Escort pleads guilty in fatal stabbing

A Vancouver escort has pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing another woman during an altercation in a West End home that was used by sex trade workers to service their clients.

Brooklyn Amira Golar, 21, was initially charged with the October 2017 second-degree murder of Marline Mars, 34, inside the three-storey walk-up at 1305 Jervis Street.

But during a brief appearance in B.C. Supreme Court Wednesday, the accused pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter.

Before the slaying, Golar was an escort who occasionally rented out a bedroom in the suite to meet with her clients by the hour. Mars lived in one of the two bedrooms in the suite.

On the day of the incident, Golar contacted Kerry Ng, a man who rented the suite and also lived there, and booked the bedroom, according to an admission of facts read into court by Crown counsel Daniel Mulligan.

After her client had left the home, Golar asked Ng if she could borrow a cigarette, with Ng later suggesting that she go ask for a smoke from Mars or Andrea Armstrong, a woman living in the bedroom with Mars.

Armstrong responded that she had already loaned Golar cigarettes the previous week, sparking a brief argument between the two women.

Mars, who had been up for most of the preceding night drinking vodka and, at some point, using cocaine, inserted herself into the argument.

Ng described Mars as being heated and angry at Golar.

He attempted to intervene in the verbal altercation, said the court document read by Mulligan.

“However, the dispute quickly escalated.”

Ng saw Mars pushing Golar toward the wall, but his view of Golar was obstructed.

During the altercation, an exercise table fell over. Ng asked Golar to leave and picked up the table. Then he noticed Mars lying on the floor. He assumed she had simply passed out. After a period of time, he became concerned and called a neighbour for help and then called 911. Paramedics pronounced the victim dead. Mars had suffered four stab wounds.

Police located Golar nine days after the slaying, at her boyfriend’s apartment. Golar has a sentencing hearing Sept. 7.