The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling - Spiral | 5. A Beautiful but Imperfect System

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

A startling legal twist changes the case’s outcome, possibly forever. As we reflect on Samantha Woll’s legacy—especially that of a bridge builder between opposing views, her loved ones undertake the hard work of healing as they continue to fight for justice. --- Become a paid subscriber to The Free Press to binge the full series today, and with reduced ads. Click here to subscribe. ---- Host: Frannie Block Producer: Poppy Damon Executive Editor: Emily Yoffe --- Contact us at: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Previously on Spiral. Once I realized that I just touched the dead person, I just grabbed the bag and I left. It was incredibly painful. I mean, it was torture. I'm a black guy out in the middle of the night, breaking in the cars, and I find myself standing in front of a dead white woman. That doesn't look good at all. Once he turned around to me and said, I didn't do it, bro. He mouthed that to me, and I just stared at him. I mean, he did it. This is what the jury came up with after six days of deliberating first-degree felony murder,

deadlocked, home invasion, deadlocked, first-degree premeditated murder, not guilty, lying to police, guilty. Okay, we're turning on to Juliet, place. which is the street where Sam lived. It's night time. It's only 6.30, but it's pretty much completely dark outside. It's a very well-lit area. I mean, there's big street lamps, and all the front of the houses have a lot of lights to you.

Should we park the car? Yeah, let's get out and walk. Poppy and I get out of the car and find ourselves in a really love. lovely suburban neighborhood. The city skyline is right behind us and we're only five minutes away from downtown. It's green and it's well lit.

There's street lamps on every corner. Were they always there, I wonder? Or was that something new that they added after Sam died? I mean, she was killed October, 2023. We're here December, 2004. Yeah.

There's snowflakes falling. We know that Sam was, really close with her neighbors here, including people who were, like, in their 90s who lived here. She was close with all of them. I think she was on the board here, which is something that she loved, that kind of community feel. And so it does just feel kind of shocking that something like that could happen here. And then for there still to be so much mystery about what actually happened and how it happened. And soon, our conversation turns to Michael Jackson Bolanos, accused of coming here and killing Sam, near where we stood.

We're also asked by so many of his defenders to believe that he was wrong place, wrong time, but I'm struck by it was Sam who was wrong place, wrong time because I think it was incredibly bad luck that she was killed that night. But she happened to have her door open. What would have happened if she just remembered to close it? Or if she locked it. Even if it was closed and not locked, it could have been a different story. I stayed at friends or, you know.

It is kind of crazy when you think about. the coincidences of it all and how all the cards fell. It's strange to think that Sam's death, the loss of this incredible person, has been used as a template to understand so many ills in our society, anti-Semitism, racism, malice, pathology. But what's sticking with us even more is how Sam's death exposes our vulnerabilities to the forces of randomness and chants, forces entirely outside of our control.

What you can hear in our voices is us struggling with the possibility that in Sam's case at every stage, from the moments leading up to her death, to the way the investigation and then the trial spiraled out of control, things could have been different. Step after step of the pursuit of justice for everyone in this case, encountered hitches, obstacles that might ultimately be too big to overcome. And so what happened to Sam on October 21st, 2023, remains a raw wound.

And beyond the tragedy of Sam's death, the Detroit community, the one she devoted herself to bringing together, has been riven by her loss, the divisions made deeper. Sam's family says her death was the first nightmare. they had to endure. And they're still dealing with it today. But there's another one, too. And this nightmare, they say, began at the Wayne County Courthouse in January 2024,

only three months after their daughter's death. The nightmare began with pre-trial. So a judge named Kenneth King presided over a preliminary hearing. And at the very end, King did something seemingly unorthodox for a judge. the person meant to be a neutral arbiter. He encouraged the prosecution to add an additional charge to Michael's docket.

I just think you have a strong or just as strong an argument for first-degree murder premeditated, as you would first-degree murder felony. Michael had been charged with lying to the police, home invasion, and felony murder. That last charge means that during the commission of a felony, let's say home invasion, a murder is committed, even if the killing was not the original intent. But Judge King, he recommended the prosecution add an additional charge, premeditated murder, the highest murder charge there is. And the prosecutor, during the session, agrees to do it.

