Episode 191 - Chance Encounters Of The Deadly Kind - The Case Of Amie Harwick
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The opinions expressed in the following episode do not necessarily reflect those of the Minds of Madness podcast. Listener discretion is advised.

On January 16th, 2020, the JW Marriott in downtown Los Angeles was hosting the adult industry's biggest awards night. The atmosphere was pure glitz and glamour, setting the scene for a night to remember. As Amy Harwick stood on the red carpet waiting to be photographed, she suddenly heard a familiar voice say the words, "It's funny seeing you here." It was Amy's ex-boyfriend.

But the line wasn't delivered with the seamless poignancy of a rom-com leading man, and this wasn't a happy reunion. Gareth Pursehouse spoke these words to Amy with a tone infused with such bitter coldness. It drew attention of everyone who stood within earshot. Immediately, Amy tried de-escalating the situation, eager to get on with her night.

But for Gareth, the unexpected encounter held a far more sinister significance. Join me now as we delve into the tragic case of Amy Herwick, a Hollywood sex therapist who had a chance encounter of the deadliest kind. An encounter that would reignite one man's deadly infatuation with her, sending him into a spiral of pure darkness and obsession.

It's a story as old as Hollywood itself. Small-town girl with big aspirations leaves it all behind to pursue her dreams in the entertainment industry. But Amy Harwick inverted this common trope.

She moved to the LA area in 2001 to complete her undergraduate studies at California Polytechnic State while working in the entertainment industry to pay her way through school. Her ultimate goal was to pursue a degree in psychology. On the Good Morning La La Land show, Amy explained what first drew her in that direction.

from a really young age. So I was always really involved with feminist studies. I mean, as an adolescent, like I would walk around with like true crime because I was always interested in human behavior, like the dark side of human behavior and then also feminist and sexuality books. So I was, you know,

Talking a lot about Gloria Steinem and a lot of the 90s feminist riot girl literature at the same time and zines, very big in the 90s. And then also I was really interested in the serial killer stuff and all the macabre things. So that combination of just study of human behavior from a very young age, I kind of led more to how can I use that to help people and do something interesting and feel of purpose in the world. And this is something that's really fulfilling to me.

Born in 1981, Amy was adopted by Penny and Tom Harwick and spent her formative years in the quiet suburb of Lansdale, Pennsylvania, nestled just outside of the bustling city of Philadelphia.

For a teenager, Lansdale is just another sleepy commuter town, with all the exciting things to do just out of reach in the big city. In typical 90s fashion, Amy worked at the mall during high school doing stints at Bavarian Pretzel and a popular teen clothing store. Her dark lipstick and charcoal eyeshadow made it clear she was more goth than cheerleader.

She also rocked out to heavy metal and dreamed of meeting Marilyn Manson one day, which she eventually would, even dating him briefly. Manifesting her ambitions was just one of the amazing qualities Amy was known for.

In 1999, Amy graduated high school, marrying a young man in a heavy metal band, and followed him out to California. Although the marriage didn't last long, Amy decided to stay in California and pursue her education there. And the small-town girl who loses herself in the big city cliché, well, that wasn't Amy either.

Instead, she seemed to find her sense of self there, embracing her more unconventional side. Amy was into true crime, especially old Hollywood cases like the Manson murders, and even purchased Sharon Tate's bras at an auction.

As she matured, Amy honed her personal fashion style, leaving behind the goth aesthetic in favor of vintage charm, reminiscent of a 50s pinup, only edgier.

Early on, Amy epitomized the art of hustling, putting herself through a master's program and earning a doctorate from the Institute of the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. All the while, juggling multiple side gigs, working as a personal fitness trainer, bartender, and go-go dancer, even adding Fire Eater to her repertoire.

In addition, Amy also ventured into the world of modeling. Her most renowned gig was when she posed as a Playboy cyber girl, adopting the stage name Nicolette Novak. Her dual talents in fire reading and modeling seamlessly converged, allowing her to occasionally entertain guests at Playboy mansion parties.

