Scarlet Blake, a 26-year-old transgender, has received a life sentence for the murder of a stranger in Oxford.
Back in July 2021, Blake was convicted of the murder of Jorge Martin Carreno, a 30-year-old engineer from Spain. The victim was lured to a riverbank, assaulted with a bottle, strangled, and subsequently drowned.
Previously, in March of that same year, the convict had broadcasted the killing of a neighbor’s cat, an act influenced by the Netflix documentary “Don’t F**k with Cats,” which details the pursuit of an individual responsible for the deaths of kittens and a person.
The cat was brutally killed, dismembered and put in a blending machine by Blake, who was playing music from the documentary during the act.
Four months following this incident, the cat killer sought out a human target in Oxford, equipped with a military jacket, a facial mask, and a backpack containing strangulation tools.
That was when the trans convict encountered Martin Carreno, who had been socializing with work colleagues, befriended him and led him to an isolated area by the River Cherwell, where the fatal attack occurred.
Despite pleading not guilty to murder, Blake was convicted by a jury at Oxford Crown Court.
On Monday, February 26th, 2024, Scarlet Blake was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 24 years by Mr Justice Chamberlain. The judge stated that the convict exhibited a preoccupation with violence and took pleasure in the act of killing. He said,
“You told the court you didn’t want to kill a living creature, let alone a person, and it was [your friend] Ashlynn who pressured you to do so. You adopted the persona of a cat. You talked about the difficulties to have had of transitioning since childhood to live as a woman and your troubled relationship with your parents.
All of this was part of an elaborate attempt to rationalise what you have done and shift responsibility to others. It is not the fault of a society that didn’t accept you, it was not the fault of your parents ….The decision to kill was entirely yours.”
Born male and now identifying as a female, Scarlet Blake, originally named Daniel, had undergone hormone therapy but not surgery, and will serve the sentence in a male prison.
