Samuel Woodward, 27, was sentenced in a Southern California courtroom at the end of an all-day hearing for the murder of Blaze Bernstein nearly seven years ago. Woodward, who did did not appear in court Friday due to illness, was convicted this year of ...

A California judge sentenced Samuel Lincoln Woodward, 26, of Newport Beach to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a jury in July found him guilty of first-degree murder with a hate crime enhancement in the death of Blaze Bernstein, who was 19 at the time of his death and home from college on winter break in 2018.

This was a hate crime," Blaze Bernstein’s mother, Jeanne Pepper, told the court. “Samuel Woodward ended my son’s life because my son was Jewish and gay.”

Samuel Woodward, 27, was convicted of murder as a hate crime for the killing of Blaze Bernstein, a gay, Jewish college sophomore