I can understand that, Judge. And I mean, if the court is inclined, then I would certainly be amenable to having that as an alternative count. This is Judge King explaining that recommendation to the court. We have an actor reading his word. Whoever did this had ample opportunity reflect on their actions when they stabbed at the first time, second time, third time, fourth time, fifth time, the sixth time, the seventh time, and the eighth time. It's a possibility that he did in fact cause the death of Samantha Wolk and intended to kill her. That makes it a question of fact to be determined by trial in fact, because both options are plausible. It can go either way.

to a criminal defense attorney on background and she said that normally judges don't do that in open court and normally they would steer the prosecution toward taking away charges, not adding more. The Wall family says this is where everything went wrong.

Judge King, by the way, got caught in a totally unrelated scandal last year and now he works in traffic court. It's important to note here, Judge King is defining premeditated murder as with intent in the moment It's not that he's saying Michael might have planned to murder Sam before he even went inside or left the house that evening.

His decision to make that suggestion set up a chain of events that leads us to the final twist in this story. You'll recall that Michael Jackson Bolanos was acquitted of premeditated murder and convicted of lying to the police. But the jury hung on the charges of felony murder and home invasion. They assumed there would be a retrial on those remaining charges. That's what just about everyone assumed. But everyone was wrong.

As things stand, Michael will never be retried for the murder of Samantha Wall. Because of a loophole, a legal twist, that nobody saw coming. And yet, Michael is still sitting in jail, maybe for another 10 years. Is this what justice looks like for Samantha Wall? I don't understand the why. Why her? I will continue to fight beside them. We will explore every avenue possible to seek justice for Sam. I'm Frannie Block, and from the free press, this is Spiral, Murder in Detroit.

This is our fifth and final episode, episode five, a beautiful, but imperfect system. When the prosecution accepted the recommendation of Judge King to add the premeditated murder charge, a bomb was placed in this case that only detonated at the conclusion of Michael's trial. Justice Stevens has our opinion this morning in case 0867 Yeager v. United States.

But to understand why things turned out this way, we have to take you back to 2009. And bear with us here. This is a little complicated. Okay, so here is some tape from a Supreme Court room in 2009 in a case called Yeager v. the United States. This case comes to us from the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Petitioner, a former executive of a subsidiary of Enron Corporation,

was charged in a federal indictment with securities and wire fraud and with insider trading and money laundering. That's Justice John Paul Stevens. In this recording, he's 89 years old. He retired from the bench a year later. And he's delivering this majority decision on behalf of six of the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. And it's on a case centered around an Enron executive

accused of a slew of white-collar crimes. Petitioner moved to dismiss the new indictment on the ground that the issue preclusion component of the double jeopardy clause barbed retrial on those charges. Yeah. That's basically legal alphabet soup. But let me explain. In a case where the defendant is charged with multiple crimes that have similar components, and the defendant is acquitted of one of those crimes, but the jury is hung on the others. Justice Stevens is saying, prosecutors can't retry the defendant on any other counts that have a key element in common.

Even though Yeager had to do with insider trading, the Supreme Court's decision here applies this logic to all criminal prosecutions. Because to be retried for a crime you've already been acquitted of is what's known as double jeopardy. And the U.S. Constitution specifically protects against this. The Fifth Amendment literally states that no person shall be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb. As Michael's lawyer, Pernakrishna-Morothy tells me,

because that is in fact good law. Because if double jeopardy did not exist, then we would all be screwed all the time and everyone would be getting retried over and over and over and over and over again. Forever. So let's think about Michael's case. Michael was tried for two different types of murder, premeditated murder and felony murder.

They're different in that one obviously requires forethought and the other involves committing another felony. But legally speaking, they're both first-degree murder. You see the problem, when the jury decided Michael didn't commit premeditated murder, which is the most serious and all-encompassing charge. That meant that when the jury hung on the other murder charge, he couldn't be retried for it.

