Parents of Blaze Bernstein say killing may have been hate crime

The parents of a 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student killed and buried in a California park say the killing may have been a hate crime against their gay son.

The family statement came after a search warrant affidavit obtained by a newspaper revealed that Samuel Lincoln Woodward, 20, the high school friend arrested on suspicion of killing Blaze Bernstein, told investigators that Bernstein had kissed him and he had pushed him away before they went to the park.

As he described the kiss, Woodward clenched his jaw and his fists, saying “he wanted to tell Blaze to get off of him,” investigators wrote in the affidavit obtained by the Orange County Register.

“Our son was a beautiful gentle soul who we loved more than anything,” Gideon Bernstein and Jeanne Pepper Bernstein. “We were proud of everything he did and who he was. He had nothing to hide. We are in solidarity with our son and the LGBTQ community.”

The couple added, “If it is determined that this was a hate crime, we will cry not only for our son, but for LGBTQ people everywhere that live in fear or who have been victims of hate crime.”

Bernstein was stabbed more than 20 times and buried in a shallow grave at the park, the Register and the Los Angeles Times reported earlier this week.

— AP