Blaze Bernstein had been lacking every week when investigators discovered his physique buried beneath a skinny layer of mud at Borrego Park in Lake Forest in January 2018, with 19 stab wounds to his neck.
A 19-year-old pupil on the College of Pennsylvania, the place he was the managing editor of Penn Appetit, a student-run meals journal, he had come residence to spend the vacations along with his household in Orange County.
Suspicion quickly fell on 20-year-old Samuel Woodward, Bernstein’s former schoolmate on the Orange County College of the Arts, who had admitted to being with him within the park the night time he disappeared. Investigators mentioned they discovered Bernstein’s blood on a visor in Woodward’s automobile, and on a knife found in a drawer on the Newport Seaside residence the place Woodward lived along with his dad and mom.
Bernstein was Jewish and homosexual, whereas Woodward, in line with one among his attorneys, was conflicted about his sexuality. When investigators managed to hack into Woodward’s iPhone, they unearthed a trove of anti-gay, anti-Jewish materials linked to the Atomwaffen Division, a white supremacist hate group.
The position that ideology might have performed in Bernstein’s dying might be sharply contested at his trial, with opening statements anticipated to start Tuesday in Orange County Superior Courtroom. Woodward is charged with homicide, with enhancements to be used of a lethal weapon and for hate crime, which might put him in jail for all times with out parole.
“There’s this narrative that’s been pushed: Nazi kills homosexual Jew. From the protection perspective, that’s inaccurate,” Assistant Public Defender Kenneth Morrison instructed Decide Kimberly Menninger throughout one among many hearings main as much as the trial.
The precise protection technique stays unclear, however one among Morrison’s goals might be to decouple his shopper’s alleged crimes from his shopper’s affiliation with the Atomwaffen Division. The lawyer has argued, with little success, to have references to Adolf Hitler and Nazis excluded from testimony on the premise that they’re inflammatory.
The case has drawn widespread media curiosity, and Morrison objected to the potential for video cameras within the courtroom, which “actually may very well be traumatizing” to among the 56 folks on his witness listing, a few of whom are reluctant to testify.
“Is it just because the information media loves the salacious narrative that they created?” Morrison mentioned, including that in a fraught political local weather, publicity poses a “larger threat of prejudice for Mr. Woodward.”
Menninger, the decide, mentioned the trial entails “nice problems with public curiosity,” together with “homicide, sexual orientation, gender and faith.” She mentioned she would enable cameras on a restricted foundation, partially as a result of transparency would serve the protection of the courthouse.
“I have to be certain folks belief us,” Menninger mentioned. “I want them to see that we’re not hiding the ball.”
In accordance with testimony at a preliminary listening to in September 2018, the Orange County Sheriff’s Division labored diligently to crack open the contents of Woodward’s iPhone. An investigator carried the telephone by hand to New Jersey, the place a telecommunications firm known as Cellebrite Inc. labored for 10 weeks to search out the PIN code, bypassing the auto-shutdown operate.
On Woodward’s telephone, investigators discovered an abundance of Atomwaffen-related materials, together with a photograph of Woodward with James Mason, the creator of “Siege,” which a prosecutor described as “the Bible” of the hate group.
In accordance with Sheriff’s Division testimony, the telephone additionally contained emails Woodward wrote and despatched to himself beneath the heading “Sam’s Diary.” One electronic mail from Might 2017 mentioned:
“I inform sodomites that I’m bi-curious, which makes them need to ‘convert’ me … Get them hooked by performing coy, perhaps ship them a pic or two, beat across the bush and faux to inform them that I like them after which kabam, I both un-friend them or inform them they’ve been pranked, ha ha.”
In one other, from July 2017, he wrote that he had downloaded the courting app Grindr and was amusing himself by threatening homosexual folks.
“LMAO,” he wrote, in line with testimony. “They suppose they’ll get hate crimed and it scares the s— out of them … Priceless.”
In accordance with investigators, Woodward acknowledged assembly Bernstein on the night time he vanished however asserted that Bernstein walked alone into the park and left him ready, uncertain “if Blaze was pranking him.”
Woodward additionally mentioned that Bernstein had made a go at him, an investigator testified, however Woodward discovered homosexuality “gross.” Requested about “quite a few cuts and scrapes” on his arms, Woodward mentioned he acquired them in a combat membership, in line with testimony within the preliminary listening to.
Six years after the killing, jury choice started in late February. A courtroom outburst by Woodward compelled the method to start out over. Woodward’s prior lawyer mentioned his shopper had Asperger’s syndrome and was torn about his sexuality. The trial is anticipated to final via the tip of June.
