Jorge Martin Carreno death: Murder accused pretended to enjoy killing cat - trial

Jorge Martin Carreno was a Spanish national working at the Oxford Mini plant

A woman accused of killing a man pretended to enjoy torturing and killing a cat to impress an internet girlfriend, a court has heard.

Jorge Martin Carreno, 30, was pulled from the River Cherwell at Parson's Pleasure, Oxford, in July 2021.

Scarlet Blake, 26, is accused of targeting him after he spent a night out with work colleagues.

Oxford Crown Court has heard she livestreamed the torturing and killing of a cat months before.

Ms Blake, of Crotch Crescent, Oxford, denies murder.

Ms Blake, who is a trans woman, has started giving evidence and told the jury about an online relationship that developed with Ashlynn Bell, another trans woman, in the US.

In one message to her, Ms Blake wrote: "I'm a borderline psychopath, I love death lol."

In previous video calls Ms Blake had cut herself for Ms Bell, and put a noose around her neck.

Richard Sutton KC, defending, asked Ms Blake: "Can you explain to the jury in your own words how you came to kill the cat and dissect it?"

Ms Blake, who has pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal damage relating to killing the cat, said it was something she "very much didn't want" so she "emotionally distanced" herself from the animal "to be able to do it".

She added: "It's something to make [Ms Bell] happy. It's something that she wanted me to do so I pretended to enjoy it."

The body of Jorge Martin Carreno was found in the River Cherwell at Parson's Pleasure

She was asked about a picture of her smiling at the camera during the incident.

"It was a very choreographed laugh," she said. "I'm pretty sure my face wasn't like that the whole time."

Ms Blake said it was "at the end of the period when I didn't really eat anything for three months, and that was also one of [Ms Bell's] demands," describing it as akin to an "automatic response to classical conditioning".

She said: "I was trying to meet the demand.. and be happy about it. Narrate a different persona to act as if I was someone who enjoys the suffering of others and animals."

Mr Sutton asked her how she could bear to cause suffering to the cat.

She replied: "I felt awful, I felt guilty, I felt loss. I expected the cat to die a lot faster."

She also said it was "something I can do without looking like I'm freaking out", and she pretended the pet "wasn't real or sentient".

'Murder-themed'

Ms Blake, who came to the UK from China aged nine, told the court she came out to her parents as transgender at 12.

She said it "made my father really unhappy and my mother as well" and "caused a large emotional rift".

She said she became "not very friendly" to herself and it would "encompass classical things such as cutting myself, to putting myself in dangerous situations".

A message sent to Ms Bell read: "I would film me murdering my mom for you."

Another said: "I'd also want to kill my dad one day."

But Ms Blake said a lot of their exchanges were "murder themed" and metaphors, and that Ms Bell was not "openly receptive to talking about emotions".

"In short it's a fantasy dress up," she said. "Saying I'm hurt about the way I was brought up and I'm sad about it."

The trial continues.

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