Samuel Woodward, who is now 27, is scheduled to be sentenced in a Southern California courtroom for the murder of Blaze Bernstein nearly seven years ago. There is no question about the sentence Woodward will receive because the jury’s verdict carries a life sentence without parole, said Kimberly Edds, a spokesperson for the Orange County District Attorney’s office.
Woodward was convicted this year of first-degree murder with an enhancement for a hate crime for killing Bernstein, a gay, Jewish college sophomore.
Bernstein, who was 19, disappeared in January 2018 after he went out at night with Woodward to a park in Lake Forest, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. After Bernstein missed a dentist appointment the next day, his parents found his glasses, wallet and credit cards in his bedroom and tried to reach him, but he didn’t respond.
Can we please not blame every atrocious queerphobic act on queer people doing it to each other?
If these two were both heterosexual, no one would have asked if he was secretly Jewish because he killed a Jewish person.