Who Killed Samantha Woll?

Detroit — Michael Jackson-Bolanos was acquitted two years ago in the high-profile murder of Detroit Jewish leader Samantha Woll.

Even so, Bolanos is serving 18 months to 15 years in prison for lying to police officers—the equivalent of a murder bid, anyhow. For comparison, the maximum sentence for lying to an FBI agent is 5 years.

Curiously, Bolanos has been granted release multiple times by the state parole board, but his release continues to be blocked by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.

Why? Because prosecutors and the police have egg on their faces. They screwed the case so badly that the jury couldn’t help but have had reasonable doubt.

What doubts?

First, the prosecution and police presented an elaborate case featuring cell phone data and video footage of Bolanos skulking across the city attempting to break into cars. For the 23-minute window when prosecutors claim Woll was murdered, however, there was no video at all. It was all conjecture.

Jurors were told that Bolanos crept into Woll’s townhouse to steal something. When he came upon her sleeping on the sofa, he freaked out and stabbed her eight times in the neck and head. Then, Bolanos decided to steal nothing at all, leaving her purse and computer and walking into a security camera frame a third-of-a-mile away, all in the span of three minutes. A near physical impossibility.

Bolanos, a convicted felon, admitted on the stand that he was out to steal. He said he came across Woll’s body on the sidewalk outside her door, checked for a pulse, realized she was dead, and walked off. That’s how a few drops of blood got on his jacket sleeve, he claimed.

Then, rather unconvincingly, he said that he never entered her apartment, even though something set off her motion sensor. Admitting that would have put the repeat offender in prison for a decade, at least.

The second reasonable doubt was that detectives never bothered to follow-up on grainy images captured by another security camera of a different man sprinting through the parking lot of Woll’s townhouse earlier that evening.

Who could that have been?

The jury heard police body cam footage of a 911 call made by Woll’s ex-boyfriend—Jeffery Herbstman—two weeks after her brutal slaying.

“I’m having a panic attack. I’m convinced I may have murdered my girlfriend and I don’t remember it,” Herbstman cried. “I have the motive, and I have the opportunity.”

Herbstman later claimed on the stand that he had a psychotic snap after he mixed his anti-depression medication with marijuana. Prosecutors believed him and gave him immunity in exchange for his testimony.

In his closing arguments, defense lawyer Brian Brown put the grainy photograph of the man running through the parking lot the night of Woll’s murder next to a photograph of Herbstman at the police station the night he called 911.

“Could this be Herbstman?” Brown asked the jury. “I don’t know, but it looks very similar to me. This person running from the scene looks very similar to Jeff. Haircut, glasses—even the coat he’s wearing. Very similar indeed.”

The jury, rightly, had reasonable doubts. They acquitted Bolanos of first-degree murder, reached no decision of felony murder and home invasion charges, but did convict him of lying to police about stealing from cars.

The Department of Corrections recommended that Bolanos be given probation. The judge ignored the recommendation and sentenced him to 1 1/2 to 15 years in prison.

Now, I’m not saying Bolanos is an innocent man. He had Woll’s blood on his jacket, after all. And, I’m not saying that Herbstman may have murdered his ex-girlfriend. It was Herbstman that said he may have murdered his ex-girlfriend.

But in America, a person is considered innocent until proven guilty. And Bolanos never was found guilty. To keep him incarcerated for 15 years to paper over the ineptitude of the prosecutors and police is a miscarriage of justice. And it’s no justice for Samantha Woll at all.

Bolanos’s next parole hearing is scheduled for August 26.