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Michael Jackson-Bolanos on the stand Wednesday.
After deliberating five days, a Wayne County Circuit Court jury on Thursday found Michael Jackson-Bolanos not guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and second-degree murder in the fatal stabbling of Samantha Woll, president of a downtown synagogue.
Jurors found him guilty of concealing facts or misleading police, but deadlocked on a felony murder charge and a first-degree home invasion charge, resulting in a mistrial for those hung counts. Jurors must vote unanimously on each charge, or a mistrial is declared for those charges.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy will now have to decide whether to retry the defendant on the deadlocked charges or drop them. The decision on those deadlocked counts may rest on how many jurors voted to convict, and whether it's possible to get a conviction.
The judge will have to decide whether to release Jackson-Bolanos on bond pending any future decisions on the case.
The prosecution said in closing arguments that Jackson-Bolanos entered an unlocked townhouse to rob it, not realizing he'd encounter anyone. When he saw Woll, Prosecutor Ryan Elsey said Jackson-Bolanos made a snap decision to "unleash an outburst of violence" and stab her to make certain she couldn't identify him.
The fact that the stabbing may have been spontaneous would have given jurors enough comfort to acquit Jackson-Bolanos on the premeditated murder charge. They could not come to a verdict on the first-degree felony charge.
The case had other challenges for prosecutors.
They never had proof that Jackson-Bolanos was inside Woll's townhouse where they say she was stabbed eight times. She then stumbled outside where she collapsed and died.
The prosecution pointed out that Jackson-Bolanos had Woll's blood on his coat and backpack. If Woll had been found inside her home, it would have been an open and shut case.
But Jackson-Bolanos testified that while in the neighborhood, breaking into unlocked cars, he stumbled upon her body and touched her to see if she was alive. While his testimony came across as sincere, the prosecution showed video of him looking sincere but lying dozens of times to investigators while being questioned. He even told them he never saw a body that night.
The other thing that complicated the prosecutor's case was the confession by Woll's ex-boyfriend ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Herbstman, who at one point told investigators that he may have killed Woll, but didn't remember anything.
Herbstman was arrested and released without ever being charged. Herbstman suggested he was in an altered state of mind when he mentioned the murder to police due to a doubling of his prescription for depression and smoking of marijuana that night. Police investigated and could not find of shred of evidence linking him to the killing.
Defense attorney Brian Brown, who did an effective job of raising doubts in the case, suggested Herbstman may have been the murderer. He argued that the eight stab wounds suggested it was a killing of passion, not an attempted robbery as the prosecution suggested.
After the verdict, he said, according to WXYZ:
"We feel the jury should have come back with a not guilty on felony murder and home invasion. They got it right on the premeditated murder but counts one and three, believe there should have been an acquittal on that one also. I just feel the police didn’t do a thorough investigation. There were a lot of stones that were left unturned. There was a lot of evidence and questions that they did not have the answer to but had they did a thorough investigation they would’ve got the answer to those questions."
