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Welcome to a special episode of 48 hours postmortem. I'm your host Ann Marie Green [music] and today we are taking
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you behind the scenes of a new true crime series from our colleagues at the Free Press. It's called Spiral: Murder
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in Detroit and it tells the story of the life and death of Samantha Wall. Wall was the 40-year-old president of a
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synagogue in downtown Detroit and a well-known community leader and activist. She was found stabbed eight
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times just outside of her home on October 21st, 2023. So, who would want to kill this beloved
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figure? The twists and turns this case takes will definitely surprise you. So, we shared a special preview of episode 1
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in the 48 hours podcast feed. So, you're going to want to go listen to that first
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if you have not already. All right, let's get started. I am joined today by the host of Spiral, Franny Block. And I
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just want to let everyone know, special note here, that the free press, like CBS
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News, is owned by Paramount Sky Dance. Uh Franny, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Um
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it it's a really good podcast and it's a a very layered podcast. It's, you know,
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you think you're sort of going to listen to a straightforward crime podcast. There's so much more uh to discuss. So,
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first off, who is Samantha Wall and why did you want to do this story? So, Samantha Wall is an extremely special
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person and I didn't actually know Samantha, but I first heard her name on the day that she died. And by the way,
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I'm going to use Samantha and Sam interchangeably. Many people called her Samantha, but a lot of her close friends
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and family also called her Sam. She was the president of the downtown Detroit synagogue, the last remaining synagogue
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in downtown Detroit. And she was killed two weeks to the day after October 7th, 2023. The day that Hamas terrorists
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stormed southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, taking 250 people hostage was a really scary, vulnerable time for Jews
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all over the world. And I actually found out about Sam's death because my mom called me. My mom is also the president
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of a synagogue. and she said, "Franny, I'm really, really scared. I'm too scared to even leave my house because
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this has just happened to this person, Samantha Wall. What if people come and target me?" Over time, I started
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following the case from afar. And I happened to be in Detroit reporting on another story for the free press. And I
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decided to go to the downtown synagogue for Shabbat services cuz I was in town. And while I was there, it happened to be
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the night that they were dedicating the final stage of their renovation. They opened this beautiful roof deck garden.
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And they dedicated it to Sam. [snorts] And that was really when I started to learn what an amazing and special person
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she was, the legacy that she left, and how much she did for the Jewish community of Detroit. And I continued to
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pursue the case from there, connecting with her family and starting to uncover more details about the investigation
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into her death. I remember uh this case from sort of my vantage point at the time I was anchoring on CBS News
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streaming and so I remember when it came up and it's true you know it happened not too long after the October 7th
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attacks there was a real concern in this country that there was going to be some
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sort of spillover and that this could be a hate crime an anti-semitic crime very
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quickly it seems like police discounted that. They said, "No, it's not." >> So, you're absolutely right. Within 2
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days, the police held a press conference and they all but ruled out the possibility of a hate crime. I asked um
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Captain Matthew Bray of the Detroit Police Department about that. I said, "How did you rule this out so quickly?"
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And he basically said, "We didn't rule it out as much as we didn't see any evidence pointing toward a hate crime,
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>> but they they still had to sort of find a suspect." So, let's sort of dig into
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the case and remind people um of some of the facts, right? Can you give me kind of the basic timeline for October 21st
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uh 2023? So, what we know is that that night Samantha had come home from a wedding. She arrived home to her condo
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in Detroit at 12:30 in the morning. The next thing we know is because Sam had an
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ADT home alarm system inside her condominium, she had opened her back door and then closed it at 12:35 and
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again at 12:38. Sam's alarm system showed she never fully closed her front door. Then the
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next piece of information we get is that at around 1:24 in the morning, her ADT home alarm system goes idle, meaning it
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doesn't detect any more motion in her living room. Now, police in investigating this case believe Sam was
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still awake then and maybe just perhaps laying on her couch because she had been
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using her phone. She'd sent a few texts. She opened Netflix. Her phone then goes
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inactive at 1:35 a.m. The next piece of information we get is that at 4:20 in the morning, there's motion detected in
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her living room and then the system goes idle again at 4:22, just 2 minutes later. And the next thing we know is
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Kevin Maul, Sam's neighbor, discovered her body outside around 6:20 in the morning. But the police believe that she
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was killed inside of her apartment because that's where the blood evidence takes them. There's pools of blood
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inside her apartment in her living room along the hallway leading outside. Okay.
