There is just this barbaric,
as a Valentine gift to her girlfriend in the US. Blake had been inspired by the Netflix show Don’t F*** with Cats, about a pet killer, and she grinned and ‘meowed’ as she tortured the animal during a sickening live-stream video.
She remained free for more than two years after Mr Carreno’s death and the case was blown open only when her now-former partner, a gun-obsessed trans escort, told police that she had confessed to the murder following a blazing row. A jury of five women and seven men yesterday reached a verdict of guilty to murder after deliberating for six hours following a trial lasting eight days. Blake will be sentenced on Monday.
Following the trial at Oxford Crown Court, the devastated family of Mr Carreno paid tribute to a ‘beloved son and brother’ and said his death had left an ‘open wound in the heart of their family’.
Detectives said Blake had been convicted of a ‘barbaric and chilling’ crime, adding: ‘There can be no beginning to understanding this senseless act.’ Two years after his body was pulled from a secluded stretch of river popular with summer bathers, the investigation into Mr Carreno’s death was going nowhere until police received a phone call completely out of the blue that would lead them to Blake.
Even though the Thames Valley Police probe was officially still open, a coroner had concluded Mr Carreno had probably drowned while drunk.
Police appeals for the identity of a sinister figure in a military-style coat who was seen wandering the streets of Oxford with the Spanish engineer on the night of his death had yielded nothing. It was only when detectives received that transatlantic call from a woman who claimed to know what had happened that the case could be solved.
Blake was so confident she had carried out the ‘perfect murder’ that she had boasted about it to her girlfriend.
But a blazing row between her and sex worker Ashlynn Bell – during which guns were pulled – led to police being tipped off about her confession.
The Mail can reveal that the case rested on information provided by Ms Bell, who didn’t give evidence because prosecutors feared she would ruin their chance of a conviction.
Messages between the pair recovered by detectives showed a dark fascination with violence and death, with scarcely an exchange passing without reference to murder or self harm.
Photographs show that Ms Bell has a fearsome collection of military-grade weapons and equipment as well as a liking for Nazi memorabilia.
She also advertises herself on a website for trans prostitutes in Texas, where she charges $100 an hour for her services. Photographs on the site show her posing with an AK-47 assault rifle and wearing cat ears.
The pair met during the pandemic on Discord, a secretive online messaging platform. They joined an invite- only group dedicated to ‘artistically rendered gore’ in which users would trade in sickening self-harm images.
The messages between Blake and Ms Bell recovered by detectives showed them openly discussing killing, including one in which Blake said: ‘F*** I need blood, this is bad.’
In another, Ms Bell said the combat jacket Blake wore to kill Mr Carreno had a ‘serial killer musk’ after she had posted it to the US at her lover’s request. Ms Bell has not responded to requests for comment. Photographs recovered from Blake’s phone included a collage of female serial killers, while another entitled ‘first date with me’ showed pictures of duct tape, a knife, rope and a gun.
A bizarre obsession with cats was also evident from messages and photographs, with Ms Bell pictured wearing a cat mask as she posed with an assault rifle.
When she was arrested, Blake stunned police by revealing she had an animal microchip implanted in her chest and said her details could be found in an online animal database. She insisted during questioning that she loves cats and hates animal abusers.
It was during one of the pair’s many exchanges that Blake couldn’t resist sharing details of how she killed Mr Carreno after targeting him as he sat alone in the early hours of the morning.
The 30-year-old had been on a night out with colleagues on July 24, 2021 – the first Saturday night after Covid restrictions were eased.
While the rest of the country had, like Mr Carreno, flocked to pubs and bars to meet friends after months kept apart, predatory Blake went out that night looking for somebody to kill.
The daughter of two respected doctors, Blake’s arrogance was clear as she gave evidence at her trial. After killing the cat, she thought could get away with anything, including murder. And, for more than two years, she did.
But in April 2023 police received information from Ms Bell and were sent the combat jacket and sick photographs of a memorial to Mr Carreno that Blake had taken as a memento of her crime.
