Mother of slain college student worried son would be a target
LOS ANGELES — Blaze Bernstein never formally came out to his parents as gay. But they had an idea. When his mother, Jeanne Pepper Bernstein, tried to broach the subject, Blaze brushed her off and preferred to remain quiet.
It was understandable, the parents said. He was still trying to explore his identity and his world as a college sophomore at University of Pennsylvania. He didn’t want to be viewed in just one way, they said. He was still growing up.
“Well, I will tell you this. I do have a lot of gay friends,” Blaze told his mother at the beginning of this school year.
“That’s great, Blaze. I just want you to know that I love you,” she told him. “I think it’s great and I want you to bring someone you love home and stay in our house and have holiday dinners with them.” “Great, maybe I will,” he said. That was the last time they talked about it. The 19-year-old, home on winter break from the college, disappeared Jan. 2. He was found eight days later in a shallow grave in Orange County’s Borrego Park. He had been stabbed at least 20 times.
The Orange County district attorney’s office has charged Samuel Woodward, 20, with Blaze Bernstein’s slaying, and prosecutors are trying to determine whether he was the victim of a hate crime.
Both attended the elite Orange County School of the Arts, but the classmates weren’t particularly close. The Bernsteins have said they did not know Woodward.
According to officials, Blaze Bernstein reached out to Woodward on Snapchat. On Jan. 2, Woodward drove over and picked him up.
Woodward told detectives that Bernstein had kissed him, according to a law enforcement source who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and requested anonymity. Woodward, the source said, also told investigators he had wanted to refer to Bernstein using a homophobic slur.
Jeanne Pepper Bernstein had long been worried about her son becoming a target.
“I’m concerned about the fact that he is Jewish. I’m concerned with the fact that he is gay or the fact that he is small,” she said. “I was concerned for his safety always. I was concerned sending him out into the big world. But at some point you have to let go and they leave the nest and fly. I couldn’t protect him from everything.”
Wednesday afternoon, the Bernsteins tried to maintain their composure during a marathon of interviews at a Costa Mesa business club.
They refrained from commenting on what they know about the criminal case. Instead, they said they wanted to get word out about what they see as their son’s legacy. They stressed that they wanted to focus on the positive, not the negative.
That’s why, they said, they have decided not to attend any of the criminal court proceedings unless they are really needed.
“It’s a waste of energy,” Jeanne Pepper Bernstein said.
Instead, she said, she prefers to focus on what people can do in her son’s honor.
The family set up a memorial fund at the Jewish Community Foundation of Orange County, which will provide support to organizations that Blaze Bernstein would have liked to support, such as the Orangewood Foundation.