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“It was the start of hell,” the daddy of Blaze Bernstein recalled throughout testimony Thursday about studying in January 2018 that his son was lacking, main to an enormous search that ended almost every week later with the invention of the younger man’s physique in a makeshift grave on the fringe of a Lake Forest park.
Bernstein’s mom and father took the stand Thursday in a Santa Ana courtroom within the midst of the Orange County Superior Courtroom trial of Sam Woodward, a former Orange County Faculty of the Arts classmate accused of stabbing Bernstein to dying as a result of Bernstein was homosexual.
Woodward’s lawyer acknowledged earlier this week at the outset of the trial that Woodward killed Bernstein, however denied it was a hate crime. Such a jury willpower would result in a longer prison sentence.
Bernstein was a 19-year-old pre-med College of Pennsylvania scholar who on the time of his dying was staying at his household’s Lake Forest residence whereas on winter break. Woodward had dropped out of faculty and frolicked in Texas with a neo-Nazi group earlier than returning to reside at his household’s Newport Seaside residence.
On Jan. 3, 2018, the Bernstein household gathered for a belated “Thanksgiving” meal to make up for the vacation gathering their son had missed whereas he was off in school. Blaze himself served because the chef, his mom, Jeanne Pepper, testified.
“He cooked a tremendous dinner for the household, like a feast,” the mom mentioned. “I used to be actually blown away.”
Bernstein was nonetheless awake when his dad and mom went to sleep. Unbeknownst to his mom and father, Bernstein later that evening met up with Woodward, who apparently killed Bernstein at close by Borrego Park.
“He usually would inform us if he was going out,” Pepper testified, “However he didn’t have to inform us. He was over 18. It was a courtesy.”
“We didn’t have any guidelines about that, sadly,” the mom added.
Bernstein’s dad and mom didn’t assume something about not seeing him the next morning, assuming he was sleeping in. However when Bernstein didn’t reply to cellphone calls and failed to point out as much as an appointment he and his mom shared at a Huntington Seaside dental workplace, their nervousness elevated.
After the appointment, the mom mentioned she referred to as a housekeeper who had visited their residence earlier within the day.
“I mentioned ‘Did you see Blaze this morning?’ She mentioned, ‘He wasn’t in his room, the mattress was made after I went in there this morning,” Pepper mentioned.
“I screamed on the prime of my lungs after I heard that,” the mom added.
Bernstein’s father, Gideon, mentioned he rushed residence after his spouse referred to as him at his workplace.
“It was the start of hell,” the daddy mentioned.
The dad and mom regarded of their son’s room and noticed quite a few objects he usually would have introduced with him if he deliberate to go away the home for an prolonged time period.
“His automobile keys have been there, His glasses have been on his desk, his pockets was there,” the daddy testified, choking again emotion. “His suitcase was opened up on the ground with all his garments folded neatly, prepared for him to fly again to high school in a couple of days.”
The dad and mom reached out to pals for recommendation. A deputy stopped by the home, however the dad and mom mentioned he dissuaded them from instantly reporting their son lacking.
“The defining second was when somebody requested if we had checked any of his social media,” the daddy testified.
On their son’s Snapchat account the dad and mom observed messages the evening earlier than from Woodward, who they didn’t know and weren’t conscious had gone to high school with their son.
“It was some questions of Blaze about ‘the place did you go?’, some expletives, and it was a story that went on for a bunch of unanswered messages,” the daddy mentioned of the Snapchat messages from Woodward.
The dad and mom reached out to Woodward by means of their son’s Snapchat account.
He spoke to them by cellphone, a name the daddy placed on speakerphone and which his daughter recorded on one other cellphone. The video footage was proven in court docket on Thursday, the primary time jurors have heard Woodward communicate at size throughout the trial.
“We have been making an attempt to unravel a thriller of what occurred to Blaze, and I assumed it was necessary to doc each a part of it till we came upon who did it,” the daddy mentioned of their choice to report their name with Woodward.
Woodward throughout the cellphone name instructed the dad and mom that Blaze had instructed him he was assembly one other individual on the park, had walked away from Woodward’s automobile and by no means returned.
“I’m sorry, I assumed Blaze was simply pulling a prank on me or some (expletive) like that,” Woodward mentioned.
“I’m scared now,” he later added.
The dad and mom pushed Woodward to offer them as many particulars as he may. He instructed them he didn’t know who the third individual he claimed Woodward had left to satisfy was.
“You’re the first actual clue to the puzzle right here,” the daddy mentioned as he requested Woodward for assist.
“I wish to discover Blaze as a lot as you do,” Woodward instructed the daddy at one level throughout the name.
The dad and mom have been instantly suspicious of Woodward, they testified. They knew Borrego Park nicely, since their youngsters had grown up taking part in soccer there and it was subsequent to an elementary college they attended. And so they testified that the outline Woodward was offering of the place he claimed their son walked off to didn’t make sense.
“I used to be involved, as a result of he appeared like he was mendacity — very anxious and nervous on the cellphone, and a number of the issues (he mentioned) didn’t make sense to me,” Pepper testified. “It was gnawing at me, all these inconsistencies.”
For six days, an “military” of pals and supporters helped with a widespread seek for Bernstein, the dad and mom mentioned.
“I walked each sq. meter of that park,” the daddy testified as he fought again tears. “I used to be throughout that factor. Yelling Blaze’s identify.”
The search ended with the discovery of Bernstein’s body at the edge of the park. He had been stabbed more than 20 times. Woodward was quickly arrested.
Among the many forensic proof investigators used to tie Woodward to Bernstein’s slaying is a knife present in Woodward’s room with blood on the tip and deal with that was matched by means of DNA to Bernstein, in addition to blood stains in Woodward’s automobile they matched to each younger males.
Deputy District Lawyer Jennifer Walker alleges that Woodward — who grew up in a conservative, non secular household — had anti-gay, antisemitic beliefs that led him to hitch the Atomwaffen Division, an armed fascist organization. The prosecutor mentioned Woodward had a “hate diary” wherein he wrote explicitly entries describing matching up with homosexual males on relationship web sites and “ghosting” or scaring them.
Assistant Public Defender Ken Morrison has countered that Woodward was extra conflicted about his sexuality and was on the Autism spectrum. The protection lawyer confirmed the jury exchanges between Woodward and Bernstein on the relationship app Tinder wherein Woodward at instances seemed to be flirting with Bernstein, together with on the day of the killing. Regardless of assuring Woodward that he was maintaining their conversations a secret, Bernstein was really relaying the small print to a few of his pals.
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