It's almost like the jury said, even if they didn't realize it, we don't think Michael committed murder at all. And that's why this matters, one flick of the pen, and the entire murder case is over, possibly forever. But while the case was going on, nobody, not the judge, not the prosecution, nor the defense team, seemed to realize this. So in July 2024, while everyone else is preparing for retrial, Michael's lawyers, Perna and Brian, got a tip from someone at the Wayne County Criminal Defense Bar Association. And this person told them to look into this Yeager case from 2009.

And yes, 15-year-old Supreme Court rulings don't normally constitute a hot tip. But in this case... It was brought to our attention that this case existed and that within this case was the golden goose that we needed to be able to argue this. Brian and Perna draw the judge's attention to the Yeager precedent. And they say, hey, this actually... means you can't retry him. Judge Margaret Van Houten agrees, though it sounds a bit begrudgingly. As Yeager still appears to be good law at this time, the court is also precluded from retrying

the home invasion first degree. I can't ignore a precedent that's been set by the U.S. Supreme Court. And so I am going to have to dismiss as to both the felony murder and the home invasion which degree. I assume the people are going to appeal this decision. and see what happens from there. It was a major win for Perna and Brian. She realized that her hands were tied. She couldn't do anything about it. But of course, that's not the end of the story.

The judge can send Michael to jail for all of those lies he told. If lying was an Olympic sport, you would get the gold medal, sir, because you told lie after lie after lie. That is a crime in and of itself. It has a potential prison time of 18 months to 15 years. and that lengthy, indeterminate sentence is what the judge gives him. Judge Van Houten actually takes the unusual decision to ignore what is recommended by the Michigan Department of Corrections.

They suggested two years probation and six months wearing an ankle monitor. Judge Van Houten gives him the max prison time instead. Brian puts his head down, then he stands up and starts to argue. In this building, judge, we've got to be honest with ourselves. How many individuals get sentenced to prison for lying to the police, especially they're not being charged with any type of larceny? That just doesn't know. How many of those people are habitual fourth offenders?

I'm done. That's my sentence. You can take it to the Court of Appeals. And that is where Michael now sits. He's been detained since December, 23. He could spend more than a decade in prison for lying to the police. A crime that Perna says isn't a big deal. is it unethical? Sure. Is it immoral? Perhaps. But is it a threat to public safety? I would say no. I would say that poses no threat to public safety to lie to the police because I think everyone has lied to the police. I have lied to the police.

Sam's family, on the other hand, think that the judge has made the right decision because they believe Michael is a threat to public safety. They continue to lobby for him to remain incarcerated. In February, Michael was denied parole for the first time, and I called Monica afterwards. I was very happy. I think that this will give us more time and not have to worry about someone who is very dangerous being on the street. Yeah. Was it like a relief?

Yes, for sure. But this will continue to come up. The family is already preparing to submit another letter for a parole hearing in a few months. Meanwhile, the Wayne County prosecutors have appealed the use of the Yeager decision in Michael's case. They argued, at the very least, they should be allowed to retry Michael on home invasion because the jury never came to a conclusion on that charge. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a friend and colleague of Sams, has signed on to the appeal. Her office argues in an amicus brief that crime victims' families like Sams are left in perpetually.

limbo. And legally, they argue that Yeager is bad law and that it should be overturned. The Michigan Court of Appeals rejected the prosecution's initial appeal, just as we were about to publish this series in October 2025. So now they are preparing to bring their attempt to overturn Yeager to the Michigan State Supreme Court, and even higher if they need to. And this is another reason this case really matters. Because, as we understand, the prosecution intends to take this case all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. And Bruce, the jury foreman, told me he also wanted this case to have a second chance. I asked him if he knew that the jury's decision to acquit Michael of premeditated murder meant Michael would never be tried for Sam's murder again.

You guys didn't know that, right? No, we didn't know that at all. None of the jury have, you know, pass the bar exam, right? We're not legal experts on this. We're not setting precedence, right? And worse still, Bruce says if the jury did know, the outcome would have been different. How do you think that would have changed things? I think we would have just had to have shown deadlocked on all those other charges

besides the line to the police one. And Bruce still thinks about it. He says it weighs on him. As cliches, it sounds or whatever, like I honestly think about this. thing like every single day. I honestly wanted to make sure that I was doing the right thing. Nobody wants to see anybody go away for something that they didn't do, and nobody wants to see a victim go without any justice.

