Cat killer inspired by true-crime show to serve 24 years for murder of stranger

‘You revelled in what you did and used your status as a murderer’

- Paul Jeeves

A TRANSGENDER woman who murdered a stranger in a sexual fantasy inspired by a TV documentary will spend at least 24 years behind bars, a judge said yesterday.

Scarlet Blake, 26 will serve her sentence in a male jail.

Four months before she killed Jorge Martin Carreno, Blake filmed herself mutilating and dissecting a neighbour's cat before putting it in a blender.

The act was a Valentine gift to her American girlfriend, who is a sex worker and also trans, a court heard.

Prosecutors said Blake, who grinned and made "meow" noises as she tortured the doomed animal, had been inspired by Netflix show Don't F*** with Cats, about a pet killer who films himself stabbing and dismembering a man.

Blake had a fixation with murder and killed for her own "sexual gratification", Oxford Crown Court was told. Jurors heard she targeted Spanish engineer Mr Carreno, 30, in July 2021, as he walked home after a night out in the city.

She led him to a secluded riverbank, clubbed him with a vodka bottle, strangled him, then pushed him into the water to drown.