An accused murderer killed for a second time just months after he was questioned by police over an earlier death and released, a court has heard.
Simon Levy, 40, is on trial at the Old Bailey.
He is accused of raping one woman and murdering two others in an eight-month period in 2025 – charges which he denies.
On Monday, prosecutor Tom Little KC told jurors that Levy was arrested and interviewed by police on 1 April 2025 over the murder of Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, whose body had been found in a stairwell in flats in south-east London on 17 March of that year.
It is alleged that Levy went on to kill Sheryl Wilkins, 39, in August.
Mr Little said: “The defendant was arrested and interviewed on April 1 2025 about the murder of Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo in the presence of his solicitor and an appropriate adult.
“He answered ‘no comment’ to all questions that he was asked. He was arrested and interviewed again on September 6 2025 and again he answered no comment.”
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 that the women had all done sex work for money or drugs, telling the court: “It is why and how the defendant encountered them and it is also a reason why he attacked them, no doubt hoping and thinking that he would get away with it.”
Levy is accused of raping one woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in January 2025, as well as assault occasioning grievous bodily harm (GBH) and non-fatal suffocation, before the two killings.
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.”
Prosecutors alleged that both the murders were sexually motivated, and that while sexual activity with the women may have started out being consensual, it did not stay that way.
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.
Ms Valencia-Trujillo, 53, was found dead in a largely disused block of flats on the Aylesbury estate in Southwark, south-east London, on 17 March 2025.
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, and his DNA was also found on her body.
Ms Wilkins, 39, was found by police collapsed near High Road, Tottenham, at 6.30am on 24 August 2025, in the same car park where the January rape allegedly took place.
The cause of death for both women was unascertained, the jury heard, and Levy maintained that they were alive when he left them.
But Ms Wilkins’ 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 4 September, jurors were told.
Mr Little said: “It is strikingly similar you might think, the deaths of Carmenza and Sheryl.
“Both just happen to die of a drug overdose within a very short time of having sexual intercourse with the defendant.”
Jurors were told that the woman Levy allegedly raped was left “as good as for dead” after Levy jumped on her with all his weight, breaking her collarbone, and raped her while covering her face and grabbing at her throat.
Four days after the alleged attack, she was arrested for breach of a community order while on her way to hospital to receive 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.
In a police interview, he claimed that the sex was consensual and denied having hurt her.
The trial continues.