There is an uncomfortable truth that unless you're in it, we might all want to put out of our minds. And that's the fact that try as we might, inventing an entire system around it, justice often evades us. This is Alana Block, no relation to me, but a family friend of the walls. She's also a lawyer. And this is what she says about the imperfections of the jury system.

I've always said you have to thank those who are performing their civic duty. It's tough. It's very tough. And lawyers play a role, judges play a role. We all play a role in this imperfect but beautiful system. But that doesn't mean that the right outcome is always what you got. But even still, with the appeal pending, Sam's mom, Margo, and Father Doug are not hopeful. Margo, are you optimistic? In life in general, yes.

In this case, no, I'm not. I really am not. I feel really let down by the whole justice system. And there's such a small chance of the appeal and going through. and I don't. I sense an exhaustion. And it is exhausting. The whole thing was exhausting.

It's been very exhausting. I'm not terribly optimistic. I hope to be surprised that maybe there'll be some kind of justice, but we'll have to see. I'm still to this day stunned by what happened and stunned by the ordeal we've had to go through with this trial. going down there every day for six weeks listening to evidence. I don't know if you know, I had to walk out several times. Margo and Monica and Ben stayed,

but I just had to walk out sometimes. I just couldn't listen or watch what was going on. To families like theirs caught up in the tangled web of the justice system, it all just feels really unfair. They had to sit through five, weeks of horrible detail about their daughter's murder, and then they ended up with no conviction or even a hope of a future conviction. The Wall family are exhausted, but they're not giving up on seeing through the appeal. Here's Monica.

Koldehame al-a ima-adama. Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. That's a line in the book of Genesis. For people who are murdered, it's what you say. So this is where the Wall family are, heeding the call from Samantha for justice. But there's another person in this story that I wanted to speak to. Michael Jackson Bolanos. He's never spoken to the media before, until now. And he tells me he doesn't feel he's gotten the justice he deserves either.

Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. This fall get double points on every qualified stay. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. I'm a Detroiter whose name has been thrust into the spotlight for reasons that stand in stark contrast to the person I truly am.

We wrote to Perna and asked for some biographical information about Michael. When we wrote to her, frankly, we didn't expect to hear anything back. But then we got this letter. Perna said she and Michael wrote it together, mostly him, she told us, I just did the typing. It's the closest anyone in the press

has ever gotten to actually hearing Michael's story directly from him since being incarcerated. And over a year and a half after the trial, he maintains his innocence. Despite having a criminal record, I am not, nor have I ever been the kind of individual capable of violence. let alone the murder of Samantha Wall.

These are Michael Jackson Bolanos's words, spoken by an actor. I'm a son, a mentor, and a man whose past does not define the worst assumptions cast upon him. The narrative about me is not supported by my character, my actions, or the truth. Samantha Wall's death is a tragedy that weighs heavily on me. While I acknowledge that I made a poor decision that night by engaging in petty thoughtless, conduct, I want to be clear I did not and would never harm another person. I have admitted to entering a lot cars that did not belong to me. I understand that some may see little between that and entering someone's home, but to me, there has always been a clear distinction. It is painful

and overwhelming that my name is associated with this devastating loss, especially when I never into Samantha Wool's home, it never caused her any harm. I seek justice for myself, but I am not selfishly blind to the fact that the Wolf family also deserves justice for Samantha. They have suffered an unimaginable loss, and I am not the person responsible. I asked Perna how he's doing in prison right now. I'll tell you, I tell him all the time. I'm very impressed with his level of calm, cool, and collected.

