The former boyfriend of the famed sex therapist Amie Harwick has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after he was convicted of her murder.
Gareth Pursehouse, 45, was found guilty in September of first-degree murder for the killing of 38-year old Harwick at her Los Angeles home in February 2020.
Prosecutors said Pursehouse planned to kill Harwick after becoming “obsessed” with her following the couple’s breakup more than a decade ago.
“The evidence showed [Pursehouse] was obsessed with Amie Harwick,” Victor Avila, the deputy district attorney, said to People magazine. “He felt entitled to her.”
Prosecutors said Pursehouse broke into Harwick’s home, waited several hours for her, and then strangled and punched her as she attempted to fight him off. He then threw her over a balcony.
Police arrived at Harwick’s home after someone called 911 reporting that they heard a woman screaming. Harwick was found unconscious but alive when police arrived but died shortly after arriving at hospital.
An autopsy found Harwick died from “blunt-force injuries of the head and torso”, with evidence of “manual strangulation”.
Pursehouse and Harwick had previously dated for 18 months, before she filed a restraining order against him in 2012. Harwick took out an additional protective order against Pursehouse, which expired in 2015.
A month before her murder, Harwick reportedly bumped into Pursehouse at a work event where Pursehouse was taking photos.
Friends of Harwick said Pursehouse became angry at Harwick, who rebuffed Pursehouse’s attempts to stay in touch with her. Harwick also reportedly sent text messages to friends and an email to herself, expressing that she was scared of Pursehouse after their chance encounter.
Her friends said she became a therapist and relationship adviser because of her personal experiences.
“She was an outspoken advocate for women,” Robert Coshland, Harwick’s best friend, said. “She would talk about these kinds of statistics about women being injured and killed by boyfriends. She became a statistic of something she actively talked about and lectured and helped people with all the time. It’s just doubly, triply tragic.”
Harwick was previously engaged to the comedian Drew Carey, who called her a “champion” for women.
“She was a positive force in the world, a tireless and unapologetic champion for women, and passionate about her work as a therapist,” Carey said at the time of Harwick’s death.
