Sneak peek: The Life and Death of Blaze Bernstein
The soundless stones archer some sides of an epic story, the beingness and decease of Blaze Bernstein. They are a marker of a convulsive murder, but besides a committedness successful the content of a amended future. A monument to the champion of humanity, and the precise worst of quality behavior.
You tin find the stones successful a tranquil country of Borrego Park, successful suburban Orange County, California. There are hundreds of them, hand-painted, with messages of tolerance, emotion and peace. "And they're getting sent to america from each astir the world," says Gideon Bernstein. "It's large to spot the messaging. It's ever positive," adds Gideon's woman Jeanne Pepper.
A hand-painted chromatic with the likeness of Blaze Bernstein successful Orange County, California's Borrego Park.
KCBS
Jeanne and Gideon are the parents of Blaze Bernstein. On Jan. 2, 2018, then-19-year-old Blaze near his house. Sometime aboriginal that night, helium was murdered successful Borrego Park, stabbed 28 times; his assemblage buried determination successful a shallow, muddy grave.
By each accounts, Blaze was an exceptional young antheral — an Ivy League pupil astatine the University of Pennsylvania, considering a vocation successful medicine, a writer and budding chef. "I telephone him a unicorn," Jeanne Pepper tells "48 Hours" analogous Tracy Smith successful an encore of "The Life and Death of Blaze Bernstein," airing Saturday, June 28 connected CBS and streaming connected Paramount+.
Theirs is simply a nonaccomplishment they proceed to unrecorded with to this day. "I deliberation astir Blaze each the time, due to the fact that erstwhile I spot things, I deliberation to myself, 'what would Blaze beryllium doing now?'" says Pepper.
Blaze died due to the fact that of thing acold much fundamental. He was targeted, and according to investigators, slaughtered, due to the fact that of who he was – a gay, Jewish man. Tony Rackaukas, past the Orange County territory attorney, says this was a hatred crime. Authorities accidental Blaze's slayer was a neo-Nazi, a subordinate of a tiny convulsive hatred radical called "Atomwaffen," whose beliefs were profoundly anti-LGBTQ + arsenic good arsenic virulently antisemitic.
The slayer is Samuel Woodward. He had erstwhile been Blaze's classmate backmost successful precocious school. That's astir each Blaze and Woodward had successful common, according to classmate Raiah Rofsky, who tells Smith, "They were truthful antithetic … astir arsenic antithetic arsenic you could be." Rofsky remembers Woodward's unsettling presence. "He was precise quiescent -- precise withdrawn, didn't truly speech to people." Rofsky tells Smith Woodward had a reputation. "Racist, homophobic, sexist."
And erstwhile connection dispersed that Blaze had gone missing portion location successful California connected assemblage wintertime break, and that the past idiosyncratic known to person seen him was Woodward, Rofsky's absorption was immediate. "The lone crushed I could deliberation of Sam gathering up with Blaze is due to the fact that either fig one, helium wanted to hook up with him, oregon two, due to the fact that helium was readying to execution him." That was January 2018.
Detectives arrested Woodward conscionable 10 days aft Blaze disappeared successful Borrego Park.
It has been six achy years. There were COVID delays, and a revolving doorway of defence lawyers who raised questions with the tribunal astir Woodward's intelligence wellness and quality to support himself. It each near Jeanne Pepper and Gideon Bernstein frustrated and waiting for justice. "Slow justness is nary justice," says Pepper. "It's not just to victims and it's not just to the deceased." In 2022, Woodward was recovered competent to basal trial. Finally, successful April 2024, the execution proceedings began.
Remarkably, aft each they person endured, the mates turned their grief into hope. They founded what they telephone "a kindness movement" – promoting "positivity" and random acts of kindness successful Blaze's name. They telephone their question "BlazeItForward."
Some of the hundreds of hand-painted stones, astir near by full strangers, successful the representation of Blaze Bernstein astatine Borrego Park.
CBS News
In Borrego Park, wherever Blaze took his past breath, determination is that bonzer effect — the hundreds of hand-painted stones, astir near by full strangers, successful the representation of Blaze Bernstein.
The soundless stones talk of tolerance and Blaze's translation into a benignant of martyr; his execution a marker of rabid hate. His tone gives inspiration to LGBTQ + people, wherever they unrecorded and with whomever they love.
Jeanne Pepper tells Smith, "Blaze's beingness mattered and helium has a legacy, to make bully news, to animate radical to beryllium better, to beryllium kinder. And to enactment connected repairing the world, due to the fact that it's not excessively precocious and we tin marque it better."
On July 3, 2024, Sam Woodward was found blameworthy of first-degree execution with a hatred transgression enhancement. On Nov. 15, Woodward was sentenced to beingness successful situation without parole.
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