The trial of the man accused of murdering Detroit Jewish leader Samantha Woll begins

Margo Woll closed her eyes as a Wayne County district judge read aloud the murder charges against the man accused of stabbing her daughter, Samantha Woll, to death.

By her side was her husband, Douglas Woll, who couldn’t bear to look at the bloody images displayed in his daughter’s courthouse apartment the night she died.

Opening arguments began on Tuesday afternoon in the trial against 28-year-old Michael Jackson-Bolanos, accused of murdering a prominent Jewish leader and political activist.

Jackson-Bolanos is accused of stabbing Woll eight times in the face and neck area during an Oct. 21 home invasion in Detroit’s Lafayette Park neighborhood, east of downtown. The suspect’s attorney, Brian Brown, said his client was in the area but there was no evidence linking him to the crime scene.

Wayne County Deputy Prosecutor Ryan Elsey described the killing as a crime of opportunity in his opening statement: Jackson-Bolanos was captured on video rummaging through cars in Samantha Woll’s neighborhood on the night of the murder. Her door was open.

Elsey said Jackson-Bolanos entered Woll’s home so he could rob her.