A B.C. man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of a 72-year-old man should serve four years in prison, a Vancouver Provincial Court judge heard July 18.
Anthony Warren Woods, then 27, was initially charged with second-degree murder in the Dec. 15, 2020 death of Alex Gortmaker.
The man was stabbed once after a scuffle in an elevator at East Vancouver’s Biltmore Hotel.
Crown prosecutor Daniel Pruim told Judge Reginald Harris that Woods and another man had been at the hotel drinking and using drugs. The pair had already been subjects of complaints for aggression and abusiveness that day.
Gortmaker entered the hotel and went to the elevator in which Woods and the other man had been riding up and down.
There was an exchange of punches in the elevator after which Woods stabbed Gortmaker in the chest.
A CCTV video played in court showed a bloodied Gortmaker leaving the elevator on the hotel’s fifth floor.
“Mr. Gortmaker was holding Mr. Woods’ right hand,” Pruim said. “Mr. Woods pushed Mr. Gortmaker out of the elevator.”
Gortmaker dropped to the floor out of view of the CCTV camera while Woods re-entered the elevator.
Hotel staff arrived quickly and tried to help the stricken man.
Officers and paramedics attempted to revive him but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Meanwhile, Woods had jumped from a window onto the top of an electrical box. Witnesses described him as appearing “frantic,” Pruim said.
He was arrested soon after. He told police Gortmaker had been “lipping him off and nudging him.”
Pruim said an autopsy concluded Gortmaker died from a single stab wound that punctured a lung and caused other injuries.
He said the knife was dropped down a storm drain.
Victim impact statement
Gortmaker’s niece, Sandra Gortmaker, gave a victim impact statement via video.
“He was a very peaceful, loving man with a large heart and a great sense of humour,” she said of her uncle who had immigrated to Canada from the Netherlands in the 1950s.
“My Uncle Alex was brutally taken from us,” she said. “His life was stolen.”
She called the stabbing “horrific.”
Defence lawyer Chris Johnson is asking for a conditional sentence of two years less a day and three years’ probation.
The death marked the city's 19th homicide of the year.
