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- [00:02]
A
Previously on Spiral. Samantha Wohl's ex boyfriend, who police say actually confessed to killing her a few weeks after she was murdered, was later released.
- [00:11]
B
Jeffrey Herbsman says he was on prescription medication at that time. He doubled his dosage. He also smoked cannabis out of a vape before having what he called delusions. And that is what he said led to the confession. We immediately said that was bogus. We knew Jeff. That was totally bogus.
- [00:31]
A
I used to smoke weed. I've never smoked weed in my life. That's made me want to admit to a murder that I did not commit. That's crazy. That's crazy.
- [00:39]
B
My story has been caught up in all of this and have made this more complicated than it needs to be. Jeff, did you have anything to do with Sam's murder? No.
- [01:01]
A
July 3, 2024. It's been over eight months since Samantha Wall was killed, viciously stabbed in her home. And now in the Wayne County Courthouse in Detroit, Michigan, the man accused of doing it is on the stand. He's wearing a crisp three piece tan suit, his shirt buttoned up to the top, no tie.
- [01:22]
B
Michael Manuel Jackson Bolanos. B O L A N O S.
- [01:29]
A
Michael Jackson Bolanos, the 29 year old man who denied the police having any kind of contact with Sam and who said he never entered her home, never hurt her, is on the stand. He was charged with Sam's death on December 13, 2023, based on security video that placed him near Sam's place in the middle of the night and blood that was found on his clothing. The trial's been going on for almost a month, with the prosecution and defense bringing in dozens of witnesses to talk about even the tiniest details of the case. Internet searches, phone GPS data, alarm systems, security camera footage, down to the minute.
- [02:11]
B
Good afternoon, Mr. Jackson Balanos. Good afternoon. I'm going to ask you a series of questions and be honest.
- [02:18]
A
Today, promise is a dramatic turn. In an unusual move in a murder trial. The accused, Michael, is taking the stand in his own defense.
- [02:29]
B
Now, Mr. Jackson Balanos, do you remember the night of October 21, 2023? Yes.
- [02:36]
A
He is facing four charges, one of premeditated murder and one of what's called felony murder, which means causing a death while on the commission of another felony, in this case home invasion, which he was also charged with. If he is convicted on either or both of those murder charges, he can be in prison for the rest of his life. He's also facing a lesser charge of lying to the police.
- [03:01]
B
And what was your purpose? To go look at Cars to locate them and see if they were accessible. Okay, and when you say accessible, what does that mean? Meaning, like, if it was unlocked, I was going to check through the car.
- [03:15]
A
As he sits on the stand, he's got sad eyes, which over time evolve into an expression of almost disgust, like nausea. His eyebrows are furrowed as he speaks. He's tall, and he sits looking composed. Put together for the first time in the trial, the jury is now going to hear from Michael directly under oath about what he says happened in the early hours of October 21, 2023, the night Sam was killed. Minus the ruffling of a few papers, the courtroom is silent.
- [03:52]
B
When I got close enough, yes, I could tell it was a person. And did you do anything? Did you shake the body? Did you do anything? I didn't shake the body. I just checked the neck, put my hand kind of like in between, right here. No air, no. Like, breath or nothing. And once I realized that I just touched the dead person, I just grabbed the bag and I left.
- [04:13]
A
According to the security camera footage, first he walked, and then he ran. And what he's running from is not caught on camera. Remember, there was no video that showed him directly in front of Sam's door. Michael was adamant when being interviewed by police during his initial interrogation that he knew nothing about the death of Samantha Woll. His lawyer, Perna, even told us that Michael's story never wavered. And you heard Michael told the cops over and over again. I'm not lying. Well, he's now telling the jury he actually was lying to those officers. It's now in this courtroom. He says he's finally telling the truth. Michael says that he found Sam's body on the sidewalk in front of her home. And he touched her. He says he checked her pulse. And then once out of sight, Michael admits he turned on his phone flashlight to look at his right hand.
- [05:12]
B
Yes, it was blood on my hand. Okay. And what did you think when you saw that? If anything, I just panicked.
- [05:19]
A
And with this telling, he explains away what the police saw as the silver bullet proving Michael's guilt. Sam's blood on his clothes. And that's not all the running away. Well, he was scared. He just found a dead body out in the middle of the night? Well, he admits it. He was breaking into cars. It's the narrative we've heard alluded to by his defense. Wrong place, wrong time. But Michael has one other thing to explain. If he found Sam's body like he says, why the hell didn't he call the police? Well, he has an answer to that, too.
- [06:01]
B
My first reaction was to reach for my phone, but I had to consider where I was and what I was doing at the time. 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.
