Amie Harwick // 467
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What is going on, true crime fans? I'm your host, Heath. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello, everybody. Hope you're doing well. For those of you who are new here, welcome. We have a notable and tragic solved murder case for you guys today that happened here in L.A. in 2020, actually. It's a murder case.

And I'm so surprised I didn't hear about this like in the news at the time, but I kind of wonder if COVID maybe overshadowed it because this happened literally just after concerns in the U.S. were really starting to rise about, you know, the spread of COVID. So, yeah, I definitely feel like that must have been it because this story has everything. It has Hollywood success,

stalking, and the extremely untimely murder of a well-known figure in LA who was in various podcasts, TV shows, YouTube interviews, etc. Which makes it so shocking that this didn't get the attention it deserves because it's such a devastating story. None of this should have happened to this amazing and inspiring woman, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's dive right into this one. Yes, I will say you guys are going to hate this guy today.

Alright guys, this is episode 467 of Going West, so let's get into it. Music

Famous sex therapist pushed to her death in the Hollywood Hills. An ex-boyfriend now accused of her murder. Amy Harwick died in 2020 after falling from the bedroom balcony of her Hollywood Hills home. Her former boyfriend is on trial for her murder. A man Harwick had a restraining order against until two weeks ago when it expired. He was a stalker.

Prosecutors believe Purse House broke into Harwick's home while she was out with friends, waited until she returned, and then strangled her and threw her off the balcony.

A lot of these guys are not threatened by that piece of paper. They're not. They will play the system. They'll wait until they have their opportunity, and then they'll do whatever they feel they need to do to seek revenge. Harwick's friends say they wish they could have done more. I just feel like we failed her. The system has failed her. Amy Harwick was born on May 20, 1981, in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, which is located in Bucks County, right in between Philadelphia and Allentown.

At the age of 11 months old, Amy was adopted by Penny and Tom Harwick and was joined by a younger brother named Chris about four years later.

She grew up in nearby Lansdale, Pennsylvania, graduating from North Penn High School in 1999. And at this point, Amy was very passionate about music, especially heavy metal, and definitely had a love for live concerts. She went to as many as possible. Like her parents wrote, quote, she was as comfortable in a mosh pit as she was dancing with her mom on stage with the Beach Boys.

She also loved horror movies and had a flair for the eccentric. Like, for example, she even collected taxidermy. So essentially, she's just badass. She loves horror movies. She loves metal music and I guess taxidermy. Yeah, no, she she genuinely seems like such an amazing person. And her a little bit more on her. Actually, her memorial website reads, quote, She was fun, quirky and as individual as her fondness for the eclectic and strange.

After graduating from high school, Amy met a drummer named Tommy who played with a band from Los Angeles. And, you know, as their romance progressed, she decided to move out to L.A. to be with him, which was definitely tough for her family to kind of accept the idea of her living across the country, as it is for many parents. But she made a point of visiting often.

Amy and Tommy married when she was in her early 20s, but the union didn't last very long because just a few years later, they filed for divorce. After this, Amy really threw herself into her work and her creative endeavors, ready to make her dreams come true.

She completed her undergraduate degree at California Polytechnic State University, also known as Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, and went on to pursue her Master's of Arts in Clinical Psychology at Pepperdine University in Malibu. That university is so beautiful. It's right on the ocean. Gorgeous. The most where Zoey 101 was filmed.

Finally, she completed her doctorate of human sexuality at the Institute of Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. So she was in college for years working towards her goal, collecting multiple degrees. In addition to her flourishing academic career, Amy modeled for various clothing brands as well as posing for Playboy.

In her spare time, she also loved exploring her hobby of photography. But those who knew her best would tell you that her true calling was helping people and specifically women.

Now, Amy began practicing as a licensed marriage and family therapist, but she specialized in sex therapy and had a particular devotion to working with marginalized female clients such as sex workers, victims of sexual exploitation, and those who struggled with their own sexual identity.

She also volunteered for Pineapple Support, which is a nonprofit organization that works to provide low and no-cost counseling services to those who work in the adult entertainment industry. Love that. Yeah, and this is exactly the type of company that Amy would work for because she was so passionate about speaking out about these causes. Yeah.

and she regularly posted about them on her highly trafficked social media pages. She was also a frequent contributor to news segment interviews and often offered her thoughts in written columns. Her work culminated in a book that she published in 2014 that was entitled, "The New Sex Bible for Women: The Complete Guide to Sexual Self-Awareness and Intimacy."

