Spiral | 2. Wrong Place, Wrong Time?

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

The Free Press Investigates – "Spiral | 2. Wrong Place, Wrong Time?"
Host: Frannie Block, The Free Press
Date: October 21, 2025

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Overview

In the gripping second episode of “Spiral: Murder in Detroit,” Free Press reporter Frannie Block dives into the investigation of Samantha Wall’s murder—a Detroit synagogue president and beloved community leader—through the lens of the primary suspect: Michael Jackson Bolanos. The episode dissects the intense police interrogation, the circumstantial evidence, and the complicated question of guilt, all while exploring themes of police procedure, bias, and the role of systemic injustice. It ends with new, tantalizing questions about alternative suspects and unanswered threads in the investigation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Michael Jackson Bolanos: The Interrogation and His Story

• Police Interrogation (00:47 – 13:55)

  • Michael, a homeless Black man with a record for car theft, is picked up en route to his job at Fresh Roots. His nervousness is obvious – hands in his lap, anxious responses.
  • Interrogators use classic “good cop, bad cop” techniques; real audio is enhanced with actors for clarity.
  • Michael initially denies any wrongdoing, insisting:

    "I don't commit no crimes. I just want to work. I'm a manager. I don't do nothing, bro. I'm literally on the right track, sir." (02:34, Michael Jackson Bolanos)

  • When confronted with security footage, Michael first denies, then admits to being the person in some of the images.
  • Officers present timelined evidence: footage, cell data, and images place him at the scene during the crucial hours.

• Admitted Behavior vs. Charges

  • Michael admits to walking around, checking car doors, and wearing medical gloves (supposedly taken from a car), but denies entering any homes or having anything to do with murder.
  • At the turning point, police reveal they're homicide detectives. Michael is visibly shocked:

    “Oh my hell, bro. I didn’t kill nobody. Hell, I don’t know what happened. I’m just checking car doors and taking pictures of cars. That’s it.” (13:08, Michael Jackson Bolanos)

2. Police Methods and Legal Analysis

• Use of Deception (14:42 – 15:51)
  • Police admit to using deception, falsely claiming to have proof Michael entered a house.

    "If you have somebody that is unwilling to provide you truthful information, sometimes you can elicit truthful information by deploying a deceptive tactic." (15:10, Captain Matthew Bray)

  • Officer and legal perspectives discuss balancing effective tactics with the risk of false confessions.

3. The Evidence Against Michael

• Physical and Digital Evidence (18:25 – 23:16)
  • Jacket found in girlfriend’s apartment tested positive for Samantha Wall’s blood.
  • Backpack from surveillance footage also had Sam’s blood.
  • Michael’s search history includes “blacklight sees what?” and “Detroit same day passport.”
  • Surveillance footage tracks Michael’s movements from his girlfriend’s apartment to Sam’s neighborhood, then fleeing the area after 4:26am.
  • Key prosecutor argument:

    “They had cell phone, they had video, they had DNA. They had him right outside her apartment. They were very confident... they were going to get a conviction.” (19:50, Doug and Margo Wall)

4. Defense Perspective & Doubts

• Questions About Motive, Opportunity, and Forensics (26:38 – 37:26)

  • Michael's defense, led by Brian Brown and Purnakrishnamoorthy (“Perna”), emphasize the lack of motive and direct evidence.
  • Points raised:
    • Nothing was stolen from Sam’s home—countering the prosecution’s burglary-gone-wrong theory.
    • Michael kept his clothes, which the defense argues would be illogical if he were trying to cover up a murder.
    • No DNA or fingerprints from Michael were found inside Sam’s home.
    • Michael’s history is non-violent regarding prior offenses, despite some prison misconduct.
    • The timeline is tight: defense contends a bloody, violent crime in under 60 seconds seems implausible.

• Challenging the Investigation

  • Defense notes another unidentified person running from the area at 1:23am, caught on blurry video and confirmed by another neighbor’s statement and Sam’s alarm data.
  • Police admit this runner was investigated but declared a red herring.

• Defense’s Main Theory

  "When I first got introduced to the case... it appeared very plainly that it was wrong place, wrong time. That’s absolutely what it was." (27:02, Purnakrishnamoorthy)

5. Alternative Suspect and Unanswered Questions

• A Break in the Case (39:37 – 40:49)
  • During discovery, Perna and Brian uncover a statement from an alternative suspect, Jeffrey Herbsman, who (amid a panic attack) confesses to police he fears he killed his girlfriend but doesn’t remember it.
  • This new lead is posited as potentially critical.