- [06:17]
A
So with this testimony, Michael Jackson Belanos changes everything. The jury has to decide whether he's finally telling the truth. A petty thief caught up in a murder trial in a city rife with racial tension. Perhaps he is the unluckiest man in Detroit. Or is this all just another convenient lie? I'm Frannie Block, and from the Free Press. This is Spiral. Murder in Detroit, Episode four Bring It On. Before we tell you the story of the court case that unfolded in the summer of 2024, we just have to explain what being a black man in front of the body of a white woman in Detroit really means. Why would Michael even use that as a framing to explain his actions?
- [07:15]
B
Detroit once was called the city beautif it is now called the murder capital of the United States. The 1967 civil unrest, it's known in Detroit often as a rebellion, an uprising, rather than as a riot. And it was African Americans essentially rebelling against the oppressive conditions they were living in. The police were seen kind of as the enforcement arm of the white establishment. And Detroit burned.
- [07:44]
A
God damn it. Policing was used to keep white neighborhoods white.
- [07:48]
B
I can't breathe. I can't breathe.
- [07:52]
A
If there's one city in America that sums up the story of racial tension, of black people and police, of white flight, of violence, wrongful convictions, and mutual distrust, it could be Detroit. In 1967, a police raid gone wrong spurred racial riots and intensified an ongoing exodus from the city. This exodus even touched Sam's family. Her father, Doug, was growing up in Detroit. At the time of the riots, his family fled the city for the suburbs. Sam and her sister Monica were raised in West Bloomfield, home today to one of the largest Jewish community centers in the country. As Sam got older, it became one of her missions to convince her family that by 2023, Detroit was being remade and on its way back, that it needed young people of all races, backgrounds, and cultures, people like her, to keep the rebuilding alive.
- [08:50]
B
I'm very familiar with Detroit, have some different opinions from others about the revival of the city. But Samantha was very connected to the city, and we try to support her and her efforts to revitalize the city.
- [09:05]
A
In addition to the courtroom trial of Sam's killer, a Kind of separate trial occurred online. It focused on people's beliefs that an innocent black man was being framed for the killing of a white woman. The defense was very aware of this. Perna even created a petition titled justice for Michael. It asserted that Michael had been wrongly accused. And the comments on the petition or on the YouTube videos of the trial tell you everything about how race plays in Detroit. Here's some of the comments we found online.
- [09:42]
B
The black guy being railroaded for killing Samantha Wool while the Jew who did it watches from home. Boyfriend is guilty. White man's justice, black man's grief. Typical Jew victim mentality. Oh, yeah, I can see it. All these guys must blame the black guy even though he's innocent. We cannot let these Jewish supremacists use the legal system as a weapon for oppression. They are not our friends. They're Jewish supremacists who want to use us. Not this time.
- [10:12]
A
And racial commentary about the trial wasn't just from the left. Charlie Kirk, the right wing activist who was assassinated in September, he tweeted out a story at the time Michael was charged, pointing out that the AP wasn't naming Michael until they could confirm he had a lawyer. Kirk wrote, we all know that's not the reason. Why can't they just be honest? Implying Michael was getting preferential treatment because he was black. Even though Sam's family believe Michael is Sam's killer, they also understand the fraught history of Detroit race relations. In fact, Sam spent much of her life fighting for racial equality, particularly in the criminal justice system. Here's Monica, Sam's sister. There have been several media outlets who have reported making this about race and making this about, you know, everybody is racist because the defendant is black, and just because he's black, we think that he did this. But they completely are not looking at any of the actual evidence that puts him in this place at this time with blood on him. When we spoke to the detectives, they claim that racial discrimination in policing is all something of the past. Here's Detroit Police Captain Matthew Bray speaking with my producer, Poppy Damon.
- [11:33]
B
Do you think that the past relations between Detroit police and the black community played in terms of the discussion around this case? I think that's something I'm actually very proud to talk about as a representative of this police department. Our relationship with our community is second to none if you look at the civil unrest that happened for a variety of reasons throughout this country over the past decade. While we have had minor issues here, we did not have major issues like other cities had. Our community is Very supportive of us. We are very supportive of our community. So his characterization, which alludes to almost like a racist police force, is entirely unfair. Well, that's his characterization. I would flatly deny that this police department. I've worked in this police department for over 20 years. I'm proud to work for this city. I'm proud to work in this police department. Our police department mirrors our community racially. This police department is the embodiment of what community policing is.
- [12:31]
A
Our fact checker did look into what Brace says here. And to be fair, in fact, the police department as of a few years ago was around 55% black compared to a population of Detroit that is more than 77% black. And the minor issues with civil unrest he alludes to might slightly glide over the fact that in 2022, the city settled a lawsuit for a million dollars that was filed by a group of Black Lives Matter protesters. They accused the police department of excessive force. Here's Perna, Michael's defense attorney, talking about how this affects Michael. He is a felon. He's young, he's black, he's poor. These are all facts that we cannot run away from. I believe that if Jeffrey Herbsman was black, they would have never zeroed in on Michael Jackson Milanos. Jeffrey Herbsman is Sam's ex boyfriend, who we heard from in the last episode. I don't believe so at all. And that comes back to how race plays such a significant role in America and specifically in our criminal justice system. I see stuff like this all day long. I see the way a white defendant can get a completely different outcome than a black defendant. I know this to be fact. I dare anyone to tell me that is not true. That is absolutely true. Black individuals get the worst end of the stick 100% of the time. And I believe that if Jeffrey Herbsman.