Ultimately, Amy's combined skills allowed her to accumulate enough money to pay off her college education in full with cash.

Although Amy didn't actively seek fame in the entertainment industry, she frequently mingled with celebrities, especially those in the music industry, like Dave Navarro from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Marilyn Manson. On Amy's 36th birthday, she had plans to meet up with Marilyn Manson for dinner, who she referred to as her boyfriend at the time, but he stood her up.

Instead, Amy met up with friends at a party where she was introduced to a man she'd become engaged to, Drew Carey, former host of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and the long-running TV game show The Price Is Right, and of course, The Drew Carey Show. When Amy told Drew she'd just been stood up by Marilyn Manson, Drew told her she deserved a better caliber of boyfriend and asked for her number. Their first date was Disneyland.

Then, just two weeks after meeting, Drew took Amy to Disneyland for a second time, this time with ten of her friends. Despite the 21-year age difference, the couple had a whirlwind romance, and Drew proposed, making an announcement on the Price is Right. Before Drew Carey, Amy had dated other men. One in particular she'd hoped to forget was Gareth Pursehouse.

In 2009, they had a chance encounter at one of Amy's go-go dancing performances, where Gareth was working as the event photographer. Gareth's features were rather unremarkable, in contrast of Hollywood's flashy standards.

With one of Amy's friends describing him in a Rolling Stone article as just another L.A. Ken doll, failing to become an actor or comedian. For work, Gareth held down a job as a computer engineer while pursuing photography as a side gig.

But his real dream was to break into the world of stand-up comedy. Here's a taste of Gareth's humor, showcased on his YouTube channel in May 2019, a joke that would later take on a much darker and more unsettling meaning.

Okay, Game of Thrones, first season. The brother and sister are up in the castle, and then the kid sees them through the window, and the brother has to go and throw the kid off to kill him. And even though it's evil, I feel kind of bad for the brother, because even though he doesn't want to do it, his sister incested.

In 2009, Gareth and Amy began dating and within a year moved in together. But early into their relationship, Amy's friends saw red flags popping up with Gareth, with one friend commenting that Gareth seemed to mirror the people around him, a common manipulation tactic used by narcissists. For example, if someone strongly disliked something, Gareth would mimic those feelings, pretending to share the same sentiments.

a behavior that also seemed to extend to experiences of trauma, where Gareth would feign an equal level of suffering, creating a facade of shared trauma and empathy. Ultimately, this tactic aims to create a false sense of connection with others by imitating their thoughts, emotions, or interests. There was also something else Amy's friends found off-putting about Gareth.

When they went out in public, and especially when Amy had male friends around, Gareth would become overly affectionate, pulling Amy into intense make-out sessions, making those around them extremely uncomfortable. Rather than appearing romantic,

Gareth's PDA was seen as a display of power to establish his claim on Amy, emphasizing she belonged to him, or as one friend put it, as if he was marking his territory. Amy's friend Marcy Mendoza told Fox News that when Gareth and Amy were together, he was very possessive.

He was the type of person who would tell you things to bring you down, to make you feel less of yourself. He would joke about you or your appearance, then say, I'm just joking. But he would say it in a very vindictive and malicious way.

After living together for a few months, Gareth's true colors began to show when he revealed the darker side. Turning possessive, controlling, and seething with jealousy, Gareth constantly accused Amy of being unfaithful.

