Hollywood therapist Amie Harwick became a key ‘witness’ in her own murder case after writing an email to herself following a chilling encounter with her stalker and killer.
Harwick, 38, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend Gareth Pursehouse in February 2020 when he strangled her and threw her over a third-floor balcony in LA.
Harwick and Pursehouse, 45, dated in 2011 but met again at a red carpet event in January 2020.
The therapist had obtained a restraining order against Pursehouse when they separated ten years earlier, but that had long since expired.
Harwick, once engaged to Drew Carey, captured the chilling encounter with the man who would brutally murder her in an email that was ultimately read to the jury in the prosecution’s closing arguments at the Pursehouse trial in August 2023.
Hollywood therapist Amie Harwick became a key ‘witness’ in her own murder case
Harwick, 38, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend Gareth Pursehouse (pictured) in February 2020 when he strangled her and threw her over a third-floor balcony in LA.
“Gareth came up behind me and started shouting, ‘Why are you here, why are you here?'” Harwick wrote in an email to himself several hours after the conversation.
“He was crying, his head was in his hands, he was hyperventilating, he was pulling his face up and shaking violently.”
‘Tonight I felt very scared. …It scares me that he has been obsessed with me for nine years and thinks about me every day.
‘He couldn’t stop his obsession with me. He recited text messages I had sent about nine years ago. They mentioned the date, who they were for and exactly what they said word for word. I couldn’t believe it,” she wrote.
‘I was very scared… I’m quite nervous because I’m more on his radar now… He’s focused on hurting me. I hope that this interaction, listening and giving time, can neutralize his anger towards me.’
“That’s the closest we’ve ever had to a victim testifying to the murder… I thought it was extremely devastating,” Scott Masterson, the lead homicide detective on Harwick’s case, told CBS News.
Harwick was engaged to comedian Drew Carey in 2018, the pair reconnected just days before her murder
Harwick was found unconscious after being thrown from a third-floor balcony in her home, pictured
Harwick was in a relationship with Pursehouse until 2011, when they broke up and she was granted a protective order against him
The Price is Right host Drew Carey, 65, was subpoenaed to testify in the murder trial of his ex-fiancée Harwick
“It became very clear to me that … (Pursehouse’s) obsession was the driving force … his intent to kill her,” said Deputy District Attorney Catherine Mariano, who read Harwick’s email to the jury.
Harwick’s mother, Penny Harwick, later told CBS News that her daughter told her about her fear after the chance meeting with Pursehouse.
“He called her a bitch and… he told her she had ruined his life,” the heartbroken mother told the broadcaster.
“And she was just telling me how scared she was… And she said, ‘Mom, I went into therapist mode. I was just trying to calm him down.’
Prosecutors said that after speaking with Pursehouse for nearly an hour at the event, Harwick left and began investigating increased security measures, such as surveillance cameras, pepper spray and sharing her location with her close friend, Robert Coshland.
“Then she said, ‘Look, if anything happens to me, he did it,’” Coshland told the outlet.
Pursehouse was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in December last year.