A man and woman who carried out honeytrap drug killings targeting men paying for sexual services have been sentenced to 17 years in prison each at Oxford Crown Court, after two victims died from drinks spiked with a powerful sedative.
Adina Mihai, 31, and Madalin Dumitru, 30, admitted the manslaughter of Gary Mouat, 37, from Oxfordshire, and Malcolm King, 80, from Bagendon, Gloucestershire. The pair also each admitted two further counts of administering poison to surviving victims on the first day of their trial in June.
How the Honeytrap Drug Killings Were Carried Out
Mihai posed as a sex worker and advertised services online, arranging to meet men at their homes. Dumitru would drop her at the victim’s address and wait nearby, according to Julian Evans KC, prosecuting. Evans told the court Dumitru appeared to be armed with weapons in case of trouble.
Once inside, Mihai encouraged victims to drink alcohol laced with gamma-butyrolactone (GBL), a powerful sedative. After they fell unconscious, she searched for property to steal, including cash, aftershave, jewellery and expensive watches. Evans said the pair were ‘willing to act in this way out of greed’.
Four men in total had their drinks spiked with GBL between August 2024 and July 2025, according to BBC News. Two died. Two others survived and cannot be named due to reporting restrictions.
Investigation and Arrests
Malcolm King’s death in August 2024 was initially treated as non-suspicious. It was only after Gary Mouat was found dead at his property in Banbury on 13 July the following year that detectives revisited the earlier case and arrested the couple.
Thames Valley Police said officers discovered Mihai had left her fingerprint and DNA at both scenes. Analysis confirmed both men had been poisoned.
Before moving to Ilford, the defendants had previously lived in Birmingham. Evans said the pair had deliberately targeted men who were unlikely to report the crimes given the nature of the services they had been seeking.
Sentencing at Oxford Crown Court
At the sentencing hearing, Mrs Justice Brunner KC said the amount of GBL given to victims had been ‘haphazard’. She told Mihai and Dumitru: ‘If you had stopped for a moment to consider the risks, as you should have done, you would have realised that you were creating a high risk of serious injury or death every time you administered that drug.’
Mrs Justice Brunner added: ‘If you had done the most cursory research you would know that GBL can be extremely toxic.’
Both were sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Gary Mouat’s Son Speaks
A video statement from Gary Mouat’s nine-year-old son was played during the hearing. He said: ‘My daddy was funny, silly, loving and a trickster, we always used to prank each other.’
The boy addressed the defendants directly: ‘Why did you have to kill my daddy, you could have just taken the money, he was really kind, he would have given it to you. He was my daddy and now he’s gone.’
Thames Valley Police’s investigation, which connected the two deaths through forensic evidence, led to the charges that brought both defendants before Oxford Crown Court.