During one argument on a late-night drive in June 2011, Gareth pushed Amy out of the car and drove away, leaving her stranded on the side of the freeway. With her undergrad degree in psychology, Amy recognized her relationship with Gareth had

had turned toxic and he needed help, but Gareth refused. In a restraining order filed in 2011, Amy reported that Gareth had suffocated her, punched her, slammed her head on the ground, and kicked her. After two years as a couple, Amy finally managed to break things off with him. But Gareth didn't take that breakup well. As his defense lawyer would later describe in court,

Amy Harwick and Gareth Kurthaus had a romantic relationship that began in 2009. They lived together for a little over a year until sometime in 2011. When they split up, Gareth Kurthaus was never the same. Losing Amy Harwick sent him into a debilitating, crushing depression. It made it hard for him to function. He even lost a job that he had at the time because of that. The heartbreak that he suffered

He tried to move past it, but he couldn't. He tried to move alongside it by seeking release through exercise, travel, dating other women. But those were only temporary respites. Those didn't work. He distanced himself from other people. He wouldn't let himself become emotionally vulnerable with other women. He had suffered. The threshold had been reached of his heartbreak.

Gareth wasn't going to let Amy go, and according to her statement to a judge in 2012, a year after the breakup, Gareth continued to harass her. Amy mentioned times her apartment was broken into, and once discovering her computer had been wiped clean.

With Gareth working as a computer engineer, it seemed obvious who the culprit was. Another time when Amy came home, she discovered ten picture frames smashed, other photos of herself simply stolen. Gareth would also place dozens of flowers on her apartment door or stand outside peeping through the windows, playing music as if it was some sort of romantic gesture rather than terrifying stalking behavior.

And the text messages didn't stop, with one alarming message ominously warning, things will get worse. The message had left Amy so shaken, she reached out to police to secure a protective order, preventing Gareth from contacting her or approaching her within a 100-yard radius.

But despite the challenges she faced, Amy persevered, working her side gigs and eventually completing her master's degree. And although she initially secured a counseling position at a juvenile detention center, the job fell through when her old Playboy modeling photos resurfaced. This is when Amy decided to return to college, where she received a doctorate in human sexuality.

After graduating, the newly minted doctor became somewhat of a celebrity, establishing her own therapy practice and writing a book titled The New Sex Bible for Women. You could say she was like a modern-day Sue Johansson. Here's Amy on Good Morning La La Land promoting her book.

So as a licensed marriage and family therapist, I see all kinds of different things. So I just don't talk about sex all day, which some people think I do. But people either come to me because there's a sexuality-related thing or because anxiety, depression, change of life stuff, breakups, moves, things like that. But then when a person that comes in not for a non-sexuality-related thing and they realize, oh, you wrote this book and I've seen you on this TV show or I looked you up and realized that you write a lot about sexuality, you know, I actually never told anybody but...

And then I get the disclosure like I'm a virgin and I'm 30 years old or I've had the sexual trauma or I have this kink or fetish that I feel shamed about. So they'll open up to me about those things. So typically a lot of my clients, I think people think because it says marriage and family therapist, which is really just an umbrella license term. That means that I can work with couples, married couples, kids, family, individuals.

But really, I work mostly with individuals and some couples. Most of my clients are generally younger. I think being in LA, there's just a lot of younger people in West Hollywood where I practice. Most of my clients, I would say,

20 to 35. I work with a lot of women on dating and dating illustrations. So can you tell us what kind of they come in for? Well, a lot of depression, anxiety, but also some trauma. So like you said, there's like these two pools of experiences that I work with a lot. The trauma, problematic, I have an issue, or...

I have this thing I want to work on accepting myself for or you know growth related things so sometimes I work with people that have a kink or fetish and a lot of times it's just about how do I make that work with my life how do I become more accepting with it or not violate people by not being honest with them about the

things that I'm interested in or the things that I do. I work with sex workers, so people that maybe were previously sex workers and in this town, you know, the adult industry is huge. So the people that do or have done some type of work in that industry, it's a very big group of people. And there's a lot of issues that come from that industry, but also a lot of just self-acceptance and work with people that may

maybe don't have a problem that they did porn in the past, but they want to move forward in their life and how do they do that authentically and with a positive view of themselves. After publishing her book, Amy went on to appear in the documentary, Addicted to Sexting, and made several guest appearances on various podcasts and YouTube streams.

