The man accused of murdering a gay Jewish teenager in Southern California faces trial six years after the brutal stabbing death.
Samuel Woodward, 26, has pleaded not guilty to murder and a hate crime charge in the death of 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein in 2018.
The trial has taken more than half a decade to begin, largely due to questions about Woodward’s mental fitness to stand trial.
Opening statements were held in a Southern California courtroom on Tuesday, two years after Woodward was deemed competent to stand trial in 2022.
Bernstein, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, was visiting family in Orange County in January 2018 when he made plans to meet with Woodward.
Woodward, then 20 years old and originally from Newport Beach, was, according to his defense team, mentally unstable and conflicted about his sexuality.
Samuel Woodward, originally from Newport Beach, has pleaded not guilty and his attorneys will argue that he is innocent of both the murder charge and the hate crime enhancement that was added to it.
Blaze Bernstein, a 19-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania, was gay and Jewish. In January 2018, he was at his home in Orange County visiting his family when he was murdered.
The suspect was also linked to a white supremacist group, Atomwaffen Division, and kept a large amount of anti-gay and anti-Semitic material on his cell phone, which investigators were able to hack.
In a journal entry from Woodward titled “Diary of Hate,” he described threats he claims to have made against gay people online, according to a prosecutor’s filing.
Before the trial, Deputy Public Defender Ken Morrison told Judge Kimberly Menninger: “This narrative has been pushed: Nazis kill gay Jews. From a defense perspective, that’s inaccurate.”
The top prosecutor said Tuesday that the state will argue that Woodward “killed Blaze Bernstein because he was gay,” not because he was Jewish.
Bernstein disappeared after a trip to a park in Lake Forest with Woodward. They both attended Orange County School of the Arts and connected over Snapchat after matching on Tinder while Bernstein was home.
The teen’s parents later found his glasses, wallet and credit cards in his room after he missed a dentist appointment on Jan. 3 and wasn’t answering texts or calls.
Several days later, Bernstein’s body was discovered in a shallow grave in the park near his parents’ home.
Authorities say Woodward picked Bernstein up from his parents’ house and then stabbed him about 20 times in the face and neck.
DNA evidence connected Woodward to the stabbing murder, a theory supported by the trove of anti-gay and anti-Jew material found on his phone.
Woodward was arrested two days after a bloody sword was found in his bedroom at his parents’ home in the exclusive enclave of Newport Beach.
The case has taken years to come to trial because of questions about Woodward’s mental state and his fitness to stand trial. Several public defenders resigned from Woodward, and the lead prosecutor on the case at one point became a judge.
Bernstein’s body was discovered in a shallow grave in the park near his parents’ home.
Samuel Lincoln Woodward, 20, of Newport Beach, right, suspect in the murder of Blaze Bernstein, 19, consults with his attorney in January 2018.
Bernstein disappeared after a trip to a park in Lake Forest with Woodward. They both attended Orange County School of the Arts and connected over Snapchat while Bernstein was home.
Blaze Bernstein’s parents read a statement at a news conference outside the Orange County Sheriff’s Department after their son’s body was found a week after he went missing from their family home.
As of late 2022, he was deemed competent. He also went through several defense attorneys, one of whom claimed that Woodward has Asperger’s syndrome, which typically causes difficulty in social interactions.
In February, as the jury selection process began, an outburst by Woodward in court forced the process to begin again. The defendant reportedly threw a glass of water at Judge Menninger.
The Bernstein family has reportedly been frustrated by the trial delays. They hope the start of the trial brings them one step closer to justice for their son’s murder.
Before the trial, Morrison said: “For the last six years, the public has been reading and hearing a prosecution and scandal narrative about this case that is simply fundamentally wrong.”
“I caution everyone to respect our judicial process and wait until a jury has been able to see, hear and evaluate all the evidence,” he said.
The defense framed its strategy Tuesday around the idea that Blaze Bernstein was killed by Woofward “because of what Sam learned that night about what Blaze had been doing over the previous six months.”
The implication of the argument is that it was Bernstein who lured Woodward to the park that night, and not quite the opposite. according to journalist Louis Keenewho has been observing the trial.
Morrison has also said that one of his main objectives will be to separate the crime his client is accused of from his association with the Atomwaffen Division.
Morrison has previously sought to have references to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis excluded from testimony during the trial due to their inflammatory nature.
He has also said that, despite media interest, having cameras in the courtroom during the trial could “be traumatizing” for some of the 56 witnesses scheduled to testify.
‘Is it simply because the media loves the salacious narrative they created?’ the public defender asked.
Judge Menninger, however, determined that the trial involves “major issues of public interest.” Therefore, he will allow cameras in the courtroom on a limited basis.
‘I need to be sure that people trust us. “I need them to see that we are not hiding the ball,” he stated.
The trial is expected to last two to three months and possibly extend until the end of June.
Woodward has gone through several defense attorneys in the six years since his arrest.
At a preliminary hearing held in 2018, the OC Sheriff’s Department worked hard to open the contents of Woodward’s iPhone.
Their successful efforts resulted in a gold mine of suspicious material, including emails the young man had written and sent to himself under the title “Sam’s Diary.”
“I tell sodomites that I’m doubly curious, which makes them want to ‘convert’ me… Get them hooked by acting coy, maybe send them a photo or two, beat around the bush and pretend to tell them I like them” . and then kabam, either I unfriend them or tell them they were pranked, ha ha,’ she wrote in one of those emails dated May 2017.
In another email he sent in July 2017, Woodward wrote about downloading the gay dating app Grindr.
‘LMAO. “They think they are going to commit hate crimes and that scared them to death… It is priceless.”
Investigators say Woodward admitted to being with Bernstein the night she disappeared, but said the victim walked through the park alone, leaving him waiting.
Woodward also said Bernstein made a pass at him, but the suspect believed homosexuality was “disgusting.”
On Tuesday, prosecutors presented new messages between Woodward and Bernstein, in which Woodward told Blaze that he was still straight, but that he “could make an exception for you.”