After their son is murdered by a neo-Nazi, a Californian family's extraordinary journey turns grief into hope

The silent stones tell both sides of an epic story, the life and death of Blaze BernsteinThey are a symbol of a brutal murder, but also a promise in the belief in a better future. A monument to the best sides of humanity and the worst sides of human behavior.

You'll find the stones in a quiet corner of Borrego Park, in the suburbs of Orange County, California. There are hundreds of them, hand-painted, with messages of tolerance, love and peace. “And they're sent to us from all over the world,” says Gideon Bernstein. “It's great to see the messages. They're always positive,” adds Gideon's wife, Jeanne Pepper.

Jeanne and Gideon are the parents of Blaze Bernstein. On January 2, 2018, Blaze, then 19 years old, left his home. Sometime later that night, he was murdered in Borrego Park, stabbed 28 times and his body buried there in a shallow, muddy grave.

Blaze was, by all accounts, an extraordinary young man – an Ivy League student at the University of Pennsylvania who considered a career as a doctor, a writer and aspiring chef. “I call him a unicorn,” Jeanne Pepper tells “48 Hours” correspondent Tracy Smith in “The Life and Death of Blaze Bernstein,” which airs Saturday, Sept. 21 at 9/8c on CBS and streams on Paramount+.

They still live with this loss today. “I think about Blaze all the time because when I see things, I ask myself, 'What would Blaze do now?'” says Pepper.

Blaze died for a much more fundamental reason. He was targeted and, according to investigators, slaughtered because he was a gay, Jewish man. Tony Rackaukas, then District Attorney of Orange County, says this was a hate crimeAuthorities say Blaze's killer was a neo-Nazi, a member of a small violent hate group called Atomwaffen, whose views were deeply anti-LGBTQ+ and virulently anti-Semitic.

The killer is Samuel Woodward. He was once Blaze's classmate in high school. That was pretty much all Blaze and Woodward had in common, according to classmate Raiah Rofsky, who tells Smith, “They were so different… as different as you can be.” Rofsky remembers Woodward's unsettling presence. “He was very quiet – very withdrawn, didn't really talk to people.” Rofsky tells Smith that Woodward had a reputation. “Racist, homophobic, sexist.”

And when word got around that Blaze had disappeared from his home in California during the winter break and that the last person to see him was Woodward, Rofsky reacted immediately. “The only reason I could think of why Sam would have met with Blaze is either, one, he wanted to be with him or, two, he was planning to kill him.” That was in January 2018.

Just ten days after Blaze disappeared in Borrego Park, Woodward was arrested by detectives.

It was a painful six years. There were COVID delays and a revolving door of defense attorneys asking the court questions about Woodward's mental health and ability to defend himself. All of this left Jeanne Pepper and Gideon Bernstein frustrated and waiting for justice. “Slow justice is not justice,” Pepper says. “It's not fair to the victims and it's not fair to the deceased.” In 2022, Woodward was found fit to stand trial. Finally, in April 2024, the murder trial began.

Remarkably, after all they had been through, the couple turned their grief into hope. They started what they call a “kindness movement” that promotes “positivity” and spontaneous acts of kindness in Blaze's name. They call their movement “BlazeItForward.”

In Borrego Park, where Blaze took his last breath, there is an extraordinary reaction: hundreds of hand-painted stones, most of them by strangers, have been left in memory of Blaze Bernstein.

The silent stones speak of tolerance and Blaze's transformation into a martyr of sorts; his murder is a sign of fanatical hatred. His spirit inspires LGBTQ+ people wherever they live and whoever they are with.

Jeanne Pepper tells Smith, “Blaze's life mattered and his legacy is to spread good news and inspire people to be better and kinder. And to work to make the world a better place, because it's not too late and we can make it a better place.”

On July 3, 2024, Sam Woodward found guilty of premeditated murder with aggravated hate crimeHe faces a life sentence without the possibility of parole. The verdict is scheduled for October.