A respected Jewish leader in Detroit died in a random home invasion at her home near downtown in October, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy charged Michael Jackson-Bolanos, 28, with felony murder, home invasion and lying to a peace officer. Jackson-Bolanos is accused of repeatedly stabbing 40-year-old Samantha Woll. The charges answer the question, police believe, of who could have killed the beloved board president of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue in an investigation with many twists and turns.
Detroit police were called the morning of Oct. 21 after a neighbor found Woll’s lifeless body outside her Lafayette Park home. She was suffering from several stab wounds and cops found a blood trail leading to her house where there was evidence of a struggle inside. Initially many in the Detroit Jewish community feared Woll’s death could have been a hate crime as the Israel-Hamas war had recently began raging in the Middle East.
However, Detroit Police Chief James E. White has reiterated police do not think Woll’s religion played any role in her death, something Worthy repeated after Jackson-Bolanos’ arrest. Then on Nov. 8, White announced that police had taken a man, who was an acquaintance of Woll’s, into custody as a person of interest. But 72 hours later, police released him without charges.
Samantha Woll, president of the board at the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue poses for a photo in Detroit, Oct. 13, 2022. Samantha Woll, a Detroit synagogue president was found stabbed to death outside her home Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023, police said. On Dec. 13, 2023, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office announced felony murder and home invasion charges against Michael Jackson-Bolanos. (Woll: David Guralnick/Detroit News via AP; Jackson-Bolanos: Detroit Police Department)
On Sunday Detroit police took a second person of interest — Jackson-Bolanos — into custody. Worthy said the “exhaustive investigation” included witness interviews, review of hours of security footage, cellular data, and forensic evidence. White said at a press conference police keyed in on Jackson-Bolanos because of his alleged criminal activity in the area. They tied him to a couple larcenies and brought him in for an interview but later released him. They monitored his activity and arrested him on Sunday after gathering more evidence.
“This is an extraordinarily sad and tragic case. Since October 21st, the date that Samantha Woll was killed, there has been painstaking, diligent, and tireless work done by the Detroit Police Department and my office. Investigations like this take time and we do our best to never rush to judgment,” Worthy said in a statement.
Jackson-Bolanos’ attorney, Brian Brown, expressed skepticism in an interview with the Detroit Free Press that Detroit police arrested the right man.
“It’s pretty significant that they originally arrested an individual prior to arresting my client, I’m going to be looking at the circumstances around that,” said attorney Brian Brown. “Truthfully, I think it was a lot of publicity this case was receiving, a lot of pressure on the Detroit Police Department to hopefully come up with somebody and my client maintains his innocence — and I think he was just a victim of circumstance and not an individual who perpetrated this crime.”
White said at an Oct. 23 press conference that Woll attended a wedding the night of Oct. 20 and returned home early Oct. 21. While she was inside there was a struggle, she was stabbed several times and she stumbled outside where she collapsed, according to White. She was outside for “quite some time” before she was discovered, White said. The chief said that detectives had identified persons of interest and were “just short” of naming one of them a suspect.
Mourners gathered at her Oct. 22 funeral to remember Woll, who went by Sam.
“You so deeply wanted peace for this world. You fought for everyone regardless of who they were or where they came from,” her sister Monica Woll Rosen said during the service, according to Detroit NBC affiliate WDIV.
About 1,000 people attended the funeral at the Hebrew Memorial Chapel in Oak Park. Among those in attendance was Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who gave a eulogy. Woll had worked on Nessel’s campaign.
“She was at every campaign event, every political protest, every religious service, every ribbon cutting. I think I saw her in a picture of the moon landing,” Nessel joked. “I don’t know how she could be so many places at the same time.”
Her obituary said she was born and raised in Metro Detroit and attended the University of Michigan. She was described as a “ray of sunshine” to those who knew her.
“While Sam was a traveler and loved to explore the world, she spent her life in and around the Detroit area. There was no one who loved the city of Detroit more,” the obituary said.
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