A man stabbed his gay Jewish classmate 28 times and buried him. He’ll spend life in jail for the hate crime

Samuel Woodward, 27, was convicted of murder as a hate crime for the killing of Blaze Bernstein, a gay, Jewish college sophomore

Samuel Woodward has been jailed for life for the hate crime (© 2024, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A California man who stabbed his former classmate 28 times and buried him in a park has been jailed for life without parole for the hate crime.

Samuel Woodward, 27, was convicted earlier this year of murder as a hate crime for the killing of Blaze Bernstein, a gay, Jewish college sophomore.

He was sentenced on Friday at the Orange County Superior Court but did not appear due to illness.

Bernstein, 19, was a student at the University of Pennsylvania and went missing while visiting his family in Newport Beach in January 2018.

On the night Bernstein went missing, the pair, who attended the same high school, had gone to a park in Lake Forest. After Bernstein missed a dentist appointment the next day and his parents failed to make contact with him, the authorities launched an exhaustive search.

His family scoured his social media accounts and saw he had last communicated with Woodward on Snapchat, they told authorities.

Days after the teenager went missing, his body was found in a shallow grave in the park. He had been repeatedly stabbed in the face and neck.

Prosecutors said Woodward was affiliated with the violent anti-gay, neo-Nazi extremist group Atomwaffen Division, while Woodward’s lawyer, Ken Morrison, said his client didn’t plan to kill anyone or hate Bernstein and faced challenging personal relationships due to a long-undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder.

Gideon Bernstein and Jeanne Pepper Bernstein, parents of Blaze Bernstein, speak during a press conference after Samuel Woodward was sentenced to life without parole at Orange County Superior Court (AP)

The jury found him guilty in July after a three-month-long trial, which suffered a series of delays.

During the trial the court heard that the pair, who both attended Orange County School of the Arts, connected via a dating app in the months before the murder. Woodward testified that he picked up Bernstein and took him to the nearby park, where he repeatedly stabbed Bernstein after trying to grab a cellphone he feared had been used to photograph him.

His defense attorney argued that Woodward was confused about his sexuality after growing up in a politically conservative and devout Catholic family where his father openly criticized homosexuality.

But the prosecution said that Woodward had repeatedly targeted gay men online by reaching out to them and abruptly breaking off contact, while keeping a hateful, profanity-laced journal of his actions.

Authorities said they also found a black Atomwaffen mask with traces of blood, a folding knife with a bloodied blade and a host of anti-gay, antisemitic and hate group materials in a search of his family’s home.

Judge Kimberly Menninger said there was no evidence that Woodward was remorseful for the crime and called the case “a true tragedy.”

“Unfortunately for the court and for the defendant, I’ve never seen any evidence of this up to this point in time,” Menninger told the court.

“Let’s be clear: This was a hate crime,” Bernstein’s mother, Jeanne Pepper, told the court. “Samuel Woodward ended my son’s life because my son was Jewish and gay.”

She said she takes solace in Woodward never getting out of custody and that while he “rots in prison, we will be here on the outside, celebrating the life of Blaze.”

“Unfortunately for Mr. Woodward, the hate that fueled his thoughts was super disconcerting to this court and unfortunately reflects a larger societal ill that’s currently raging throughout this country,” the judge added.

Dozens of Bernstein’s relatives and friends sat in the courtroom. Many wore T-shirts reading “Blaze it Forward,” a slogan for a campaign to commit acts of kindness in his name following his death.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.