He's very patient through this process. he's constantly trying to learn more about what he can do to help himself and benefit himself. Of course, he has moments where he is frustrated and, you know, we discuss that. But for the most part, he is, it's pretty impressive the way that he's maintaining. I tell him all the time, and look, if it was me, I'd be losing my mind. But, you know, he's always like, well, how would that benefit me? That is of no benefit to me for me to be angry or for me to sit around and be upset about it. Like, I have to deal with the circumstances as they are

and just have hope that something is going to figure itself out and that I can be released. In his letter, Michael asserts he's not a violent person and that his life reflects that. But it's not so clear-cut. It's true that Michael did not serve time for crimes of violence. But while serving time, he did get cited for infractions, some of which involved assaults.

But we found something else, too. After the trial, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request and I got back a police report from Michael's time in jail. The report states that Michael told an officer in jail that Patrick Lane, one of the homicide detectives who investigated Sam's murder, quote, played me. Then, according to the report, Michael threatened to assault or possibly kill him.

Pernas said this report was bogus. It didn't happen, she told us. Right now, this is what Michael's future looks like. Periodically, the parole board will consider whether or not to let him out of prison. He's already been denied parole once. And Perna and Brian believe there's a major injustice in this process. When the board considers parole for Michael, they review his record. Although he's in prison for lying to the police, the record includes in detail Sam's murder,

a crime for which he's not been convicted. This, Perna says, is a breach of a foundational part of our legal system, innocent until proven guilty. Perna showed us the document that the parole board received about Michael's case. She faults Judge Van Houghton for allowing descriptions of Sam's murder to be part of Michael's parole considerations. My issue with that is, but there's no information in there regarding the actual thing that he's being convicted of. There's nothing in there for that. Why would we be talking about everything that he's been acquitted of, but nothing of what he was actually found guilty for?

Unless, which is presumably what you suspect, she thinks he's guilty and she's using this as a tool to keep in jail. And it could go up to 15 years. Correct. So Michael, for now, still sits in prison. And to be honest, his situation feels really tricky. In one perspective, Michael killed Sam and he's getting away with murder. Sitting in jail on a lesser crime,

it feels like the system didn't work perfectly, but at least it's keeping an offender off the streets. But in another, Michael's prison sentence is arguably being prolonged by a crime he was not convicted of. Because the parole documents make it seem like he was found guilty for lying about the murder,

when he's actually been convicted of lying about stealing from cars. We discovered when it comes to parole, including information about acquitted conduct can happen because the burden of proof is different in parole decisions. It's a balance of probability,

a balance of potential risk. The parole board is faced with how potentially dangerous someone is, and they have the ultimate discretion in these decisions. They don't need to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. And this is exactly what Michael's defense team

is now trying to get changed. Like the prosecution, the defense team filed appeals in this case. case, they were adjudicated in October 2025. They argued that Sam's murder, again, which Michael was not convicted of, should not be considered in his documentation when he comes up in front of the parole board. And on that issue, the appeals court has allowed Michael's team to take this argument back

to a district court for consideration. His team also tried to get his conviction for lying to the police overturned, which the appeals court rejected. Perna told us something in one of our last calls with her that we wanted to include. Her brother was killed in an unsolved murder case, a hit and run. And so she told us she can actually put herself in Samantha's family's shoes more than most.

Justice for Michael Jackson Blanos and justice for Samantha Wall too. Sam's life. ended, but we don't want to end this series on that. We want to come back to Sam's life and the legacy she left. We've looked at a lot of videos in photos of Sam. And her joie de vivre, that smile and those curls. They radiate from every frame. We're at Samantha's townhouse.

And she's seeing the kids arrive. And then there was her art, the joyful, colorful swirls, put in all of her artwork, her signature spiral, the emblem that said this was a piece by Sam. And one of the things about Sam that her friends say is they wish she was still around so they could ask her questions. What would Sam, a staunch progressive and a Zionist, make of the war in Gaza two years on? How would she work to bridge the current impossible divides? Everyone who knew Sam wishes they could delve into one of those legendary conversations with her, but the big issues of our time.

