Tottenham predator 'murdered two women and raped third'

Simon Levy, 40, is on trial at the Old Bailey for killing Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, in March 2025 and Sheryl Wilkins, 39, five months later in August.

He is also accused of raping a third woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in January last year, as well as GBH and non-fatal suffocation.

The murder of Ms Wilkins came months after Levy was first arrested over the death of Ms Valencia-Trujillo and came soon after he molested a string of other women, jurors heard.

Opening the prosecution case on Monday, Tom Little KC told the court that Levy has previous convictions for sexual assault.

He was convicted of two sexual assaults committed in 2018, and more recently of 11 counts of sexual assault after a trial in February this year.

Mr Little said: "Six of those offences occurring in the first five months of what year? 2025. The same year that these three women were attacked.

"It’s a raft of offences, including sexual touching and activity which was not consensual.

"That tells you everything you need to know, we say, about his attitude and approach to women."

It is alleged that Levy raped one woman in January last year, bearing down on her with all his weight so that her collarbone broke.

He put his hand over her mouth and grabbed at her throat, causing her to lose consciousness and fear that she might die during the attack in a car park in Tottenham High Road, the jury was told.

Two months later, in March, he is accused of murdering Ms Valencia-Trujillo, who was found dead in the stairwell of a largely abandoned block of flats in Southwark, south-east London.

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He was arrested and interviewed by police on April 1 last year but released, and allegedly went on to murder Ms Wilkins four months later in August that year.

She was found dead in the same Tottenham car park where the alleged rape victim was attacked in January, jurors were told.

One of the officers who found Ms Wilkins lying face down and covered in a jacket at first thought she might be the woman who was allegedly raped in the same spot seven months earlier.

Prosecutors allege that Levy committed "a series of predatory sexual attacks in the first eight months of 2025 on three women, each in their own way very vulnerable".

Mr Little said: "(This was) a series of attacks upon vulnerable women who either undertook sex work or who, by reason of drug addiction, would sometimes perform sexual services for money and/or drugs.

"Therefore, a series of attacks committed, we say, by the same predatory serial sexual attacker in a similar way."

Four days after the alleged attack on the surviving woman, she was arrested for breach of a community order while on her way to hospital for treatment for the injury to her collarbone.

She told police that she had been raped, but was not well enough to be interviewed at the time because she was withdrawing from heroin.

In September that year, the woman was interviewed and described how she thought she was going to die during the alleged rape as she could not breathe and lost consciousness.

The Old Bailey was told that the physical description she gave and details of the address where the man lived matched Levy, and that she had picked him out in an identification parade.

Ms Valencia-Trujillo was found in the stairwell of a large, mostly condemned block of flats on March 17 last year.

She was found lying face down in a landing area, with injuries to her face and no pulse, and her trousers were not fully pulled up, the court heard.

Levy had lived nearby for a number of months in 2023 and prosecutors claim this means he would have known the area.

His blood was found on a pipe in the stairwell area near where her body was found, the court heard.

Mr Little said: "Something caused him to bleed at the very location where Carmenza was killed. That is, we say, no coincidence."

DNA from his semen was also found on her body, the jury was told.

Ms Wilkins was found behind a wall in a B&M car park in Tottenham High Road on August 24 last year, with a jacket placed over the top half of her body, including her head.

The cause of death for both women is unascertained, the jury heard.

Ms Wilkins’s blood was detected on both cuffs of a blue North Face jacket that was found in Levy’s home when he was arrested over her death on September 4, jurors were told.

Mr Little said the deaths of the two women were "strikingly similar" and happened a short time after they had sex with the defendant.

Levy, of Beaufoy Road, Tottenham, north London, has pleaded not guilty to the two women’s murders.

He has further denied two charges of rape, grievous bodily harm with intent, and non-fatal suffocation against the surviving woman.

In a brief opening speech by Levy’s defence, Siobhan Grey KC told jurors: "We say to you that just because one man over a period of eight months had sexual intercourse with three sex workers does not mean that he has intended to harm them or kill them."

She asserted the surviving alleged victim was "not telling the truth" about what happened and called into question her "credibility, reliability and honesty".

She had picked Levy out in an identity parade because she had known him for years, Ms Grey said.

The barrister asserted that Levy had nothing to do with the other two women’s deaths.

She said: "It goes further than that, there is a real issue about whether these women were unlawfully killed at all or whether they died of a drug-related death.

"The prosecution rely heavily on what they call the unlikelihood of coincidence and we urge you to be careful of that assertion."

The trial was adjourned until Tuesday.