She also hosted her own YouTube channel, offering helpful advice on various relationship issues. And as if that wasn't enough, Amy even found ways to donate her time, volunteering for Pineapple Support, a non-profit organization offering accessible and affordable mental health counseling to adult performers.

Despite moving on from Gareth and getting engaged to Drew Carey, Amy continued to endure persistent online harassment. Tabloid appearances with Drew seemed to trigger waves of negative reviews of Amy on Rate My Therapist, with Amy suspecting Gareth behind the critiques.

A friend speculated that Gareth might have felt heightened envy seeing Amy with Drew, who had both the woman he wanted and a successful comedy career. In 2018, after a couple of years together, Amy and Drew decided to amicably part ways, by which point Gareth had mostly faded into a bad memory.

That was until she saw him again, on that red carpet in January 2020. Amy was attending the XBIZ award show, endorsing the pineapple support charity. As Amy excitedly waited in line to be photographed on the red carpet, her friend, Dr. Hernando Chavez, who was standing with her at the event, left to get drinks. It was at that moment Gareth spotted Amy.

Dr. Chavez explains what happened next.

She was in line with the friends that I had that we had met that we found there. So she was with other people. Approximately 10 minutes into me waiting in line at the bar, I received two phone calls from a friend, Ashley Jemison. She has a stage name as well. Her stage name is Aubrey Kate. The first phone call when she called, I couldn't hear. It was a lot of loud motion. It was chaotic. So I couldn't understand and I hung up.

And then 30 seconds later, I received another phone call from her as well. And all I could hear amongst the chaos or the sounds that were sort of the loud sounds was, "Get the F over here." I immediately went back to the line. It took me a couple of minutes to kind of weave through the different people that were standing there and blocking my route. When I got there, I saw Amy and the defendant were walking away from the line together.

Dr. Chavez could tell Amy's demeanor had significantly changed.

She went from initially coming into the show excited, talkative, enthusiastic, full of energy as we all typically know her if you're in her life. And when she walked up to me, she was almost like a ghost. She was very stoic. I keep thinking back to the word that felt right, and it felt like she was on autopilot. She was just coasting and moving through the motions of walking and taking pictures and talking.

Towards the end of the awards show, Gareth approached Amy's table and asked if he could speak with her again. Amy agreed, but made sure to sit on a bench just outside the ballroom in clear view of security. By that point, Dr. Chavez could see Amy had gone into full-on therapist mode, attempting to de-escalate the situation with Gareth. I call it therapist mode. She was engaged and you could see a de-escalation happening.

experience of her trying to navigate and calm the situation.

As the ballroom emptied and the cleaning staff began working, Dr. Chavez finally decided to interrupt Gareth and Amy's conversation. It was getting late, and it was time to go. Once they reached her car, Amy and Dr. Chavez decided to go to a diner and talk about what had happened. As they drove off, Amy checked her rear and side view mirrors, worried Gareth might be following them.

At the diner, Amy explained to Dr. Chavez that Gareth was an ex-boyfriend and she was afraid of him. Amy, I knew, had a lot of confidence and empowerment and strength and she was frail and fragile and scared and worried. Because she had shared that they had not spoken for a number of years, this brought up a lot, a wave of fear.

A big part of our conversation was how to protect yourself. We discussed boundaries and a safety plan. And within that safety plan, we discussed having someone reinforce her locks both on her doors and windows. We discussed her getting mace or pepper spray. We discussed her getting a taser and also the possibility of her purchasing a gun for protection.

Once the night was over and Amy was back home, she wrote herself an email documenting everything that had happened that night. Amy's best friend, Robert Koshland, reads the email she wrote. Tonight I felt very scared. I went to the award show with Hernando. When we arrived, we waited in a very long line to do the red carpet. We were waiting. I saw Gareth walk by with a camera and

Clearly he was working. I decided to ignore him and just not look in that direction. I thought maybe he would not notice me. As Dr. Chavez went up to the bar for a drink, her hopes of not being seen were dashed. Gareth came up behind me and started screaming, "Why are you here? Why are you here?" He looked at this regulator in his eyes, looked out of control.

