Blaze Bernstein Update: Suspect Samuel Woodward Made Disturbed Comments On Social Media

Twenty-year-old University of Pennsylvania student, Samuel Woodward, who was arrested Friday as a suspect in connection with the death of a 19-year-old student named Blaze Bernstein from the same university, posted a number of disturbing thoughts on social media, according to latest reports.

Woodward was seen defending the Confederate flag and expressing his affinity for firearms on the social media.

He hailed the Confederate flag as a symbol of Southern pride as opposed to a symbol of racism and white supremacy as it is commonly seen by most people, New York Daily News reported.

He also went on to mention that he would like nothing more than “The Bible and a Colt .45,” if he was to get stranded alone on a deserted island.

Furthermore, he also mentioned that “waterboarding” was one of the life skills he really wanted to learn and denounced cloning as a waste of science. “Just one of me in the world is already bad enough,” he wrote in a column about cloning.

Also, when an anonymous poster said that he was scared of Woodward because he thought the latter had violent tendencies, Woodward responded: “I wouldn’t fight anybody unless they attacked me.”

Incidentally, when Woodward was taken into police custody, he had scratches and abrasions on his hands. At the time, he said the scratches were a result of a “fight club” that he participated in.

According to a search warrant affidavit obtained by the Orange County Register, Woodward also had “dirt under the fingernails” on both his hands and seemed nervous when he was questioned by the police.

When asked to explain where the dirt came from, the suspect said he “fell into a dirty puddle.”

During a press conference following Woodward’s release, authorities said that he was reportedly one of Bernstein’s friends. The two also attended Orange County School of the Arts together.

Woodward was the last person to see the victim alive. But he told the police that he drove Bernstein to the park and left when his friend didn’t return.

“Based on inconsistencies in the story of [Woodward], we focused on him as a suspect,” Undersheriff Don Barnes said. He further added that DNA evidence connected to Bernstein’s death was linked to Woodward.

Bernstein went missing two weeks ago and was found dead a week later, buried in a shallow grave in an Orange County Park, California. The victim’s exact cause of death is yet to be determined.

“We will continue to search for justice for Blaze and his family,” Annee Della Donna, an attorney for the Bernstein family, said at the press conference. “Our words cannot express how grateful the family is to their community.”

After Woodward’s arrest, Bernstein’s mother, Jeanne Pepper Bernstein, wrote on Twitter: “Revenge is empty. It will never bring back my son. My only hopes are that he will never have the opportunity to hurt anyone else again and that something meaningful can come from the senseless act of Blaze’s murder. Now Do Good for Blaze Bernstein.”