One Year Ago Today (August 29, 2023)…A prosecutor told jurors that a Hollywood marriage and sex therapist was thrown off the third-floor balcony of her Hollywood Hills home by a former boyfriend who was obsessed” with her, while one of the man’s attorneys said his client broke into the woman’s house that night with only the intention to speak to her and never intended to kill her.
Gareth Pursehouse, now 45, is charged with one count each of murder and first-degree residential burglary in connection with the death of 38-year-old Amie Harwick in the early-morning hours of Feb. 15, 2020.
The murder charge includes the special circumstance allegation of murder while lying in wait.
The Playa del Rey resident could face a potential life prison sentence without the possibility of parole if convicted as charged.
In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Victor Avila told the downtown Los Angeles jury that “he (Pursehouse) was obsessed with her” and broke into her house while armed with a syringe containing a “lethal” dose of nicotine.
The prosecutor said the evidence would show that Pursehouse waited there for hours and then “strangled” Harwick after surprising her when she returned home from a night out with friends. Pursehouse “panicked,” took her “debilitated body” and threw her to her death from her third-story balcony before fleeing from the house, Avila said.
The two had dated years earlier for about 18 months, with Harwick subsequently getting a restraining order against Pursehouse and cutting off contact with him, the prosecutor said.
Harwick encountered Pursehouse at the XBiz adult entertainment awards ceremony at the JW Marriott on Jan. 16, 2020 — about a month before her death — and he was heard calling her a “bitch” and saying she had ruined his life, according to the prosecutor. The two subsequently spent some time talking before and after the awards ceremony in an attempt by Harwick to “try to calm the situation down,” Avila told jurors.
She wrote an email to herself early the next morning in which she indicated that Pursehouse told her that he “thinks about me constantly” and that she responded that “we don’t have to be brutal enemies,” but that “we will not be friends and we will not be talking,” according to the prosecutor.
“It terrifies me that he’s been obsessed with me for nine years,” the woman wrote in the email discovered on her Gmail account after her death, according to the prosecutor.
Pursehouse texted Harwick that day to tell her he had found her number online and wanted to talk with her, but she responded that she thought it was “best to have some space” and subsequently ignored two other text messages and a voice mail message that day, blocked his phone number and launched an effort to get new locks and security cameras, Avila told jurors.
The prosecutor said surveillance videos from a neighbor’s home showed Pursehouse wearing gloves shortly before 9 p.m. the night before, and said DNA evidence found underneath Harwick’s fingernails and on a French door in her living room linked Pursehouse to the attack.
An autopsy determined that the woman died from “blunt force injuries of the head and torso” and that there was evidence of “manual strangulation,” according to records from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Defense attorney Evan Franzel countered that he would ask the jury to convict Pursehouse of a crime that “fits the circumstances.”
But Pursehouse’s lawyer said the defense would ask the panel to acquit Pursehouse of the most serious charge of first-degree murder and the accompanying special circumstance allegation.
He told jurors that Pursehouse sank into a “crushing depression” and even lost a job after the break-up with Harwick and “completely loses control of his emotions” when he unexpectedly saw her again years later outside the awards ceremony.
Pursehouse’s lawyer said his client sent the woman a series of text messages after running into her in which he pleaded with her to meet again, saying that the evidence will show that the defendant was sent into a “thick fog of depression” and felt he could only get relief by talking with her.
He said the ultimate question is “what Gareth Pursehouse intended to do when he broke into her house” and said the evidence would show that his “only intention that night was to speak to her.”
“He never intended on killing her,” the defense attorney said.
Pursehouse was in a “depressed state,” and “felt he couldn’t continue living with this pain” and “needed to have this conversation,” Franzel told jurors.
Jurors will hear from an accident reconstruction expert who is expected to testify that one potential explanation is that Harwick could have climbed to the outside of the balcony and fallen from that position, according to the defense attorney. Franzel said the expert will testify that damage to the front side of the awning was consistent with a location where someone could place their foot to brace their weight, with the defense attorney showing jurors an earlier photo of Harwick perched on the balcony in what he said showed that she had a certain comfort level there.
One of Harwick’s friends, Hernando Chaves, who was on hand at the XBiz awards ceremony, testified that Harwick discussed safety plans after talking with Pursehouse outside the show just under a month before she died and that she sent Chaves a few text messages the next day including one in which she wrote, “I told him I didn’t want to talk and wished him the best, but his response was still obsessive and scary. Handyman comes tomorrow for more locks on my windows and ordered pepper spray.”
Chaves — who is due back on the stand Wednesday for more questioning — said his longtime friend and colleague was “very different from the Amie I knew” after encountering Pursehouse outside the awards ceremony, describing her as “scared and worried.”
Police responded to the home at about 1:15 a.m. that day in the 2000 block of Mound Street following a 911 call by Harwick’s roommate, who reported hearing her screaming.
Harwick — a published author who was once briefly engaged to comedian and “The Price is Right” host Drew Carey — was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
On social media, Carey posted a short video of him with Harwick after news of her death broke and wrote, “I hope you’re lucky enough to have someone in your life that loves as much as she did.”
Pursehouse was initially arrested at his home on the day Harwick died, but was subsequently released a few days later on a $2 million bond. He was re-arrested four days later on a no-bail warrant and has been held without bail since then.