A 31-year-old man will appear in court in Lyngby today to face charges of murdering an Italian woman and raping two others in rooms he was sub-letting last year.

An initial rape charge against the man was initially dropped due to a lack of circumstantial evidence, but then police discovered the dismembered body of a woman (another sub-letter) in a suitcase on July 29, which was found in a field close to the Helsingør motorway.

The following day, the man was charged with the rape of a 29-year-old lodger and the murder of 48-year-old Italian woman Giancarla Coppi.

Since then, a third woman – a Filipino student – has stepped forward to claim she was raped by the man.

Accused insists on innocence
The accused is pleading “not guilty” to the charges of rape and murder, but recognises his part in violence resulting in the death, according to his lawyer, Lone Refshammer.

Henning Svendsen from North Zealand Police told Ekstra Bladet the case was a “special” one.

“The circumstances are special in this case, because the accused has exploited his female lodgers in a way that is both grotesque and unacceptable,” Svendsen told Ekstra Bladet.

“We’ll never know what really happened in the events leading up to the death, but it is reasonable to believe it was sexually explicit.”