He started screaming, "You don't even like that. You shouldn't be here. Why are you here?" And then he started looking like he was going to cry and he was breathing heavily, laying his arms around. I didn't want to make a scene or scare anybody else. So I said, "Hey, do you need to talk?" And we walked over to the side. We sat close by the bathrooms. I made sure to look and make sure they were both security people and a lot of attendees very close by.

He was sobbing. His head was in his hands. He was hyperventilating. He was distorting his face up and shaking violently. Feeling cornered, Amy was thrust back into her old fears from years past. I was scared and felt like I needed to neutralize the situation. I don't think he was going to attack me in that moment, but this clearly showed me how obsessed he was. He told me that he thinks about me every day, and every day he cries.

He told me he lost his job when he broke up because he couldn't work. He told me that no matter what he did, he couldn't stop obsessing over me. He told me that I was a cheater and a liar because he thought we were still together when I believed that we were broken up. It was at this point that Gareth revealed the true depth of his obsession with Amy. He recited text messages

that I had sent from this time frame about nine years ago. He recited the date, who they were to, and exactly what was said word for word. I couldn't believe it. I was very scared. He said he wasn't able to move on, but he's dated, but nobody with me. He said he thinks about me constantly, and he can't watch the TV shows that we watch together. Here are the songs that we like, are the names,

that we call each other or even smell vanilla or he has a panic attacks i sat with him for about 20 minutes or so in my mind i wanted to neutralize the situation i thought maybe if i could make him see me as a neutral person that maybe these things would stop

After seeing Amy at the awards show, Gareth tracked down her phone number and texted her, asking her if they could get together and talk some more. But Amy declined the invitation, telling Gareth that while more could be said about their past relationship, she wasn't interested in continuing the conversation and thought it best if they both just moved on.

She then blocked his number. But somehow, Gareth found a way around that and started leaving Amy long, pleading voicemails. At that point, Amy took extra security measures and had cameras installed inside and outside of her home. She even began sharing her phone's location with a friend so she could easily be found.

Amy hoped Gareth would just move on, and by Valentine's Day, a month after seeing him on the red carpet, she made plans to have a special date with her girlfriends, something she referred to as "Gallantine's Day." At the same time, Gareth, who was about 51 miles away from Amy's home, was planning a very different way to celebrate Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day 2020 started off as planned for Amy. She met with a friend for a hike, followed by brunch. That night, she dressed up in her signature 40s film noir attire, pairing two rosaries with a pink silk dress and leather jacket. The friends kicked off the night around 7pm with a visit to the Global Theatre in downtown LA, where they caught a burlesque show.

Meanwhile, Gareth was also heading out for the night. He'd already turned down a date with another woman he'd casually been seeing, telling her he'd be too busy working that night to do anything. But Gareth was lying. He had something far more black-hearted planned.

After the burlesque show, Amy and her friends headed out to a restaurant called The Nomad, where they ordered appetizers and took selfies on the restaurant's emerald green couches. Unbeknownst to Amy, her neighbor's ring camera had picked up a shadowy figure near her home at 8.52 p.m. Seven minutes later, Amy's roommate, Michael Herman, was suddenly startled awake by the sound of something breaking on the floor above him.

