BURBANK : Man Pleads Guilty to Razor Blade Assaults in Car Seats

A man accused of stalking young women at a Burbank grocery store and at Simi Valley shopping centers and wedging industrial razor blades into the seats of their cars pleaded guilty Friday to five counts of assault with a deadly weapon. He was ordered to undergo psychological testing before being sentenced Oct. 8 in the courtroom of Ventura County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch, prosecutor said Friday.

In the first hint at Gary Jean Muntifering’s possible motive for the razor blade attacks on 14 women, Deputy Dist. Atty. Stacy Ratner said Muntifering had a grudge against the daughter of Muntifering’s former girlfriend. She had obtained a restraining order against him in 1991.

“That was part of his motivation. He had some anger at this girl,” Ratner said of the ex-girlfriend’s daughter. Ratner, speaking outside the courtroom after the guilty pleas were accepted, said Muntifering, 53, of Ventura blamed the daughter for his breakup with her mother.

Muntifering was arrested by Burbank police after two women in that city complained they had sat on blades in their cars after shopping at a grocery store. Burbank police had set up surveillance in the grocery parking lot and arrested Muntifering when he was spotted looking into several cars.