For Monica and Ben, there are smaller ways that they live by Sam's influence, too. Like Ben, I think about Sam almost every minute of every day. She's never not on my mind. And I think about how she would act in certain situations all the time. She was so kind, and I have really been trying. she would always tell me that I'm someone who is more blunt and direct and not necessarily as smiley and gracious as she was. And so I really try in my small interactions with people, if I'm at the dry cleaner or the bank

or the grocery store, to add that extra smile, say that extra thank you, and just be a kinder person. It sounds cliche. I try to remind myself to live in the, the present and anything can change at any minute. That's one thing that's changed. I don't always do that, but it's something that we talk about a lot. Like, we need to, you need to go and do what you need to do on this world and things change quickly. Life is very fragile. Life is short. I think about that all the time. Life is really short and you do what you can while you're here. I don't believe

this is it. I think this is a blink of an eye and the real world, the way it's a way it's afterward. My parents have said before, don't take life too seriously. I try to do that too. You know, there's no time to be stressed out or mad or angry. Just try to be as joyful as we can while we're here and find the happiness. And then we'll all be together again. Sam's Jewish faith was so central to her life that we wanted to see what Judaism had to say about trying to make sense of her senseless death. Here's Rabbi Asher Lepotin, who works for the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor. He met Sam while doing interfaith work with the American Jewish Committee in Detroit.

An absence of a legal verdict that's like this person did this to Sam, what does justice look like for Sam and how should people strive for justice for her? I think justice in a sense is not allowing the forces of evil to win. That's really what I would say. And the forces of evil that night won a battle of taking her out of our world. They did win that battle. And we cannot let them win the war. And that means we have to spread her love.

We have to spread her sincere commitment to the Jewish community and to Israel. We have to work on the way she was able to affirm people and respect them and bring people together and unite people and the things that we share. So I think that's justice. Justice is not letting evil win. We would be amiss if we didn't point out the status of where things lie leaves everyone who loves Sam in a state of what's known as complex grief

where questions keep her loved ones up at night. Here, there is no closure. It makes it really hard to move forward. Here's her friend, Andy Einhorn, again. I think what was crazy to me is like in 2023 and in an era of cell phones and cameras and everything, it's like there is

this one window of a three hour period that is uncounted for, completely unaccounted for. And we will never know. And there's so much of this particular story that ironically I say is so Sam

like for us to not know all the pieces. Because I always say like if you piece together everybody who knew Sam, that's how you know Sam. because of all the disparate people in her life. But I don't understand the why. Why her? Does that make sense?

Like, what escalated so much in that moment that took you? And weirdly, it deflects more onto that person to say, what inside you snapped that made you do this to this person? Because Sam's the kind of person that I know her. If she woke up and somebody was in the house, she's going to be like, what do you need? Like, take whatever in my head. house. And Sam's friend from college, Brad Sugar. It's pretty surreal that she is effectively the

subject of a murder mystery saga. It's just heart-wrenching. And all of the details of this are extremely bizarre. And Senator Alyssa Slotkin, who used to work with Sam, and he spoke to us for this podcast. There's no sentence that will bring her back. But I just think that there's something very important in society to accountability. And then just emotionally, again, it just gives you kind of a break, you know, a new chapter for her family. And I think that's the best we can hope for, right? Because we can't bring her back to life, but they need some peace. In honor of Sam, Poppy and I paid a final visit to the downtown Detroit Synagogue in February 2025, the place where we started this story.

You're hearing the canter playing the guitar and the congregation is singing along. The downtown synagogue has modern, eclectic services, with songs by Leonard Cohen, as well as as more traditional ones. And in the center of the room, there's the beautiful arc for the Torah, the cabinet that holds the sacred scrolls, which Sam helped design to look like the radiating spokes on a wheel, echoing the street design of Detroit, the city she loved.

And the stained glass windows once covered with grime are now washing the room in rainbow colors. One of our first interviews when we started this podcast was with Rachel Ruddner. the executive director of the downtown synagogue and Sam's colleague and friend. Rachel described how in the early 2000s, the synagogue was on the brink of shutting down forever. So we had faced declining membership in the 90s and early 2000s. There was actually consideration of selling this building in early 2000s.