- [13:52]
B
Was black, they would have been like, all right, cool, we got our guy.
- [13:56]
A
But none of this was really on the mind of one juror who we were able to talk to. He only wanted to share his first name, Bruce. And he told us that when he was selected, he wasn't expecting a case as painful and complicated as Sam's.
- [14:12]
B
I was thinking, you know, maybe this will be just some good old fashioned insurance fraud or something simple.
- [14:20]
A
Bruce, in fact, would go on to become the jury foreman, meaning he was kind of the lead juror in charge of guiding the deliberations. And what we're about to tell you is the case as it was presented to Bruce and his 11 fellow jurors, a total of eight men and four women. In a case that was to become about race, it's useful to point out a quarter of them were black, whereas Detroit, again, is 77% black.
- [14:47]
B
Honestly, it sounded like something out of a, out of a TV show or even like a movie at first. But I mean, unfortunately, like, as it's going through, you know, there's no, there's no pause, there's no fast forward. And you had to sit through every, every gruesome detail.
- [15:05]
A
The jury was going to hear two stories about what happened the night Sam was killed. The first from the prosecution. They laid out a very clear timeline about what they think happened that night. They said Michael had been going around trying to steal from cars, and on seeing the door open to Sam's apartment, he let himself in. The prosecution team declined our invitation to participate in this podcast because of something that comes up later. But this is prosecutor Ryan Elsey in the courtroom.
- [15:38]
B
She gets back from that wedding that night, she gets settled in, she falls asleep, doesn't realize that that door opens, was left open.
- [15:51]
A
And to paint a picture for you, he's got short salt and pepper hair, he wears clean suits, and he's pretty straightforward in his presentation of the case. Like he's not really one for theatrics in the courtroom.
- [16:04]
B
And meanwhile, we have this creeper in the night prowling around her neighborhood, looking for every opportunity he could find to take things that weren't his to take, to go into spaces that weren't his to be in.
- [16:21]
A
Outside of the blood evidence, there was a lot of circumstantial evidence that built up against Michael as the case went on. In a criminal case, circumstantial evidence holds the same weight as direct evidence. It's up to the jury to decide whether it's convincing. And over the five week trial, the prosecution emphasizes that this bad luck argument that Michael's team pushes just isn't credible.
- [16:47]
B
There are simply too many coincidences, too many coincidences to suggest that anyone other than the defendant killed her. After she stops using her phone, there's one time, and one time only, that motion is detected in her living room, which is literally ground zero of this crime scene. 4:20am and sure enough, the defendant's right there at that time. His phone puts him right there. He himself puts himself right there at that time.
- [17:26]
A
And then there's the motive. Though he's charged with premeditated murder, prosecutors never argued that Michael planned this. They never claimed Sam was targeted in any way. They never claim that Michael even left his girlfriend's house with the intention of killing anybody that night. What they say is this video shows.
- [17:47]
B
The defendant creeped through our community, creeped through her community, committing crimes of opportunity on a night when she left her front door open.
- [17:56]
A
A crime of opportunity. That's the motive. They say Michael was trying car doors to see if they were unlocked and if they were taking what he could. So the prosecution says migrating from car doors to a house door isn't so hard to imagine. Remember in episode two, we said there was a security vehicle patrolling the area that Michael claimed to be evading. Well, camera footage did show a security vehicle entering Sam's parking lot around 4:10am and so Poppy and I have wondered if Michael committed the crime. Did he duck into Sam's entranceway to remain hidden and then push at an open door? Or maybe he peered inside through those big windows in the front of each of the homes and figured no one would be hanging out on the first floor at 4 in the morning. The bedrooms are upstairs. One neighbor told us maybe Michael slashed those tires in the parking lot while he spent those hours wandering around going into cars. This was someone on a night of misadventure, the neighbor mused. But these are all just guesses. It's a mystery, including the fact that we don't exactly know how obvious it was that Sam's door was open that night. Was it wide open or just slightly ajar? The prosecution doesn't have an answer, but they presented more evidence against Michael that they believe shows his guilt. We mentioned before his Internet searches, like the one about a black light. Was he trying to detect blood on his clothes? And the search about a passport. He made it a day after it was reported that a suspect who we later find out as Jeff was released from custody. He also appeared to be trying to follow the police's mother movements. He opened a police Scanner app over 200 times before he was arrested. In their closing arguments, you get the sense the prosecution is confident about their case against Michael. It's like they think they've got him.
