After hours of testimony over two days, a judge on Tuesday ruled there’s enough evidence for the case against a Detroit man accused of stabbing and killing Jewish leader and Democrat activist Samantha Woll to proceed.

Authorities laid out how cellphone data, security system sensors, surveillance footage and Samantha Woll’s blood are all alleged to link Michael Jackson-Bolanos, a 28-year-old with a history of car theft, to the crime, while his attorney called him the victim of circumstance.

Woll was fatally stabbed eight times in the early morning hours of Oct. 21 at her home in Detroit’s Lafayette Park neighborhood.

Here are five revelations from a preliminary examination that took place Jan. 16 and Jan. 23 in 36th District Court:

Tech data from multiple sources

Prosecutors presented surveillance video and cellphone tower data showing Jackson-Bolanos near Woll’s home around the time her security system last showed movement inside before she was found dead outside by a neighbor. The system also showed Woll’s front door had been left open shortly after police said she returned from a wedding. Jackson-Bolanos was out that morning stealing or attempting to steal from vehicles, police said, citing surveillance footage they said showed him pulling on a door handle and scaling a wall to enter a private parking structure.

A coat Jackson-Bolanos appeared to be wearing in videos was later found at his girlfriend’s Midtown home and tested positive for Woll’s blood. There was a small amount of it detected on its sleeve, police said.

A general timeline

Surveillance video footage from more than a dozen locations between the Midtown apartment of Jackson-Bolanos’ girlfriend and the residential-commercial Harbortown neighborhood showed him committing a string of larcenies or attempted larcenies from vehicles before heading for Lafayette Park, authorities said.

At 3:52 a.m., police said security footage from Lafayette Elementary School showed him near Woll’s home on Joliet Place.

Until 4:20 a.m., they said cellphone tower data showed his location was consistent with her home.

It was at 4:20 a.m. that the motion sensor went off in Woll’s living room, and it was idle by 4:22 a.m, they said.

At 4:23 a.m., Jackson-Bolanos reappeared in surveillance footage about a half mile from Woll’s home. He was seen crossing the Monroe Street bridge over I-375, heading back toward downtown, at one point breaking into a run. From there, he proceeded to his girlfriend’s.

Defense’s alternate theory

There is no DNA or fingerprint evidence showing Jackson-Bolanos inside Woll’s home. His attorney, Brian Brown, suggested Tuesday that the 28-year-old wound up with Woll’s blood on him after stumbling upon her when she was already dead outside.

Brown contended there was not enough time for his client to stab Woll eight times and make it a half-mile away between 4:20 and 4:23. He noted that police also testified to an apparent struggle inside Woll’s home, saying fruit had toppled from a bowl and that she was bruised in multiple places. Meanwhile, so little blood was found on Jackson-Bolanos jacket that it was not visible to the naked eye, he said. Judge King agreed that was “peculiar,” given the crime scene “was literally covered with blood.”

Brown further said the police investigation found a neighbor heard a scream at 1:38 a.m., just after Woll’s cellphone was last unlocked, at 1:35 a.m.

“It’s very possible this murder could have happened much sooner than the prosecutor believes,” Brown said.

Blue surgical gloves and mask

Jackson-Bolanos was dressed in all black and had his hood up as he trekked from Midtown from Lafayette Park the morning of the killing, and was seen in some surveillance video in blue surgical gloves and a mask, police said.

Prosecutor Ryan Elsey said Jackson-Bolanos confessed to investigators that he’d been out “fumbling with cars,” after initially lying to them about it. The 28-year-old further told them he’d encountered nothing out of the ordinary, Elsey said.

Judge adds a charge, but calls case a toss-up

King tacked on a count of first-degree murder while sending the case along to trial court, saying “whoever did this had ample opportunity to reflect on their actions,” by the time they’d stabbed Woll eight times.

While King said prosecutors met the burden of proof for the case to proceed, both sides’ theories of the case “are plausible” and that a trial “could go either way.”

More from the court hearing: Judge finds enough evidence for case against suspect to proceed

Woll was president of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue and founded the Muslim-Jewish Forum of Detroit. She had attended a wedding the night before she was killed.

Her mysterious death left Detroit area Jewish and interfaith communities shocked and in search of answers for weeks before Jackson-Bolanos was charged Dec. 13. A previous suspect who knew Woll was taken into custody in November, never charged and later released.

Jackson-Bolanos is due in Third Circuit Court on Jan. 30 for arraignment on charges of first-degree murder, felony murder, home invasion and lying to police.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Samantha Woll killing: 5 things we learned in two-day court hearing