You said you heard what sounded like what? What breaking? Like a glass dish, like falling to the floor. And where were you when you heard this? I was downstairs. Did it wake you up or were you already awake when you heard the sound? No, it woke me up. It was that loud? Yeah. So you wake up to this sound. It sounds like something's breaking. What do you do? First, I wait and listen. And because I thought.

he dropped a amy dropped a plate or or maybe the cat had knocked the plate over and then i heard what i thought was amy cleaning it up and walking over my bedroom

When the house seemed to grow quiet again, Michael drifted back to sleep. Shortly after midnight, Amy and her friends ended their night out and left the Nomad. After pulling into her driveway at 1:02 a.m., Amy texted her friend before going inside, asking for the selfies the group had taken together on the green couches. What Amy couldn't have known, as she crossed the threshold into her home, was that she was walking into a trap.

Minutes later, Amy's sleeping roommate, Michael, was again startled awake, this time by Amy screaming. Later that night, I heard what I assumed was Amy screaming. At first, he was concerned, though he was confused, and he couldn't put together what was going on. It sounded like Amy's voice screaming like...

blood-curdling screams it was just loud it screams i i thought she saw a mouse literally like as crazy as that sounds that was that's like the only time i've heard a girl scream like that like it was yeah what was so distinctive about the way it sounded to you that emmy was screaming what was so distinctive about it well it threw me because because she wasn't being jostled like it

She was screaming from one place, so that's kind of what made me take a little while. I'm like thinking she saw a mouse or something. It's not moving, being jostled. That's what threw me in. It took a minute. Yeah, I don't know how else to describe it. It was blood-curdling screams. As realization crept in, Michael struggled with what to do next.

I spend probably the next four or five minutes jockeying between my bed and the doorway trying to hear if I can hear what's going on, if anybody's coming, and while jockeying back, looking for my phone, just back and forth. Now, when you say four to five minutes, is that your time estimate? That's the estimate. You got to let me finish. Sorry. Is that the time estimate in your brain that you think that's how long it all took? Yeah. Do you ever yell anything else?

to either Amy or the person or whoever's up there with her? Before I leave. And what is it that you yell? Hey, mother****. Well, can you yell it the same way you yelled it that morning? Probably not, but I can try. Go ahead. I can yell it. Hey, mother****! And why did you yell that? In my head, I planned to run out and try and get help because I couldn't find my phone. And I thought that maybe...

He would be more, it would be a distraction that he would be worried about me in the house. And I'd hope to quietly go out that he would still be, that he would leave her alone and be more worried about me.

Amy's roommate hoped yelling up at the intruder would have instilled enough fear to force the person to flee. Michael knew he was in no condition to wrestle down an intruder suffering from sciatica, a medical condition that involves pain, numbness, or tingling that radiates down the lower back into each leg. So Michael fled the house in search of help.

Forgetting his keys in the process, Michael was forced to scale the property's locked wrought iron gate and ended up cutting himself. He then went to a neighbor's home, but they didn't answer. The Ring camera picked up the footage at 1:08 AM, just six minutes after Amy sent her last text.

Michael then ran over to a second neighbor's house, but they too didn't answer. Fortunately, Michael spotted a man walking down the street, who let him use his phone to call 911. When police arrived, Michael was waiting in the driveway, ready to explain what had happened. Police first investigated the outside of the house, and as they approached the outside patio, made a horrific discovery. Amy.

Lying on the ground, 20 feet below her third floor balcony. So now that you're coming back, do you make it back to the patio area with the police officers? Yes. And what do you see when you turn the corner and see the patio? First, I wasn't sure what I was looking at, but it was Amy. And how would you describe her condition? Really bad. What does that mean? She was struggling to breathe. Eyes were bulging. Was she talking? No.

did you touch her at all i couldn't get too close to her the officers were kind of directing me and how did you feel at that moment beyond defeated just the word to me in my mind like every decision i made but the worst case scenario just unfolded like it's i can't describe how i felt like there aren't words

After an ambulance arrived, Amy was taken to the hospital, where she died of her injuries a short while later. An autopsy would later reveal that Amy had been choked before being thrown over her third-floor balcony. As police continued to investigate, they discovered a trail of beads from the rosary necklaces Amy had worn out that night, which told a story of their own.