- [20:09]
B
When the defense poses this question, who killed Samantha Wool? The answer is apparently everybody but the guy with her blood on him.
- [20:17]
A
But the prosecution had one massive hurdle that they knew they were going to have to overcome to win this case. And that's what we'll call the Jeff problem. Again, just looking at the online comments gives you a sense of how big a problem that was. This is an ex boyfriend who seemingly confessed to the crime. So the prosecution gets Jeff on the stand to explain why he made that phone call. But in order to do so, they grant him immunity, meaning any statement he makes at trial can't be used against him for anything in the future. Jeff told us that was his lawyer's idea. But that already seemed to put the prosecution on the back foot. Here's the jury foreman, Bruce, on the Jeff problem.
- [21:08]
B
They kind of derailed the investigation for a couple weeks there. Right. I mean, they, they lost some valuable time of where they could have been really going trying to find who did this more. Right. Like, or trying to find more, more data or more facts on, you know, against the defendant in this case. Right. Like, it's one of those where, like, it really threw a big curveball. I mean, I don't.
- [21:28]
A
That didn't block up the jury too much? You think it did.
- [21:31]
B
I mean, there was, I mean, you start playing the hypotheticals of like, could this guy have possibly done it and had this guy have done it, and there's this, you know, this running man on the video, and maybe that running man looks like this guy.
- [21:45]
A
We've mentioned before that there's this third figure at around 1:20am the one that can't be Michael because he's about a mile away. During this time, the prosecution showed the footage of this man, and they say he's seen running away from the direction of Sam's house and never seen going towards it. That's one way for them to try to get ahead of the reasonable doubt the defense will inevitably try to sow. And that's also why they call Jeff to the stand. Jeff sits nervously tapping his feet, clasping his hands together as attorneys from both sides question him. And when they play the 911 call, he looks down at the ground, he testifies. For around three hours.
- [22:31]
B
I was having delusions and. Okay, you didn't have a delusion. When the officer asked you, do you know why you're being detained? You didn't have a delusion there, did you? Yeah, you, you were, you gave him a very lucid answer, correct? You would agree? I, I'm, I'm not sure when, when this happened. Okay. If you saw it, maybe could have possibly. Are you saying it did not happen? I, I, I, I don't recall. You don't recall?
- [23:08]
A
Jeff was a poor witness for the prosecution and for himself. He looked really nervous and he had a hard time answering questions. He did his best to explain taking drugs, explaining the call, explaining what a panic attack feels like and why he felt like that's what he went through. We asked Jeff about his testimony, what was testifying like, on the stand.
- [23:35]
B
I mean, it was really scary. It was long, too long. It was a really hard day. Like, I didn't know that Sam had had relationships after, you know, after we broke up. And it was hard learning about those, you know, at a trial and hearing about hearing her name dragged through the mud for, you know, stuff that should be private. And.
- [24:13]
A
Yeah, Jeff hurt the prosecution's case. There's no doubt about that. But they thought they had enough to overcome the Jeff problem, especially because of Michael's jacket. Remember, police found Sam's blood on three areas of the North Face windbreaker he was wearing in the security camera footage that night. At first glance, that evidence is pretty damning, but Michael's team say they have an explanation.
- [24:39]
B
I don't believe that's a coincidence that the only remnants of blood on that jacket was the sleeve where it would have shown that he was bending over to check her pulse. And his sleeve basically just rubbed against, you know, the back of her neck or her hair, which was drenched in blood.
- [24:59]
A
I'm not mistaken. He had a little on his backpack, too, right? Does that when he leaned over?
- [25:03]
B
No, he didn't have his backpack on. His backpack was in the bushes. Okay, so he had stashed his backpack in the bushes, and then once he had touched her, he had touched her and described her, like, feeling some type of wet pain. So I guess he had a little bit of blood on his hands from touching her neck because her neck was saturated in blood. Then when he went to retrieve his backpack, by him picking his backpack up, he transferred a little bit of blood from his hands to his backpack.
- [25:31]
A
But there's this crucial detail that the prosecution brings up at trial that makes Michael and his defense team's explanation also seem a bit suspect. It's true that there were just traces of Sam's blood on that jacket, and the crime scene was covered in blood. But the crime occurred on October 21, and the police didn't find his jacket until November 30, more than five weeks later. You'll remember that Michael talked about his girlfriend a few times when he was interrogated by the police. Her name is Tiara White. On the night of the murder, Michael was staying at Tiara's apartment. By this point, they'd been in a relationship only a month or so. Remember, Michael told police he was homeless at the time. Tiara is the one who, in security camera footage, lets him back into her apartment when he returns at 5 in the morning. And it turns out, before the police were able to search through Michael's things. Tiara had washed that jacket.
- [26:39]
B
Did he appear to you to be covered in blood? Not at all. Did he appear to you to look.
