Oxford, United Kingdom – A woman accused of murder allegedly had a history of torturing and killing a cat, a court revealed. The body of Jorge Carreno was discovered in the River Cherwell at Parson’s Pleasure in July 2021, as the prosecution claimed that 25-year-old Scarlet Blake had been seeking a victim on the streets of Oxford before meeting him. The court heard that she had previously livestreamed the killing of a cat and took pleasure in the act.
According to prosecutor Alison Morgan KC, Mr. Carreno, a Spanish national working at the Mini plant, had been out drinking with colleagues before getting separated from them and encountering the defendant. Surveillance footage showed the pair walking through the city and later arriving at Parson’s Pleasure, where Mr. Carreno was eventually found in the river. The prosecution also presented evidence of a vodka bottle lid with the defendant’s DNA found at the scene.
Morgan asserted that Blake had a fixation with violence and harbored a desire to know what it would feel like to kill someone, attributing her extreme interest in death and harm to go beyond mere fantasy. The court also heard allegations of a video in which Blake dissected a cat and took grotesque pleasure in the act, as well as discussions comparing her actions to those of a notorious murderer in a Netflix documentary.
Following Mr. Carreno’s death, a police investigation was initiated, during which the prosecution claimed that Blake never presented herself as a witness despite numerous police appeals. The first post-mortem examination concluded drowning with alcohol intoxication as the provisional cause of death, but injuries and haemorrhaging prompted further investigation, implicating Blake in the potential use of strangulation or force against the victim.