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So, we're going to get into a few more details uh when it comes to this investigation. So, if you're one of
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those people who like to be completely surprised with every episode of podcast, you might want to hold off listening to
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this particular podcast until you've listened to the whole series. But if you're not, you want to know a little
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bit more, here we go. Um, so there are two men that end up at the center of this case. Authorities released one of
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those men, but then the other man they charge, uh, he's facing four counts, including two different charges of
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murder. So, why did police end up focusing in on Michael Jackson Bologanos as a possible murder suspect here? So,
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the police really grounded their investigation in the video surveillance footage. And the reason that they zero
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in on him is that they can see in the video surveillance footage of the parking lot in Samantha Wall's apartment
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complex that Michael Jackson Banos was in the parking lot around 4 in the morning. Then the next time they see him
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on video surveillance footage is about 23 minutes later. He's seen a couple blocks away from Samantha's home walking
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past a casino that has a few pickers outside. And then as he turns a corner, gets out of the view of those pickers,
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Michael starts to run. And just to remind listeners why this timing is significant, remember that Sam's ADT
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home alarm system had motion in her living room at 420 and then it went idle again at 4:22. So they were able to find
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his phone data as well, and they're able to match that phone data with the security camera footage data to confirm
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that this is in fact Michael on these cameras. And they see footage of him going into parking structures, seemingly
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going into cars, taking some things. Now, Michael is a previously convicted felon. He actually has prior felonies
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related to stealing cars, stealing from cars. Once they bring Michael in for questioning, they're able to search his
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girlfriend's apartment. That's where he'd been staying. They find his jacket, and they also find a backpack that he
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had on him. They test both of them, and they come back positive for Samantha Wall's blood. And that jacket had been
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washed, so we don't know how much blood originally was on that jacket. There's also a couple more bits of evidence that
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come out as well in the trial. Michael had made some suspicious Google searches. He had searched blacklight
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sees what shortly after Sam had been killed, maybe to, you know, check, you know, the black light for blood or
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something like that if it was visible on clothing. And the other search he made was for a Detroit sameday passport. And
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this search actually happened shortly after the other suspect was reportedly released by the authorities.
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So, the police start to build this case around Michael with all of this different evidence, but it's also really
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important to point out they don't have any direct evidence that Michael actually entered Samantha's home that
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night, >> right? And they don't have a weapon. Um, and they kind of don't really have a
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motive. And then there's this twist that I knew nothing about until I listened to
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your podcast. It's a huge one. 2 weeks after Sam's murder, but before Michael is picked up
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by police, her exboyfriend Jeffrey Herbsman calls 911. He's in a hotel parking lot. He is distressed. He
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is having a panic attack. So, police respond to the scene because of his 911 call. And I want to play some of that
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body cam footage. It's a little hard to hear, so you got to focus a bit. me with my girlfriend and I don't
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remember it. >> Where does your girlfriend stay at? >> She lived in Detroit. Lived in Detroit.
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[clears throat] >> Okay. >> You killed her. Good morning. Good morning. >> He says, "I'm convinced that I may have
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murdered my girlfriend and I don't remember it." the police asked, "Why would you do that?" And he said, "I had
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the motive and the opportunity." Um, he goes on to share Sam's name with the police. Franny, what more can you tell
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us about this call and the impact that it had on the investigation? So, this had a huge impact on the police's
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investigation and later the case against Michael as well. Obviously, the police take him in for questioning. He's just
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seemingly confessed to a murder. And slowly Jeff tells us, cuz we were able to speak
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to Jeff actually for this podcast, that he starts to kind of question his own mind once he's in police custody,
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wondering, you know, why did I do that? What did I say? Did did I could I actually have killed Sam? And he's he's
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very confused. And later he actually tells us that he had mixed different drugs that night. He' taken prescription
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medication and mixed it with marijuana. and he believes he basically hallucinated and convinced himself he
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could have done this. >> It was four hits of not super potent weed. It just like just something to
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take the edge off. Had been prescribed a higher dose than previous of the medication that I was on. And so I took
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that dosage and I had asked my psychiatrist if it was okay if I smoked marijuana because it relaxed me. And in
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this case, it didn't relax. I don't know if it was the marijuana, but I was not relaxed. It didn't help. It was one of
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the most terrifying things that I've ever experienced. Thinking that I had done something that's so counter to
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everything that I stand for and believe in and would ever want to do. And yeah, the idea that I was responsible was just
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it was absolutely terrifying. >> And we actually called up an expert about this because I was very confused.