While attending a party in 2017, she met 58-year-old comedian and the host of The Price is Right, Drew Carey. Naturally, he fell hard and quickly for her, and they were engaged in Paris in early 2018, so definitely what you'd consider kind of a whirlwind romance.

Though Amy ended the engagement later that year, Drew has spoken glowingly of her, even saying, quote, "Amy and I had a love that people are lucky to have once in a lifetime." According to her parents, despite the love between them, the newfound fame and public attention that Amy was experiencing around this time were kind of a struggle for her. Her parents, Penny and Tom, also claimed that she feared the wrath from a bitter and vengeful ex-boyfriend, so let's talk a little bit about this guy.

Amy met Gareth Pursehouse at a party in 2009 while she worked as a hostess at a restaurant in her late 20s while she was putting herself through school. And Gareth was about 31 at this time.

Now, Gareth was tall, striking, and charming, but those who knew him best describe him as unassuming and even kind of nerdy. As you guys are going to see from a really cringy audio clip we're going to play here in a bit. Oh my god, yeah, it's so bad. Well, he worked as a software engineer, but would frequently moonlight as an events photographer and a comedian. So on its face, he kind of seems like the type of guy that Amy would be drawn to. I mean, she loves photography, she loves comedians, and of course,

And a friend of Amy's described him by saying, quote, So after meeting at this party, Amy and Gareth dated for two years. But during that time, she was forced to report him to the police multiple times after he physically assaulted her.

Now, at various points in their relationship, Garrett had choked, suffocated, and struck her, and even had given her a bloody nose. So rightfully fed up with his abuse, Amy ended the relationship again after a couple years and secured a restraining order against him. But Garrett's obsession with her continued.

In the complaint, she wrote, quote,

But again, he was really not over things after they broke up because here's the thing. In the year after Amy and Gareth split up, Amy's house was broken into multiple times. Like in one instance, the person wiped her computer and in another, they stole some of her personal photographs and broke nearly a dozen picture frames by smashing them against her door. Now, obviously we know who this is. This is Gareth. Yeah, exactly. So I'm just going to start saying Gareth now. So Gareth claims...

that some of these gestures, he said this later on, were an attempt to be romantic in nature rather than throwback.

threatening. Okay. He once taped four dozen flowers to her door, and another time he stood outside her house playing music. It kind of seems like he's going back and forth. He's trying to see what's going to work. Like, is the anger going to work, or is the taping the flowers on the door going to work for him? You know what I mean? Yeah, and I feel like this really shows his mental state at the time, kind of like maybe love bombing her a little bit, but also getting mad that she's not giving him...

attention, but she doesn't want any of this from you. And it's such insane behavior to abuse her, break into her house, and then claim you're being romantic because a couple things you did were like softer and not aggressive. Yeah, I mean, this whole thing that he's doing with the roses, like she doesn't want your roses and she doesn't want your sad John Cusack and say anything kind of weird bit. Yes, exactly. And I know that's where that bastard got it from.

Yeah, so she doesn't want any of this. And when she went to the police about it and obviously couldn't prove the crime was perpetuated by Gareth, she was unable to press charges. And it's so messed up. But at one point, she actually lost a job opportunity when her prospective employers received nude photographs of her, which...

of course, are believed to have been sent by Gareth, which makes me mad for multiple reasons. Like, God forbid, we're all naked under our clothes, you know? Yeah, like, why would you not be able to get, like, a job...

Because of that, obviously, they know that you're not the one that sent those photos. So why weren't they just like, oh, well, someone's like fucking with you, you know? Yeah, it just feels like sexist bullshit. So to her frustration as well, Amy's restraining order against Gareth expired in 2015. But she kept pushing through. She was working hard in her career. She dated Drew Carey for a bit, and she just tried to keep going.

But unfortunately, on January 16th, 2020, one month before today's murder story takes place, she happened to run into Gareth at an event. So because of her work with Pineapple Support, Amy was invited to walk the red carpet of an award show put on by X-Biz, which is a publication focused on the adult entertainment and sex work industry. And this is...

is where they saw each other because Garrett happened to be photographing the event. When she saw him, she was sort of sent on a downward spiral, understandably so, with multiple onlookers watching as he confronted her angrily.

calling her a bitch and saying she ruined his life. Remember, this is years after their breakup. They haven't spoken or seen each other in, again, years. And there's actually some footage of this, not of him verbally harassing her there, but her on the red carpet looking amazing and him kind of lurking behind the other photographers. So we will post that on our socials for everybody to see.