  “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever read. I’m like, who is this guy? What is this statement that they have written in here?” (39:37, Purnakrishnamoorthy)

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• On Michael’s State of Mind:

  “He was more impulsive for sure when it came to cars… Cars were very exciting to him… He probably should have been like a car engineer or whatever.” (07:53, Perna)

• On Police Tactics:

  “Now, he knows in his mind he's already went to prison for this exact same thing... So what does he do? ...He lied and said he wasn't in that area, and he didn't do that.” (06:21, Perna)

• On the Coincidence of Evidence:

  “It's just a coincidence that she's found dead just as you ran away?” (14:42, Bad Cop)

• On Motive:

  “If this was a random person that killed her, why did they not take anything? ...Why did he keep all his clothes that he killed her in?... That would make no sense.” (29:11, Perna)

• On the Case Against Michael:

  “Everything that he told me from the moment that we were discussing what happened in this case never changed, not one iota of it… That level of solidarity with their story… does not happen.” (27:02, Perna)

• On the Timeline of the Murder:

  “There are pools of blood in the hallway… that has to happen over time… That does not make sense. That cannot happen [in 60 seconds].” (37:04, Perna)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:47 – 13:55: Interrogation with Michael Jackson Bolanos (walkthrough of evidence, police tactics, his denials/admissions)
• 15:10 – 15:51: Police captain on the ethics of interrogation deception
• 18:25 – 23:16: Discovery of key physical evidence (jacket, backpack), timeline reconstructed with footage and digital evidence
• 26:38 – 37:26: Defense team’s critique of police investigation, discussion of alternate timeline, and counter-theories
• 39:37 – 40:49: Introduction of alternative suspect, Jeffrey Herbsman

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Takeaways

• The case is built largely on circumstantial evidence and forensics—there’s no direct proof Michael entered Sam’s house or committed violence.
• Defense lawyers point to sloppy or narrowly focused investigation, unexplored alternative suspects, and oddities in the forensic timeline.
• Police and prosecution are unwavering: the convergence of surveillance, cell, and biological evidence is, in their view, overwhelming.
• The episode ends with a twist: another man’s apparent breakdown and confession may open new questions about what really happened to Samantha Wall.

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This episode leaves listeners questioning what counts as proof, the pitfalls of presumption based on one’s record or appearance, and whether justice can be trusted to emerge from a haze of coincidence, pressure, and incomplete evidence.

Transcript

[Frannie Block]

Previously on Spiral. The president of a Detroit synagogue who was found stabbed to death outside of her home yesterday morning. I thought that it was my neighbor Sam Wall. I would look at everybody and say, could you have done it? Could you have done it? Could you have done it?

[Brian Brown]

Sam wasn't a cutthroat divorce attorney. Sam didn't have a long list of.

[Frannie Block]

Enemies in my bone of bones. Really feel that it's a hate crime.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

Who knows if this was targeted?

[Frannie Block]

Maybe they were able to get to.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

Her, but I should be on that list, too.

[Frannie Block]

You had no idea who would have the motivation to kill Samuel?

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

Nope.

[Brian Brown]

Nothing.

[Frannie Block]

A Detroit Police Station, November 2023. One white officer sits across from a black man they've pulled in for an interview. He's in his late 20s, wearing a black hoodie and a yellow vest. The officer is bald, stocky, and has a goatee. The young man looks anxious. It's understandable. He was picked up on his way to his job at Fresh Roots, a Detroit smoothie shop. His hands are in his lap underneath the table, and the officer is writing notes. And the guy in the hoodie asks at one point, am I being arrested? Well, I mean, you are in custody. No, I mean you are in custody. We'll see how this goes. Figure out whether you'll stay in custody.

[Bad Cop]

Okay.

[Frannie Block]

What you will hear throughout this episode is the real audio of this interrogation, but the quality isn't that great. So we've used actors to make it a little more clear. After signing a form that says he understands his Miranda rights, the cop asks him about selling an item in a pawn shop. The guy in the hoodie says he found some designer glasses on the ground and he later sold them. Okay, fine, the cop says. But then the officer pivots. He looks at his phone, and he kind of casually says, you guys been getting.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

We've been getting so many cars broken into downtown.

[Frannie Block]

Okay, and that's why you're here today. Pretty quickly, the guy being questioned starts giving his life story. He's homeless, he says, and on the days he's not staying with his girlfriend, he sleeps in his car. But he has a job now, and he promises the officer he has his life on track. And then he says this. I don't commit no crimes. I just want.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

I don't commit no crimes. I just want to work. I'm a manager. I don't do nothing, bro. I'm literally on the right track, sir.

[Frannie Block]

And that was his first lie. The man the police are interviewing is Michael Jackson Bolanos. He's from Detroit, and he's a history of crime, mainly involving stolen cars. The detective pulls out a stack of papers, and he casually picks one out and slides it across the table. To Michael, it looks like an image of a person walking at night.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

That's not me.

[Frannie Block]

That's not you?

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

That's not me.

[Frannie Block]

That's not you?

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

No, sir. You sure about that? Sure about that?

[Frannie Block]

He slides another picture across the table. Michael takes a long look.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

What is this?

[Frannie Block]

What is this? And the detective shows him another photo from the same night, the early hours of October 21, 2023. Yeah, that's me.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

Yeah, that's me.