Detectives travelled to Colorado to interview her and Blake was arrested in August 2023.
Throughout the trial Blake sought to blame anyone but herself – her parents for her mental health problems, her exgirlfriend for ‘ forcing her’ to kill a defenceless cat and, ultimately, an innocent man. Blake moved to the UK from China when she was nine and came out as transgender three years later, using a number of different names since then.
She went by Alice Wang while at school, but told the trial that she doesn’t now as this person ‘sort of stopped existing’ one day.
Blake, who referred to herself as ‘us’ and ‘we’ during the trial, has used at least six different names, including Scarlet and Candy, who she said is ‘still here’. She is also known to have used pseudonyms to mask her identity when lurking in dark corners of the internet.
One of these – ‘Blood Moth’ – she explained is a metaphor for her obsession with blood and her attraction to damage like a moth is drawn to a flame. Ms Bell’s nickname was ‘Murder Mutt’.
‘Thought she could get away with anything’
Blake was brought up in the leafy Marston area of Oxford, where she lived in a £415,000 bungalow in a quiet culde-sac. Her mother, Fang Chen, 60, is a former cardiac surgeon who is now a respected clinical research fellow at Oxford University. She attended the trial each day and showed no emotion as her daughter was found guilty.
Ms Chen came to the UK in 2002, first to London to study cardiology on a scholarship before taking a job in Oxford in 2006, around the time that Blake said she moved to the UK from China.
Her father, Henry, lives in China because of work but was present in court at the beginning of the trial.
Neighbours in Marston remember her as a ‘quiet child’ doted on by her parents. But that changed in her teens when she dropped out of Cherwell School in Oxford.
One neighbour said: ‘I did hear that she was bullied at school because she was a trans girl, and that led to her leaving halfway through the sixth form.
‘We used to see her with friends tinkering with cars in the garage. She was always very pleasant, but there were times when police would be called to the house. Her mum came here once to say she had been self-harming.’
Blake was in the army cadets while at school, and she wore a combat jacket as she stalked the streets looking for a victim on the night she killed Mr Carreno.
She came out as transgender when she was 12 and this caused a ‘strained’ relationship with her parents and ‘caused a very large emotional rift’.
Blake was given puberty blockers when she was 17 and also received hormone treatment from the age of 18 after a referral to the Tavistock NHS gender clinic. She is still receiving hormone replacement therapy but has been kept in a Category A men’s prison.
Blake talked openly of her severe mental health problems. She was diagnosed with depression when she was a child and has taken medication to treat this ever since.
She claimed she suffers from ‘dissociative amnesia’ and can scarcely remember anything from before the age of 12, although she admitted this has not been officially diagnosed.
Blake also claimed that she has a ‘fragmented’ personality like a ‘pie chart’ and uses different personas in
‘She had an animal microchip in her chest’
different scenarios depending on her mood, including a cat that she uses to express joy. Despite her claims, Blake’s lawyers did not call a psychiatrist or therapist to support her story.
A chronic insomniac who would often walk around Oxford late at night, Blake admitted to the court that she had a habit of ‘drinking excessively’ and said she had used ‘recreational substances’.
Clearly intelligent, she would answer probing questions from the prosecution in a flat, almost robotic voice, and became animated only when explaining the uses of chemicals found in her bedroom or the specialist military equipment collected by Ms Bell.
Blake said she wanted to study medicine but didn’t get the grades due to dropping out of sixth form. However she said she still harboured ambitions to become a doctor. ‘I’ve always been fascinated with human anatomy but I never got a chance to be hands on with it because that would be unethical,’ she told the court.
She had a contract for a job as a medical technician at Oxford University but never started. Blake also said she was volunteering for the Samaritans before her arrest.
The officer in charge of the murder case, Detective Superintendent Jon Capps, said the killing of Mr Carreno had been ‘premeditated with total disregard and disdain for life’ and said there can be ‘no beginning to understanding this senseless act’.