Psychiatric Expert On Accused Hate-Crime Killer's Mindset: Trial

LAKE FOREST, CA — A psychiatric expert testified Wednesday that the man charged with a hate-crime fatal stabbing of a former gay classmate at a Lake Forest park joined a neo-Nazi group because he was desperate for acceptance and companionship.

Psychological expert Martha Rogers added that Samuel Lincoln Woodward, 26, grew disillusioned with the neo-Nazi group after a few weeks with it in Texas, where he ended up homeless and unable to support himself.

Woodward is charged with the Jan.3, 2018, killing of 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein, a former classmate of the defendant's at the Orange County School of the Arts.

Rogers diagnosed Woodward with autism spectrum disorder. She said in testimony Tuesday that many afflicted with the disorder are "drawn to wherever they think they can have a friend."

Rogers said the disorder often leaves them oblivious to being drawn in by extremists.

"They don't even know they're being duped," Rogers testified. "They're prone to disinformation... They're more vulnerable to misinformation."

Woodward wasn't diagnosed until he was 18 when his parents took him to a clinic. At that time he was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, but that term is no longer used, she said. Woodward had been receiving therapy at the clinic for several months.

Rogers also noted Woodward's steep decline since his incarceration six years ago.

"He's functioning much worse than he did in 2018," she said.

Woodward's first attorney in the case, Ed Munoz, hired Rogers, but when the defendant's family opted for representation from the Orange County Public Defender's Office, Munoz asked her to wrap up her research.

"I was three months into this when I was cut off," Rogers said.

Woodward's current attorney, Ken Morrison, re-hired Rogers last year and she did more interviews with the defendant.

As a child, Woodward showed signs of being different, she said. For instance, "He had a sensitivity to hearing someone urinating in the toilet and he would go nuts, so they had to get a device to obscure the sound so he wouldn't go off on that," she said.

Woodward had to repeat kindergarten, she said.

Woodward, like many with autism, had very narrow interests such as spiders, World War II, and sharks. If a classmate didn't share that passion he would not know how to connect with them, she said.

Woodward also had a passion for the theater in the sixth grade and was "very good at it," Rogers said. "He could memorize the lines."

His interest in the theater is what led his family to enroll him in the Orange County School of the Arts.

Rogers also discussed how Woodward was so frustrated with his job as a bagger at Bristol Farms that he repeatedly stabbed a mattress when he got home.

"When he becomes emotionally overloaded he has a meltdown," Rogers said.

During Wednesday's testimony, Rogers explained why the defendant has denied homosexual tendencies despite evidence to the contrary.

"He has trouble with the idea of his parents abandoning him," Rogers said, referring to the defendants' religious objections to homosexuality.

"In reality, he has nobody else," Rogers said. "Nobody else he can look to for support."

The family's opposition to homosexuality is "part of their Catholic worldview," Rogers said.

Woodward's autism also moves him to avoid "anything that would put him in a bad light with people" he cares about, Rogers said.

Woodward had a best friend when he was 13 to 15 years old, who was Jewish, Rogers said. But that relationship ended when his friend moved to another school, she said.

"He was very upset by the loss of that friend," she said.

Woodward is charged with killing Bernstein, who was Jewish, because he was gay, but prosecutors are using Woodward's association with Atomwaffen Division to support a bigotry toward homosexuals.

Woodward admired Bernstein's confidence in his sexuality and thought he was a nice "chill guy," he told Rogers.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Walker questioned why Rogers dismissed the possibility that Woodward had an antisocial disorder. But Rogers said there were many characteristics of that disorder missing from Woodward's history.

Walker quizzed Rogers why she did not record her interviews with Woodward.

Rogers said recording wasn't allowed in the jail, prompting Walker to inform her that's just for visitors and not for medical professionals assigned to a case.

But Rogers defended her practice of "contemporaneous" note taking during interviews.

"I've been doing it for 40 years," she said. "It works."

Rogers has a history of working for prosecutors and defense attorneys as an expert.

Walker also confronted Rogers about not questioning why Woodward had a "doodle" in jail the prosecutor claimed supported the neo-Nazi group.

Woodward "seemed to feel something exciting would happen when he got involved with this group" of neo-Nazis, Rogers said.

But when he had trouble finding work in Texas and could no longer pay for a motel and was sleeping in a car he returned home, Rogers said.

"There was three months of intensity where he was engaging in these ideas" of the neo-Nazis, Rogers said. "I think for a period of time he believed these things."

Eventually he "lost contact with those people after he left Texas," Rogers said.

"He mentioned that when he left Texas he was kind of disillusioned with the whole thing," she added.