[Frannie Block]

And that's when the cop explains, these are all photos pulled from security camera footage that night. The Police tracked Michael 2 1/2 miles across the city, all the way from his girlfriend's apartment in the midtown neighborhood south to downtown Detroit, where they said they were getting reports about a bunch of car break ins.

[Brian Brown]

I'm really like, homeless.

[Frannie Block]

I walk around.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

I'm really, like, homeless. I walk around, sir. I literally work every day. I'm a manager. I have not committed no wrongs. I don't go downtown to go hit cars. I walk down downtown. I do not steal. I do not commit no crimes. I'm not strong arm or robbing nobody. I'm not stealing from properties or doing nothing of the sort. Sir, I've literally been on this right track forever. I'm 28. I'm homeless.

[Frannie Block]

Then he starts telling the police, I'll tell you anything else you want to know. I would tell you anything. I would say.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

Oh, I would tell you anything. I would. I would say weed houses, stealing and trafficking houses, all of that. And that's all on the east side. I will tell you anything. Even though I'm not on no bullshit, bro, please, I swear I'm not on no bullshit.

[Frannie Block]

Yeah, he's apparently offering to snitch on drug houses, things that haven't even been mentioned. He sounds kind of desperate, bartering for a way out. Then he looks at one of the photos again, and he admits that's also him, but he's adamant he hasn't done anything wrong. We couldn't speak directly with Michael Jackson Bolanos for this podcast, but we did talk to his defense attorneys, Brian Brown and Purnakrishnamoorthy, and from them, and from looking at records and talking to law enforcement, we were able to get a portrait of his life. Michael was born in California, and early on he developed a fascination with cars, lowriders, street racing, customized vehicles. When he was 11, his family moved to Detroit, and after graduation, he started working various jobs. And eventually he got involved in the music scene, working as a manager for local artists. But by the time Michael found himself in that interrogation room in 2023, he was 28 years old and already had multiple run ins with the law. He has prior felony convictions related to stolen cars. He's already spent nearly seven years in prison. You can see his rap sheet in the public records available online. There's a mugshot of him and a description of his tattoos. One says YOLO on his chest. There's a cross on his left arm, and on his right it says Rip Duke. And then the words God forgives. I don't. On the tape, you can hear the detectives questioning him about car break ins in the area. His lawyer, Perna, explains Michael's state of mind during this part of the interrogation.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

Now, he knows in his mind he's already went to prison for this exact same thing, for tampering with unlocked vehicles and taking things from them previously. So in his mind, he's like, okay, that's. That's what's going on here. That's what they're asking about. Now we know realistically that's not what was going on here, and that's not what they were asking him about. They were baiting him. That's what they were doing. So what does he do? Yeah, he lied about that. He lied and said he wasn't in that area, and he didn't do that. But in his mind, of course he would lie about that, because why would I? I mean, they're gonna have to show me something more than that. That's. That is the mind frame of any single person being interrogated. He is not some special case for an interrogation. I've watched a million interrogations. That is a thing that always happens. The police are not honest with you, therefore you are not honest with them.

[Frannie Block]

And not being honest was certainly Michael's strategy. At one point, the officer points out that in video footage from that night, he can be seen scaling a wall to a parking structure. Michael denies it, and he says, again, that's not even me. But the cop keeps pressing. And so Michael eventually admits, yeah, he did scale that wall, but not to break into any cars and take anything. He just wanted to take pictures of them. And he claims, and this is kind of weird, it's so that other people can steal the cars. Here's Perna, who, by the way, has gold bangles on her wrists, and she talks with her hands a lot so you can hear Them jingling.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

He was more impulsive for sure when it came to cars like that infatuation with cars was a thing that. Dude, get over it. It's a car. Cars were very exciting to him. Like he. This is the type of guy, you can ask him any sort of fact about any sort of car, and he can be like, oh, that's this type of car with this type of engine. And this type of. Like this guy is obsessed with cars. He loves cars, right? He probably should have been like a car engineer or whatever, something like that.

[Frannie Block]

But here are the facts. As the cop points out, they have video of Michael leaving his girlfriend's apartment around 12:30am and he doesn't return until almost 5 in the morning. So what's he doing in that time? Michael starts talking about his need for walks, pleading almost.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

I walk around and clear my fucking mind, bro, because I'm homeless.

[Frannie Block]

But then another cop walks in. And I don't want to be too basic with my analysis of law enforcement protocol, but I'd say he's playing bad cop. He sits stoically for just a moment, makes some small talk with Michael, and eventually he holds out his hand. He and Michael shake. It's cordial, and Michael starts talking again. But pretty quickly, Bad cop cuts him off. You're bullshitting, he says. And quite curtly, he points to the pictures one by one and says, these are pictures of you. Every time there's a picture of you, there's also cell records placing you at each location. And he makes it clear this is not a question.

[Bad Cop]

And there's no question. We're not even asking if that's you. That is you.

