On January 10, 2018, 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania sophomore Blaze Bernstein was found dead in a park in Orange County, California, eight days after having been reported missing.

[8][better source needed] The 20-year-old perpetrator, Samuel Lincoln Woodward, was born in Newport Beach, California and grew up in a household alongside his older brother.

Woodward finished his junior and senior years at Corona Del Mar High School before briefly attending the California State University Channel Islands for his first two semesters.

[6] He had initially faced a maximum sentence of 26 years in prison for the murder and weapons charges, prior to the addition of the hate crime enhancements.

[18][19] On July 15, 2022, an Orange County judge temporarily suspended criminal proceedings after Woodward's defense attorney said she had concerns about his competence to stand trial.

Woodward, the defense claimed, wanted their relationship and any mention of his sexuality to remain between the two of them, as his father is homophobic, and known to call gay men "sodomites", among other terms.

[27] In the opening days of the trial, Bernstein's mother, Jeanne Pepper, took to the stand, establishing that her family were practicing Jews, laying the framework for the prosecution's case.