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You know, I I had heard of people making false confessions in an intense police interrogation setting, but I didn't know
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if that was possible to do if you weren't being interrogated. I I I'd never heard of that before. So, I called
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up an expert, a guy named Alan Hirs, and he actually told me that this is something called an internalized false
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confession. It typically happens in an interrogation setting, but it can also happen outside of an interrogation. And
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it's when someone convinces themselves that they may have done something and they didn't actually do it. And it's
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characterized by someone saying, "I may have. I could have." So, Gersh tells me this sounds like a false confession, but
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at the trial, Jeff's testimony becomes a really big piece of it because obviously
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you hear him say, "I I think I murdered her." And that's that's a really hard statement to overcome. And and by the
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way, I also do want to emphasize that police they took Jeff into custody for about 3 days and they did let him go
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because they couldn't find any physical evidence tying him to the crime. >> So what was their relationship like and
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what was the breakup like? >> This becomes actually a really important question in the later case. And if you
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talk to Jeff, it sounds like they had a really nice relationship. They had a lot
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in common, but ultimately it sounds like some of Jeff's mental health struggles contributed to the end of their
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relationship. But the way he describes it, it it was very amicable. Obviously, the defense tried to paint it in a very
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different light, and they ask Jeff a lot about jealousy. Part of the reason they
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do this and can do this is cuz when Jeff called the police and later in the body
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cam footage, the the cop asks, "Why why would you do this?" And he says, "Well, I I was upset with her for breaking up
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with me." Okay. So, this does become a central question in the case. So, Jeffrey Herbsman is released and it
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[music] the focus is Michael Jackson Bologanos. He goes on trial in 2024, 8 months after Sam's death. And one of the
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biggest challenges for his defense and the part that I found quite challenging too is the physical evidence. Uh you
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know you can maybe explain away a lot of stuff but at the end of the day he had her blood on his jacket and that is that
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is the big challenge. How is that explained? So, Michael actually did something unusual in a criminal case and he
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actually took the stand in his own defense and he basically told the jury a story that they had never heard before,
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which was he said, "I was in the neighborhood that night." He admits that he was actually doing things he wasn't
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supposed to be. He was breaking into people's cars that night um and kind of taking some items and things like that
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and wandering around the neighborhood. He admits I was in the parking lot. I was near Samantha Wall's apartment, but
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I didn't kill her. Instead, what happened was I saw her outside. She was found outside. I saw her outside on the
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sidewalk. I noticed this figure. I went over to the figure to see what was going
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on. I noticed it was a body. I bent down to check for a pulse. I realized that there was no pulse. And I realized that
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this was a dead woman, a dead white woman, and I'm a black man standing outside in the middle of Detroit. So, of
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course, I didn't call the police and tell them. And that's the story he tells on the stand.
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>> Right, Franny? Let's play a little bit of sound of Michael's testimony. >> When I realized she was dead, I wanted
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nothing to do with the entire situation. I'm a black guy in the middle of the night breaking in the cars and I found
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myself standing in front of a dead white woman. That doesn't look good at all. So
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what is so interesting about this is you know how you feel about what Michael Jackson
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Bolano says, how you feel about what Jeffrey Herbsman says, you know, in many ways may be impacted by your own
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personal life experiences. Um, you know, when I listened to what he he said on the stand, there was a part of me who
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understood who understood that fear and how this could go terribly wrong. Then there's the human in me that is like,
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but for God's sakes, do something. When I listen to Jeff, I know that people have panic attacks. I've certainly fel
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felt anxiety. Um, but I've never interacted with anyone who was under so much pressure
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that they would say something like, "Maybe I committed a murder." Right? So, you have to like, as you listen to this
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podcast, you have to work very hard to check your own personal experiences and put them on the shelf and just listen to
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the evidence. Um, but you can't help but to sort of fold in a conversation about,
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you know, how you feel about policing, what the city of Detroit have been going through, what African-American
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community, minority communities, how they feel about whether or not the justice system is is fair. And this is
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all I mean, you explore all of this to a certain degree in this podcast. >> Yes. And that it was very intentional
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that as we were uncovering more about this case, we started to realize that so much about how you feel about the
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different suspects in this case, about how the justice system played out, in many ways, as you said, it's a
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reflection of our own life experiences. It's also a reflection of so much that's
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been going on in our society culturally. And so that was another element of this
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case that I think made it so important to tell. And as you said, you know, it's it's understandable, you know, Michael's
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story that he could have seen a body, that he could have been scared. I I could understand that, too. And so, you
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could look at this case and say, "Well, that that makes total sense, and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong
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time," which is what his defense says. Or you could look at this case and say, "Here's a man who was he has a history.
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He he is a previously convicted felon, and he's got a murdered woman's blood on his jacket." And so it really, you know,
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there there are two very different perspectives you can take on on Michael's story.
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>> But then kind of at the center of all of this, right, is Samantha's family. And
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they just want some sort of justice and just, you know, explain what happened to
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their loved one. None of these other conversations matter to them. They have to sit through this trial. What was it
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like for them? So, they sat through every day of this trial, which I I putting myself in their
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shoes, I I don't know how they did that. And I I can imagine for any family member of a victim of a crime like this,
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just I I can't even imagine how difficult that was. And I know it was very painful, but I know that they also
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felt a strong obligation to be there for Sam and to be, you know, um, showing their support for her and and also her
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memory and just wanting to make sure that she got justice. I think that the family is extremely
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resilient and incredibly thoughtful and obviously they loved Sam so much. I think at the same time,
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they're also so tired now. And so that brings us to it's almost like this podcast has several acts to like one
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more act in this. Right. So explain what the verdict is. Yes. So he's charged with four counts. Premeditated murder,
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felony murder, and home invasion. And he's also charged with lying to the police. So Michael gets acquitted of
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premeditated murder. He gets convicted of lying to the police, but the jury is hung on felony murder and home invasion.