[Frannie Block]

Michael seems to respond a bit defeatedly. I know this is me, he admits, and he sits back in his chair. At this point, Michael has his hands on either side of his face. His voice is exasperated. You can hear a sniffle. It almost feels like he's close to tears. He's repeating over and over the same excuses. But the realization seems to set in that the officers have something on him. He's backed into a corner, and bad cop just keeps laying the facts on him. 630 gigs.

[Bad Cop]

630 gigs of video of just you. That's no lie, no exaggeration.

[Frannie Block]

And soon good cop brings up a neighborhood. Lafayette park, which everyone in Detroit by now knew is where Samantha Wall lived. It had been all over the news. Do you know Lafayette Park? Do you know Lafayette Park? He says he does. I know Lafayette Park.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

I know Lafayette park from the pizza place right there. The nail Salon. I took my girl to the nail salons.

[Frannie Block]

Then Bad Cop chimes in. He asks, in those early hours of October 21st, did Michael see anything out of the ordinary in that neighborhood? Did you see anything out of the.

[Bad Cop]

Way or did you see anything out of the way or anything out of the normal?

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

I didn't see nothing.

[Frannie Block]

Bad Cop has more. That neighborhood is pretty quiet, especially at night. Not that many people around. But there's video of Michael there, and we'll later find out. This video captures him at about 4 in the morning. The next time he's caught on camera, about 20 minutes later, he's running.

[Bad Cop]

When running, I mean, running full speed, like somebody's on your ass.

[Frannie Block]

They dance around this for a while. Then the officer brings up that one of the doors to a condo was open. Did Michael go into any of the condos in the neighborhood, try any doors to see if they were unlocked too? Just like he'd been doing with car handles. But Michael is adamant he didn't go into any of those condos and he didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

I didn't see anything. I didn't see nothing.

[Bad Cop]

Nothing that shocked you?

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

Nothing that shocked me. And I didn't do nothing. I never went into nobody's condo, nobody's place or nothing. I only went to parking structures. Parking structures and walked around and jiggled around a few fucking car door handles.

[Frannie Block]

But his story is starting to unravel. How far do we have to go through to get to this point?

[Bad Cop]

How far do we have to go to get to this point? To be honest, I mean, I don't think you're a bad guy.

[Brian Brown]

I just.

[Bad Cop]

I think you ran into some bad times.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

I didn't ran into nothing. That's what I'm saying. Like, I don't have no interaction with nobody or nothing. You can search my phone. If you want to decide on a sign, you can search on my phone.

[Bad Cop]

What's the code on your phone?

[Frannie Block]

The policemen give Michael another waiver to sign so they have permission to extract all of the data from his cell phone. He signs it and then the cops get up and leave. For a little while, Michael sits in the room alone with his hands clasped, looking down at the table with a blank stare. When they come back, good cop drops a bomb. He pulls out a business card from his wallet. He slides it across the table towards Michael. It reads, patrick Lane, homicide detective. Michael looks stunned. Oh my hell.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

Oh my hell, bro. I didn't kill nobody. Hell, I don't know what happened. I Just check in car doors and taking pictures of cars. That's it.

[Bad Cop]

So you saying that you're just in that area, just happening, pulling on doors, just not that door?

[Frannie Block]

We're over an hour into the interrogation at this point. And this is when Michael finally figures out why he's really here. It's only now that the cops even mention a body. And when they do, they still don't give her a name.

[Bad Cop]

Because this is a homicide, right? There's a lot of DNA evidence we.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

Have, and that's cool. Do what you gotta do, bro. Like I'm not faking. Like, I really didn't.

[Frannie Block]

And they don't say how she was killed. Remember, Samantha Wall was stabbed eight times, not shot.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

Have I held a gun? Yes, I've held a gun before. But homicide, bro. Bro, I ain't killed nobody.

[Frannie Block]

But the cops try again to impress on him a simple truth. They know that he knows something about what happened to Sam that night. And they know he was there.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

You would have tripped over.

[Bad Cop]

I mean, all of it. It's too much of a coincidence.

[Frannie Block]

They tell him that they can place him at the scene of the crime exactly when they think the murder happened. They have security camera footage, data from an alarm system, cell phone records. They all match up. It's just a coincidence.

[Bad Cop]

So it's just a coincidence that she's found dead just as you ran away?

[Frannie Block]

And this is when the officers start to lie to Michael. They tell him they have clear evidence showing him going into someone's house that night, which they don't actually have. We spoke to an investigator on this case who told us this kind of police strategy is common and they stand by it. Here's Captain Matthew Bray from the Detroit Police Department.

[Captain Matthew Bray]

If you have somebody that is unwilling to provide you truthful information, sometimes you can elicit truthful information by deploying a deceptive tactic. There has always been concern throughout history about false confessions and how that sometimes deception can lead to false confessions. However, there is a safeguard against that that police generally try to employ as best they can. If ultimately, deception leads the person to providing me a truthful statement, and that person can provide me information that only that the suspected killer would know about. And that is one of the ways that you can guard against a false confession.

