Samuel Woodward, 26, has been found guilty of first-degree murder with a hate crime enhancement for the 2018 stabbing death of gay college student Blaze Bernstein. The two had attended high school together and reconnected on a dating app. The jury took less than two days to come to a verdict.
A California man has been convicted of murder with a hate crime enhancement for the 2018 stabbing death of a gay University of Pennsylvania student. https://t.co/m44zvosCw4
— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 4, 2024
From NBC News:
The question during the monthslong trial was not whether Woodward killed Bernstein but why, and the circumstances under which it happened.
During closing arguments, prosecutor Jennifer Walker emphasized Woodward’s affiliation with a violent, anti-gay, antisemitic group known as Atomwaffen Division.
Prosecutors said Woodward joined Atomwaffen Division and repeatedly targeted gay men online by reaching out to them and then abruptly breaking off contact while keeping a hateful, profanity-laced journal of his actions.
They said Woodward showed an interest in carrying out violent acts in the weeks before the killing and reached out to Bernstein online.
California neo-Nazi found guilty of murder of former classmate https://t.co/oqmcA0f1Vz
— Guardian Australia (@GuardianAus) July 4, 2024
reports that Woodward testified that he picked Bernstein up the night of the crime after connecting on Tinder, and went to a park to sit and talk while smoking marijuana. Woodward told the jury the cannabis made him sleepy and closed his eyes. He remembers feeling Bernstein make a sexual move toward him and claimed he thought Bernstein might have been recording the encounter.
Woodward said he flew into a rage, screaming at Bernstein and struggling to grab the cellphone. He grabbed one of the knives he had used to open a metal container of marijuana, he said, and “at that point the phone wasn’t in the way anymore, nothing was in the way any more.”
Forensic evidence and law enforcement testimony at trial showed Woodward stabbed Bernstein nearly 30 times.
The defense lawyers argued the killing was not a premeditated murder, but a violent reaction from “a young man with untreated autism, a confused sexual identity, and the baggage of growing up in a staunchly conservative, occasionally violent home where he was bullied and sometimes beaten by his father and brother.” Police searched Woodward’s family home and found a folding knife with a bloodied blade in his room. They also found a black Atomwaffen mask with traces of Bernstein’s blood and anti-gay, antisemitic and hate group materials. A search of Woodward’s phone revealed a “hate diary” chronicling his attempts to “catfish” gay men online. Woodward faces a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole due to the hate crime enhancement.
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