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A
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B
Welcome to a special episode of 48 Hours postmortem. I'm your host, Ann Marie Green and today we are taking you behind the scenes of a new true crime series from our colleagues and at the Free Press. It's called Murder in Detroit and it tells the story of the life and death of Samantha Wall. Wall was the 40 year old president of a synagogue in downtown Detroit and a well known community leader and activist. She was found stabbed eight times just outside of her home on October 21, 2023. So who would want to kill this beloved figure? The twists and turns this case takes will definitely surprise you. So we shared a special preview of episode one in the 48 Hours podcast feed. So you're going to want to go listen to that first if you have not already. All right, let's get started. I am joined today by the host of Spiral, Frannie Block. And I just want to let everyone know, special note here that the Free Press, like CBS News, is owned by Paramount Skydance. Frannie, thank you so much for joining us.
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C
Thank you so much for having me.
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B
It's a really good podcast and it's a very layered podcast. You know, you think you're sort of gonna listen to a straightforward crime podcast. There's so much more to discuss. So first off, who is Samantha Wall and why did you wanna do this story?
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C
So Samantha Wall is an extremely special person and I didn't actually know Samantha, but I First heard her name on the day. And by the way, I'm gonna use Samantha and Sam interchangeably. Many people called her Samantha, but a lot of her close friends and family also called her Sam. She was the president of the Downtown Detroit Synagogue, the last remaining synagogue in downtown Detroit. And she was killed two weeks to the day after October 7, 2023, the day that Hamas terrorists stormed southern Israel, killing 1200 people, taking 250 people hostage. It was a really scary, vulnerable time for Jews all over the world. And I actually found out about Sam's death because my mom called me. My mom is also the president of a synagogue. And she said, frannie, I'm really, really scared. I'm too scared to even leave my house because this has just happened to this person, Samantha Wall. What if people come and target me? Over time, I started following the case from afar, and I happened to be in Detroit reporting on another story for the Free Press, and I decided to go to the downtown synagogue for Shabbat services because I was in town. And while I was there, it happened to be the night that they were dedicating the final stage of their renovation. They opened this beautiful roof deck garden, and they dedicated it to Sam. And that was really when I started to learn what an amazing and special person she was, the legacy that she left and how much she did for the Jewish community of Detroit. And I continued to pursue the case from there, connecting with her family and starting to uncover more details about the investigation into her death.
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B
I remember this case from sort of my vantage point at the time I was anchoring on CBS News streaming. And so I remember when it came up, and it's true. You know, it happened not too long after the October 7 attacks. There was a real concern in this country that there was going to be some sort of spillover and that this could be a hate crime, an anti Semitic crime. Very quickly, it seems like police discounted that. They said, no, it's not.
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C
So you're absolutely right. Within two days, the police held a press conference, and they all but ruled out the possibility of a hate crime. I asked Captain Matthew Bray of the Detroit Police Department about that. I said, how did you rule this out so quickly? And he basically said, we didn't rule it out as much as we didn't see any evidence pointing toward a hate crime.
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B
But they still had to sort of find a suspect. So let's sort of dig into the case and remind people of some of the facts. Right. Can you give me kind of the basic timeline for 10-21-2023.
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C
So what we know is that that night, Samantha had come home from a wedding. She arrived home to her condo in Detroit at 12:30 in the morning. The next thing we know is because Sam had an ADT home alarm system inside her condominium. She had opened her back door and then closed it at 12:35. And again at 12:38. Sam's alarm system showed she never fully closed her front door. Then the next piece of information we get is that at around 1:24 in the morning, her ADT home alarm system goes idle, meaning it doesn't detect any more motion in her living room. Now, police in investigating this case believe Sam was still awake then and maybe just perhaps laying on her couch because she had been using her phone. She'd sent a few texts, she opened Netflix. Her phone then goes inactive at 1:35am the next piece of information we get is that at 4:20 in the morning, there's motion detected in her living room. And then the system goes idle again at 4:22, just two minutes later. And the next thing we know is Kevin Moll, Sam's neighbor, discovered her body outside around 6:20 in the morning. But the police believe that she was killed inside of her apartment because that's where the blood evidence takes them. There's pools of blood inside her apartment, in her living room, along the hallway leading outside.
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B
Okay, so we're gonna get into a few more details when it comes to this investigation. So if you're one of those people who like to be completely surprised with every episode of podcast, you might wanna hold off listening to this particular podcast until you've listened to the whole series. But if you're not, you wanna know a little bit more. Here we go. So there are two men that end up at the center of this case. Authorities released one of those men, but then the other man they charge, he's facing four counts, including two different charges of murder. So why did police end up focusing in on Michael Jackson Bolanos as a possible murder suspect here?
