A preliminary hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to try the suspected killer of Blaze Bernstein was postponed this week after the defence said they were not ready.

Samuel Woodward, 20, a former high school classmate, is charged with Mr Bernstein’s murder. At his arraignment earlier this year, Mr Woodward pleaded not guilty and the judge set his bail at $5 million (£3.75 million).

Although the authorities have not yet made public their theories on Mr Woodward’s possible motive, the Orange County Register reported that he told investigators Mr Bernstein had made unwelcome advances.

It is the latest development in the case of the 19-year-old second-year student at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania, who disappeared on January 2 this year.

He was visiting home for the winter holiday in Lake Forest, California, about fifty miles southeast of Los Angeles, when he went missing.

In concert with the Orange County authorities, his parents mounted a hunt that tragically culminated on January 10 when the young man’s body was found on the outskirts of a local park. He had been stabbed to death.

Bernstein was not only gay but Jewish, and Mr Woodward was a member of the Atomwaffen Division — Atomwaffen means “atomic weapons” in German — a neo-Nazi group connected to other murders in the area.

It was perhaps due to these revelations that the preliminary hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to proceed in the case against Mr Woodward was postponed on Tuesday. The defence claimed that they were “not ready.”

“We were told [by the District Attorney’s office] that the defence wasn’t ready to move forward with the pre-trial, so they postponed it,” Gideon Bernstein, Blaze’s father, told the Daily Pennsylvanian.