And I mean, this piece of shit caused such a scene that a fellow sex therapist named Hernando Chavez, who attended the event alongside Amy, remembers an acquaintance of theirs running up to him, to Hernando, while he was waiting in line at the bar and saying, quote, Then Hernando ran to find Amy after hearing this, who was still on the red carpet being accosted by Gareth.

Hernando remembers Gareth yelling at her, quote, I mean, not only is that unhinged and scary, but that is... You're a baby. It's so unprofessional. Yeah, you just look like a man baby. Bro, you're at work. Well, another friend of Amy's named Robert Coshland recalls, quote,

He was reciting voicemails from 2012 at her. Remember, this is 2020. Reciting like he memorized them? Yeah, like he memorized them. So Amy just did what she kind of could to sue them and coax him away from all the onlookers. And Hernando remembers, quote,

She was in what I saw as therapist mode. I saw her nodding her head, listening. She was trying to deescalate the situation. So she's basically just doing her job with her ex-psychotic boyfriend. Well, and I think because of her job as well, she's so mature. She knows how to handle people in this type of state.

But she shouldn't have to be doing this to this guy who's saying horrible things to her and is harassing her in public. But she is anyway because she's a nice person. Well, because Amy was such a nice person, she sat him down on a bench nearby and calmed him down for 45 minutes until Hernando broke them up because the red carpet was closing and the ceremony was about to begin. So she needed to get inside and carry on with her night.

But in the middle of the awards show, Gareth approached her table and pulled her aside to speak to her again. And this time they talked for about 30 minutes or so. Now Amy did have plans to go out after this show, but claimed that she was just too disturbed by the encounter with Gareth to follow through with these plans. Both Hernando and Robert remember her being afraid after this happened, and wanting to put a plan in place for her safety.

After this, she began sharing her location with Robert, and she even bought pepper spray. Amy's fears did not deter Garrett's efforts at all. If anything, this encounter at this award show made things so much more intense and so much worse, and he continued to make brazen grabs for her attention.

He tracked down her phone number on the internet. Seemed like she either changed it since they had dated or then like maybe blocked him and then unblocked his number. We couldn't find this for sure. And basically he sent her a flood of angry text messages. Initially, she texted him back by accident. Gareth wrote, quote, I internetted your number. Recognize it now that I see it. If I'm allowed to text, dot, dot, dot.

Amy responded again, seemingly by accident, with a series of P's, like the letter P, to which Gareth joked back, because he's so freaking funny, guess we shall all P, like P-E-E. LOL, you're so dumb. So dumb. So Amy responded later, saying, quote, my text was left open and I'm on a call. Sorry. Sorry.

Seeing this as an opportunity to keep chatting, Gareth then texted her, quote, not sure if you're done because you said, how do we finish this now last night? But if we meet again, dot, dot, dot.

Amy responded, of course, kindly and respectfully, but maintained her boundary with him, saying, quote, quote,

Well, despondent at this, Gareth sent back, quote, Yes, my guy, she is gone.

Well, he described how hurt and embarrassed he was by her, and how painful the last nine years apart had been for him. That's insane. I mean, think about this. Nine years has passed, and he has still not let this go. And he's still blaming her. She's being so nice, so respectful. She doesn't have to be replying to you at all. And you're still pointing the finger at her, saying...

how much you hurt me, even though remember how she put a restraining order on you because you abused her physically? And I mean, he just kept going. In a series of four text messages, he sent her, quote, I don't know how busy you are, and it truly scares me so much more than I can possibly convey to say this. Please don't just vanish on me. Please, please don't just vanish on me.

After three texts with, of course, no response, he texted her, quote, Now, during their conversation, Amy texted her friend Hernando, quote, His response was still obsessive and scary. She also described him as increasingly unstable. Gareth then resorted to leaving her weeping voicemails, begging for her to meet up with him.

After that harrowing night at the award show, Amy wrote to herself, quote: "Tonight, I felt very scared. Gareth came up behind me and started screaming. I'm pretty nervous that I'm more on his radar now. It terrifies me that he's been obsessed with me for nine years, thinks about me every day. He's focused on harming me." But despite his downward trajectory, Gareth still found time to attempt a career in stand-up comedy.