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C
So the police really grounded their investigation in the video surveillance footage. And the reason that they zero in on him is that they can see in the video surveillance footage of the parking lot in Samantha Wall's apartment complex that Michael Jackson Balanis was in the parking lot around 4 in the morning. Then the next time they see him on video surveillance footage is about 23 minutes later, he's seen a couple blocks away from Samantha's home, walking past a casino that has a few picketers outside. And then as he turns a corner, Gets out of the view of those picketers. Michael starts to run. And just to remind listeners why this timing is significant, remember that Sam's ADT home alarm system had motion in her living room at 4:20, and then it went idle again at 4:22. So they were able to find his phone data as well. And they're able to match that phone data with the security camera footage data to confirm that this is, in fact, Michael on these cameras. And they see footage of him going into parking structures, seemingly going into cars, taking some things. Now, Michael is a previously convicted felon. He actually has prior felonies related to stealing cars, stealing from cars. Once they bring Michael in for questioning, they're able to search his girlfriend's apartment. That's where he'd been staying. They find his jacket, and they also find a backpack that he had on him. They test both of them, and they come back positive for Samantha Wall's blood. And that jacket had been washed, so we don't know how much blood originally was on that jacket. There's also a couple more bits of evidence that come out as well. In the trial, Michael had made some suspicious Google searches. He had searched Blacklight sees what shortly after Sam had been killed, maybe to, you know, check, you know, the black light for blood or something like that, if it was visible on clothing. And the other search he made was for a Detroit same day passport. And this search actually happened shortly after the other suspect was reportedly released by the authorities. So the police start to build this case around Michael with all of this different evidence. But it's also really important to point out they don't have any direct evidence that Michael actually entered Samantha's home that night.
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B
Right. And they don't have a weapon, and they kind of don't really have a motive. And then there's this twist that I knew nothing about until I listened to your podcast. It's a huge one. Two weeks after Sam's murder. But before, before Michael is picked up by police, her ex boyfriend, Jeffrey Herman, calls 91 1. He's in a hotel parking lot. He is distressed. He is having a panic attack. So police respond to the scene because of his 911 call. And I want to play some of that body cam footage. It's a little hard to hear, so you got to focus a bit. Convinced that I may have worked with.
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C
My girlfriend, then I don't remember it. Where does your girlfriend stay at?
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B
She's moved in the joint. Moved in the joint.
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D
Okay.
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B
But what makes you think that you killed her? He says I'm convinced that I may have murdered my girlfriend, and I don't remember it.
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C
The police ask, why would you do that? And he said, I had the motive and the opportunity.
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B
He goes on to share Sam's name with the police. Franny, what more can you tell us about this call and the impact that it had on the investigation?
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C
So this had a huge impact on the police's investigation and later the case against Michael as well. Obviously, the police take him in for questioning. He's just seemingly confessed to a murder. And slowly, Jeff tells us, because we were able to speak to Jeff actually, for this podcast, that he starts to kind of question his own mind once he's in police custody, wondering, you know, why did I do that? What did I say? Did. Did I? Could I actually have killed Sam? And he's. He's very confused. And later he actually tells us that he had mixed different drugs that night. He'd taken prescription medication and mixed it with marijuana. And he believes he basically hallucinated and convinced himself he could have done this.
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E
It was four hits of not super potent weed, just like, just something to take the edge off. Had been prescribed a higher dose than previous of the medication that I was on. And so I took that dosage and I had asked my psychiatrist if it was okay if I smoked marijuana because it relaxed me. And in this case, it didn't relax. I don't know if it was the marijuana, but I was not relaxed. It didn't help. It was one of the most terrifying things that I've ever experienced, thinking that I had done something that's so counter to everything that I stand for and believe in and would ever want to do. And, yeah, the idea that I was responsible was just. It was absolutely terrifying.
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C
And we actually called up an expert about this because I was very confused. You know, I. I had heard of people making false confessions in an intense police interrogation setting, but I didn't know if that was possible to do if you weren't being interrogated. I'd never heard of that before. So I called up an expert, a guy named Alan Hirsch, and he actually told me that this is something called an internalized false confession. It typically happens in an interrogation setting, but it can also happen outside of an interrogation. And it's when someone convinces themselves that they may have done something and they didn't actually do it. And it's characterized by someone saying, I may have. I could have. So Hirsch tells me this sounds like a false confession. But at the trial, Jeff's testimony becomes a really big piece of it because obviously you hear him say, I think I murdered her. And that's, that's a really hard statement to overcome. And, and by the way, I also do want to emphasize that police, they took Jeff into custody for about three days and they did let him go because they couldn't find any physical evidence tying him to the crime.
