Notorious OC Murder's Neo-Nazi Underpinning Explored By Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author

LAKE FOREST, CA — Pulitzer Prize-winner and New York Times bestselling author Eric Lichtblau's latest work, "American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate," published Tuesday by Little, Brown and Company, zeroes in on the motives and culture that led to the brutal stabbing of Orange County Ivy League student, Blaze Bernstein.

It's been just over seven years since Blaze Bernstein was brutally stabbed by his high school classmate over winter break in 2018. Blaze, an Ivy League scholar with a penchant for poetry, was secure in his homosexuality and the love of his family. Woodward, an angry self-proclaimed neo-Nazi, is now spending life in prison without possibility of parole for committing the murderous hate crime.

Lichtblau's work is said to be "a deeply reported exploration of the violent resurgence of hatred and white supremacy through the lens of Orange County, CA, seen as 'ground zero' for racial extremism," according to the publisher. The most recent work from the Pulitzer-winning author of the New York Times bestseller "The Nazis Next Door," the author uses the violent Orange County murder to focus on "a violent resurgence of hatred and white supremacy" across the country.

The majority of the workstays focused on Woodward, his descent into the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen group, and his political beliefs, along with numerous acts of hate and violence across the country.

The main narrative is the neo-Nazi's and the "new age of hate," as the title predicts, according to New York Times book reviewer Elon Green. In his review, he states that Lichtblau's work of investigative nonfiction begins with "an intersecting story of a victim and a perpetrator." Blaze Bernstein, who he was, what he was all about, never goes beyond a "spark."

The author does trace the lives of high school boys with opposing family dynamics: Blaze, the son of a Jewish family, artistically minded, and becoming comfortable with his sexuality. Sam, his killer, was raised in a "household of intolerance," by a father concerned that "homosexuals might convert his son." In the first chapter, Lichtblau delves into how Woodward flirted with and hunted Bernstein ahead of that fateful night at the park.

The book contains drawings by Woodward, showing a bloody knife and skull, saying, "Text is boring, but murder isn't," showing how his behavior escalated from trolling and texting homosexuals to killing.

Still, there are long stretches in which mentions of Blaze Bernstein and even Orange County are absent from Lichtblau's narrative, Green shows. Samuel Lincoln Woodward, found guilty of first-degree murder in Nov. 2024, with a hate crime enhancement.

Woodward is currently incarcerated at the California State Prison in Sacramento, serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, according to the California Incarcerated Records and Information System.

One year ago, "The Life and Death of Blaze Bernstein" was aired on 48 Hours in June, 2025. Both Blaze's mother and father, Jeanne Pepper and Gideon Bernstein, were interviewed for this report.

For those interested in Blaze Bernstein's story, his family shares his legacy on their "Blaze It Forward" Facebook page.