Just days before his confrontation with Amy at the awards ceremony, he appeared on the podcast and livestream stand-up comedy show Kill Tony, hosted by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe. And Gareth performed about a minute of stand-up comedy in front of a live audience at the Comedy Store in West Hollywood, which was not well-received by the host or the audience. For good reason! And we have a clip to play for you guys of this YouTube video because...

Holy shit. And you're going to hear two voices. One of them is Tony. The other is Gareth, but you'll be able to know who is who. So here we go. It is one more time for Gareth, everybody. Come on. Hello, everybody.

Alright, let me spin around this. There we go. Well, thank you very much. It's great to be here in all the best parts of entertainment. We've got most of a band. We've got morning radio sound effects. Sometimes a full band, when a toy kazoo comes from the ground, raises from the grave, takes over Tony and starts singing. It's a wonderful time. I think he froze. So, back to popular...

So over the summer, Trump yanked all the troops out of Syria, right? And then ISIS got loose. They're knocking on doors, running away or something like that. I don't know really how it works. And I thought he should have asked Tony that it's a bad idea because he has broke the bank relying on the pullout method. Quickest coming comedian in comedy?

Anyway, so I have bad news for the entertainers over there. I have bad news for the entertainers over there. The best day of your career is going to be the days after you die. When paintings skyrocket in price.

Can I continue? It's close. Go ahead, Gareth. Go ahead. Painting Skyrocket and Price. Redbox starts holding some movie from 1962. But what about the porn talent? What happens with them? Is it just Red Band at home singing, She was so underappreciated in her time! All right. There you go, Gareth. You did it. Doing the age-old broken method of trying to roast the people that the audience is here to see. That's good.

How do you feel, Gareth? Shaky. Shaky? Is this your first time on a stage? On a real stage, yeah, yeah. Yeah. What other kind of stage have you been on? Like when there's like five comedians. Oh, I wish it was stage four. Gareth. Gareth, Gareth, Gareth.

I mean, you can just tell that Tony is, like, annoyed. He's like, okay, man, just give up. And Gareth just seems not confident. Like, he's stumbling over his words. He doesn't really even know what he's saying. And then you hear the boos after his joke, quote-unquote joke.

from the audience and then like the band is playing and it just sounds like so brutal. It's so bad and he keeps looking back at the table that Tony is sitting at with two other guys and just like trying to get almost like some sort of approval. Yeah, and the

The last joke, like the very end, he was like jerk. He was like doing like a like a jerk off motion. Yeah, he was like he was like kneeling and like pretending to jerk off while he was saying that. It's just like he's so gross making gross, weird jokes like I don't know. Bad. This is not going to be the last dumb joke we're going to hear from Gareth today. Unfortunately not. Ironically, in late January, just after Amy's run in with Gareth,

Amy was also a guest on a podcast appearing on Dating Ladies.

We don't have a clip from this that we can play for you guys, but basically Amy spoke to the listeners about the painful but mercurial nature of breakups, saying, quote, You have to remind yourself when you're suffering from a breakup, this feels like the end of the world. It's temporary. It will not last forever. And I really want to include a clip of Amy talking since we just played the clip of Gareth. So here is Amy on Good Morning America one year before her murder.

How are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me today. So take us to understand what does it mean to be a sex therapist? So that's an interesting concept and question just because a lot of people don't know what it means. So I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. And after that, I went to school and got an additional degree in sexuality. Most people don't know that in a program for therapists,

a master's program, or even a PhD or a PsyD program, there's usually like one unit of sexuality education and all the other classes are three units. So it's a third of anything else you're getting educated on.

And in the class I took, pretty much they were like, write a paper on whatever you want about sexuality. And then the teacher wrote, the professor wrote, you should really teach this class. And I'm like, I will. So I'm actually in talks to do exactly that soon. So interesting. So it's so minor, like the amount of education. So if you go to a therapist and they haven't sought out additional education or experience in that topic, they really don't know much about sex. Right.

So in 2020, Amy was living in what is described on Zillow as a three bedroom, two bathroom, quote, classic 1927 mini manor in Hollywood Dell, which is a neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills. But she didn't live alone. She actually lived with a friend named Michael Herman. Now, on February 14th, 2020, so Valentine's Day, about three weeks after her altercation with Gareth,

Amy had plans to see a burlesque show with some girlfriends heading out around 7 p.m. About two hours later, her next-door neighbor's ring camera spotted a tall man in gloves slinking across their patio. He could be seen covering the camera with his hand and jumping their fence.

