Amie Harwick had filed two restraining orders against her ex-boyfriend Gareth Pursehouse when authorities allege he killed her. Harwick, a prominent marriage and sex therapist, was 38 years old. She had come home from an evening out with friends in Los Angeles. They had gone to see a burlesque show; Harwick had declined to attend an after party, preferring instead to go have tea with her friends.
Investigators have theorized that Pursehouse laid in wait and attacked Harwick upon her return in the early hours of 15 February 2020, throwing her off her third-floor balcony. Police officers found her on the ground 20 feet below, struggling to breathe. A post-mortem examination report lists her cause of death as blunt force injuries of the head and torso, and lists “evidence of manual strangulation”. Pursehouse has been charged with murder and first-degree residential burglary with a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait, which could result in his facing the death penalty. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
Two years after Harwick’s death, Drew Carey, the host of The Price is Right and Harwick’s former fiance, told 48 Hours that his suspicion of Pursehouse was immediate. “When I heard that she got murdered, right away, I thought, ‘Oh, it’s got to be that guy,’” he told the programme.
Carey’s interview, which aired on 12 February, marked the first time he discussed Harwick’s death at length. He and Harwick met in 2017 at a party thrown by a producer. She was moonlighting as a bartender; shortly afterwards, they had their first date at Disneyland. “I was so amazed by her,” Carey told CBS. “I was telling people at work, ‘Wow, I met this great girl. Her name is Annie.’”
The two announced their engagement in February 2018 and split in November of that same year. Asked by 48 Hours’ Erin Moriarty about the circumstances that led to the breakup, Carey said he and Harwick had “some problems” but declined to elaborate. “We went to therapy as much as we could and, you know, finally just had to call it a day,” he said. “And it was really upsetting for both of us.”
A native of Sellersville, Pennsylvania, Harwick was briefly placed into the foster care system as a minor, and became the adoptive daughter of Penny and Tom Harwick. In 2001, she moved to the Los Angeles area. Harwick earned her undergraduate degree from California Polytechnic State University, and a Master of Arts in clinical psychology from Pepperdine University. She later earned a Doctorate of Human Sexuality from the now-defunct Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. She supported herself during her studies by working as a bartender, as a dancer, and as a performer. “She had a fire[-eating] act that she would do,” Carey told 48 Hours. “And she really hustled.”
After working as a fitness instructor, Harwick established herself as a licensed marriage and family therapist out of West Hollywood. According to her former website, she worked with clients coping with a range of conditions and situations including anxiety, depression, sexual exploitation, trauma, divorce, chronic pain, sex addiction, bipolar disorder, and domestic violence. In 2014, she published The New Sex Bible for Women, a nonfiction guide for women seeking to improve their sexual lives.
Asked what had driven her to work as a therapist, Harwick told the talk show Good Morning Lala Land in 2019 that she had become fascinated with human behavior from a young age. “As an adolescent, I would walk around with true-crime [books], because I was interested in the dark side of human behavior, and feminist and sexuality books,” she said. Her references included Gloria Steinem, the underground feminist punk movement Riot grrrl, and zines (small publications often tied to subcultures). “I was also really interested in the serial killer stuff and the macabre things,” she added. “So that combination of study of human behavior from a very young age led me to wonder how I could use that to help people and do something interesting and feel a purpose in the world.”
In the Good Morning Lala Land video, Harwick is animated, clearly passionate about the topics she brings up. She is a professional, evidently at ease in front of the cameras, yet still spontaneous. “Amie was quirky and fun,” her family wrote in her obituary in 2020. “The camera loved her, and she was becoming a photographer herself.”
According to accounts of people who knew Harwick, she and Pursehouse began dating some time in the mid to late 2000s. Glenn Francis, a photographer who took pictures of Harwick at a couple of events, told Page Six he knew Harwick and Pursehouse (who also worked as a photographer) when they dated around 2007 and 2008. Harwick’s friend Grace Stanley told CBS Harwick introduced her to Pursehouse in 2008. “I never saw her and him together while they were dating,” she said. “And I kind of wonder if he was kind of keeping her away from her friends.”
Friends of Harwick allege that Purehouse was violent and abusive towards her – allegations echoed by “numerous police reports” and two restraining orders obtained by Harwick against Pursehouse, according to CBS. Harwick filed for a first protective order in 2011, The Daily Beastreported in 2020, and for another one in 2012. (That second one was reportedly dismissed for a “lack of prosecution”, a procedural reason which usually means that the person who filed for the order didn’t follow up.)
In April 2011, according to CBS, Harwick wrote that “Gareth Pursehouse forced me to the ground, covered my mouth to prevent my yelling, kicked me.” In mid-May, she alleged “there were multiple arguments in which Gareth Pursehouse ... choked me, suffocated me, pushed me against walls, kicked me, dropped me to the ground with forced force, restrained me, slammed my head into the ground, and punched me with a closed fist."
The relationship ended in 2012. Pursehouse “didn’t take that very well at all,” Harwicks friend Rudy Torres told 48 Hours. “He would start to get obsessive.” Harwick believed Pursehouse once broke into her home, her friend Robert Coshland told the programme. She also alleged he left anonymous derogatory comments about her online, on websites where people could review doctors, according to Carey.
On 16 January 2020, according to Coshland, Pursehouse and Harwick crossed paths at an adult film industry awards event. According to Page Six, Harwick, asked by photographers to identify herself, told them she was attending as a therapist with Pineapple Support, a nonprofit organization that helps people in the industry access mental health services.
According to Coshland, Harwick told him that Pursehouse confronted her at the event. “And he was yelling in her face saying, ‘You’ve ruined my life,’” he told CBS. “And reciting text messages she had sent to him in 2012. And like, you know, created a giant scene.” Harwick, Coshland told the program, was left “unnerved”.
Hernando Chaves, a friend of Harwick’s who also attended the event, shared a similar account with People in 2020. “Initially, he reacted with anger and hostility and he was yelling and she kind of jumped into therapist mode,” Chaves told the magazine, adding that Harwick attempted to “deescalate the moment”. “It was a very tense, very anxious and very fearful night for her in many respects,” he added. “I’m sure it was one of the most difficult nights of her life.”
Investigators believe Harwick was attacked shortly after returning home around 1am on 15 February 2020. Her roommate later said he heard a sound like bodies falling onto the floor, as well as screams that sounded muffled, CBS noted. Harwick was taken to Cedar Sinai Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead about two hours later. According to 48 Hours, her home bore signs of a “violent struggle”, including “blood on a bedroom door” and a “trail” of beads from a rosary necklace she was wearing that night, going “from her TV room, through her bedroom and onto the balcony”.
Pursehouse was arrested on 15 February 2020 and was initially released on a $2m bond. Less than 24 hours after his release, however, he was re-arrested on a no-bail warrant. His next court date is scheduled for 22 February, according to online records by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Carey told Erin Moriarty on 48 Hours that just two days before her death, Harwick had got in touch with him by text. “[She] said, ‘Hey, I know we haven’t talked in a while, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about, you know, forgiveness, and I would love to get together with you and talk,’” he told the programme. “And I said, ‘Yeah, I would love to do that. I love you.’”
“I say that to a lot of people,” Carey told Moriarty, "but, I mean it. And I was really happy, like, ‘Oh, it’d be great to see her again.’”
