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.
Good. He deserves to be.
Does this mean Woodward was probably closeted?
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.
I understand what you’re saying, but that does seem to be exactly what happened here.
connected via a dating app in the months before the killing. Woodward said he picked up Bernstein, went to a nearby park and repeatedly stabbed Bernstein after trying to grab a cellphone he feared had been used to photograph him.
Morrison, the defense lawyer, said Woodward was confused about his sexuality after growing up in a politically conservative and devout Catholic family where his father openly criticized homosexuality.
The bit right after that talks about how that was his MO for assaulting gay men and he kept a “profanity-laced journal” about his actions.
Right, but why is he spending so much time doing that? I don’t think it’s inconsistent, as the reason he spends all his time assaulting gay men is to externalize his self hatred.
I’ve spent enough time around religious wingnuts to know that some of them just do it out of hate and disgust. It’s not always self-disgust. Sometimes they just buy into the propaganda so deeply that any deviance is simply abhorrent and must be eradicated.
I have personally dragged a couple of people out of that mindset and they are very straight, so it was never a self-hatred thing, just a brainwashing thing.
That’s fair, and my main point was about the brainwashing too, and so I agree now that it’s irrelevant whether this guy was closeted or not.
Does it matter?
No. Just as Joe McCarthy wasn’t excused from his purges of gay people from government just because he happened to be homosexual as well doesn’t mean a member of atomwaffen gets any mercy for being gay
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I think it matters in the sense that these sorts of situations are created by toxic environments such as the one this killer was raised in, environments that are pervasive across much of the country.
It’s why they fight so hard to erase queer people from libraries and schools and the public in general, because the only way that environment can survive is if you can indoctrinate and shelter children for their developing years.
According to the article, not really closeted but confused. Kinda sucks that you’re getting demonized by people who didn’t read the article or under context.
And a mod assuming intent, not very pretty.
I’ll bear that cross, i don’t need to defend subjective goodfaith curiosity
Good, and I am sure as fuck glad to see I am not the only one taking notice. People love to bitch about groupthink, but they sure love to bleat.
According to the article my theory is that he’s likely confused about his own orientation but also still a member of atomwaffen. Like, being gay isn’t an excuse for homophobic violence, it’s something that we as a community have had to push forward as a stance for a long time because of the fact that it’s often gay people doing the dirty work of homophobia whether it’s running conversion camps or Joe McCarthy doing the lavender scare. But also, maybe he was lying. Neonazis love to claim to be queer during sentencing for queerphobic hate crimes
But beyond that, it’s not like Woodward was secretly confused Jewish. This was also antisemitic violence by a neonazi.
I hope Woodward gets his shit together in prison and becomes a voice for peace and tolerance from behind bars. But any issues I might begin to have with his sentencing aren’t about him, they’re about my discomfort with our country’s disproportionately long sentences as a whole.
Now THAT GUY looks like a killer!
He better get life, but heck, maybe he will get pardoned. Seems about right for 2025
The California governor would have to be the one pardoning him
Until the majority republican government passes a law gifting him god king powers.