He then broke through the glass French doors on the ground floor of Amy Harwick's house. Her roommate Michael was home when this happened. He was laying down and dozing off in his first story bedroom and he recalled hearing the glass break but assumed that it was Amy's cat named Marquis de Shaw maybe knocking something over in the kitchen or something like that. So he went back to sleep.

But a few hours later, Michael awoke to a thud and the sounds of Amy's screams. He called out to her and then heard what he thought was Amy choking. So he scrambled for his phone to call for help, but he was unable to find it in the chaos and the panic of it all. So instead, Michael fled the house to get help as fast as he could.

Now, their fence was actually locked. So when he reached it, obviously he was not about to turn around and go find the keys. You know, that was out of the question. So he scaled the fence, cutting his abdomen in the process. Michael knocked on the front door of a neighbor's home, but they didn't answer. So he was then able to flag someone down on the street and called 911 from their phone.

Around 1 a.m. on the morning of February 15th, 2020, Michael spoke with the police, telling them frantically, quote, When the police arrived on the scene, he explained that he believed that his friend and roommate was attacked and that he thought that he heard her being thrown to the ground upstairs, which is where her bedroom was located.

And then, as police walked Michael around to the back of the house, he spotted Amy's motionless body on the ground and cried out her name.

Now, obviously unsure if Michael himself was to blame or what the hell had happened in the house that night, officers held him back from Amy, noting that he had blood on his shirt, and claimed that he lived in the home but that he hadn't brought his keys with him. And obviously, you know, this looked pretty bad at first, but we now know that he had fled from the house looking for help, hence why he didn't have his keys, and that the blood on his shirt was his own after sustaining an injury from scaling the fence.

Now, Michael told officers that he was sure that her fall was the result of a struggle after an intruder had broken in. And this wasn't some kind of accident. When police and paramedics found her, 38-year-old Amy Harwick was rushed to the hospital. And she was still alive, but with a faint heartbeat and a ragged breath pattern.

But sadly, she just could not pull through after her arrival at the hospital, and doctors could not save her life. So she passed away about two hours after arriving there. Now, EMTs acknowledged that she had suffered injuries consistent with the fall, but that she had also incurred injuries prior to the fall as a result of a struggle. Back at her house, investigators canvassed the area for any signs that would lead them to their perpetrator.

In addition to questioning Michael, police considered the possibility that her fall had been an accident. Well, strangely, on her balcony, there was a loaded syringe. Though they didn't immediately know what it was filled with, so officers began to wonder if perhaps she had been using drugs and fell to her death.

but there were clear indications that a struggle had taken place before her death. Now, for example, Amy's bedroom had been immaculate except for her disturbed, unmade bed, and her purse, coat, and a snapped necklace dropped on her floor. Then, as day broke, investigators came upon something that they had missed in their initial walkthrough of the home. The bottom panel of one of the French doors had been broken in, and blood splatters lay among the glass.

So this had been the sound of breaking glass that Michael had heard around 9 p.m. the night prior. Somebody was breaking in and hiding in wait for Amy to get home, which she did at 1 a.m. after that burlesque show at

Which means he was waiting in her house for four hours. That is seriously so eerie and terrifying.

Well, during his questioning, Michael, her roommate, shared with investigators that Amy had been concerned about the glass doors in their home in general and that she had recently spoken to a handyman about having them replaced, especially with such a classic old house. You know, like he

Heath and I thought about this consistently in our most recent house, which was also an old classic 1920s LA home with single pane glass windows all over the place. And we were always so freaked out. Yeah, I mean, those things break so easily. Like they're like almost paper thin. They just can break, you know,

With nothing. Yeah, like a regular new modern window. If like a bird flew into it, the bird would die in a house like Amy's and like our old one. Just be flying straight through the motherfucking window. Exactly. So she really wanted someone to replace these. And then she also had just been like talking to somebody about reinforcing the locks of their home. So clearly, as we know, she was very much afraid of her safety. She knew in the past that...

that her ex, Gareth, I almost said girth. Girth. We should just call him Girth. Girth-erth. So she knew that Gareth had come to her house in the past. She was probably afraid that was going to happen again. And now this occurs. I just find it so strange that in those nine years that they were split up, obviously we know that there was a restraining order, but he didn't really try anything during those years. So it's like, it's almost like,

She was in the clear. She almost got rid of this guy out of her life for nine years, and then he just comes back like freaking cancer. Yeah, it's like seeing him triggered something in him that...

