Years after college student is stabbed to death, California man goes on trial in alleged hate case

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — The killing of a gay University of Pennsylvania student in Southern California more than six years ago was a hate crime, a prosecutor said Tuesday in opening statements of a murder trial.

The defendant, 26-year-old Samuel Woodward of Newport Beach, is accused of stabbing to death Blaze Bernstein, a 19-year-old gay, Jewish college sophomore who was home visiting family on winter break. The two had previously attended the same high school in Orange County.

Prosecutor Jennifer Walker said Woodward had joined an violent, anti-gay, antisemitic group known as Atomwaffen Division and repeatedly targeted gay men online by reaching out to and then dropping them while keeping a hateful, profanity-laced journal of his actions.

Weeks before the killing, Woodward showed an interest in moving from words to violent actions, she said, and he then contacted Bernstein online.

“The defendant is guilty of killing Blaze Bernstein because he was gay,” she told jurors, adding that the victim was stabbed 28 times. “You will see that Blaze fought for his life as best he could.”

Woodward has pleaded not guilty to murder with an enhancement for a hate crime.

Defense attorney Ken Morrison did not dispute that his client carried out the fatal attack but said Woodward didn’t plan to kill anyone and didn’t hate Bernstein, and particularly not because he was gay.

Morrison said his client faced challenges in personal relationships due to a long-undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder and was confused about his own sexuality.

“We agree the evidence will show that Samuel Woodward is guilty of homicide,” Morrison told jurors, adding later that “what happened that night, plain and simple, was not a hate crime.”

Woodward sat in the courtroom wearing a suit jacket, his shoulder-length hair almost completely covering his face.

The trial is expected to last months.

Bernstein disappeared in January 2018 after he went with Woodward to a park in Lake Forest, about 45 miles (70 km) southeast of Los Angeles. Bernstein's parents found his glasses, wallet and credit cards in his bedroom the next day when he missed a dentist appointment and didn't respond to texts or calls, prosecutors wrote in a trial brief.

Days later his body was found buried in a shallow grave at the park.

Woodward picked Bernstein up from his parents’ home after connecting with him on Snapchat and stabbed him in the face and neck, authorities said.

DNA evidence linked Woodward to the killing, and his cellphone contained anti-gay, antisemitic and hate group materials, authorities said.

A folding knife with a bloodied blade was found in Woodward’s room at his parents’ home, authorities said. Woodward was arrested two days later.

The case took years to go to trial after questions arose about Woodward's mental state and following multiple changes of defense attorneys. Woodward was deemed competent to stand trial in late 2022.

One of his previous lawyers said he has Asperger's syndrome, a developmental disorder that generally causes difficulty with social interactions, and struggled with his own sexuality.

Morrison has urged people to avoid jumping to conclusions.

“For the past six years, the public has been reading and hearing a prosecution and muckraking narrative about this case that is simply fundamentally wrong,” Morrison said via email. “I caution everyone to respect our judicial process and wait until a jury has been able to see, hear, and evaluate all of the evidence.”

The Orange County district attorney's office declined to comment on the case ahead of trial.