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B
So what was their relationship like and what was the breakup like?
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C
This becomes actually a really important question in the later case. And if you talk to Jeff, it sounds like they had a really nice relationship. They had a lot in common. But ultimately it sounds like some of Jeff's mental health struggles contributed to the end of their relationship. But the way he describes it, it was very amicable. Obviously the defense try to paint it in a very different light. And they ask Jeff a lot about jealousy. Part of the reason they do this and can do this is cause when Jeff called the police and later in the body cam footage, the cop asks why? Why would you do this? And he says, well, I was upset with her for breaking up with me. So this does become a central question in the case of.
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D
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F
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B
So Jeffrey Herbsman is released and it the focus is Michael Jackson Bolanos. He goes on trial in 2024, eight months after Sam's death. And one of the biggest challenges for his defense, and the part that I found quite challenging, too, is the physical evidence. You know, you can maybe explain away a lot of stuff, but at the end of the day, he had her blood on his jacket. And that is. That is the big challenge. How is that explained?
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C
So Michael actually did something unusual in a criminal case, and he actually took the stand in his own defense, and he basically told the jury a story that they had never heard before, which was, he said, I was in the neighborhood that night. He admits that he was actually doing things he wasn't supposed to be. He was breaking into people's cars that night and kind of taking some items and things like that and wandering around the neighborhood. He admits, I was in the parking lot. I was near Samantha Wall's apartment, but I didn't kill her. Instead, what happened was I saw her outside. She was found outside. I saw her outside on the sidewalk. I noticed this figure. I went over to the figure to see what was going on. I noticed it was a body. I bent down to check for a pulse. I realized that there was no pulse. And I realized that this was a dead woman, a dead white woman. And I'm a black man standing outside in the middle of Detroit. So, of course, I didn't call the police and tell them. And that's the story he tells on the stand.
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D
Right.
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B
Frannie, let's play a little bit of sound of Michael's testimony.
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G
When I realized she was dead, I wanted nothing to do with the entire situation. I'm a black guy out in the middle of the night breaking into cars, and I find myself standing in front of a dead white woman that doesn't look good at all.
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B
So what is so interesting about this is, you know, how you feel about what Michael Jackson Bolano says, how you feel about what Jeffrey Herbsman says. You know, in many ways, baby may be impacted by your own personal life experiences. You know, when I listened to what he said on the stand, there was a part of me who understood, who understood that fear, how this could go terribly wrong. Then there's the human in me that is like, but for God's sakes, do something. When I listen to Jeff, I know that people have panic attacks. I've certainly felt anxiety. But I've never interacted with anyone who was under so much pressure that they would say something like, maybe I committed a murder. Right? So you have to, like, as you listen to this podcast, you have to work very hard to check your own personal experiences and put them on the shelf and just listen to the evidence. But you can't help but to sort of fold in a conversation about, you know, how you feel about policing, what the city of Detroit had been going through, what African American community, minority communities, how they feel about whether or not the justice system is. Is fair. And this is all. I mean, you explore all of this to a certain degree in this podcast.
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C
Yes. And that it was very intentional, that as we were uncovering more about this case, we started to realize that so much about how you feel about the different suspects in this case, about how the justice system played out, in many ways, as you said, it's a reflection of our own life experiences. It's also a reflection of so much that's been going on in our society culturally. And so that was another element of this case that I think made it so important to tell. And as you said, you know, it's. It's understandable, you know, Michael's story, that he could have seen a body, that he could have been scared. I could understand that, too. And so you could look at this case and say, well, that. That makes total sense, and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, which is what his defense says. Or you could look at this case and say, here's a man who was. He has a history. He is a previously convicted felon, and he's got a murdered woman's blood on his jacket. And so it really, you know, there are two very different perspectives you can take on Michael's story, but then kind.
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B
Of at the center of all of this, right. Is Samantha's family, and they just want some sort of justice and just, you know, explain what happened to their loved one. None of these other conversations matter to them. They have to sit through this trial. What was it like for them?
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C
So they sat through every day of this trial, which I. Putting myself in their shoes. I don't know how they did that. And I can imagine for any family member of a victim of a crime like this, just. I can't even imagine how difficult that was. And I know it was very painful, but I know that they also felt a strong obligation to be there for Sam and to be, you know, showing their support for her and also her memory and just wanting to make sure that she got justice. I think that the family is extremely resilient and incredibly thoughtful. And obviously, they loved Sam so much. I think at the same time, they're also so tired Now.
