Scarlet Blake was convicted of murder last week following a three-week trial at Oxford Crown Court (Steve Parsons/PA) (Image: PA Archive/PA Images)
A cat-killer, who was obsessed with violence and death, has been jailed for life. She must serve at least 24 years before she can apply for parole. Scarlet Blake, 26, was found guilty of murdering Jorge Martin Carreno, 30, in a twisted fantasy inspired by a Netflix documentary.
Blake targeted Mr Martin Carreno as he was walking home from a night out in Oxford in July 2021. She led him to a secluded river bank where she attacked him brutally. He was hit on the back of the head with a vodka bottle, strangled, and then pushed into the River Cherwell, where he drowned.
The verdict came last week after a three-week trial at Oxford Crown Court. The judge, Mr Justice Chamberlain, handed down a life sentence to Blake, who lived in Crotch Crescent, Oxford.
Prosecutors said that Blake, who is transgender, killed Mr Martin Carreno because she had a “fixation with violence and with knowing what it would be like to kill someone”. This murder occurred four months after Blake live-streamed the cruel killing of a cat, the court heard.
Blake told the family pet: “Here we go my little friend. Oh boy, you smell like sh**. I can’t wait to put through the blender.” After the violent act, she dissected the animal, removed its fur and skin, and placed its body in a blender.
Scarlet Blake was jailed for life for murdering Jorge Martin Carreno (Thames Valley Police/PA) (Image: PA Media)
During the terrifying video, the New Order song True Faith can be heard playing in the background. The court was told this was a tribute to the Netflix documentary Don’t F*** With Cats, where a man kills kittens before filming a human murder.
Blake “boasted” about the killing and her wish to “her desire to open up a person like her ‘little cat friend'”.
The prosecution stated that Blake had an “extreme interest in death and in harm”, and derived sexual pleasure from violence and killings.
Jurors were shown a chilling video of Blake tying a ligature around her then partner’s neck from behind and pulling it tight until she seems to lose consciousness.
The court was informed that BMW worker Mr Martin Carreno had been out with work colleagues in Oxford city centre and was trying to get home when Blake found him sitting in the street.
She was caught on CCTV wandering the streets of Oxford in search of a victim, dressed in a heavy military-style hooded jacket, face mask and carrying a rucksack.
Prosecutors suggested she was carrying a “murder kit” in her rucksack, including a garrotte and leopard print dressing gown cord, which she denied.
While giving evidence, Blake refuted that she was hunting for a victim that night and instead had gone for a walk because she couldn’t sleep.
She claimed she walked with Mr Martin Carreno to Parsons Pleasure and when she left to go home he was still alive.
“I don’t know how he died. I assumed he drowned. It wasn’t something I did. As to how, I still don’t know, I wasn’t there,” she explained to the jury.
It was suggested that Mr Martin Carreno took his own life, but his friends didn’t believe he was feeling suicidal.
They found an empty vodka bottle in the river and its top was nearby on the bank, with traces of her DNA on it.
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Dr Brett Lockyer, a pathologist from the Home Office, didn’t think that the Spanish man’s death was an accident.
The court heard that Blake confessed to her ex-partner, Ashlynn Bell who lives in America, that she had killed him using a homemade garrotte before throwing his body into the water.
She told the jurors that she invented the details of the murder because Miss Bell wanted her to kill someone after forcing her to live-stream the killing of a cat.
“I wasn’t interested or willing it was an awful thought to me,” she noted.
“In the interest of keeping her happy, because I wanted her to kill me one day, because it’s sexually stimulating for me, that idea.”
“She was wanting to make me do this thing and I was pretty much, well, at a limit, after going through the killing of the cat.”
During her testimony, Blake claimed she had a fragmented personality, which included being a cat, and meowed at the jury to demonstrate how she would interact with friends.
“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,” she said.
Undated handout photo issued by Thames Valley Police of Jorge Martin Carreno. Scarlet Blake has been jailed for life at Oxford Crown Court and told to serve a minimum of 24 years’ imprisonment for murdering Jorge Martin Carreno, who she targeted as a part of a warped sexual fantasy inspired by a Netflix documentary as he walked home from a night out in Oxford (Image: Copyright remains with handout provider)
“With friends I know quite well, who are aware of this part of me, I meow at them in greeting.”
“It is quite strange, it is very prominent when I am expressing certain emotions.”
“For example, the cat has a pretty strong association with joy, and I suppose the innate goodness. It is a kind of childhood innocence.”
