The killing of Blaze Bernstein by former classmate Samuel Woodward was not driven by hate, a defense attorney suggested Wednesday as he detailed for jurors the complex interactions between the two young men on a dating app leading up to Bernstein’s violent slaying in January 2018.
Bernstein directed Woodward to the Lake Forest park where he was killed, and shortly before his death sent a text message that left another friend worried about his safety, Assistant Public Defender Ken Morrison told an Orange County Superior Court jury late Wednesday during a second day of opening statements in Woodward’s murder trial.
A day earlier, Woodward’s attorney acknowledged to jurors that Woodward killed Bernstein, who was found buried at the edge of Borrego Park in the Foothill Ranch area of Lake Forest.
Prosecutors allege that Woodward, now 26, killed Bernstein because Bernstein was gay. Growing up in a conservative household, Woodward developed anti-gay and antisemitic beliefs that led him to join a neo-Nazi group and eventually target gay men — including Bernstein — online, Senior Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Walker told jurors Tuesday.
Woodward’s attorney painted a more nuanced portrait of Woodward, describing him as an outcast who is on the autism spectrum and struggled to make friends and with his own sexuality.
The defense attorney stopped short of describing exactly what he believed happened the night of the killing, though he promised jurors that Woodward himself will testify during the trial.
Instead, Morrison, as he wrapped up his opening statements in a Santa Ana courtroom on Wednesday, focused on a pair of conversations on the dating site Tinder that Woodward and Bernstein began six months before Woodward’s death and ended the night of the slaying.
Both young men had attended the Orange County School of the Arts, where Woodward gained a reputation for his conservative views. On June 15, 2017, Bernstein messaged other friends that he had spotted a Tinder profile belonging to Woodward that indicated he was open to being matched up with other men.
Woodward and Bernstein began exchanging messages on Tinder, with Bernstein telling Woodward that he was “literally the last person I expected to see on here.” Woodward initially denied that he was looking for a sexual relationship with another man, claiming that he was looking for a hunting partner.
The exchange took a flirtatious turn, however, with Bernstein telling Woodward that he was “cute” and Woodward responding that “you are not too shabby yourself, Blaze.” But after Bernstein said they couldn’t meet up that night, Woodward seemed to back off, claiming he had been lying and was just curious since he “had never been hit on by a gay guy before.”
At multiple points in the conversation, Bernstein promised Woodward that he wouldn’t tell anyone else. But Bernstein was lying, the defense attorney said, and was messaging other friends about the Tinder conversation with Woodward even as it was going on.
Bernstein explained to one friend that Woodward was “super conservative,” according to messages the defense attorney showed the jury, later adding that “I need to get (expletive) by Sam Woodward, it would be legendary.”
Six months later, in January 2018, Woodward apparently reached out to Bernstein on Tinder.
Bernstein — a pre-med student at the time at the University of Pennsylvania — was home on winter break. Woodward already had dropped out of college in order to temporarily move to Texas to train with Atomwaffen Division, an armed fascist organization, and then returned to his parent’s home in Newport Beach.
Woodward, in the second Tinder conversation, wrote to Bernstein “I think I owe you an explanation about why I unmasked with you” and adding “I was going through a weird time in my life and I think I figured things out now.” Bernstein appeared initially unmoved, at one point saying “I literally don’t care.”
Bernstein noted in the conversation that Woodward “was straight,” at which point Woodward responded “I might make an exception for you.” Bernstein didn’t appear convinced, telling Woodward, “We have already done this prank, remember.”
However, Woodward asked for Bernstein’s Snapchat information, and during a conversation on that social media service Bernstein apparently sent Woodward his address. A short time later, Woodward picked Bernstein up and the two drove to nearby Borrego Park.
Shortly after 11:30 p.m., Bernstein sent his last text message to another friend.
“I did something really horrible for the story,” Bernstein wrote. “But no one can ever know.”
“What story?” the friend responded. “Hey, I’m really worried about you… please text me.”
The next day, Bernstein’s parents realized he was missing. A headline-grabbing six-day search ended with the discovery of his body, which had been stabbed more than 20 times, primarily in the neck.
Investigators learned that Woodward was the last person to see Bernstein alive. Woodward told them that Bernstein had walked off into the park to meet another person, whose identity Woodward did not know, and had never returned.
A variety of forensic evidence tied Woodward to the killing, including a knife found in his room with blood on the tip and the handle that was matched through DNA to Bernstein, and blood stains matching both men in Woodward’s vehicle.
Investigators also found emails Woodward sent to himself that the prosecutor described as a “hate diary” in which he appeared to express an explicit hatred of gay and Jewish people and described meeting gay men on dating sites, gaining their trust and then “ghosting” or scaring them.
Morrison, Woodward’s attorney, told jurors that there was “another explanation” for why Woodward wrote those messages, and denied it was a “hate diary,” but did not explain further during his opening statements.
Along with first-degree murder, Woodward is also facing a hate crime enhancement. So if jurors are convinced he killed Bernstein due to his sexuality, Woodward could face a harsher sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
Source: Orange County Register
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