Samuel Woodward, 27, was convicted earlier this year of murder as a hate crime for the killing of Blaze Bernstein, a gay, Jewish college sophomore. He was sentenced on Friday at the Orange County Superior Court but did not appear due to illness.

A member of a neo-Nazi group whose computer was filled with anti-gay and anti-Jewish propaganda was sentenced to life in prison Friday for the brutal stabbing death of a gay and Jewish former high school classmate.

Samuel Woodward, who espoused anti-gay rhetoric and had ties to Atomwaffen, a neo-Nazi group, stabbed his victim 28 times in a hate-fueled murder, prosecutors said.

A 27-year-old man was sentenced to life without possibility of parole Friday in an Orange County court for the 2018 hate-crime killing of his gay former classmate. Samuel Lincoln Woodward was found guilty in July for the death of 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein,

This was a hate crime," Blaze Bernstein’s mother, Jeanne Pepper, told the court. “Samuel Woodward ended my son’s life because my son was Jewish and gay.”