Law Graduate Gets Life For Fiancé Murder

Happier Times: Sam & Blaze

An Extinction Rebellion activist, with dreams of becoming a human rights lawyer, was yesterday jailed for life, with a twenty-four year minimum, for stabbing to death her fiancé.

Law graduate Blaze Lily Wallace, 28, followed Samuel Mayo, 34, after a domestic at their home and stabbed him in the street.

Witnesses heard his final, desperate words as he repeatedly shouted: “Please Blaze. I love you, please Blaze.”

Bare-chested Samuel suffered a fatal 4cm wound in Lower Richmond Road, Mortlake on July 18, last year and bled to death at around 9.45pm as he begged motorists and passers-by to call an ambulance.

The Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court jury of eight women and four men unanimously convicted Wallace of murder and possessing an offensive weapon after ten-and-a-half hours deliberation following the three-week trial.

His heartbroken mother Sarah Johnstone’s victim impact statement was read aloud by her other son Bailey Graham. She wrote: Learning that my son Sam had been murdered was absolutely devastating for me and my family.

“To be put through a trial was cruel for me and my family. we have to wake up everyday knowing we will not see Sam again.

“He was a kind, considerate, son, brother and uncle and always made us laugh and nothing seemed to get him down.

Arrested: Blaze Wallace

“Our pain will never go away and the family will always have a piece missing.” 

Judge Rajeev Shetty told a noticeably heavier Wallace, wearing a black Casper The Friendly Ghost sweatshirt with her hair braided in a cornrows-style: “You stabbed him once to the chest.

“You stabbed him with sufficient force at a downward angle for the knife to go through his ribcage cartilage and into the heart. He shouted for help and was losing a lot of blood at this time.

“In contrast to the people who tried to assist him, 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.

“It was a volatile relationship and he had been violent towards you and witnesses gave evidence of a central theme of arguments in the street and home in which you were also the aggressor.”

Mayo left with some belongings after the pair rowed in the back garden. “You followed him around six minutes later. You took with you a large knife knife and I reject completely that you took that in case things got violent and you had to protect yourself.

“You kept that knife out of view and in rage and anger at being slighted or being called ‘nasty’ you caught up with him outside The Stag Brewery, Lower Richmond Road.

“He was no threat to you at all and he neither attacked you or attempted to attack you and I reject this was excessive self-defence.

“You stabbed him in the middle of the chest where his heart was. There must have been an intention to kill.

“I sentence you to life imprisonment with a minimum of twenty-four years. That is no guarantee of release, you may never be released.”

The jury rejected Wallace’s claim Mayo was armed with an improvised sharpened wooden chopstick and she was simply using the knife to ward him off to protect herself.

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.

She had ambitions to work abroad as a human rights lawyer in Germany, Canada and Asia and gave birth to a daughter, while in custody, last March.

Her lawyer Joe Stone KC told the court: “This isn’t a lady with a proven record of violence. She is not an experienced criminal, used to London’s prisons, in fact quite the reverse.

“It would not be an exaggeration to say it will have a profound effect on her life, now and for the next two decades at least,” added the KC, describing Wallace as “not a ruthless killer.”

Both were under the influence of heroin, cocaine and cannabis that evening and had rowed at Wallace’s one-bedroom housing association flat in nearby Mullins Path.

CCTV footage showed Wallace deliberately following Mayo, while armed with the knife in her pocket, catching up with him outside the huge Stag Brewery.

Corinne Bramwell urged the court to order a minimum of twenty-five years custody. “This was a planned attack in which a weapon was used. It was taken to the scene by Ms Wallace.

“The defendant intended to kill Mr Mayo. She followed him for some distance armed with a knife and after catching up with him stabbed him once in the heart with a sharp knife, without a backwards glance.

“It was pre-meditated and she was under the influence of Class A drugs and the jury rejected self-defence for an incident that lasted sixteen seconds.

“This was not a snap in the middle of an attack, but as earlier shown the row that proceeded him leaving Mullins Path involved Ms Wallace being the more aggressive and unpleasant party.” 

At the start of the trial prosecutor Jane Bickerstaff KC told the jury: “The defendant had clearly caught up with her intended victim and they disappear off camera to the left of the screen.

“The incident is not captured on CCTV footage, but in just under thirty seconds Mayo appears back on screen and he is now fatally injured.

“He can be seen to run into the road and back onto the pavement on the other side of the road, where he collapsed and died.”

“It is the Crown’s case that the defendant had a large kitchen knife concealed at her right side. She took it out and stabbed Mr Mayo once, straight into his heart.

“We say this was intentional and with no lawful reason and the defendant’s intention at the time was to kill her boyfriend, or at the very least to cause him really serious harm.”

Eight stone Mayo bled to death at the scene and when police arrived at 9.57pm they immediately recognised him 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.” 

Police officers arrived at Wallace’s home at 1.00am, but she failed to give them the same explanation, regarding the chopstick.

Wallace 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.”

Describing that night’s events she explained: “I said: ‘Get the f*** out of my house,’ and he said: ‘You’re nasty,’ or something and then walked off.

“There was a big clean knife on the side and it freaked me out. The logical thing was to keep the knife on me out of harms way and I did not think to throw it in the bin,” she told the court.

“I saw him in the distance and tried to apologise to him for not letting him have a bath and went to say I was freaked out by his weapon-hiding and he pulled out a sharpened chopstick and said: ‘That’s what time it is.’

“It was wooden, but bladed, like a home-made shank, like an ice pick and he used it like an inconspicuous weapon.”

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.

“He started moving his hand up until the chopstick was by my neck and said: ‘C’mon. Say pussy one more time.’

“I’ve frozen up and tried to back away from him and he has gone to grab me where the knife was in my pocket and I pulled the knife out of my pocket backwards and he has pulled the chopstick backwards off my neck.

“I put the knife out as a deterrent to get back and he has lunged forward and I did not get a chance to pull the knife back.

“He has got a mad look on his face and I have felt the knife go in quite hard.

“I said: ‘What’s wrong with you?’ and could see the slit in his chest and a tiny bit of blood on the knife and he started shouting: ‘Blaze, Blaze.’

“It was horrible. I did not mean any impact, I meant to gesture for him to get back,” Wallace told the jury.

“I was in fear of my belly and the foetus inside from either a punch or a stab. If I hadn’t had the knife on me I’d have to defend myself with my hands.

“I did not want to cause any harm. I wanted to deter him from attacking me by holding the knife out.”

No wooden chopstick was found in the area during the subsequent police investigation.

Two old unrelated charges of assaulting PC David Jones in North Warpole Way, Mortlake and Jessica Whiting in Mullins Path on August 3, 2020 were dropped by the prosecution. 

The judge sentenced Wallace to four years concurrent to the life term for the offensive weapon charge.