[Frannie Block]

But Michael doesn't fall for that. He maintains he doesn't know anything about a body that the police keep referring to. I don't know nothing about nobody.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

I don't know nothing about nobody. I didn't encounter nobody or nothing. I didn't see Nobody out there. I don't know nothing.

[Bad Cop]

Everything lines up.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

To what?

[Frannie Block]

So how does he explain the video of him running away? Well, Michael says it's because he saw a security vehicle that spooked him. After all, he was doing things he wasn't supposed to be doing that night. Like trying car door handles. But he's emphatic it's not because of a body.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

I'm being honest, bro. I'm being dead ass honest because you coming to me telling me I'm in a homicide room, bro. I did not see nothing of the sort.

[Frannie Block]

It was another lie. This is Murder in Detroit. From the Free Press, I'm Frannie Block. This is episode two, wrong place, wrong time. This interview was on November 30, 2023, just a month after Samwell was killed. And by the following summer, Michael would be on trial, accused of her murder. But one thing about Michael's story that never changes is he says he didn't do it.

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[Frannie Block]

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[Frannie Block]

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[Frannie Block]

After the interrogation, the cops let Michael go. They searched his phone. And they had a warrant to search his girlfriend Tiara White's apartment, too. That's where Michael had been staying periodically. It's there the cops find their silver bullet. Investigators found the jacket Michael had been wearing that night. And when they sent that jacket to a lab to test it for DNA, they found a match. Blood. It was Sam's. Here's Captain Bray again.

[Captain Matthew Bray]

Mr. Brown's client had a coat, and that coat had her blood on it. And I think that is something that we should all focus on.

[Frannie Block]

They arrest him again. This time for good. It's then that police notified the Wahl family they had a suspect in custody. This is Samantha's father, Doug, and her mother Margot.

[Doug and Margot Wall]

We were called in and told them.

[Frannie Block]

They had.

[Doug and Margot Wall]

A suspect that they believed was the murderer. And they didn't want to give us too much information about what evidence they had, but they were pretty sure, based on cell phone data, video data, DNA, that they had the right guy.

[Frannie Block]

The prosecution, if I'm remembering correctly, also told you we've got him. We did. Didn't they say something like, this is the most evidence we've had or something like that?

[Doug and Margot Wall]

Yeah, a tremendous amount of evidence at one time. I can't remember when they said, we've never had so much evidence against somebody as they've accumulated. They had cell phone, they had video, they had DNA. They had them right outside her apartment. They were very confident, confident, as confident as they a person could be that they were going to get a conviction.

[Frannie Block]

And did you guys ever doubt that it was him or you knew it was him?

[Doug and Margot Wall]

Zero doubt.

[Frannie Block]

It's no wonder the Wahl family was so confident. Here's the rest of the case. The cops start building against Michael. We mentioned Sam's blood on Michael's jacket, but they also find that gray backpack that was visible in the security camera footage. They test it, and it also comes back with Sam's blood on it. And then there's other discoveries that the police made. They found a knife on Michael after he was arrested, which he said was a seatbelt cutter, but cops couldn't tie it to the murder. The cops also looked at Michael's phone data about a week later, after Sam's murder, Michael had searched blacklight sees what? In another search, he looked up Detroit. See same day passport. Between November 3 and November 26, Michael opened a police scanner app on his phone over 200 times. And guiding the entire investigation is the video evidence which led detectives to Michael in the first place. So the surveillance footage shows Michael and Sam's neighborhood in the parking lot across from her house at 4am 23 minutes later, video footage shows Michael walking around a few blocks away from Sam's apartment, past a handful of people who appear to be picketing outside a casino. Remember, Sam's ADT home alarm system recorded motion at 4:20am and it went idle at 4:22, meaning after that, it didn't detect any further motion. It's that two minutes where prosecutors will later argue Michael went into Sam's house, murdered her, and ran away. As Michael walks past the small protest of striking workers at the casino, his Hands are in his pockets. His black hoodie is up. He's wearing that gray backpack. He keeps walking with his head down, occasionally looking behind him, perhaps at the picketers. Then he appears to pull out his phone and turn on his flashlight. It looks like he's trying to inspect his right hand as he turns the corner. At 4:26am he starts to run. Minutes later, video footage shows him walking toward downtown Detroit. Police track him all the way back to his girlfriend Tiara's apartment, a distance of about two and a half miles. His girlfriend greets him downstairs and lets him inside at 4 4:59am this is tiara, who Michael started dating just the month before Sam's death, testifying about this.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

There was some video that, that has.

[Frannie Block]

Been shown and some photos of West Alexander Street. Did you live there back in October of 2023?

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

I did.

[Frannie Block]

And did the defendant stay with you from time to time?

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

Yes.