The beads were scattered from her media room to her bedroom and finally onto the balcony, a trail that led directly to a syringe, which would later test positive to a lethal dose of nicotine. When questioning Amy's friends about who could have done this to Amy, they all had the same answer, Gareth Pursehouse. The same day Amy was murdered, Gareth contacted the woman he'd turned down the night before on Valentine's Day. He texted,

"Good morning, sunshine," and invited her over. When she arrived, the woman noticed bruises under Gareth's eye and scratches on his face, but Gareth brushed off the marks, saying they were caused by shaving. Gareth stayed, wanting to spend the day at the beach, but Gareth instead insisted they go to a shooting range instead.

On the way home, as Gareth was dropping off his date, he was arrested on suspicion of Amy's murder.

Three days later, Gareth posted a $2 million bail bond and was released from jail. The following day, he was arrested and charged with murder and first-degree residential burglary with the special circumstance allegation of lying in wait, making him eligible for the death penalty. This time, Gareth wasn't granted bail.

It's common knowledge that jailhouse conversations are recorded, and while Gareth was awaiting trial, he showed little remorse when two of his friends came to visit him. Instead, he was more concerned

that they swung by his house to collect his toys so his brother wouldn't have to deal with them, as well as get a copy of his book of jokes off his computer because it might be worth a million dollars due to his recent infamy. Gareth also bragged that he was working out his abs a lot and was now officially a bad boy.

I guess I'm officially a bad boy now, right? I've always been kind of... I don't know. You're doing it right now. Yeah, yeah. You won that game. Yep, yep. Nito, I'm a bad boy now. I'm going to have to change my Twitter handle to Quasi-Man-Boy. Quasi-Man-Boy. Medium-Boy. Diet-Bogus-Boy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

In August 2023, Gareth faced trial for the murder of Amy. The prosecution's opening statements laid out their case against him. The evidence in this case is going to show that Dr. Amy Harwick was murdered by defendant Gareth Persis because he was obsessed with her. She rejected his advances. Not only that, she cut off all contact. And to punish her for that,

He broke into her house on Valentine's Day. He broke in there with a syringe loaded with a lethal dose of nicotine. And then he waited for her until she got home. He waited there for hours for her. When she arrived, she went up to her third story bedroom and got caught by surprise by the defendant. He immediately attacked her, as evidence will show. He strangled her. And then her roommate, who was asleep,

When the bottom level heard the screaming and yelled out, "Leave her alone!" The evidence is going to show the defendant panicked at that moment, took Amy's heart rate, debilitated body over to her bedroom balcony, lifted her up over the balcony and dropped her to her death. You hear that she suffered injuries to her body. Her pelvis was shattered, liver damage, brain damage, and the defendant fled the scene.

The defense presented what had happened that night very differently, almost as if Amy's death was a crime of passion. The evidence will show that he never intended on killing her. The evidence will show that he is not guilty of first-degree premeditated murder, and he is not guilty of special circumstances of lying in wait.

Of course his lawyer was aiming at the special circumstances to try and poke holes in that charge. That one specifically put Gareth in danger of losing his own life. - So when he sees Amy Harwick,

On the red carpet, or waiting for the red carpet, at an event that he had been working for many years as a sidekick, photographing attendees at this awards ceremony that happens every year in downtown Los Angeles, he completely loses control of his emotions. He literally falls to the floor, and he's hyperventilating, he's sobbing, he's shaking, and with Emmy's encouragement, he's able to stand up, and the two of them

walk off and talk, sit down on a bench, and he's able, through talking to her, to regain his composure. After about 30 or 40 minutes, Miss Harwick's friend, who she came to the event with, Hernando Chavez, comes up to the two of them and says, hey, the red carpet's about to close. If we want to get pictures on the red carpet, we have to go. And so he cuts the conversation short, and to him, it seemed like

