This blog is originally appeared at LGBTQ Nation.
The victim’s mother expressed that her son was forced to “die while staring at an Atomwaffen mask.”
A member of a neo-Nazi group, whose computer was filled with anti-gay and anti-Jewish propaganda, was sentenced to life in prison on Friday for the brutal stabbing death of a gay and Jewish former high school classmate.
Samuel Lincoln Woodward, 26, from Newport Beach, California, received a life sentence without the possibility of parole after a jury convicted him in July of first-degree murder with a hate crime enhancement in the killing of Blaze Bernstein. Bernstein, 19, was home from college on winter break in 2018 when he was murdered.
Judge Kimberly Menninger stated that Woodward, then 21, was driven by “pure hate and rage” due to the victim’s “sexual orientation and religious beliefs,” describing the two former schoolmates as being on “opposite ends of a culture war.”
Woodward had reconnected with Bernstein on a gay dating app and arranged to meet while Bernstein was home on holiday break in January. The University of Pennsylvania student met Woodward in a public park, where prosecutors say Woodward stabbed him 28 times before burying him in a shallow grave.
The next day, Bernstein’s parents reported him missing and began searching through his online activity for clues. They found that he had been in contact with Woodward, a former classmate at Orange County School of the Arts. Woodward later told the Bernsteins that he had met their son but claimed Bernstein had walked off into the park with an unknown person and that he never saw him again, according to the district attorney’s office.
Bernstein’s body was found a week later in the park, exposed after heavy rains.
Investigators found Bernstein’s blood on a skull mask in Woodward’s possession, linked to Atomwaffen, a neo-Nazi group to which Woodward had pledged allegiance. The group advocates for using violence to collapse society and government.
During the three-week trial in July, Woodward’s attorney argued that the killing was a spontaneous, irrational act. Woodward testified that he felt “anger like nothing I had ever felt in my whole life,” and described repeatedly stabbing Bernstein, saying he did not remember how many times he struck him. Woodward claimed he was provoked into the attack when Bernstein allegedly took a photo of his genitals, and said that he was in a haze after smoking cannabis at the park when he discovered Bernstein was touching him.
At the sentencing, prosecutors reminded the judge that Woodward was a former Eagle Scout who may have killed Bernstein to impress Atomwaffen and prove he wasn’t gay.
Bernstein’s mother said at the sentencing that she was haunted by the thought that her son was forced “to die looking at an Atomwaffen mask.”
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