Former Classmate Convicted of Murder of Gay Teen Blaze Bernstein

Samuel Woodward, a California man accused of murdering his former classmate in 2018, has been found guilty in the hate crime case.

Blaze Bernstein, a 19-year-old Jewish and gay student at the University of Pennsylvania, disappeared while visiting family in Newport Beach over winter break in January 2018. His body was found after days of searching, buried in a Lake Forest park where he had been with Woodward the night he disappeared, authorities said. He had been stabbed 28 times, prosecutors said.

Woodward, now 26, was charged with first-degree murder with a hate crime penalty. Prosecutors had alleged that Woodward killed his high school classmate because Bernstein was gay.

Woodward had pleaded not guilty.

The jury returned its verdict Wednesday afternoon after a nearly three-month trial in Orange County.

Applause erupted in the gallery as Woodward was found guilty of a hate crime, prompting Judge Kimberly Menninger to ask people to “calm down.”

“I understand it's emotional, but I just can't accept it,” she said.

His sentencing is scheduled for October 25. He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Bernstein's family said in a statement that the verdict “brings some closure” six and a half years after the teenager's murder, but that it “cannot erase the pain of losing our son and the agony of waiting all these years without resolution.”

“No verdict can bring Blaze back to life. He was an extraordinary human being and humanitarian, someone we looked forward to seeing wonderful things in our lives during his young life,” the family said in a statement read by a representative at a news conference after the verdict. “Of this funny, articulate, kind, intelligent, caring, brilliant scientist, artist, writer, chef, and son, there will never be anyone like him. His gifts will never be realized or shared now.”

Orange County Senior Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Walker, who prosecuted the case, said she was grateful for the verdict.

“I'm so happy for the Bernsteins because it's been a very painful process,” she said at the press conference.

Defense attorney Ken Morrison told jurors during closing arguments that Woodward was guilty of manslaughter, though he said the act was not a hate crime but a spontaneous and irrational one.

“You’ve heard me say from the beginning that my client is guilty,” Morrison said. “Guilty of a serious and violent homicide. But as you also know, there are many different types of homicides.”

Woodward testified at trial that on the night of the murder, he went into a state of terror after thinking Bernstein may have recorded him sexually touching him in the park, and then pulled out a knife, ABC Los Angeles station KABC reported.

Walker told jurors in his closing argument that Woodward's hatred of gays and his affiliation with Atomwaffen Division – a far-right neo-Nazi group – led him to plan the murder.

“He already had his bags, he was already talking to the Atomwaffen people about going somewhere else, and he thought he was going to be okay,” she said. “It was only by the grace of God that the rain came and they found his body.”