Gareth was disappointed and upset at having the conversation cut short. Gareth goes and finds his friends that were at the event. You'll hear from them who will say that he seemed distraught, that he was sobbing uncontrollably, that it was pathetic how sad he was from their perspective, and that they told him to pull himself together. He was on the clock. He was being paid to photograph people there that night, and they tried to help. Later that night,

Gareth walks up to the table that Fernando Chavez and Amy Harwick were seated at during the program of the event. He kneels down and he whispers, "Can we talk again tonight?" Amy says, "Okay." Shortly thereafter, the two of them go back and sit back down on the bench and talk again a second time. At some point in the conversation, after about 45 minutes,

Miss Harwick tells Gareth, "Look, I have to go meet my friend, Hernando Chavez. I have to go." And this is when Gareth's lawyer insinuates Amy's own fault in her own death. He asks if they can meet again and continue talking. She says that's not a good idea. The next day, the 17th, the text messages that I read in the very beginning are sent by Gareth to Amy.

He's pleading with her. "Please, I need to talk to you again. I need to continue this conversation." The following day, on the 18th, at about 4pm, he leaves her this voice note. "I have so much I need to say. Please give me a chance to just say it, so I can explain it. Please. Please." Ms. Hardwick didn't respond to his pleas for help. She blocked his number.

In the days after this encounter, a friend of Garrett's notices that he seems depressed. A liar and a soccer. To her, it seems that he's down, he's depressed, and so she asks him, are you okay? He says, I'm rarely okay. He describes his state of mind as if he was having a chain pulling down on him that he pretends doesn't exist, but that cripples him in so many ways in life.

Ms. Menosaka is concerned. Ms. Menosaka is concerned that he might hurt himself. Ms. Menosaka suggests things that he could do to try to alleviate this pain and get over this heartbreak and move past this depression. But because of the

depth of depression that he was in and the state of mind that he was in, the only thing that he felt he could do in that moment to seek any sort of release from this depression was talk to Amy. So on February 14th, he decided he couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take this pain anymore.

Gareth's lawyer then claimed that Amy's unwillingness to talk to him drove him to break into her house and wait hours for her return. They explained the syringe of nicotine by saying Gareth had meant to use it to commit suicide after he had his final conversation with Amy. But when Amy's roommate yelled up at the stairs, Gareth panicked.

A struggle then ensued, with Amy breaking away and making a run for the balcony, jumping down on her own. The argument was archaic, as if it were something that had happened to Gareth rather than Amy. It suggested that being engulfed in heartache somehow absolved Gareth of being responsible for his own actions.

However, evidence pointed to manual strangulation and the defense wounds on Amy's hands indicated she fought for her life. Fortunately, the jury didn't buy any of it and on September 27th, 2023, after eight hours of deliberation, the jury found Gareth Pursehouse guilty on all counts. His sentencing will take place in December of this year.

No amount of justice can ever truly compensate for the heinous acts of stalking and intimate partner violence. Following Amy's tragic murder,

A petition was launched advocating for stronger legal protections for survivors of domestic violence under Senate Bill 1141, which itself is an expansion of legal protections that criminalizes threats, humiliation, intimidation, and other coercive actions that are used to frighten and control a victim.

If enacted, this proposed law will impose a maximum prison sentence of one year for a partner who unjustly denies another person their free will.

The petition, in Amy's memory, also requests that restraining orders should no longer have an expiration date. Amy's order against Gareth expired in April 2015, five years before she was murdered. If it hadn't expired, she may have had more legal recourse to prevent Gareth from contacting her.

The petition also calls for a national restraining order registry, much like a sex offender registry, so a person can check to see if an individual they're considering having a relationship with has a history of stalking behaviors. The petition also demands mandatory long-term counseling for anyone who violates restraining orders and other enhancements that will better protect victims of domestic abuse.

The hashtag #JusticeForAmy was trending on social media in recent months in support of advocating for these reforms. To date, the petition has nearly half a million signatures.

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