Los Angeles Times

LGBTQ college student stabbed 20 times in 'act of rage,' but was it a hate crime?

SANTA ANA, Calif. - They both went to high school at the elite Orange County School of the Arts, but the classmates weren't particularly close.

Blaze Bernstein, home on winter break from the University of Pennsylvania, messaged with Samuel Woodward on Snapchat. On Jan. 2, Woodward drove over and picked him up.

Bernstein's family would never see him again.

The 19-year-old's body was found eight days later in a shallow grave in Orange County's Borrego Park. He had been stabbed at least 20 times.

Woodward would go on to tell detectives that Bernstein had kissed him,

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