[Frannie Block]

This video footage of Michael's movements that night provides the prosecution with its timeline. But unlike what the cops told Michael during their interrogation, they don't have any direct evidence that Michael ever entered Sam's house. It's all circumstantial. And remember, Sam got home from a wedding after midnight. She likely fell asleep on the couch around 1:35am or at least that's the last time she ever used her phone. And then there are just some other curious bits of evidence that the prosecution will ultimately point out. Like in the surveillance footage, before he gets to the area near Sam's house, you can see Michael is wearing medical gloves. He said he got them from one of the cars he went into. At one point, when he's walking back from the area where Sam's apartment is, detectives notice he only has one glove on his right hand. By the time he returns to his girlfriend's apartment, he isn't wearing any gloves. Investigators ultimately found a blue surgical glove in the grass near the casino, but they couldn't prove it was Michael's. And to be fair, if you're stealing from cars, gloves might come in handy. But then again, they would too if you were committing a murder. There's also a car in the parking lot near Sam's apartment. The same parking lot where Michael could be seen walking around in the security camera footage. When investigators arrive at the scene, they find the car tires have been slashed.

[Bad Cop]

Local 4 News starts now with a breaking news alert.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

Breaking right now, Wayne county prosecutor Kim Worthy announces charges against a 28 year old man in the murder of local.

[Doug and Margot Wall]

Jewish leader Samantha Wool.

[Frannie Block]

That announcement so Michael Jackson Bolanos was sitting in the Wayne county jail. It's December 2023, and he's now charged with murder. He has two lawyers pay him a visit. Brian Brown, who'd represented him before in previous felony cases, and Parnakrishnamoorthy, who he knows personally through friends of friends. Brian, who's black, told us cases like this one feel very personal to him.

[Brian Brown]

I have a passion for just the area and the individuals in here, and a lot of people that I see who look like me are somewhat unrepresented. So, you know, I wanted to bring a. I guess a better perspective with that, I guess, so to speak. Mr. Jackson B'. Alano, he hired me. He called me and let me know what was kind of going on. He was arrested. He told me about the case, and I started to kind of peel back the layers. I'm like, he's innocent. Like, he's not guilty of what he's accused of. So I just couldn't let him go down, not on my watch.

[Frannie Block]

And here's Perna.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

At the time that he was arrested for this. One of our mutual friends actually had reached out to me. And at that time, my cousin and I were actually traveling through India and Nepal at the time. I was out of the country for over a month. Month. So there was no way for her to really reach me. She was trying to reach me to say that he was locked up and, you know, wanted representation, whatever. And of course, he needed representation. So I know that Brian had previously represented him, so he had reached out to Brian. So by the time I came back, Michael had reached out to me and said, hey, this is. This is my circumstance. This is what's going on. I'd like you to join in on my defense. And of course, I was happy to do so.

[Frannie Block]

Michael might have qualified for a public defender, but he actually hired Brian and Perna to represent him. We were curious how he could afford this, given that he was homeless at the time. But Perna says people close to Michael came together to pay for their services. And by the way they tell it, as soon as they joined the case, they knew right away something was off with the police's investigation.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

So when I first got introduced to the case, and over my first glance at the discovery that was turned over by the prosecution, it appeared to me just very plainly that it was wrong place, wrong time. That's absolutely what it was. Everything that he told me from the moment that we were discussing what happened in this case never changed, not one iota of it. And it completely matched up to everything that I could consider a relevant discrepancy to the discovery packet that they were trying to use to say that that was the evidence to charge him. It was. And nine times out of 10, having done this job for as long as I have and met as many clients as I have met, that level of solidarity with their story, that does not happen. Like, there are always bits and pieces of it that kind of peel away as the evidence comes in and as the discovery unfolds and as I begin to ask more and more questions to them, well, what about this? What about that? What about this? What about that? That never happened with him.

[Frannie Block]

This is part of what has led Poppy, my producer, and me to become obsessed with this case. For one section of the public, this is a story that confirms a view that black men are picked up and framed for crimes all the time. That we need people like Perna and Brian to fight the good fight and prevent major injustices. Michael, after all, was a poor, homeless black man with a history of car theft. Sure, he has priors, but they're not violent. And then there's the other part of the audience that sees a man who has a murdered woman's blood on him and refuses to confess to his crime. But the big fight that both sides of this knew they would have to prove to win over a jury was the one of motive. The prosecution starts building a case around the idea that this was a burglary gone wrong, but the defense starts picking that apart immediately.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

If this was a random person that killed her, why did they not take anything? And the prosecutor's like, oh, because if they took something, then they would have evidence of what they stole from the house. Okay, well, then if Michael Jackson Bolanos killed this lady, why did he keep all of his clothes that he killed her in? You don't think the first thing that he would do would be like, I just killed someone. I should probably get rid of these clothes. So he doesn't steal anything from inside of the house, but then he keeps all the clothes he killed her in. Why would that make any sense even to the dumbest person in the world? That would make no sense.

