During the trial on Monday for the man accused of murdering Samantha Woll, a Jewish community leader in Michigan, prosecutors played video of defendant Michael Jackson-Bolanos responding to questions previously posed by Detroit Police Department Detective Patrick Lane and Sgt. Steve Ford.
When one of the detectives identified himself with the department’s homicide unit, Jackson-Bolanos replied, “I didn’t kill nobody. Hell no.”
The 29-year-old said on the video, “I don’t know s**t about no homicides. I’m not into that s**t. I don’t know nothing about no body. I didn’t encounter no body. ... I ain’t killed nobody, bro.”
Woll, 40, was found stabbed to death outside her home in Detroit’s Lafayette Park neighborhood on Oct. 21, 2023. Investigators have consistently ruled out antisemitism as a motive.
The defendant initially suggested that a sale of sunglasses to a pawn shop had prompted his arrest.
Claiming that he was homeless, Jackson-Bolanos said he had found a pair of sunglasses and sold them at a pawn shop. He offered to pay back the owner. “I’m kind of nervous because I didn’t do nothing,” he said.
Regarding the prosecutors’ claim of Woll’s blood on Jackson-Bolanos’s clothing, he said: “I didn’t hurt nobody. I don’t care what you’re talking about with DNA on my coat, but I did not hurt nobody. … Y’all are really harassing me and playing me about something I didn’t do, bro.”
Phone data had placed the suspect at the crime scene, Woll’s home.
Jackson-Bolanos has been charged with first-degree murder. If convicted, he could receive life in prison.
