Murder case dismissed against man charged in death of Detroit synagogue leader

The case against a man accused of killing of a Detroit synagogue leader collapsed Friday as a judge dismissed a remaining murder charge, three weeks after a jury cleared him of a similar but separate charge.

Judge Margaret Van Houten said putting Michael Jackson-Bolanos on trial again for murder would be unconstitutional “double jeopardy.”

It is a victory for Jackson-Bolanos, who has repeatedly declared his innocence in the fatal stabbing of Samantha Woll. Prosecutors acknowledged that the pending murder charge probably had to be dismissed, but it still was a blow in the highly publicized case.

Woll, 40, was found dead outside her Detroit home last October. It raised speculation about whether the attack was some type of antisemitic retaliation amid the Israel-Hamas war, though police found no connection.

A jury in July acquitted Jackson-Bolanos of first-degree premeditated murder. But it couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict on a separate charge of felony murder, which in Michigan is murder committed during another crime. In this case, prosecutors alleged a home invasion.

The judge ruled out a second trial Friday, based on a 2009 US Supreme Court decision involving partial jury verdicts.

Van Houten said it was a “poor decision” but that she had to apply it to Jackson-Bolanos. She dismissed the remaining murder and home invasion charges. Prosecutors pledged to appeal.

Van Houten then sentenced Jackson-Bolanos to 18 months in prison for lying to police during the investigation — his only trial conviction. Defense attorney Brian Brown asked for probation.

“If lying was an Olympic sport, you would get a gold medal, sir,” the judge told Jackson-Bolanos.

Woll’s body was discovered outdoors, just east of downtown Detroit, hours after she had returned from a fall wedding. Investigators believe she was attacked inside her home but got outside before collapsing in the middle of the night.

Jackson-Bolanos testified in his own defense, insisting that he had no role but admitting that he touched Woll’s body when he found it while in the neighborhood. Blood spots were on his coat.

“I’m a Black guy in the middle of the night breaking into cars, and I found myself standing in front of a dead white woman. That doesn’t look good at all,” Jackson-Bolanos said when asked why he didn’t call police.

Brown said he simply was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Investigators first arrested a former boyfriend who made a hysterical call to 911 and told authorities that he might have killed Woll but couldn’t remember it. He blamed an adverse reaction to medication for those claims and was not charged.

Woll was president of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue and also active in Democratic politics, working for US Rep. Elissa Slotkin and state Attorney General Dana Nessel.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Woll was a “beacon in her community.”