But then there was a group of young people who banded together to save it. That movement was what Sam later became a part of. She was part of that early. you know, a resurgence of younger people coming in, who lived in Detroit, who were artists or creatives or in politics who had like a lot of optimism for what the city could be and really like helped Jewish life play out here at a time when there was like really no infrastructure to support it. There was no staff. There's very little money. But they were making it happen. Then Rachel made a reference to something that really stayed with us

that there was a speakeasy right next door to the synagogue, a popular bar called DeMongos. run by a charismatic owner named Larry Mungo, who was just as vital at bringing the synagogue back to life as any of the young kids like Sam. I think that the reason that they got involved is they were next door at DeMongo's Speak Easy, like having a beer with friends, and Larry Mungo, the owner of DeMongos,

he sort of figured out who the Jewish kids were and was like, you go next door and be part of the synagogue and revitalizing it and go vote on having it not be sold. So they got involved. They started coming to programming and came to the annual meeting that year. Is Larry's still around? Larry? Yeah, absolutely.

You should definitely go next door. Larry's amazing. So, before the Friday night services got into full swing and before we caught our flight back to New York, Poppy and I went to Larry's place, DeMongos, the bar where Sam often went after Shabbat services.

Is this Larry working today? Can you see him? Would he have to talk to him at some point? Oh, he's going to say. It's colorful, and it has this speakeasy, cozy feel, and you can hear the live piano playing in the background. Hey, Larry, he thinks he's good at it. You've got Great Britain in the house.

Right, me? Great Britain. Oh, my God. Hi, Mary. Nice to meet you. Thank you very much. Hi, Brannie. Thanks for meet you.

Oh, thank you for coming here. Thanks for having us. We came in because we're actually working on a podcast series. right now about Samantha Wall. Yes. She was my neighbor, too. Really? Where I lived.

You live right over there too? Yes. Oh, wow. We know that this is one of the places she used to love to go after Friday night services. It's safe to say, Larry's not exactly what I expected.

I kind of thought he'd look like an old Jewish man, kind of like my grandpa. And particularly because we'd heard all these stories of him coming over to the synagogue and helping them make a minion, which is where 10 Jewish adults are required for certain communal prayers. But Larry is black,

and I assumed in the moment he wasn't Jewish. Oh, man, this is me and Judaism have a long history. But you're not Jewish yourself, right? You're not Jewish yourself. Oh, yes, I am. You are? Yes. Wow.

Leave me. Larry then pulled out a yarmulka out of his back pocket. As you can hear, he's the warmest person. Poppy and I totally felt enveloped in his. storytelling. He told us a story of fighting off neo-Nazis who were defacing the synagogue next door. He had this magic about him. And this is how he explained his understanding of Sam and her Jewish identity. According to Judaism and the life of Judaism, she was 110% Jewish. She was always trying to help Gil reach out. You might have came at her in anger, but within a few minutes,

minutes when you realize your anger was not affecting her, and she's trying to get to your heart, your anger will leave you. It's part of why her loss is so immense. Oh, my God. It's still filler. I mean, when I saw, I got a picture when they put her name up on the shoe when it was putting that up. While we were standing with Larry, some of his friends and Sam's friends, too, came in, other members of the synagogue who looked a little guilty at having missed services.

No, you got to come here, man, because I'm talking about you. This is Leor-Barach, Chabashalom. Shabash-lone. I felt bad passing by the synagogue and not going in. Not going in. Here's the man who saved the synagogue. One of many. Understanding the history.

The Hebrew word when people are brought together. It's like fate, isn't it? Yes. Oh, my God. Bishat. Okay. The sheriff. The sheriff.

The sheriff. The sheriff. In Sam's story, the story of a beautiful life lost, the story of this murder in Detroit, that in so many ways became about race and about highlighting the divides between our communities that still persist. After all, Michael said that Sam being white was one of the reasons he didn't call the cops. Sam's family and Jeff were villainized online for being Jewish. And Michael's lawyers think his blackness is why he still sits in jail. In all of that that swirls around this case, here was Larry, who seemed to cut through it all.

