Woman who put cat through blender sentenced to life in prison for murder

In the UK, a woman who live-streamed the autopsy and killing of a cat has been jailed for life for killing an innocent man by drowning her in a river.

A criminal named Scarlett Blake wandered the streets of Oxford in search of a victim until she encountered 30-year-old Jorge Martin Carreno in the early morning hours of July 26, 2021. She convinced him to take her to a secluded area, where she is believed to have hit him with an object, choked him until he lost consciousness and then drowned him in the River Cherwell.

The court found a woman guilty of drowning a man. Jurors heard during the trial that Blake was “obsessed with violence and knowing what it would be like to kill someone” and derived sexual gratification from the thought of death. After killing Carreño, she told her new partner that she did it because “my lover convinced her it would be hot.”

Four months earlier, a woman live-streamed the gruesome murder of a cat as a tribute to the Netflix documentary. At the time, she lured her neighbor’s pet with food and dissected the animal before placing the body in a blender. She later kept his heart as a keepsake and posed with the animal’s severed head.

The court heard Blake admitted her actions, but in evidence to the jury claimed she committed the violent acts to please her partner, who wanted her to kill someone.

For two years, Carreno’s fate was unknown until the cat’s owner contacted the police in April 2023.

Oxford police then reviewed the footage and found the woman wandering the city’s streets assessing potential victims before settling on Carreno, who was shorter and more vulnerable after drinking alcohol.

Prosecutors suggested she had a “kill kit” in her backpack, which included a homemade garrote and a leopard-print robe.

The criminal told jurors she walked with Carreno to a secluded area along the river and left him there alive to return home, claiming she knew nothing about how he died. However, suggestions that he may have committed suicide were dismissed by his family and friends, while a Home Office pathologist said he did not believe the BMW worker’s death was accidental.

It was later revealed that Blake had stated her desire to kill for pleasure because she knew it was “discreet and undisturbed” and returned to the crime scene at least twice to take photographs as souvenirs.

“The creation of these photographs demonstrated deep contempt for the suffering of the Carreño family and those close to them,” the judge concluded. “You were completely indifferent to this suffering.”

During her testimony, Blake claimed she had a split personality, which included being a cat, and meowed to jurors to show how she would interact with friends. Having moved to the UK from China when she was nine, Blake went into work aged 12 and told the court she had a difficult relationship with her parents.

Accusing her of seeking to find those responsible for the murder, Judge Chamberlain said it was part of an “elaborate attempt to rationalize what you did.” He added that the killing had a “clear sexual motivation” and that Blake used her status as a criminal to earn the admiration of others who shared her interests in violence.

She denied murder but was found guilty after a six-hour deliberation and has now been sentenced to life in prison. Judge Chamberlain stressed after sentencing: “Your decision to kill Jorge was not a reaction to anything he said or did. It wasn’t a momentary mistake, it wasn’t a decision made in anger, or your emotions got the best of you. This was the culmination of a plan that you had been considering and formulating for months before and after July 25, as you showed an obsession with harm and death.”