A man from California convicted of stabbing to death a gay student at the University of Pennsylvania in an act of hate is expected to be sentenced to life in prison on Friday.

Samuel Woodward, now 27, is set to be sentenced in a Southern California courtroom for killing Blaze Bernstein nearly seven years ago. There is no doubt about the sentence Woodward will receive because the jury’s verdict carries a sentence of life without parole, said Kimberly Edds, spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Defense attorney Ken Morrison previously said he would appeal the verdict.

Woodward was convicted this year of first-degree murder, with a hate crime enhancement, for killing Bernstein, a gay, Jewish sophomore.

Bernstein, who was 19, disappeared in January 2018 after a night out with Woodward at a park in Lake Forest, about 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles. After Bernstein missed a dentist appointment the next day, his parents found his glasses, wallet and credit cards in his bedroom and tried to contact him, but he didn’t answer.

Authorities launched an exhaustive search and said Bernstein’s family scoured her social media and saw she had been communicating with Woodward on Snapchat. Authorities said Woodward told the family that Bernstein went to meet a friend at the park that night and never returned.

A few days later, Bernstein’s body was found in a shallow grave in the park. He had been stabbed repeatedly in the face and neck.

The question during Woodward’s trial was not whether he killed Bernstein, but why and the circumstances under which it happened. Prosecutors said Woodward was affiliated with the violent anti-gay and neo-Nazi extremist group Atomwaffen Division, while Morrison said his client did not intend to kill anyone or hate Bernstein and faced personal relationships difficult due to a long undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder.

The case took years to go to trial amid a series of delays and sparked public protests in Southern California, where residents fanned out in 2018 to try to help authorities find Bernstein after he suddenly disappeared.

Woodward testified during his trial and gave slow, delayed answers to lawyers’ questions, his long hair partially covering his face.

Bernstein and Woodward attended the same high school, the Orange County School of the Arts, and connected through a dating app in the months before the murder. Woodward said he picked Bernstein up, went to a nearby park and repeatedly stabbed Bernstein after he tried to grab a cell phone he feared had been used to take pictures of him.

Morrison, the defense lawyer, said Woodward was confused about his sexuality after growing up in a conservative and devout Catholic family where his father openly criticized homosexuality.

But prosecutors told a different story. They said Woodward repeatedly targeted gay men online, reaching out to them and suddenly cutting off contact, while keeping a hateful and profanity-filled journal of his actions.

Authorities said they also found a bloodstained black Atomwaffen mask, a folding knife with a bloody blade and a trove of anti-gay, anti-Semitic and hate group material in a search of his family home from Newport Beach, California.