An Orange County jury convicted Samuel Woodward of first-degree murder Wednesday in the stabbing death of his gay high school classmate.
During the three-month trial, both sides portrayed Woodward, 26, as a young man struggling with his sexuality growing up in a conservative Newport Beach family, with a disapproving father.
Deputy District. Atty. Jennifer Walker told the jury that when Woodward decided to kill Blaze Bernstein, a former classmate, in January 2018, he chose a weapon with symbolic meaning: a knife with his father’s name etched on it.
“Who better to prove you’re not gay than this homophobic dad?” Walker said during closing arguments. “‘I’m not gay, look what I just did.'”
Jurors began deliberating Woodward’s fate Tuesday afternoon and returned with a verdict a day later. He also condemned Woodward for the increase in hate crimes, which only applies to Bernstein’s sexual orientation, even though he is Jewish and gay.
Woodward faces life without the possibility of parole, with a sentencing hearing scheduled for Oct. 25.
Woodward’s lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Ken Morrison, admitted that his client was guilty of stabbing Bernstein 28 times in the Lake Forest park, which he called a “hideous crime”, but said it was voluntary manslaughter, not murder.
“There was no premedication or deliberation,” he told jurors, arguing that Bernstein had provoked Woodward. He said the killings had nothing to do with the client’s interests in the Atomwaffen Division, an extremist group whose anti-gay, anti-Jewish propaganda was found on Woodward’s computer.
On the night of the murder, Bernstein and Woodward exchanged heartwarming text messages. They had known each other casually years earlier at the Orange County School of the Arts, where Woodward had a reputation based on his far-right, anti-gay views.
Woodward, who kept a “hate diary” in which he boasted of pranking and terrorizing gay men, had dropped out of college and was living with his parents. Bernstein, a gay student at the University of Pennsylvania, was staying with his parents during winter break in Lake Forest.
Woodward suggested he was curious. Bernstein texted his address. Woodward took her up, and they went to a nearby park.
“Unfortunately for Blaze, curiosity killed him,” Walker said.
Walking in his own defense, Woodward appeared almost catatonic, his words halting and slurred, his eyes downcast, his face obscured by an unkempt curtain of hair. His lawyer had to remind him to look up.
Woodward testified that he took two puffs in a joint of strong marijuana, went into the haze and came out of it to find Bernstein touching his genitals.
According to Woodward’s account, Bernstein told him he was out, called him a hypocrite and said something like, “I got you.” Woodward said she was afraid Bernstein was taking photos of her genitalia and sending them messages to other people.
Asked for details about the stabbing, Woodward repeatedly said he couldn’t remember.
Bernstein’s blood was found on a knife named after Woodward’s father, leading prosecutors to conclude it was the murder weapon. But Woodward insists he used a different knife.
There is no evidence that Bernstein took Woodward’s explicit photos, and Walker, the prosecutor, called the defendant’s account “ludicrous” and “revisionist history.”
Deriding the idea that Woodward flew into a rage because of the fear of being outed, he said he had posted a photo of himself on his Tinder profile saying he was seeking someone else and had posted a photo of his penis more than once.
He said that “getting a weapon with your father’s name on it is very symbolic,” especially since Woodward, an Eagle Scout, has several knives. Prosecutors said that by killing Bernstein, Woodward hoped to raise his profile with the Atomwaffen Division.
“This will prove to Atomwaffen that he’s not gay,” Walker said. “It will prove to his father that he is not gay. It will prove to himself that he is not gay.”
When police searched Woodward’s belongings, they found a death’s head mask – the Atomwaffen emblem – covered in Bernstein’s blood, which Woodward had in his possession when he was stabbed.
“Why are you wearing a skull mask?” Walker said. “It’s a rite of passage that will give him prestige and awe, which he does. We hear Atomwaffen is proud of him for this.
Woodward buried Bernstein in a shallow grave in the park, and, to distract investigators, sent a text to Bernstein’s phone asking where he was. Woodward’s initial account to police was that he had accompanied Bernstein to the park, but Bernstein could not be identified.
After a week of searching, Bernstein’s body was found when rain washed away the dirt that had hidden the body. No shovel found. Dirt was found on Woodward’s nails, however, and Morrison said he had dug a makeshift grave with his hands, arguing that it was not a premeditated crime.
Morrison described her client as a socially awkward young man who had suffered from autism for years.
He said there was no evidence that Woodward had actually pranked and terrorized gay people beyond the accounts in his “hate diary”, which Morrison called empty boasting.
Morrison argued that Bernstein’s fatal stabbing was a “hate-driven crime inspired by Hitler and (Charles) Manson.”
He attributed his client’s attachment to the Atomwaffen Division to “a lifelong struggle to fit in, to make and maintain meaningful friendships,” which made him vulnerable to groups that offered friendship and took away people like him. He said his client has a “hunger for human connection.”
