SANTA ANA, Calif. — Samuel Woodward testified Thursday to feeling “anger like nothing I had ever felt in my whole life” as he repeatedly stabbed his former classmate Blaze Bernstein in a Lake Forest park before burying Bernstein with “my own bare hands.”

Woodward, in a dramatic culmination of his fourth day of testimony in a Santa Ana courtroom, described violently killing Bernstein after he claimed Bernstein touched his genitals. Woodward testified that he was worried Bernstein had taken an explicit photo of him and was texting it to other people, leading him to first try to grab Bernstein’s cell phone and then to attack him.

“I just kept driving and driving and driving the knife down,” Woodward testified.

“When you say driving the knife down, Sam, were you stabbing Blaze?” Assistant Public Defender Ken Morrison asked.

“At that point, yes I was,” Woodward answered, as Bernstein’s mother abruptly rushed out of the courtroom.

Do you have a memory of how many times you were stabbing Blaze?” Morrison said.

“No,” Woodward replied.

“What were you thinking?” The defense attorney asked. “Do you remember what you were thinking when you were driving the knife down again and again and again?”

“Anger like nothing I had ever felt in my whole life,” Woodward said.

Woodward’s testimony was far different than the story he told police and Bernstein’s family at the time of Bernstein’s disappearance and slaying in January 2018. At that time, Woodward admitted meeting Bernstein at the park, but claimed Bernstein had walked off to meet another person whose identity Woodward did not know. Though it hasn’t been mentioned during his murder trial, Woodward at one point also claimed to police that Bernstein tried to kiss him, leading Woodward to push him away.

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