A manual labourer has admitted to violently raping a grandmother, two years after being handed a life sentence for bludgeoning her to death with a nailed bat following a chance encounter on a bus.
Valentin Lazar, 23, was found guilty of the murder of 45-year-old Maria Rawlings in February 2022, after a court heard he beat and strangled the grandmother to death and left her naked in undergrowth in Romford, east London.The violent attack, which took place on the evening of May 3 2021, saw Lazar guide Ms Rawlings from a bus stop into nearby undergrowth where the attack took place.
leading the grandmother into undergrowth.The court was then shown footage of Lazar returning to the bus stop alone 31 minutes later, with Ms Rawlings' white handbag slung over his shoulder.Footage then shows Mr Lazar rifling through her belongings before discarding the bag on the pavement.A local dog walker discovered Ms Rawlings' naked body the following day.
footage presented in court shows the pair engaging in a brief conversation, before Lazar and the victim disappear from view.Following the attack, Lazar boarded another bus, eventually arriving home shorty after 1am.A post-mortem examination found Ms Rawlings died from neck compression and a blunt force head injury.At the initial sentencing hearing, prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones KC suggested a possible "sexual motive" for the murder.