Samuel Woodward talks to his lawyer Edward Munoz during a judge hearing during the Harbor Justice middle in Newport Beach, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2018. (Paul Bersebach/The Lime State Sign-up via AP, Share)
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NEWPORT SEASHORE, Calif. — About half a year before he had been stabbed to dying as to what prosecutors phone a dislike criminal activity, a homosexual University of Pennsylvania beginner graphically mentioned expectations getting gender together with the guy today billed within his killing, an investigator stated Tuesday.
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Blaze Bernstein texted a friend an image of Samuel Woodward and stated the two had come across each other and he believe they certainly were attending attach, claiming intercourse with the previous schoolmate was “legendary.”
Optimistic hookup with ex-schoolmate triggered homosexual beginner’s murder back into movie
Exactly what triggered that encounter had not been obvious during Woodward’s basic hearing on kill and detest crime fees, but detective Craig Goldsmith mentioned one of the anti-gay and hateful materials available on their telephone is reference to his efforts to present as “gay wondering” to attract males right after which display it as a prank.
“That’s the things they need,” Woodward typed utilizing an anti-gay slur.
Woodward, 21, got purchased to face trial in tangerine region Superior Court on kill and dislike crime expenses after prosecutors connected him into the stabbing through DNA and revealed he previously troves of homophobic and neo-Nazi information on his mobile. He’s got pleaded not liable.
Woodward stabbed Bernstein almost 20 times within the face and neck following the two found at a playground in January, prosecutors stated. The 2 had linked before in the evening on Snapchat and Woodward found Bernstein at their house.
Woodward advised detectives he was disgusted whenever Bernstein kissed him regarding the lips in the SUV and pushed your right back, but didn’t state he performed any such thing violent toward your.
Detective Dylan Jantzen testified during the one-day hearing that Woodward mentioned the guy planned to curse at Bernstein and name the target a slur for homosexual people.
Bernstein went lost Jan https://datingmentor.org/lesbian-dating-dallas-texas/. 2 and Woodward had been arrested about seven days later after the human body had been present in a superficial grave in Lake Forest playground in which that they had eliminated that night.
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Bloodstream spots from blade of a blade present Woodward’s room, under his watch and on the visor of their vehicle matched Bernstein very directly your potential for the hereditary content from someone else had been 1-in-a-trillion, forensic scientist Corrie Maggay testified.
Protection lawyer Edward Munoz performedn’t existing any witnesses, but demonstrated on cross-examination that Woodward announced he had autism and got socially awkward and intimately confused.
Munoz debated there seemed to be no proof of a hate criminal activity because reprehensible documents available on Woodward’s cellphone were not distributed to others, but in e-mails to himself.
“I think in a hate criminal activity case you need to have an external manifestation of your loathing to the world,” Munoz stated following the hearing.
If convicted of first-degree kill in addition to hate crime allegation, prosecutors could search a sentence as high as lifestyle in prison without parole.
Goldsmith testified that Woodward have more than 100 items of contents pertaining to the violent hate class Atomwaffen. The party’s insignia is the wallpaper on their telephone.
One email the guy sent himself ended up being also known as “Sam’s journal of dislike,” and then he chatted on the internet with friends about participating in a “Death area detest Camp” that integrated mention of tools, Goldsmith mentioned.
His phone also incorporated pictures with Nazi recommendations.
Bernstein, who was gay and Jewish, was visiting their parents in pond Forest, Ca, during winter season split from their sophomore 12 months at Penn.
In addition to the mail that discussed Woodward’s gay “pranking,” the guy in addition blogged to himself that he terrified homosexual men by delivering all of them photo throughout the gay dating site Grindr of additional gay people being slain. The guy stated someone have replied that he was going to contact the FBI.
“They thought they are going to get dislike crimed,” he published, per Goldsmith.
Fourteen days prior to the slaying, alongside an illustration of a bloody blade, the guy typed on Snapchat: “Texting is dull, but kill is not,” based on Jantzen.