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Blaze Bernstein had been lacking per week when investigators discovered his physique buried underneath 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 scholar on the College of Pennsylvania, the place he was the managing editor of Penn Appetit, a student-run meals journal, he had come house 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 Faculty of the Arts, who had admitted to being with him within the park the evening he disappeared. Investigators stated they discovered Bernstein’s blood on a visor in Woodward’s automobile, and on a knife found in a drawer on the Newport Seashore house the place Woodward lived along with his mother and father.
Bernstein was Jewish and homosexual, whereas Woodward, in line with one in every of 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 could have performed in Bernstein’s loss of life will probably 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 may 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 Choose Kimberly Menninger throughout one in every of many hearings main as much as the trial.
The precise protection technique stays unclear, however one in every of Morrison’s goals will probably be to decouple his shopper’s alleged crimes from his shopper’s affiliation with the Atomwaffen Division. The legal professional 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 of video cameras within the courtroom, which “actually could possibly be traumatizing” to a few of the 56 individuals on his witness record, a few of whom are reluctant to testify.
“Is it just because the information media loves the salacious narrative that they created?” Morrison stated, including that in a fraught political local weather, publicity poses a “higher danger of prejudice for Mr. Woodward.”
Menninger, the choose, stated the trial entails “nice problems with public curiosity,” together with “homicide, sexual orientation, gender and faith.” She stated she would enable cameras on a restricted foundation, partly as a result of transparency would serve the protection of the courthouse.
“I have to be certain individuals belief us,” Menninger stated. “I would like them to see that we aren’t hiding the ball.”
In line 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 cellphone by hand to New Jersey, the place a telecommunications firm referred to as Cellebrite Inc. labored for 10 weeks to search out the PIN code, bypassing the auto-shutdown perform.
On Woodward’s cellphone, 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 line with Sheriff’s Division testimony, the cellphone additionally contained emails Woodward wrote and despatched to himself underneath the heading “Sam’s Diary.” One e-mail from Might 2017 stated:
“I inform sodomites that I’m bi-curious, which makes them need to ‘convert’ me … Get them hooked by appearing 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 individuals.
“LMAO,” he wrote, in line with testimony. “They assume they will get hate crimed and it scares the s— out of them … Priceless.”
In line with investigators, Woodward acknowledged assembly Bernstein on the evening he vanished however asserted that Bernstein walked alone into the park and left him ready, uncertain “if Blaze was pranking him.”
Woodward additionally stated 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 fingers, Woodward stated 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 begin over. Woodward’s prior legal professional stated his shopper had Asperger’s syndrome and was torn about his sexuality. The trial is predicted to final via the tip of June.
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