[Frannie Block]

From here, Brian and Perna began to build Michael's defense. And here's what else stood out to them. The first thing was the brutality of Sam's murder. If it was all just a burglary gone wrong, why was Sam stabbed eight times for one?

[Brian Brown]

I believe this was a crime of passion based upon. Nothing was stolen from her apartment. They tried to act like my guy Was out, you know, went in there to steal some things. But it was a lot of items that were in plain view. If he was a thief and he went in there to steal, those things would have been stolen. They wouldn't have been in the photograph, such as her car keys or purse, money, laptops. It was just a plethora of items that if somebody went in there to commit some type of robbery or burglary, they would have stole. Especially if you're stealing from somebody, I mean, you're killing them. Also, where she was stabbed at, how many times she was stabbed. You know, a person who was going to somebody's house to steal is not going to stab somebody that many times.

[Frannie Block]

And it's true, Michael, as far as his convictions related to car theft go, doesn't have a violent history. But while he was serving time, he had 43 misconduct violations against him. We filed a Freedom of Information act request for these details. And we found that at least three of them were for assaults, Two were for assaulting a staff member, and one was a fellow prisoner. And there was also one sexual misconduct violation, though the circumstances of that are unclear. His lawyers say that fighting was merely a defensive mechanism to survive the harsh prison environment. There was also an alleged domestic violence incident with a former girlfriend, but Perna says no criminal charges were ever filed against him for that. None of these priors, violent or not, were included at Michael's trial. Here's Perna.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

The prosecutors were picking at every little thing that they could try to pick at and try to blow it up and make it a thing, when in reality, they had nothing to show that he had a violent history.

[Frannie Block]

So maybe the claim Michael is nonviolent is more complicated. But there was something else that jumped out at Michael's defense lawyers. During Michael's interrogation, When the cops finally bring up a dead body, he tells them he'd never used a gun to kill someone.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

Have I held a gun? Yes, I've held a gun before. But homicide, bro, Bro, I ain't killed nobody.

[Frannie Block]

But Sam wasn't killed by gunfire. She was stabbed. Here's Perna on that.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

We're in the city of Detroit. We're talking about young black men mentality. I would be hard pressed to tell you that there is going to be a young black dude walking around the city who's willing to go behind someone's door of their home without knowing who's in there, what's in there, what guns are waiting for them without having to strap themselves. You gonna have a strap if you're Gonna open that door. If you're gonna be ballsy enough to go in that house and open that door and catch what's behind that door. Because nine times out of ten, someone's gonna be thinking there's gonna be guns behind that door, and someone's gonna shoot me if I come up in their house. So he's gonna want to be strapped up before he goes in there. We know he didn't have any weapons on him.

[Frannie Block]

And the last thing, the biggest thing for the defense is that the police didn't find any of Michael's DNA or his fingerprints inside Sam's home.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

Perna, again, what is he, some, like, master killer? This guy's like, a petty car guy, right? Like, he's not like, some guy who's, like, I don't know, like to leave no DNA whatsoever. I would think that this would be a person who thought this out.

[Frannie Block]

There was, of course, other partial prints and DNA found in Sam's home, but none that they could connect to a potential killer. And remember the neighbor who went out to walk his Puppy just after 1:20 and said he heard a woman's voice, which the cops refer to as a scream? Well, Perna and Brian point out that there's also video footage showing someone running away from the area of Sam's apartment around that time, to be specific, at 1:23am and they're really sprinting. One minute later, Sam's ADT home alarm system goes idle, meaning no motion is detected. The video footage is really blurry, but one thing is certain. It's not Michael. The police have surveillance footage showing Michael walking around downtown Detroit about a mile from Sam's place at that same time, around 1:21am the cops say that the unknown person pulled into the parking lot near Sam's house at around 1:20 and then got out of their car. A few minutes later. It appears that the person is running away from the direction of Sam's house. But who is this? The police don't have an answer to that question to this day. This is Brian Brown, one of Michael's lawyers.

[Brian Brown]

I asked, you know, Detroit police officers about why they didn't have additional footage of this individual running away from the scene. Like, hey, were you supposed to gather this information as far as all these different buildings on where this individual ran to, and he said no. So saying all of that to say it was a lot of stuff that was not done.

[Frannie Block]

We asked Detroit police if they felt this was a fair characterization, and they said they investigated every lead thoroughly, and there's One important caveat when weighing the significance of this other person of interest, Sam's phone records. It seems like the last thing she did on her phone was open Netflix. Her phone then goes Inactive More than 10 minutes later at 1:35am the prosecution says this unknown runner isn't relevant because they believe Sam was still alive when the runner was in the area. A red herring. What about some of the pieces of evidence that seem really bad for Michael? Like that Google search he made about a black light? Or that one he made for a same day passport? The defense has an answer to the latter search. Kerna says he was just trying to go on a day trip with some friends to Windsor, Canada, which is just across the river from Detroit.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

This is not a guy who has some like, thought out, methodical thing, because why would you think to get a same day passport? What, you wouldn't think to same day, burn your clothes or get rid of your clothes? Like, how would that. If he's so smart to think to like, apply for a same day passport? You mean to tell me this guy's dumb enough to walk around with bloody murder clothes like that? That wouldn't. Okay, that wouldn't. That. Again, that theory doesn't hold a lot of weight with me because that doesn't make any sense.

