Samuel Woodward, who killed and buried former classmate Blaze Bernstein in Southern California, gets life without parole

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Samuel Woodward, who admitted to killing former high school classmate Blaze Bernstein and burying his body at the edge of a Lake Forest park in what a jury agreed was a hate-crime murder, was sentenced on Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Woodward, now 27, was convicted in July of first-degree murder for the January 2018 slaying of 19-year-old Bernstein, who also attended Orange County School of the Arts.

Friday’s sentencing hearing was delayed when Woodward did not come out of his jail cell. His attorney said later his client was sick. The hearing, which had been set to begin at 10 a.m., did not begin until 2 p.m., and it was held without Woodward in court.

The search for Bernstein — ending with the discovery of his body and the arrest of Woodward — drew national attention. Woodward’s jury trial, which lasted nearly three months, was the most closely watched criminal trial in recent Orange County history.

The two young men were acquaintances, but not friends, when both attended the Santa Ana campus.

Bernstein was Jewish, gay, quick-witted and intelligent with a large circle of friends. After high school he enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a pre-med student.

Woodward, who is on the autism spectrum, struggled at the largely liberal high school campus, where his conservative views and at-times homophobic statements made him an outcast. He dropped out after less than a year at California State, Channel Islands, then moved to Texas to meet up with members of the Atomwaffen Division — a Neo-Nazi hate group — before moving back in with his parents in Newport Beach.

Woodward admitted to stabbing Bernstein to death during a late night meeting at Borrego Park.

The prosecution argued that the murder was driven by hate and carried out in furtherance of the ideals of the Atomwaffen Division.

The defense countered that the killing was unplanned and occurred in the heat of passion, and therefore was a lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter.