Climate Activist Wanted to Be a Human Rights Lawyer... Now She'll Likely Spend the Rest of Her Life Behind Bars
A climate activist and would-be human rights lawyer is now more likely to die behind bars than to represent any clients in the future.
The radical change in fortune for Blaze Lily Wallace, 28, comes after a United Kingdom jury found her guilty of murdering her fiance.
A Kingston-upon-Thames court handed her a life sentence on Aug. 8, shortly after the jury’s decision was announced. Although Wallace must spend a minimum of 24 years behind bars, a judge expressed doubt that the murderer would ever see freedom again.
According to the Telegraph, Wallace was just one month away from completing a master’s degree in human rights law at the University of Roehampton at the time of her sentencing.
When not murdering people or pursuing a law degree, Wallace was active in the extremist environmental group Extinction Rebellion.
The narrative of Wallace’s crime is as heinous as it is heartless.
On July 18 of last year, Wallace and her fiance Samuel Mayo consumed heroin, cocaine, and cannabis and subsequently fell into an argument while at her London home. Mayo soon left the scene.
An Extinction Rebellion activist who wanted to be a human rights lawyer was jailed for life after stabbing her fiance to death in the middle of a London street. Blaze Lily Wallace, 28, was pregnant with Samuel Mayo’s child when she murdered him https://t.co/MbhZeAM6l9
— Lotus Eaters News (@lotuseatersnews) August 8, 2023
Security footage showed Wallace, who was pregnant with Mayo’s child at the time according to Leading Britain’s Conversation, following him with a kitchen knife. The pair eventually ended up in front of a local brewery.
Wallace claimed Mayo drew a sharpened chopstick and threatened her with it, at which point she pulled the knife.
The stab delivered to Mayo was so powerful that it broke through his ribcage cartilage and plunged into his heart. Witnesses said Mayo’s final words were a loving plea to Wallace, which she heartlessly ignored.
Wallace initially failed to tell investigators about the chopstick in the aftermath of the murder, and no such Asian eating implement was ever found at the scene. In court she further downplayed the crime, claiming she did not aim to stab the man and only pulled the knife as a “deterrent,” the Telegraph reported.
“It was horrible,” Wallace told the jury. “I did not mean any impact, I meant to gesture for him to get back.”
Wallace’s defense crumbled in court and the jury returned a guilty verdict after less than half a day of deliberations.
The judge was similarly unconvinced with Wallace’s story and raked her over the coals for the brutal crime.
“In contrast to the people who tried to assist [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,” Judge Rajeev Shetty said.
While Wallace must spend at least 24 years of her sentence in prison, the judge noted that there is no guarantee she will be freed after that time.
In addition to the murder conviction, Wallace was also found guilty of an offensive weapons charge. The judge ruled the disgraced climate activist must serve a four-year concurrent sentence for the crime.
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