The suspect accused of stabbing the president of a popular Detroit synagogue to death last fall will stand trial, a judge ruled Tuesday — as gruesome new details emerged about the brutal killing.
Michael Jackson-Bolanos, 28, will face multiple charges — including felony murder while committing or attempting to commit robbery or first-degree home invasion — in connection with the Oct. 21 death of Samantha Woll, the Detroit News reported.
After a two-day trial, Judge Kenneth King of Detroit’s 36th District Court found that there was enough evidence to hold Jackson-Bolanos responsible for the charges.
The judge also added a count of first-degree premeditated murder.
A hearing on the case is set for January 30, according to the Detroit News.
Woll, 40, was stabbed eight times in her Lafayette Park apartment after returning home from a wedding on the night of Oct. 20, police said, the outlet explained.
Jackson-Bolanos is accused of stabbing Samantha Woll to death. AP
A motion detector in the residence went off in the rabbi’s living room around 4:20 a.m., indicating the attack happened around that time, prosecutors said during a preliminary examination of the suspect last week, the Detroit News added.
After he was stabbed, Woll is believed to have stumbled out of his apartment and ended up crumpled on the front lawn, police said.
“I wasn’t sure at first it was a corpse. As I approached to see if the person needed help, then I realized that the person was in very bad shape and decided I needed to get help,” neighbor Kevin Mull told the court last week when he found Woll’s. body around 6.30 am
Samantha Woll was stabbed eight times on Oct. 21. AP
Woll was barefoot and in the fetal position, and her skin had turned a bluish color, she recalled.
Five Detroit police officers testified Tuesday, the Detroit News said.
Several officers tracked down Jackson-Bolanos after he was seen on video standing in a school parking lot holding a bag, the outlet reported.
Additional footage shows the suspect walking two miles from his own apartment to the neighborhood where the murder took place.
Woll was attacked in her apartment in the early hours of the morning, police said. AFP via Getty Images
After Woll was stabbed, Jackson-Bolanos removed his brightly colored bag and the surgical gloves he was seen wearing earlier, Detroit Police Sgt. Lance Sullivan said in court.
When officers later searched his apartment, they found a black jacket with blood stains that were later matched to Woll’s DNA, the Detroit News said.
On Tuesday, however, Jackson-Bolanos’ defense attorney, Brian Brown, insisted that blood stains were minimal, although the scene was quite bloody.
Woll’s body was found by a neighbor. AFP via Getty Images
“If my client had stabbed him eight times, you’d have more blood on the jacket than two microscopic spots,” Brown insisted, according to the Detroit News.
When the judge asked Brown how the suspect got Woll’s blood on him, the attorney suggested “maybe it was the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Maybe Jackson-Bolanos came across the body before Mull, and “maybe he reached out and touched it,” Brown added.
Samantha Woll is the popular leader of a synagogue in downtown Detroit. Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue
Judge King shared Brown’s concern about minimal blood staining.
“That’s for the trier of fact to determine at trial,” he said before bounding the case for trial.
At the time of his death, Woll led the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue.
His killing immediately made headlines in part because of its proximity to the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, and subsequent concerns about anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish violence.
Early in the investigation, however, police made it clear that there was no evidence to suggest that the stabbing was a hate crime.
A suspect was jailed in November, but was released without charge. Jackson-Bolanos was finally arrested in mid-December.
With Postal wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
