California man to be sentenced for hate-crime killing of Blaze Bernstein

A 27-year-old man is to be sentenced Friday in an Orange County courthouse for the 2018 hate crime killing of a gay former classmate.

Samuel Lincoln Woodward faces life in prison without the possibility of parole for fatally stabbing 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein.

The Newport Beach man was found guilty in July for the death of Bernstein, whose body was found days after he went missing, stabbed over 28 times, and buried in a shallow grave at a Lake Forest Park.

DNA evidence linked Woodward to the killing, and his cellphone contained troves of anti-gay, antisemitic and hate group materials, authorities said.  

The prosecution had argued for Woodward to be found guilty of first-degree murder as a hate crime, because of the victim's sexual orientation, not because he was Jewish. Defense attorneys argued that Woodward should be convicted of voluntary manslaughter and acquitted of hate-crime allegations.   

Woodward admitted to stabbing Bernstein, a 19-year-old gay, Jewish man, multiple times in 2018, but pleaded not guilty to murder with an enhancement for a hate crime.  

The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for just one day. 

Woodward and Bernstein attended the Orange County School of the Arts together for four years. Bernstein graduated after six years at the school and became a pre-med student at the University of Pennsylvania. 

The sophomore was home on winter break, visiting his family in 2018 when he was killed.