- [26:44]
A
As if he had just gotten into some argument with someone or anything? Did anything appear different about him?
- [26:50]
B
Not at all. Okay.
- [26:52]
A
Did you notice any scars on him?
- [26:55]
B
No. Any scratches on him? No.
- [26:57]
A
Any wounds on him? No. Nothing that appeared as if he had been in any sort of fight? No. After Michael was arrested, he called Tiara from prison a few times. Jail phone calls are recorded, and on these calls, Michael went on rants about the justice system. It's hard to hear, so we've revoiced that recording with actors.
- [27:21]
B
How the fuck is this a court of law? How the fuck is this a court of law? Who come for innocence in jail, and you don't give a fuck about the.
- [27:27]
A
Innocence in this call, they talk about how the police don't have enough evidence on him, no witnesses, for example, to testify that they saw him committing the murder. Then Michael brings up his jacket, and it's hard to hear, but it sounds like he's saying something, like, it's not like anyone ever washed it. If they did, there wouldn't be any blood on it. That's when Tiara interrupts him, like, ooh.
- [27:55]
B
Y' all so fucking stupid. That's why the jacket had been washed. It had, and I expressed that.
- [28:01]
A
The call cuts out and Michael calls Tierra back. At this point, you can hear the emotion in his voice.
- [28:08]
B
I know the fucking truth. I know the fucking truth. God knows the truth. They know I didn't do nothing. God and me know I ain't do nothing. I ain't do shit. But go to the fucking park lot that fucking night. Walk around downtown, bro. Take pictures of fucking cars, that shit weird as fuck, bro. This is my whole fucking life. Do you hear me?
- [28:30]
A
Yeah.
- [28:30]
B
I just don't know why the fuck you're talking to me like this, like I did something, bro. Because you just be saying anything, bro. Like, don't say nothing. You don't. What the fuck?
- [28:40]
A
What's interesting here is you can listen to this phone call and come to two very different conclusions. If you think Michael's innocent, maybe what you're hearing in his voice is genuine shock that he didn't know his jacket had been washed. And he's realizing that's not gonna look good to a jury. But if you think he's guilty, Michael sounds really, really pissed, like he knew she'd washed the jacket, only she wasn't supposed to say anything to the Cops about it. Either way, the outcome is we'll never know how much blood was on that jacket when he got home that night. There was also this other detail that comes up a few times in. And that's the fact that nothing is really disturbed in Sam's home. The upstairs is left untouched. The israeli flag was still hanging on her wall. Sam's wallet was still in the house, too, and nothing seemed to have been taken from it. But in the kitchen, on the dining room table, There was a fruit bowl that was knocked over, and fruit had spilled all over the floor. Here's a cop testifying about that.
- [29:49]
B
To the left of me, there was in the small hallway that leads to the kitchen area, There was a kitchen table. I observed. There was a bowl of fruit that was turned on side with the fruit knocked out, which I thought was irregular. That was weird.
- [30:06]
A
I know this seems really small, but poppy and I have thought about this a lot. And one way you could look at it, and this is just pure speculation, Is that it could have been that Sam ran to get away. Maybe she knocked it over. Or maybe the killer went for a weapon like a kitchen knife. The murder weapon in this case was never found. Sam's family thinks it's more simple than that. They think Michael could have been hiding in the kitchen. Maybe he ducked down, stood up, and knocked the bowl over. He could have entered the living room through the kitchen to where Sam was likely sleeping. Either way, the defense will use this to disrupt the prosecution's version of events. The prosecution say Sam was murdered after falling asleep on the couch, but they never really have an explanation for what happened in the kitchen. It leaves room for the defense to start seeding more of that reasonable doubt.
- [31:02]
B
We next heard from detective Zhu, who indicated that, in his opinion, There was evidence of a struggle, which the prosecutor found fails to show you. This particular clip Of a fruit bowl knocked over in the kitchen, fruit on the floor. That would suggest that this particular altercation originated in the kitchen. Now, how could it originate in the kitchen if she's laying asleep on the couch? At some point in time, she would have to get up from the couch. If she was sitting on the couch, go to the kitchen. And that's when the struggle started.
- [31:39]
A
Hearing all these versions of Sam being killed, all the details, as you can imagine, it was really hard for the family to sit through all of this. Extremely painful. But there were signs from Sam that kept them going. Ben now uses her desk as his desk. You want to tell them about the drawers and the desk and the notes?
- [32:01]
B
Yeah, she has these little handwritten notes that I read almost every day because it really helps. Yeah, I mean, she wrote those to herself, but, like, when I read them, I feel like she wrote them to me.