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B
And so that brings us to. It's almost like this podcast has several acts to, like one more act in this. Right. So explain what the verdict is.
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C
Yes. So he's charged with four counts, premeditated murder, felony murder, and home invasion. And he's also charged with lying to the police. So Michael gets acquitted of premeditated murder, he gets convicted of lying to the police, but the jury is hung on felony murder and home invasion. And as you said, this kind of brings us to the last act in this story, which is the judge ends up dismissing the felony murder and the home invasion counts against Michael. And the reason is because Michael's defense team gets this tip to look into a old supreme court case from 2009 called Jaeger v. United States. And we explain this more in the podcast. But I'll just tell you for now what you need to know, which is this case essentially expanded the definition of double jeopardy, and the judge had to conclude because of the Supreme Court case, that because Michael had been acquitted of one type of murder, he couldn't be retried on a different type of murder that had similar elements to the murder he'd already been acquitted of. Well, we'll see what happens in the appeals. I mean, I'm really interested to follow what happens.
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B
You know, so often I see with families that have to kind of endure this kind of tragedy, how you said the family is resilient, but I. I wonder if this is kind of stopping them from kind of moving forward.
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C
You know, so we actually do talk about this in the podcast, too. One thing is we spoke to a lot of rabbis, actually. Sam was Jewish. He was a very prominent Jewish leader. And I asked a rabbi about this. I said, how does the family. How does Sam's circle, how do they process and grieve her death without what feels like justice? And he said this amazing quote. He said to not let the forces of evil win. And so I think a lot of Sam's family are trying to take that message forward, but at the same time, there are also lines from the Torah that talk about the pursuit of justice and trying to get justice for loved ones. And I think that also drives them forward knowing that, you know, spiritually, they are trying to seek justice for Sam while also not trying to let the forces of evil win. And I think that's been driving them a lot. And Michael's team is even trying to make some changes, too. They feel he hasn't gotten justice as well.
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B
Yeah.
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C
So even though the judge dismisses the felony murder and home invasion charges against Michael. She still can sentence him to prison for lying to the police, which he's convicted of. And she sentences him to this really indefinite sentence of 18 months to 15 years in prison.
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B
So the last episode of Spiral has not come out yet. We know now, obviously that Michael Jackson Balanos is serving time for lying to the police. But we find out that you receive a letter from him. Can you, I don't know if you can give us kind of like a little bit of a hint of what's to come.
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C
So we do receive a letter from Michael in prison. We'd written to his defense team to try to get a bit more biographical information about him. And we'd actually tried a couple times. We asked to speak to him and they consistently said no. But then one day they sent us this letter. And in this letter, Michael maintains his innocence. He says, I did not kill Samantha Wall, but I also feel like I haven't got the justice that I deserve either. And so I'll leave it at that for the fifth episode.
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B
That is fascinating. I know for me it's a very interesting crime story. Yes. But it just kind of brought into focus the flaws. It's the only system we have. There are flaws. So I'll ask you, what are you hoping that listeners get out of this?
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C
Well, I think you hit the nail on the head. The last episode is called a Beautiful but Imperfect system and it's exactly that sentiment. It's no matter how hard we try, no matter what we do in this system, there's this kind of very hard pill to swallow at the conclusion of this story, which is that no matter what we do, this system will not be perfect. And what does justice look like? What, what can we do to improve this system? What changes can we make to make it better? So I, I do hope that people talk about these big questions, but I would say overall, the really important takeaway I hope people take from listening to this story is the life of Sam. The way Samantha Wall lived her life, the values she lived by. She was a bridge builder. She dedicated her entire life to trying to bring different communities together. She was a leader in bringing the Jewish and Muslim communities together in Detroit. She was somebody who could sit across the table from someone who had totally different political views from her and still have an amazing in depth conversation. It could be a debate, they could be going back and forth, but she wouldn't shy away from something like that. She was kind, she was always smiling, she was always doing anything for everybody. And so my hope overall from people listening to this podcast is that they take something away from Sam's life that they reflect in their own lives. How could I live a life more like Samantha Walls?
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B
Oh, I love that. That's like a sort of perfect final statement for this conversation. Franny, thank you so much once again. I really enjoyed the podcast.
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C
Thank you so much for having me.
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B
And thanks to you all for listening. You can find Murder in Detroit wherever you get your podcasts. The same is true for 48 hours postmortem. If you like this episode, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify.
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G
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