[Frannie Block]

There was some blood on Michael's jacket and his backpack. Just a few spots. The defense has to admit that. But they also ask, what about the rest of his clothes?

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

And they found one speck of blood, right? But on his pants and on his shoes, they found no blood at all whatsoever.

[Frannie Block]

The crime scene, meanwhile, is covered in blood. And Perna points out if the crime happened in the short two minute time frame prosecutors say it did, then how are there pools of blood? Perna even takes it a step further. She interprets the ADT alarm system data that the prosecutors rely on to mean that the crime, if it happened at 4:20, must have happened in just 60 seconds, not two minutes. Because she says the system needs to sit in idle mode for at least one minute before it shuts off.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

There are pools of blood in the hallway. For a pool of blood to happen, there has to be an accumulation that's an accumulated pool of blood. For that to happen, there has to be time. That has to happen over time, under 60 seconds. Because again, that means that would have to happen under 60 seconds. Because all of this has to transpire in 60 seconds. That does not make sense. That cannot happen.

[Frannie Block]

Once the cops found Michael, Perna says they put up blinders. They only focused on him not enough. On any other potential suspects, there's some.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

Reason that they are so fixated on this guy. I don't know what that reason is. I don't know what is the underlying thing here. There is some reason that they want to sink their claws so deeply into someone who is so blatantly innocent.

[Frannie Block]

But Captain Bray says investigators focused on Michael because that's where the evidence took them.

[Captain Matthew Bray]

I think the fact that after two separate interrogations in regards to this incident, on two separate occasions, that Mr. Bolanos denied ever seeing her, ever touching her, ever having a sexual experience with her, ever meeting her a day in his life, and ultimately, on those two separate occasions where he was interviewed and released after the first one, it was discovered that his coat contained her blood. He has to offer an explanation for that.

[Frannie Block]

Michael's defense team is smart and creative, but at this point, I surely wouldn't want to be in their shoes. There is a lot to explain away, and they'll even admit that. I asked Brian this directly. The prosecution, obviously, they put this case together, and I think a big part of their case was like, this is a whole lot of coincidences. You know, he is in the area, the ADT alarm, all that kind of stuff. Can you just kind of talk about that? I mean, is this really like a. I mean, it's a lot of bad luck.

[Brian Brown]

It is. I mean, it is. It's like a movie.

[Frannie Block]

Brian and Perna eventually get a treasure trove of files from the prosecutors in discovery. Discovery is the obligation in a criminal case for the two sides to exchange information, including any evidence that the police collected throughout the investigation, no matter what that evidence says or to whom it leads. She and Brian spent weeks in a basement sifting through all of these files. And then one day, they find what every defense attorney prays for.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

This is the craziest thing I've ever read. I'm like, who is this guy? What is this statement that they have written in here?

[Frannie Block]

An alternative suspect. I'm having a panic attack, okay? I'm convinced that I may have murdered my girlfriend, and I don't remember it. I'm having a panic attack. He says, I'm convinced that I may have murdered my girlfriend, and I don't remember it. On November 7th in Kalamazoo, Michigan, three weeks before Michael was picked up by the cops, the police received an unexpected phone call, and officers responded to a man in distress.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

What makes you think that you killed her?

[Frannie Block]

If he didn't catch that? The officer asks, what makes you think you can killed her? And he replies, I have the motive and I have the opportunity. The man responding is Jeffrey Herbsman. He sprawled out in a parking lot beside his car. What you're hearing is body cam footage.

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

What does she look like?

[Frannie Block]

She's beautiful. Yeah.

[Blink Mini Camera Advertiser]

White female, black female.

[Frannie Block]

It's hard to hear, but the officer asks, what's your girlfriend's name?

[Purnakrishnamoorthy (Perna)]

Your subway's name?

[Frannie Block]

Leave him alone. That's next time on Murder in Detroit by the Free Press. If you can't wait until next week to listen, you might want to subscribe to the Free Press, which will enable you to listen to this whole series right now and with reduced ads. Go to thefp.com today and if you enjoy this reporting, please leave us a nice review and help spread the word about this show. You'll also find more photos of Sam and bonus material on our website, so go to thefp.com for more. Poppy and I will be doing a Q and A with Rafaela Seawart from the Free Press. If you have any questions you'd like to ask, please email them to spiralfp.com and if you have any questions or any information about Sam's murder, you can email [e-mail].

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

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[Frannie Block]

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[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

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[Frannie Block]

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[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

[Frannie Block]

Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera. They see us.

[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

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[Frannie Block]

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[Michael Jackson Bolanos]

Excludes Massachusetts.