California Man Goes on Trial in Alleged Hate Case Years After College Student’s Fatal Stabbing

The killing of a gay University of Pennsylvania student in Southern California more than six years ago was a hate crime, a prosecutor said Tuesday in opening statements of a murder trial.

The defendant, 26-year-old Samuel Woodward of Newport Beach, is accused of stabbing to death Blaze Bernstein, a 19-year-old gay, Jewish college sophomore who was home visiting family on winter break. The two had previously attended the same high school in Orange County.

Prosecutor Jennifer Walker said Woodward had joined a violent, anti-gay, antisemitic group known as Atomwaffen Division and repeatedly targeted gay men online by reaching out to them and then abruptly broke off contact while keeping a hateful, profanity-laced journal of his actions.

Read the source article at Associated Press