SANTA ANA, Calif. – A California man convicted of stabbing a gay University of Pennsylvania student to death in a hate act was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole.
Samuel Woodward, 27, was found guilty in a Southern California courtroom after a daylong trial for the murder of Blaise Bernstein nearly seven years ago. Woodward, who did not appear in court Friday due to illness, was convicted this year of first-degree murder with a hate crime enhancement for killing Bernstein, a gay Jewish sophomore.
Dozens of Bernstein's relatives and friends sat in the courtroom. Many wore T-shirts that read “Blaze it Forward,” the slogan of a campaign to do acts of kindness in his name since his death.
“Let me be clear: this was a hate crime,” Bernstein's mother, Jean Pepper, said in court. “Samuel Woodward ended my son's life because he was Jewish and gay.”
She said she takes comfort in the fact that Woodward will never be released from custody and that even though he “rots in prison, we're going to be here outside celebrating Blaze's life.”
“Blaze's memory and spirit will live on in every act of kindness done in his honor,” she said.
Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for the Orange County District Attorney's Office, said there was no question as to the sentence Woodward would receive because the jury's verdict was for life in prison without parole.
Mr Woodward's lawyer, Ken Morrison, told the court that the judge had some discretion in this regard and that jurors were not allowed to see all the evidence in the case at trial. He asked that the person be sentenced to 28 years to life in prison. Prime Minister Scott Morrison previously said he intended to appeal the ruling.
Bernstein, 19, went missing in January 2018 after going out with Woodward at night to a park in Lake Forest, about 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles. When Bernstein missed his dentist appointment the next day, his parents found his glasses, wallet and credit card in his bedroom and tried to contact him, but no one responded.
Authorities launched a thorough search and announced that Bernstein's family had scoured social media and confirmed that Bernstein had been communicating with Woodward on Snapchat. Authorities said Woodward told her family that Bernstein had gone to the park to meet a friend that night and never returned.
A few days later, Bernstein's body was found in a shallow grave in a park. He had been stabbed multiple times in the face and neck.
At issue during Woodward's months-long trial was not whether he killed Bernstein, but the reasons for and the circumstances surrounding the killing. Prosecutors say Woodward belonged to the Atomwaffen Division, a violent anti-gay neo-Nazi extremist group, but Morrison said his client had no intention of killing anyone or hating Bernstein. He said he faced difficult relationships due to his long-undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder.
The case took years to go to trial amid a series of delays, and Southern California residents rallied to help authorities find Bernstein, who suddenly disappeared in 2018.
Mr. Woodward testified. During the trial, she covered part of her face with her long hair and answered her lawyer's questions slowly and delayed.
Bernstein and Woodward attended the same high school, the Orange County School of the Arts, and met through a dating app several months before the murder. Woodward said he stabbed Bernstein multiple times after picking him up, going to a nearby park and trying to take his cell phone, which he feared was used for a photo shoot.
Defense lawyer Mr Morrison said Mr Woodward was confused about his sexuality because he grew up in a politically conservative and devout Catholic family and his father openly criticized homosexuality.
But prosecutors told a different story. They said Woodward repeatedly targeted gay men online, contacting them and then abruptly cutting them off, and recorded his actions in hateful and profane diaries.
Authorities searched his family's home in Newport Beach, California, and found a black Atomwaffen mask with blood stains, a folding knife with a bloody blade, anti-gay, anti-Semitic, hate They also announced that they had discovered the group's materials.
