The ex-boyfriend of therapist and writer Amie Harwick has appeared in a Los Angeles court where the order by a judge for him to stand trial in her 2020 death was upheld.
A lawyer for Gareth Pursehouse, 43, argued that he had ample “opportunity” to use a lethal nicotine syringe on Ms Harwick, but that he didn’t do so.
On Wednesday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George Lomeli rejected the claims that not enough evidence had been presented to another judge in September when Mr Pursehouse was ordered to stand trial for the 15 February 2020 death of Ms Harwick, 38.
Until 2018, Ms Harwick was engaged to Drew Carey, actor and host of The Price Is Right.
Defence lawyers have argued that samples of Mr Pursehouse’s DNA found at the Hollywood Hills home of Ms Harwick couldn’t be correctly dated. They made a similar argument concerning scratches and bruises found on Mr Pursehouse after he was detained by law enforcement. The lawyers claimed that the DNA could have been contaminated, DailyMail.com reported.
One of Mr Pursehouse’s attorneys claimed on Wednesday that he had “sufficient opportunity” to use a syringe with a “lethal” amount of nicotine that he reportedly had with him when he visited her on the night of her death. “She wasn’t killed by a syringe, she was killed by a fall,” the lawyer said.
“If he had the intention to kill her, he could have killed her within a minute or two, because he is so much larger than her,” the lawyer added.
Prosecutors have argued that testimony from Ms Harwick’s friends, such as her roommate saying she heard something that “sounded like bodies hitting the ground” and as well as the “sound of women choking”, shows that Mr Pursehouse supposedly threw Ms Harwick off a balcony on the third floor.
Mr Pursehouse has been charged with murder and first-degree residential burglary, in addition to a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait.
If found guilty, he could be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The two had dated previously, but Ms Harwick got a protective order against him following the end of their relationship in 2011.
Friends have said that Ms Harwick referred to Mr Pursehouse as her “crazy ex”, according to DailyMail.com.
One month before she died, Ms Harwick saw Mr Pursehouse at a porn awards party hosted by Stormy Daniels. By that point, her restraining order had lapsed.
It has been reported that Ms Harwick was attending the party because she had worked for a charity providing mental health guidance to people in the sex industry, while Mr Pursehouse was there as a photographer.
They allegedly argued at the 16 January 2020 party, with Mr Pursehouse reportedly saying that she had ruined his life.
Almost a month later, Ms Harwick’s roommate called police to their apartment at around 1.15am after she heard screaming. She later testified that, alongside police, she found Ms Harwick on the back patio “struggling to breathe”. She was pronounced dead at a hospital in the area.
The LA coroner determined that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to her head and upper body. The coroner also said there was “evidence of manual strangulation”.
Prosecutors claim that Mr Pursehouse broke into Ms Harwick’s home and waited there for four hours to “catch her by surprise”.
“With his strength, he throws her over the balcony,” Deputy District Attorney Victor Avila said in court in September last year, City News Service reported.
Defence lawyer Robin Bernstein-Lev said there was “no evidence Mr Pursehouse ever made a threat of harm” and “no evidence of a homicidal intent”.
“There is no evidence that she was thrown from a balcony,” she said, adding that prosecutors are asking the court to “speculate”.
But Ms Harwick’s friends have said Mr Pursehouse was dangerous and that he had scared her at the XBIZ porn awards.
Jasmin St Clare said Mr Pursehouse had screamed at Ms Harwick at the party.
“She had never mentioned him before,” Ms St Clare said, according to DailyMail.com. “He wasn’t like a Drew Carey where she’d mention him, or any of her other exes who were more significant.”
“The first I heard of him was that a psycho ex of hers started screaming at her at the XBIZ awards,” she added. “I spoke to her a few days after that. She was just like ‘yeah I saw my crazy ex there’, it was just an over-the-head thing. She doesn’t see the bad in people. But was she concerned? Yes.”
Even Evans attended the party and said she heard the screaming from another room.
“There was an argument. Someone was screaming at their other half, that was what people perceived of the argument. You could hear loud voices. But I’m not somebody who’s going to walk toward a problem,” she said.
Robert Coshland testified that Ms Harwick told him that “if anything ever happens to me, it would be Gareth who did it”.
Friends have testified that Ms Harwick didn’t smoke and that they’re unaware of why she would have a nicotine syringe with her when she died.
