Years after a college student was stabbed to death, a California man is tried in a hate case

SANTA ANA, California — More than six years after University of Pennsylvania student Blaze Bernstein was murdered, the Southern California man accused of stabbing him to death out of hatred is expected to stand trial.

Opening statements are scheduled for Tuesday in the murder trial of Samuel Woodward, now 26, of Newport Beach, California. He has pleaded not guilty.

Woodward is accused of stabbing to death Bernstein, a 19-year-old gay, Jewish college sophomore who was home visiting his family over winter break. The two young men had previously attended the same high school in Orange County.

Bernstein went missing after going to a park in Lake Forest, California, with Woodward in January 2018. 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 phone calls, prosecutors wrote in a court brief.

Days later, Bernstein’s body was found, buried in the park in a shallow grave.

Woodward picked Bernstein up from his parents’ home after connecting with him on Snapchat and stabbed him nearly 20 times in the face and neck, authorities said.

DNA evidence linked Woodward to the killing and his cellphone contained large amounts of anti-gay, anti-Semitic and hate group material, authorities said.

Woodward tried to join the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division, which espoused white supremacy, a year earlier, according to prosecutors’ brief. He made diary entries, including one titled “Diary of Hate,” detailing threats he said he made against gay people online, the letter said.

A folding knife with a bloody blade was found in Woodward’s room at his parents’ home in the upscale community of Newport Beach, authorities said. Woodward was arrested two days later.

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

It took years for the case to go to trial after questions arose about Woodward’s mental state and several changes of attorneys. Woodward was deemed competent to stand trial in late 2022.

One of Woodward’s former attorneys said his client has Asperger syndrome, a developmental disorder that typically causes problems with social interactions, and struggled with his own sexuality.

Ken Morrison, Woodward’s attorney, urged the public not to jump to conclusions about the case.

“For the past six years, the public has read and heard a persecutory and bogus narrative about this case that is simply fundamentally wrong,” Morrison wrote in an email. “I caution everyone to respect our legal process and wait until a jury has had the opportunity to see, hear and evaluate all of the evidence.”

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