Crime

Transgender ‘cat killer’ Scarlet Blake to be housed in a male prison

Feb 27
Written by Chantelle Billson

Trans killer Scarlet Blake (L) killed Jorge Martin Carreno in July 2021 in Oxford. (Thames Valley Police)

Trans woman Scarlet Blake, who has been found guilty of murder, will serve her sentence in a male prison, a judge has ruled.

Appearing at Oxford Crown Country Court on Monday (25 February), Blake was jailed for life, with a minimum term of 24 years (less 196 days spent on remand), for the murder of Jorge Martin Carreno in July 2021.

Twenty-six-year-old Blake, who has been dubbed the “cat killer”, was convicted last Friday, with the judge saying the Netflix documentary, Don’t F*** With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer, played a part in her plan.

In relation to the mutilation of her neighbour’s cat, Blake was handed concurrent sentences, one of four months for causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal, and a second of two months for criminal damage, the BBC reported.

Handing down the sentences, judge Martin Chamberlain said: “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.”

What did Scarlet Blake do?

Warning: the following section contains graphic depictions of violence – including to an animal.

In the early hours of 25 July 2021, Blake hit Spanish man Carreno, 30, on the back of the head with a vodka bottle, strangled and then pushed him into the River Cherwell, in an act prosecutors said came about because she had a “fixation with violence and with knowing what it would be like to kill someone”.

The court heard from Carreno’s brothers, who remembered him “for his incredible affection” and as “an incredibly good person” whose life was “full of love”.

Four months before the murder, Blake dissected and mutilated her neighbour’s black cat before putting it in a blender. She live-streamed the grotesque act while the New Order song “True Faith” played in the background – chosen in homage to the Netflix documentary.

The judge told Blake that the documentary had “played a part in cementing in your own mind the link between killing a cat and killing a person”.

He went on to say: “Your decision to kill Jorge was not a reaction to something he had said or done. It was not a momentary mistake. It was not a decision made in anger or because your emotions overcame you.

“It was the culmination of a plan you had been considering and formulating for months. The messages you sent before and after 25 July show an obsession with harm and death.”

Harry Potter author J K Rowling, who reportedly donated £70,000 to an anti-trans group’s long-running battle over the legal definition of the word “woman”, lashed out at Sky News’ coverage of the case.

The author took to X/Twitter and reposted the report, adding the caption: “I’m so sick of this s**t. This is not a woman. These are #NotOurCrimes.”