Samuel Woodward stabbed his former high-school classmate Blaze Bernstein to death when the two met up while on winter break in 2018, his defense attorney acknowledged Tuesday morning at the outset of Woodward’s high-profile murder trial, leaving jurors to decide exactly why he carried out the violent killing.
Woodward, now 27, is accused of targeting his former classmate over Bernstein’s sexuality, with Senior Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Walker flatly stating to an Orange County Superior Court jury that Woodward killed Blaze Bernstein “because he was gay.”
The prosecutor focused much of her opening statements in a Santa Ana courtroom on Woodward’s ties to a neo-Nazi militia group and on a “hate diary” in which he appeared to express an explicit hatred of gay and Jewish people. Among the items shown to the jury were emails in which Woodward wrote about “sodomites” needing to die, as well as a photograph in his possession of a napkin drawing of a knife dripping with blood along with the phrase “texting is boring but murder isn’t.”
“He was doing his research,” Walker said of Woodward’s online interactions with gay individuals. “He was investigating his prey.”
Assistant Public Defender Ken Morrison countered by acknowledging that Woodward killed Bernstein, but denying that it had anything to do with Bernstein’s sexuality or his Jewish heritage.
The defense attorney attacked what he described as the “hyperbolic, sensationalized narrative of ‘Nazi kills gay Jew’ ” surrounding the case.
“Sam Woodward never planned to kill Blaze Bernstein or anyone else,” Morrison told jurors. “What happened that night, plain and simple, was not a hate crime.”
Morrison during his remarks to the jury on Tuesday morning and afternoon did not say what he believed happened between Woodward and Bernstein the night of the killing. But the defense attorney is scheduled to continue his opening statements on Wednesday…
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