He had a message about Detroit that was much more unifying and hopeful. With black people, when we're allowed to go to our spiritual beliefs as a slave. See, we believe it was so that the person is never dead if you keep their name going. That's why in my family, all of us is named after an uncle, a relative. So that person has never forgotten. Larry thinks that's why it's so important that the building that houses the synagogue was renamed the Samantha Wall Center for Jewish Detroit. So when I saw the name Samantha, I knew she'll live the next hundred years for a spirit.

And if one said, why is it named Samantha? You got a great story you're getting ready to hear with a saying ending. Judaism does not deal extensively with the idea of the afterlife. It is very much focused on how you practice living a Jewish life in this one. And we know from Sam's friends that she didn't necessarily believe in an afterlife.

But Doug and Margo, Sam's parents, say they were in so much pain after Sam's death, that they sought the help of a medium to contact Sam. And here's what they shared about what happened. People say, have something in your mind that only you would know or think. And we're talking to a medium. And the medium is saying...

And she's not Jewish. The medium's not Jewish. She says, Samantha is drawing something to you. And she says, I know some of the symbols. I know the Jewish star is. And it's not that. And I know I can't figure this out. The only thing I can do is draw it for you.

And then you can tell me what this is because this is what she's drawing for you. So she takes her pen and pencil out and she draws this. The spiral. The spiral. She's drawing the spiral. And she says that's what Samantha's drawing for you. So then I knew there's something there. The person who Samantha Wall was

was the reason I wanted to tell this story. The way she lived, not how she died. So I'm going to give the final word to Samantha. On a personal note, I remember coming to the synagogue for simplest Torah, singing and dancing with the Torah's for Shabbat services and meals, late night dance parties after Haftalla, gardening and hidden gardens.

This is Sam the grand reopening of the synagogue in 2023, just a couple of months before she died. She's standing in front of the building that will soon be named after her, and she's talking about her favorite memories at the synagogue, of celebrating Simchat Torah, the Jewish holiday centered around themes of unity and joy, of breaking bread over Shabbat dinners, of working on community projects,

But it's not just the events and traditions that made this place special to Sam. I remember the most of all the people. We honor the memory of those who came before us, and we practice our tradition to make sure that it is there in the future. We reached out to a number of people who you didn't hear from in this podcast. We spoke with Michael's girlfriend, Tiarra White, who ultimately decided not to be interviewed. We also wrote to Judge King to talk to him about his recommendation to add the charge of premeditated murder. He did not reply. We also didn't hear back from Judge Van Houghton.

We wrote to the prosecution team to discuss the case they presented, but because an appeal is ongoing, they declined to be interviewed. We will continue to follow this case as it makes its way through the appeals process, so please check this feed for further updates. Spiral was written and reported by my producer, Poppy Damon,

and me, Franny Block. Associate producers were Bobby Moriarty, Adam Feldman, Monica Ricks, and Evan Gardner. Our fact checker was Ryan Chowdhury. The sound design and mix was by John Scott. The actors you heard in this series were Anderson Stinson, Kyle Shive, Jay C. Wright, Damon Webb, and G. G. Shelley.

Our artwork was by Clara Grusk. The series was commissioned by Alex Chitty and Margie Conklin. Our executive editor is Emily Offey. The CEO and editor-in-chief at the Free Press is Barry Weiss. We want to give a huge thank you to everyone who spoke to us for the story. More than three dozen people. many voices for us to be able to include in just five episodes, but whose stories and memories of Sam helped make this series richer. If you have any information about Sam's case or thoughts, you can email us at Spiral at thefp.com. Though this is our final episode, we're not done following Sam's case. Subscribe to the free press to make sure you don't miss anything as it progresses. Oh, and one more thing before you go that I just couldn't resist, including.

Monica allows us to remember that Jews are a light into nations and also that light wins over darkness. My aunt Sam lived the values of kindness and goodness and she was alight into others. What you're hearing right now is Sam's nephew, Monica and Ben's eldest son. honoring Sam at a Jewish Hindu interfaith event celebrating Hanukkah and Dawley. It's an event Sam used to be part of, which continues on today, each year, in her honor. On Hanukkah, I remember all the good that she did

and all of the light that she brought into the world. May I remember continue to be a blessing for everybody. Thank you. Thank you.