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And as you said, this kind of brings us to the last act in this story, which is the judge ends up dismissing the felony
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murder and the home invasion counts against Michael. And the reason is because Michael's defense team gets this
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tip to look into a old Supreme Court case from 2009 called Joerger v. United States. And we explain this more in the
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podcast, but I'll just tell you for now what you need to know, which is this case essentially expanded the definition
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of double jeopardy. And the judge had to conclude because of the Supreme Court case that because Michael had been
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acquitted of one type of murder, he couldn't be retrieded on a different type of murder that had similar elements
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to the murder he'd already been acquitted of. We'll we'll see what happens in the appeals. I mean, I'm
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really interested to follow what happens. You know, so often I see um with families um that have to kind of
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endure this kind of tragedy um how you said the family is resilient, but I I wonder if this is kind of stopping them
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from kind of moving forward, you know. So we actually do talk about this in the podcast too. One thing is we spoke to a
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lot of rabbis actually. Sam was Jewish. She was a very prominent Jewish leader. And I asked a rabbi about this. I said,
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"How does the family, how does Sam's circle, how do they process and grieve her death without what feels like
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justice?" And he said um this amazing quote. He said to not let the forces of evil win. And so I think a lot of Sam's
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family are trying to take that message forward, but at the same time, there are also lines from the Torah that talk
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about the pursuit of justice and trying to get justice for loved ones. And I think that also drives them forward
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knowing that, you know, spiritually they are trying to seek justice for Sam while
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also not trying to let the forces of evil win. And I think that's been driving them a lot.
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>> And Michael's team is even trying to make some changes too. They feel he hasn't gotten justice as well.
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>> Yeah. >> So even though the judge dismisses the felony murder and home invasion charges
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against Michael, she still can sentence him to prison for lying to the police, which he's convicted of. and she
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sentences him to this really indefinite sentence of 18 months to 15 years in prison. Um, so the last episode of
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Spiral has not come out yet. Um, we know now obviously that Michael Jackson Banos
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is is serving time for lying to the police, but we find out that you receive a letter from him. Um,
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can you I don't know if you can give us kind of like a little bit of a hint of what's to come.
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So, we do receive a letter from Michael in prison. We'd written to his defense team to try to get a bit more
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biographical information about him, and we'd actually tried a couple times. We asked to speak to him, and they
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consistently said no. But then one day, they sent us this letter. And in this letter, Michael maintains his innocence.
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He says, "I did not kill Samantha Wall, but I also feel like I haven't got the justice that I deserve either." And so,
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I'll leave it at that for the fifth episode. That is fascinating. Um I know for me it's a if it's a very interesting
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crime story. Yes. Um but it just kind of brought into focus the flaws. It's the only system we have.
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There are flaws. Um so I'll ask you, what are you hoping that listeners get out of this? Well, I think you hit the
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nail on the head. The last episode is called a beautiful but imperfect system >> and it's exactly that sentiment. It's no
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matter how hard we try, no matter what we do in this system, there's this kind of very hard pill to swallow at the
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conclusion of this story, which is that no matter what we do, this system will not be perfect. And what does justice
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look like? What what can we do to improve this system? What changes can we make to make it better? So I I do hope
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that people talk about these big questions. But I would say overall the really important takeaway I hope people
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take from listening to this story is the life of Sam. The way Samantha Wall lived
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her life, the values she lived by. She was a bridgeuer. She dedicated her entire life to trying to bring different
00:23:49
communities together. She was a leader in bringing the Jewish and Muslim communities together in Detroit. She was
00:23:55
somebody who could sit across the table from someone who had totally different political views from her and still have
00:24:01
an amazing in-depth conversation. It could be a debate. They could be going back and forth, but she wouldn't shy
00:24:06
away from something like that. She was kind. She was always smiling. She was always doing anything for everybody. And
00:24:13
so my hope overall from people listening to this podcast is that they take something away from Sam's life that they
00:24:21
reflect in their own lives, how could I live a life more like Samantha Walls. >> Oh, I love that. That's like a sort of
00:24:26
perfect final statement for this conversation. Uh Franny, thank thank you so much once again. I really enjoyed the
00:24:32
podcast. Thank you so much for having me and thanks to you all for listening. You
00:24:37
can [music] find Spiral Murder in Detroit wherever you get your podcast. Uh, the [music] same is true for 48
00:24:44
hours postmortem. If you like this episode, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify.