A man who identifies as a woman who killed a complete stranger who was on a night out in Oxford four months after he livestreamed the torture of a cat, has been convicted of murder.
Scarlet Blake, 26, came across Jorge Martin Carreno, 30, in the centre of Oxford one night in July 2021.
He led him to a secluded spot 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.
On Friday a jury at Oxford Crown Court returned a guilty verdict on Blake—who was born male but identifies as female—after deliberating for six hours.
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.
Claimed Part of Fragmented Personality Was a Cat
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.”“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,” said Blake, who even mimicked a cat’s meow to the jury.
The trial heard Blake had watched a Netflix documentary called “Don’t [Expletive] With Cats,” which told the story of Luka Magnotta, a Canadian model who murdered a Chinese national, Jun Lin, in Toronto in 2012 two years after he posted a video online of him torturing and killing a kitten.
Four months before killing Mr. Carreno, Blake reenacted the cat torture and even played the same New Order song which Magnotta had used in the background.
Prosecutor Alison Morgan, KC said Blake had a “fixation with violence and with knowing what it would be like to kill someone.”
Denied Bringing ‘Murder Kit’
Cross examining Blake, Ms. Morgan suggested that on the night he killed Mr. Carreno the defendant took a “murder kit” with him in his rucksack, including a garrotte and leopard print dressing gown cord. Blake denied it.Blake claims he walked with him to a riverbank meadow called Parsons Pleasure and left him 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,” he told the jury.
Detective Superintendent Jon Capps, the senior investigating officer, said: “Jorge was enjoying a night out with friends and had his life in front of him. He had made plans, he was happy and in the words of his friend, ‘Ready to enjoy every single drop of his life.' That has been taken away from him.”
Mr. Capps also praised the United States Postal Inspection Service for the help it gave his team.
He said: “They went out of their way to ensure that recovering evidence and conducting inquiries in the U.S. was as smooth as possible. Their support helped ensure charges against this defendant and has played a significant part in subsequently securing a conviction.”
Blake’s former partner, Ashlynn Bell, was American and testified the killer had confessed to her.
Blake will be sentenced on Monday but faces a mandatory life sentence.
