidence that Jackson-Bolanos knew Woll, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said at a news conference announcing the charges.
Jackson-Bolanos was tried and faced four charges: first-degree murder, first-degree murder, burglary and lying to a police officer.
He initially told investigators, according to his testimony last month, that he had not come into contact with Woll, and later admitted to touching her body after encountering a “dark figure” on the ground.
The trial ended on July 18. The jury acquitted 29-year-old Jackson-Bolanos of first-degree murder and found him guilty of lying, but was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the other two charges.
Van Houten dismissed the other charges on Friday, citing a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court case involving partial verdicts. Yeager v. United States held that a defendant cannot be retried if a jury cannot reach a unanimous verdict and the charges are based on the same legal basis as the main charge.
Wayne County prosecutors will ask an appeals court to review the case, Worthy’s office spokeswoman Maria Miller told The Washington Post on Saturday.
Van Houten sentenced him to a minimum of 18 months and a maximum of 15 years in prison for lying to the police.
Brian Brown, Jackson-Bolanos’ attorney, told the Washington Post that they would appeal what he considered an unfair verdict.
“In this case, she went way beyond that,” Brown said.
Van Houten said during the sentencing that Jackson-Bolanos lied early and often.
“If lying were an Olympic sport, you would get the gold medal, sir, because you told lie after lie during these interviews and interrogations,” she said.
In justifying the sentence, the judge referred to Jackson-Bolanos’ previous convictions and said he had become a “habitual offender.”
Jackson-Bolanos will be given credit for the 243 days he has already served, Van Houten ruled Friday.
No one else has been charged with the murder.
Woll’s synagogue did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday. It is a day of rest on which observant Jews abstain from electronic devices and other technology.
But the synagogue has previously published the text of Rabbi Ariana Silverman’s eulogy for Woll, which reads: “Many people think of her as someone with whom they had a particularly close or important relationship, and every one of them is right.”
Woll ran a mile a day in all weathers, loved opera and classical music, helped found an interfaith forum and worked for four summers at a crisis center for rape victims in Israel, Hour Detroit reported.
According to the magazine, around 1,000 people attended Woll’s funeral. People waited to pile earth on her grave. As is Jewish custom, mourners used the back of the shovel – to emphasize how hard it is to bury a loved one.
