DETROIT (WWJ) Forensic scientists testified at Day 10 of the murder trial of Detroit synagogue president, Samantha Woll.
Michael Jackson-Bolanos, 28 of Detroit, is on trial for first degree murder and home invasion in connection to the death of Woll. Woll, 40, was found dead outside her eastside home in the Lafayette Park neighborhood, with eight stab wounds to her head and neck on October 21, 2023, after returning from her friend’s wedding.
The defendant’s North Face jacket, which he’s believed to be wearing in surveillance video from the night of the crime, was a focal point of Day 10 of the trial.
Toni Grusser, Forensic Scientist with Michigan State Police, testified in front of Wayne County Circuit Court that she initially looked at the jacket with her own eyes, and did not see any blood on it.
In video of the trial posted by WDIV-Channel 4; she said Luminol is the first measure she used to test for blood: “It comes in a spray bottle. I sprayed it in sections, and I look at it in the dark, looking for a glow or a...luminescence and then as I observed them, I marked them.”
The addition of another chemical, Phenolphthalein, led the jacket to show a “possible presence of blood.” Grusser swabbed it for DNA and sent it for analysis, she said.
Michigan State Police Forensic Scientist Erica Anderson testified regarding the blood on Jackson-Bolanos’ North Face jacket.
“It’s approximately 130-septillion times more likely it (the blood on the jacket) originated from Samantha Woll than unrelated, unknown contributor…” Anderson said.
The jacket has played a critical role throughout the trial. Prosecutors said Jackson-Bolanos googled “a black light sees what" ten days after the murder. They also detailed a call between him and his girlfriend from prison where he told her not “say s**t” about washing the North Face jacket that he wore that night.
Jackson-Bolanos was arrested in November of 2023, after weeks of speculation that Woll’s murder was a hate crime because she served as president of Detroit’s Issac Agree’s Downtown Synagogue in the city and was a prominent leader in the Jewish community. She was murdered two weeks after the Israel-Hamas War broke out. However, no evidence ever suggested her death resulted from Anti-Semitism.
During opening statements, Assistant Prosecutor Ryan Elsey said video and phone records will show Jackson-Bolanos was breaking into cars in the area that night near Woll’s home.
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"There is a reason that we lock our doors when we go to sleep. It is because of people who lurk in the night, people who could do us harm,” Elsey said. “And this case is about one such person, a person who you will see on one particular night prowled through our community looking for opportunities to go into spaces that weren't his to go into and to take things that weren't his to take.”
The defense attorney, Brian Brown, argued during opening statements that her death was a "crime of passion" and there was an apparent struggle inside her home.
Woll’s boyfriend was originally arrested for the murder in Kalamazoo a week after her death. He said, during a panic attack and while using cannabis, he initially convinced himself he had murdered his girlfriend. He was released when no evidence linked him to the crime.
Woll’s obituary described her as a “ray of sunshine to all who knew her” with “unbridled joy”, “an infectious laugh” and the “most incredible compassion.” It concludes with: “She was an angel and there was truly no one kinder.”
The trial will resume on Monday.