- [32:09]
A
There's one. She had these all over her townhouse, and, you know, all these little quotes all over. And I have one in our bathroom that I read every morning. And especially during the trial, I read it every morning. Wake up and tell the world to bring it on. And, you know, it's just powerful having these mantras. What do you get from that one specifically? Like, how does it make you feel? It makes me feel strong, like, she's with me. And we can. Whatever comes our way that day, we can tackle it. Yeah, Bring it on. And the family did. They endured every single day of the trial. They sat together, held hands. They faced the violent photos of Sam's body, her stab wounds, her bloodied apartment. They absorbed it all stoically. They wanted the jury to know the prosecution had their full support, and they had to face the man charged with Sam's death. We looked him in the face every.
- [33:10]
B
Day of that trial.
- [33:12]
A
Did he ever look back at you guys? All the time. All the time. What kind of expression did you notice on him? Like, what were your observations?
- [33:21]
B
Well, once he turned around to me and said, I didn't do it, bro. I could see he mouthed that to me, and I just stared at him. I mean, he did it. He clearly doesn't want to go to jail the rest of his life. I just kept thinking about, like, what happened? Like, why did you choose once you went in there? You know, I'm assuming he thought it was an empty apartment, which is why he went in.
- [33:45]
A
And then, who knows?
- [33:46]
B
Something happened in there. When did making plans get this complicated?
- [33:57]
A
It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the.
- [33:59]
B
Secure messaging app that brings the whole group together.
- [34:02]
A
Use polls to settle dinner plans, send.
- [34:05]
B
Event invites and pin messages so no.
- [34:07]
A
One forgets mom 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone.
- [34:17]
B
Learn more@WhatsApp.com.
- [34:20]
A
What? I bought a new Blink mini 2K smart security camera. What? I got 2K clarity, sharp enough to see every detail of home when I'm away. Plus, audio. Like, I'm in the room, not with my bestie traveling to another city. Plus, easy plugins set up to install faster than skipping through podcast ads. But you'd never skip ads, right? Plus, I got all of this for just $49.99. Blink Mini 2K mini camera maximum performance shop now@Amazon.com Blink so as the prosecution concluded its case, it was now on the defense to explain all of this away. Defense attorneys are often showmen, and Brian Brown is no exception. He tends to show up to court with a pop of color, a turquoise shirt or a purple tie. He's got long dreads, and he speaks emphatically with his hands. His voice rises and falls. He's a natural born litigator. You can just tell. I mean, just listen to him.
- [35:27]
B
We're not saying that Mr. Jackson Milanos is an angel. But what he's not. He's not a murderer. He's not a home invader.
- [35:36]
A
And just as the prosecution homes in on the details that matter to them, Brian and Perna start poking holes like. Remember that guy, James Griffun, Sam's neighbor, the one who told police that he felt bad for not doing anything when he maybe heard a woman's voice calling out a sound he'd heard at 1:30 in the morning? Well, he comes to the trial and he says on the stand what he might have been hearing were protesters, like the ones who were outside the casino a few blocks away with megaphones. Or maybe he said that sound was a group of people drinking on a party bus making those kind of woo sounds.
- [36:16]
B
The neighborhood was very quiet at that. The neighborhood itself was very quiet at that time. I didn't see anybody, didn't hear anybody in the neighborhood. I did hear, like, an amplified woman's voice on, like, a megaphone or a pa.
- [36:31]
A
So it's one of those uncomfortable moments in the trial. The neighbor does not like his testimony being twisted, of course. And understandably, he's likely comforted by the idea that what he heard and then proceeded to ignore couldn't have been a murder.
- [36:50]
B
Maybe you're mischaracterizing what I told the officer. I said if I heard something that sounded like somebody being murdered, I would have felt horrible. But I didn't hear something that sounded like anything other than someone really bored talking into a microphone. Okay, so you didn't. Okay, that is absolutely not what I meant, sir. Yes or no, sir, You. Isn't it true you told the officers that if something was happening there, it was not your problem? That's not what I meant. My question is that you said that's my answer.
- [37:22]
A
But what Brian is doing is he's pointing out that maybe that voice the neighbor heard was Sam being stabbed. And therefore the prosecution's timeline is all Wrong. So let's think about this. We know Sam opened her back door at 12:35 and 12:38am the prosecution says she could have been smoking or vaping. But Brian, he implies Sam was expecting company. Maybe she was letting someone in. And so could Sam have been stabbed at around 120? That's around the same time her ADT home alarm system goes idle. And that's also around the same time there's this mysterious figure on security camera footage. The one who's seen sprinting in the opposite direction of her house. Perna actually told us that they only discovered a new angle of this footage in the days before they were about to make closing arguments. What they found was a zoomed in shot that showed this figure a little more clearly, though it's still pretty fuzzy. But at closing, Brian suggests this figure could be Jeff.
- [38:35]
B
It looks very similar to me. This person running from the scene looks very similar to Jeff. Hers haircut, glasses, even the coat he's wearing looks very similar. Very similar indeed.
