Orlando's serial 'Malibu rapist' pleads guilty in 36-year-old cold case

ORLANDO, Fla. — A convicted Orlando serial rapist who is already serving two life sentences pleaded guilty to another sexual assault in a 36-year-old cold case Wednesday after the victim urged police to reexamine DNA evidence.

George William Girtman, 70, known as the “Malibu rapist” for multiple sexual assaults in the area around west Orlando’s Malibu neighborhood in the 1980s and ’90s, agreed to a deal with prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to one count of sexual battery with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to just over three years in prison.

The plea was for Girtman’s attack on Gail Gardner, a single mother assaulted inside her home in 1988. With advances in forensic science, she had the Orlando Police Department test her old rape kit for DNA evidence, leading to Girtman not only being identified as the suspect in her case after 33 years, but also in the cases of six other women from 1985 to 1990.

Girtman was subsequently re-arrested in 2021 on 18 charges, including 10 counts of sexual battery with a deadly weapon, seven counts of burglary and one count of kidnapping. All 17 charges besides Gardner’s case were dropped as part of the plea agreement.

At a press conference with Orange-Osceola State Attorney Andrew Bain on Wednesday, Gardner said she was satisfied with the case’s outcome – for now.

“My strength would go towards … my purpose is to help those who have settled their time served and those who have not through their healing journey as survivors of sexual abuse,” she said.

She has spent decades advocate for victims of sexual assault. Her efforts saw the Florida Legislature pass “Gail’s Law” in 2021 requiring a database tracking rape kits, for victims to be kept informed about the status of evidence in their case and for the kits to be submitted for testing within 30 days and and be processed within 120 days.

In a press release, State Attorney’s Office spokesperson Jason Gunn said the other six victims were still able to give their impact statements in front of Girtman at court.

The cases were linked together by the geographical area and tactics used by Girtman. He would stealthily enter women’s homes at night and would wake them up from bed with a knife to their throat. He would often target women with children and would threaten to return and harm the victim and the children if they contacted police. He even attacked the same women twice – sometimes years apart, according to court records.

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