A trans woman who went by the name Scarlet Blake (born Alice Wang) has been sentenced to life in prison for the 2021 murder of a man she met at random on the street. Evidence in the case showed Blake was obsessed with murder and killing and found sexual gratification in violence. She had previously killed and dissected a neighbor’s cat while filming herself. Naturally, all of the headlines in the UK are about the violent “woman” killer. Here’s the Independent:
A woman who live-streamed the dissection and killing of a cat has been jailed for life for murdering an innocent man by drowning him in a river.
Scarlet Blake, 26, walked the streets of Oxford looking for a victim until she encountered Jorge Martin Carreno, 30, during the early hours of 26 July 2021.
She persuaded him to accompany her to the secluded Parson’s Pleasure area, where she is believed to have hit him with an object, strangled him until he lost consciousness and then drowned him in the River Cherwell.
Jurors heard that Blake had a “fixation with violence and with knowing what it would be like to kill someone”, and received sexual gratification from the thought of death. After murdering Carreno, she told a new partner that she had done so because “my lover said it would be hot”.
The judge in the case concluded that Blake was partly inspired to the murder, and to the prior killing of a cat by a Netflix show.
The murder came four months after Blake livestreamed the horrific killing of her neighbour’s cat. Blake used cat food and a carrier to lure the pet…
Blake dissected the animal, decapitated it, removed its fur and skin, and placed its body in a blender.
Once she had dissected the cat, she said: “Well, one day, I want to learn how to do this to a person.”
During the video, the New Order song True Faith played in the background, which the court heard was in homage to a Netflix documentary called Don’t F**k with Cats about a man who killed felines and murdered a human.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the show but apparently it was a true crime documentary about a sicko who posted a video online of himself killing two kittens and the online sleuths who obsessively tried to identify the person responsible so they could punish him.
The video of the cat killing was too disturbing to show during the trial but prosecutors did show stills from it in which Blake could be seen smiling. Apparently, Blake was in an online relationship with a US trans woman named Ashlynn Bell. During the trial, Blake tried to blame the killing of the cat on Bell. The judge didn’t go for that either, noting that Bell never left the US and didn’t force Blake to kill the cat or to carry out the murder.
Blake also claimed to have multiple personalities, one of which was a cat.
During her evidence, she claimed she had a fragmented personality, which included being a cat, and miaowed at the jury to show how she would interact with friends.
No one bought that excuse either. It’s just another trendy thing some young people claim is true of themselves after watching too many TikTok videos.
All of the stories I looked at about the murder now mention that Blake is trans, but that wasn’t the case at first. The Guardian story initially made no mention of the fact that Blake was trans. This was noticed by a reporter who asked the Guardian for a clarification of the paper’s policy.
My complaint just sent to the Guardian’s editor @KathViner regarding this article: https://t.co/leKwIlSHsS pic.twitter.com/YThTKChiPs
— Louise Tickle (@louisetickle) February 25, 2024
JK Rowling, who highlighted the tweet above, also pointed to this Sky News report which never mentioned that Blake was trans.
I’m so sick of this shit. This is not a woman. These are #NotOurCrimes https://t.co/ycjWefLCiw
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) February 26, 2024
There may be violent crimes carried out by trans people where their trans identity is not relevant to the crime, but this is clearly not one of them.
There is something grim about pretending that a gratuitously violent, sexually-motivated male murderer is a woman, when women have to bear so much of the brunt of male violence in society. That this is a male crime could not be more relevant here.https://t.co/oMzN46VM0l
— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) February 23, 2024