- [38:56]
A
And there was another tactic used by the defense that's worth mentioning again. We heard in previous episodes about how the defense used not only Jeff but Sam's entire dating life as a way to cast doubt on Michael's guilt. Like the older guy Sam had been dating that we mentioned last episode. Shortly after Sam's murder, her sister Monica gave a police statement and she referred to this man as a stalker. And at the trial, the defense ran with it. Here's Monica on the stand. At the trial, when I was interviewed by the detectives, it was hours after my sister was murdered. I threw out many words very casually because my state of mind was not how I normally exist in the world. I was in extreme shock and stress. I said he was a stalker. I have absolutely no basis for saying that whatsoever. It's one of Monica's major regrets that she even uttered those words. I'd never even met him before. During the trial, it came out that the older man acknowledged that Sam left her door unlocked. But also he had a key to her townhome, which he didn't tell the police about at first. The man had an alibi, though. He was hosting a sleepover for his kids at his house that night. We're choosing not to use his name to respect his privacy. Then there was another guy who had a crush on Sam, or the one she texted a heart emoji to. Or the ex boyfriend who wasn't Jewish and so Sam never introduced him to her parents. I mention these examples because they're so familiar so normal. But when you're the victim of a murder, it all gets picked apart. When Michael Jackson Bolanos took the stand, it was his moment to appear credible to the jury.
- [40:46]
B
Did you approach? Did you open any apartment doors? Absolutely not. Okay. Were you looking into any apartment doors? No. Did you look into any apartment windows? No. Did you go inside any apartments? No.
- [41:04]
A
And as we've heard, he continued on a line that he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. And considering the nervous demeanor of Jeff Michael in comparison, came across pretty confident on the stand. There's one other detail he's able to explain, which is why he was in the area of Sam's apartment around 4:20. Anyway, he says he was checking out cars near Sam's place around 2am he explained that he had stashed a bag he'd found in the area, that gray backpack that later tested positive for Sam's blood. And then he returned to pick it up around 4am I had went back.
- [41:42]
B
To go check out those cars where I left the book bag at.
- [41:46]
A
That's when he says he finds Sam's body. She was on the sidewalk in between her house and her neighbors. The police believe that Sam, bleeding heavily, managed to stumble out of her home, probably looking for help.
- [42:01]
B
I just like stopped froze up for a second just to kind of like wait and see what makes the first move. Okay. Did this Darth figure ever make any movement towards you? Not at all.
- [42:12]
A
So on that one final thing, the prosecution says that Sam was killed between 4:20 and 4:22. That's when her alarm picked up motion in her house. Michael was first spotted in the area around 2am and that's when the prosecution implies he might have spotted the door was open and kept that in mind when he returned. The defense, on the other hand, as we've heard, has a totally different timeline. They suggest Sam was stabbed around 1:20, around the time the neighbor said he heard something, maybe a woman's voice. But they have to explain how Sam was outside. So then the defense argues Sam might have passed out inside her home, where blood pooled until she Woke up at 4:20 and stumbled outside three hours later. That, they say could explain the motion detected by Sam's ADT home alarm system and why she wasn't spotted earlier.
- [43:10]
B
Also, their expert, who was a blood splatter expert, also testified that that amount of blood that was accumulated in the hallway would suggest that she was in the hallway for a period of time. So I believe she was stabbed. She passed out in the hallway. The Blood pooled in the hallway. There was idle mode for multiple hours. She then got up, stumbled towards the back of the apartment, triggered the motion, which was around 4,20ish.
- [43:47]
A
The defense argues this to explain why Michael didn't see Sam's body earlier in the night. But they don't explain why. Michael testified that Sam's body, when he found it, was cold to the touch.
- [43:59]
B
Did you shake the body? Did you do anything? I didn't shake the body. I just shaked the neck, put my hand kind of like in between, right here. No air? No. Like breath or nothing. And once I realized that I just touched the dead person, I just grabbed the bag and I left. Okay. And what did it feel like? What did the body feel like? Cold and light, crusty.
- [44:22]
A
Monica also told us that his testimony describing his hand passing over her nose and mouth always jumped out at her because Sam was found face down. Her face was smushed into the concrete. And he says he took his hand and went over her nose and mouth to feel if there was breathing. That's impossible because of where her face was. He's a really good liar. Really good liar. And there's another big hole in Michael's defense. His argument that because he was a black man in the middle of the night in Detroit, going into cars, he was too scared to call the police because he thought they'd never believe his story. Well, Captain Matthew Bray of the Detroit Police Department told us something kind of interesting about that.
- [45:06]
B
We conducted a thorough investigation. We looked at Mr. Belanos history in calling the police. Mr. Blanos stated at trial that he was nervous and he didn't want to contact the police. However, prior to this trial, we had already had information that Mr. Blanos had contacted police numerous times, including within the past several months prior to this incident. So while that is a interesting story to tell, I think it's clear through the factual records that this department maintains that he does not have a problem contacting the police, does not have a problem speaking with the police, does not have a problem calling 911. So I think that belies his statement.
