Extinction Rebellion activist stabbed boyfriend to death as he pleaded 'I love you'
Blathnaid Corless
Mon, 7 August 2023 at 2:40 pm GMT+1·4-min read
Samuel Mayo, right, was stabbed to death by his fiancé Blaze Lily Wallace
An Extinction Rebellion activist stabbed her boyfriend to death as he pleaded “I love you”, a court heard.
Blaze Lily Wallace, a 28-year-old law student, was jailed for life on Monday after following her fiancé Samuel Mayo down the street after a domestic dispute last summer at their home in south west London, and fatally wounding him.
Witnesses heard him repeatedly shout: “Please Blaze. I love you, please Blaze,” before he bled to death at the side of the road, begging motorists and passers-by to call an ambulance.
A jury of eight women and four men at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court unanimously convicted Wallace of murder and possessing an offensive weapon after 10-and-a-half hours of deliberation following a three-week trial.
The court previously heard how the pair rowed while under the influence of heroin, cocaine and cannabis in the back garden of Wallace’s home in Mortlake, south west London, on July 18 last year.
Blaze Lily Wallace was jailed for life at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court on Monday - Central News/Met Police
Wallace followed Mr Mayo on to the street about six minutes later, with CCTV footage showing her in pursuit of him while armed with a kitchen knife in her pocket, before eventually catching up with him outside the Stag Brewery.
When police arrived at the scene at 9.57pm, they immediately recognised Mr Mayo as a local drug user, who regularly begged outside Tesco’s and Mortlake train station.
He was taken to Kingston Hospital and pronounced dead at 10.33pm.
Locals heard some of his final words as he shouted: “Please Blaze. I love you, please Blaze.”
Wallace claimed her fiancé had been armed with an improvised sharpened wooden chopstick and she was simply using the knife to ward him off to protect herself, which the jury rejected.
The couple rowed while under the influence of heroin, cocaine and cannabis, the court heard - Central News
She claimed Mr Mayo had pulled the chopstick out when she tried to apologise to him in the street and held it up to her neck, at which point she pulled the knife out of her pocket.
“I put the knife out as a deterrent to get back and he lunged forward and I did not get a chance to pull the knife back,” she told the jury.
“It was horrible. I did not mean any impact, I meant to gesture for him to get back,” she added.
When police officers arrived at Wallace’s home at 1.00am that night she failed to give them the same explanation about the chopstick.
She told the jury why she did not want to talk to the officers: “My dad told me not to say anything and I had no solicitor. I did not want to spend the night in a cell, it was overwhelming.”
‘Lack of remorse’
No wooden chopstick was found in the area during the subsequent police investigation.Wallace claimed Mayo had been physically abusive during their three-month relationship and had smashed her into a hallway mirror - cutting her hand - and punched her in the stomach the week before.
Sentencing Wallace, Judge Rajeev Shetty said: “In contrast to the people who tried to assist [Mr Mayo], you did nothing and left the scene, allowing him to die and showing a complete lack of remorse that you had stabbed him in the chest.
“He had a life that, like yours, was blighted by heavy drug use, but despite this he was well-liked by his family and was well-known in the local area.”
Wallace graduated from St. Mary’s University, Twickenham with a law degree in 2017 and when arrested was one month short of completing her Masters in Human Rights & Legal Practice at the University of Roehampton.
Her LinkedIn page says that she has attended Extinction Rebellion protests which she believes are “of great importance”.
Wallace was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 24 years behind bars. She was told by Judge Rajeev Shetty that there was no guarantee she would ever be released.
