Serial sex attacker Simon Levy, 40, has been jailed for the rest of his life for murdering two women and raping a third. He killed grandmother Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, in March 2025 and mother-of-four Sheryl Wilkins, 39, in August that year, as his offending escalated from sexual assaults on the Tube to double murder.
Attacks and victims
Levy suffocated both women in sexually motivated attacks. Ms Valencia-Trujillo was found in a largely abandoned block of flats on the Aylesbury estate in south-east London, and Ms Wilkins behind a car park wall near Tottenham High Road, north London. Before the murders, Levy had subjected a third woman to a brutal rape in the same car park where Ms Wilkins' body was later found. The surviving victim had told police where her attacker lived, but she was not formally interviewed until after Levy had killed twice.
Sentencing and impact statements
At the Old Bailey on Wednesday, Judge Mark Lucraft KC, the Recorder of London, sentenced Levy to a whole life prison term. "You are clearly someone who ruthlessly exploits others for your own personal sexual satisfaction," said the judge. Noting Levy's disturbing internet history and collection of press cuttings about sexual crimes, he said Levy is "someone who appears to have a morbid fascination with sex, rape, and crime".
Levy's victims branded him a "monster" and a "parasite" during the sentencing hearing. The surviving rape victim said: "He took away my soul that night and he took away my dignity," calling the attack "worse than all the nights of being a victim of trafficking". Ms Wilkins' sister Lindsey Hicks said: "You, Simon Levy, have destroyed our lives and we will never ever get over this." Ms Valencia-Trujillo's daughter, Nazly Johana Fuenmayor Valencia, called the murder "horrific" and said: "There's an emptiness that can't be filled."
System failures and aftermath
Levy was found guilty by a jury of two counts of murder, two counts of rape, grievous bodily harm with intent and the non-fatal smothering of the rape victim. He had been convicted earlier this year at Inner London Crown Court of 11 sexual assaults on London's public transport network. The Metropolitan Police, British Transport Police and Crown Prosecution Service admitted failings in how they dealt with Levy, who was on bail as his attacks escalated. The Independent Office for Police Conduct said it had served a gross misconduct notice on a Met police constable and a misconduct notice on a detective sergeant.
Levy's offending spanned 2018 to 2025. He was jailed in 2021 for groping two women in 2018. After his arrest in November 2024 for Tube sexual assaults, delays in organising an identification parade left him free to carry out the rape and first murder. Following Ms Valencia-Trujillo's death, he was released on bail at two magistrates' court hearings in May and June 2025. Less than two weeks after a hearing on August 11, he murdered Ms Wilkins.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Kevin Southworth said: "There's a collective system failure here, which has left Levy free to go on offending in this awful manner." After sentencing, he added: "As the commissioner recently said, we are concerned by the fragility of the criminal justice system. As we have seen in Levy's case, despite clear risk and rapid escalation, the courts defaulted to bail on two occasions. We now need to work together, with other judicial partners, to create and implement a plan of action which sees repeat offenders – like Levy – automatically placed on remand to protect the wider public."