- [45:44]
A
We asked Perna over text why Michael had called the police on other occasions, and she scoffed, writing, ha, ha, the police are such a joke. And I don't know one single person who's never called the police, especially living in Detroit. She didn't offer any more details, and the police would not confirm what these calls were about. So after six weeks of trial, Bruce heard the closing arguments from the prosecution and the defense, and he went into the deliberation room with the rest of the jury to try to make sense of it all. Who told the better story. The jury deliberated for five days. We were surprised to learn that the jury was thrown by every tiny detail in this case, even by ones that Poppy and I hadn't really noticed, like the fact that Sam changed into sweatpants when she came back from the wedding. The defense argued this suggested she was expecting someone that night. They reasoned she didn't sit in her underwear or her pajamas. Sweatpants meant company.
- [46:46]
B
The smallest little detail on how, I mean, you would think it's something completely like, cut and dry on, like the dress or the sweatpants, for example, like, that was another weird one. This is another one of those too, where it's just so weird to me how vastly different everybody thought on even the smallest minutiae detail that, you know, some of them didn't turn out to be little little details. Right.
- [47:12]
A
They poured over everything, the physical and circumstantial evidence, the witness testimony. It really wasn't easy. But finally, Bruce comes out into the courtroom to read the jury's final decision in the case.
- [47:25]
B
The people of the State of Michigan versus Michael Manuel Jackson Bolanos. Mr. Fourperson, will you please read the verdict form as marked as she could. Count one, first degree felony murder, deadlock. As to count two, first degree premeditated.
- [47:41]
A
Murder, not guilty, as do you.
- [47:44]
B
Count three, home and bath in first degree deadlock.
- [47:51]
A
And as you count four, concealing facts.
- [47:53]
B
Or misleading the police, guilty. All jurors, please standing raise her right hand.
- [48:01]
A
And so here's what happened. They voted to acquit Michael of premeditated murder. They convicted him of lying, but they were hung on his guilt for felony murder and home invasion. Perhaps that isn't that surprising, that ultimately, on two of the most consequential charges in this very complex case, the jury couldn't agree on a verdict. It was a mistrial.
- [48:27]
B
We weren't hung by like, one juror. It wasn't like a one or two people type thing.
- [48:33]
A
Surprisingly, Bruce said race didn't play a role in his own decision making. He said a lot of the conversation in the jury room focused on what they could assess about who Michael is. For example, the jury acquitted him of premeditated murder almost right away. And Bruce said for him, the deciding factor was that he just didn't get the vibe that Michael was a planner. The fact that Michael was even tried for two different types of murder, premeditated and felony, kind of messed with the jurors heads. Bruce Said he described the entire case like a bullseye. The charge of premeditated murder sat at the center and all of the other charges were outside of it. And when the prosecution failed to hit the bullseye, it hurt the rest of.
- [49:21]
B
Their case and it just added to the noise.
- [49:23]
A
Right, you're just getting further and further away from the bullseye.
- [49:26]
B
Yeah, it's a very specific, very exclusive, like elements that you have to prove to get that specific charge.
- [49:35]
A
On the charges where the jury couldn't reach a unanimous decision. Felony murder and home invasion. I asked Bruce whether or not he voted to convict, and, well, he wouldn't tell me. Ultimately, Bruce thought that question should be left up to another jury. So with a hung jury, a mistrial, everyone assumed the prosecution would want to go ahead and retry Michael. Maybe another group of 12 people could come to a unanimous decision. That's how our system is supposed to work, right? So as the family heard this, they steeled themselves for another trial. But then something happened. Another twist, a curveball.
- [50:23]
B
First to a major development in a high profile murder case everyone has had their eye on.
- [50:28]
A
Could Michael Jackson Bolanos walk free for Samantha's murder?
- [50:32]
B
Just a short time ago, a judge dropping murder and home invasion charges against the man who spent one weeks on trial for the murder of Samantha Wall. Now people across metro Detroit are asking, what's next?
- [50:44]
A
And Poppy and I get an unexpected letter from a Michigan correctional facility.
- [50:49]
B
If I could change that night, I would have stayed home. I would have treated my past incarceration as the life altering lesson it was meant to be and carried it forward with the seriousness it deserved.
- [51:01]
A
A letter from Michael Jackson connecting me.
- [51:05]
B
To her death is not only unjust, it is untrue.
- [51:12]
A
That's next time on our fifth and final episode of Murder in Detroit by the Free Press. Subscribe to the Free Press for more original journalism and bonus material about this case. You'll also be granted access to to live streams where you can ask me your questions about this investigation. And if you have any information about Sam's murder, you can email us@spiralfp.com.
- [51:47]
B
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A
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B
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A
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B
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