A China-born man who identifies as a woman has been jailed for at least 24 years for the murder of a vulnerable stranger who was intoxicated after a night out in Oxford.
On Friday, Scarlet Blake, 26, was convicted at Oxford Crown Court of murdering Jorge Martin Carreno, 30, in the centre of Oxford in the early hours of July 25, 2021.
Blake, who had a “murder kit” in his backpack, deliberately chose the first weekend nightclubs were allowed to reopen after COVID-19 lockdown restrictions were lifted.
Blake led Mr. Carreno to a secluded spot called Parsons Pleasure, where he struck him over the head with a vodka bottle and then strangled him, before pushing him into the river Cherwell, where he drowned.
Four months before the murder Blake livestreamed the torture of a cat in an effort to mimic Luka Magnotta, a murderous Canadian model whose story was told in a Netflix documentary.
On Monday, Blake was jailed for life and was ordered to spend a minimum of 24 years behind bars.
Killing Cat Was Preparation for Murder
Mr. Justice Chamberlain said of the cat incident: “There was a very significant degree of premeditation. I am satisfied that killing a person had already occurred to you before you killed the cat as you said, ‘I wonder where I learn to do this to a person.’”The judge said the murder involved “substantial planning.”
“You knew, between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., that you stood a good chance of finding someone vulnerable, that is why you picked that time to walk into central Oxford,” said Mr. Justice Chamberlain.
The judge said: “Your process of selecting him was quite deliberate. You could be seen on CCTV sizing up potential victims. You chose him because he looked vulnerable, smaller, and slighter than you, and had had something to drink.”
The trial heard Blake was born in China and came to live in Britain as a child.
At the age of 12 he began identifying as a girl and since the age of 17 had been on medication to block testosterone. He also took oestrogen supplements.
The court heard Blake was diagnosed with depression when he was younger and had a fragmented personality.
Giving evidence in the witness box, Blake testified: “There’s a part that is just a cat, which is strange and that seems to me what the happy part of me is. In that they come out when I am happy. With friends I know quite well who are aware of this part of me I meow at them in greeting.”
The trial heard Blake was in a relationship at the time of the murder with Ashlynn Bell, an American man who also identifies as a woman.
The trial heard Blake had watched the Netflix documentary “Don’t [Expletive] With Cats,” which told the story of Magnotta, who murdered and dismembered a Chinese national, Jun Lin, in Toronto in 2012 two years after he posted a video online of him torturing and killing a kitten.
‘Elaborate Attempt to ... Shift Responsibility’
Passing sentence, Mr. Justice Chamberlain told Blake: “You told the court that you didn’t want to kill a living creature, let alone a person, and it was Ashlynn who pressurised you to do so. You attributed your morbid interests to a split or dissociative personality, using the language of psychiatry or psychoanalysis.”“You adopted the persona of a cat. You talked about the difficulties you had had since transitioning in childhood to live as a woman and about your troubled relationship with your parents. All this was part of an elaborate attempt to rationalise what you had done and shift responsibility to others,” he added.
The judge said: “Whatever role Ashlynn Bell may have played in encouraging your interest in killing, she remained in the U.S. She did not control or direct you. Even if the decision was motivated in part by a desire to please her, the decision to kill was entirely yours.”
Prosecutor Alison Morgan, KC said Blake had a “fixation with violence and with knowing what it would be like to kill someone.”
Hayley Garey, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “These were extremely disturbing and cruel crimes. This was a complex and challenging case, but once Scarlet Blake was identified as the person walking with Jorge Carreno on the night he died, we were able to build a case based on medical and forensic evidence that secured a conviction for murder.”
“DNA on the top of a vodka bottle placed Blake at the riverside where Jorge died, and pathology results interpreted alongside Blake’s interests in strangulation provided a clear picture to the jury of how Jorge was killed,” she added.