I mean, to be honest, of course, she was an amazing, absolutely gorgeous woman. So seeing her again probably just brought back all those old feelings. But I guess I'm just wondering, what was Gareth doing for nine years? Who the hell? Just horrible comedy. Horrible comedy, yeah. So Michael revealed to other officers that Amy had an ex-boyfriend that she had a restraining order against because Gareth...

was definitely on his mind, of course, especially with the harassment that Amy had been receiving as of recent. Michael was also able to connect them with Amy's close friend, Robert, the one who had her tracker. And he said that he knew immediately who had done it and pointed police to 41-year-old Gareth Pursehouse.

So at this point, Gareth was reportedly living in Playa del Rey, which is a seaside L.A. neighborhood, basically between Venice and Inglewood. Inglewood is where LAX is. So almost 20 miles or 32 kilometers from Amy's Hollywood Hills house.

And when investigators in Pennsylvania broke the news to Amy's parents, they suspected the very same culprit that Robert did, Gareth Pursehouse. But later on that same day, that 38-year-old Amy Harwick was murdered again, February 15th, 2020.

Gareth was already moving on to another woman, or so it seemed. I think this was a total ruse because that morning he texted a woman that he had met on Tinder, someone he had been out with a few times, saying, "'Morning, sunshine.'" She said that she was heading out for a bike ride and then the two wound up meeting at Gareth's Playa del Rey home afterward. She later testified in Gareth's murder trial and described his mood that day as sad and distant.

She also noted that alarmingly, he had a black eye that day and she questioned him about it.

Oddly, Gareth explained that he was doing some work on his own French doors and that he had injured himself in the remodel. I mean, I always get black eyes when I fix my doors. Yeah, especially, you know, it was definitely French doors as well. Yeah, very, very weird that he said that too. Yeah. Convenient. So the woman said that they had not been particularly physical or flirty that day and that she helped him with some organizational projects around the house.

After hanging out at his house for about two hours, he offered to drive her home so that she could prepare for her evening plans. But on their drive home, his car was swarmed by police cars. Thank God. Looking to Gareth, terrified, he instructed her, just do what they say. He then exited the vehicle and laid face down on the ground as officers surrounded him.

Only about 12 hours after Amy's murder, Gareth Pursehouse was arrested for the crime. At first, of course, Gareth feigned ignorance, telling them that he had been home since the evening prior.

Detectives asked him about his black eye, which he again lied about being the result of home renovation mishap. Yeah, the door punched me in the face. Yeah, exactly. But the most telling detail was the discovery of the small blood spatters beneath the shattered glass panel of the French door in her home.

Because when tested, they were confirmed to match Gareth's DNA. And underneath Amy's fingernails, once again, Gareth's DNA.

Deputy District Attorney Catherine Mariano believed that Gareth wanted to make a statement by murdering Amy on Valentine's Day, saying, quote, I think Gareth decided to do this on Valentine's Day on purpose. I think Gareth decided to kill Amy Harwick on a day that symbolized love and couples. And I think it was poetic justice in his opinion.

When police questioned 41-year-old Gareth, they also photographed what they believed were defensive wounds, as he sustained a bite mark on his bicep and scratches on his forearms, neck, and chest, in addition to the black eye, meaning that Amy fought back hard. Detectives came to the conclusion that the syringe, which was confirmed to contain liquid nicotine, was Gareth's initial plan.

He was kind of hoping that, you know, maybe this would look like she had taken a lethal dose by accident, injecting her without any altercation. But when she fought back with her life, she rightfully screwed Gareth's plan, and he resorted to beating her and sending her over the edge of her three-story balcony. The lead detective, Scott Masterston, explained, quote, "...Gareth's overall plan would have been to inject her and have Amy pass away, and nobody would have been the wiser."

Well, shockingly, Gareth was released on a $2 million bail within just days of his arrest. He later told friends that the bond depleted his own savings and everything his brother was able to contribute. Maybe don't murder then? Like, oh, poor you. What? Yeah, poor you. Shut up, guy. But it was clear that Gareth was a flight risk, so he was detained again just four days later, and then he was held on a no-bail warrant.

While scouring the house compiling more evidence, Scott Masterson noted that Amy's bed was in disarray. Scott remarked, quote,

describing this detail as very creepy. Uh, yeah. Yeah, we agree. Again, for four hours, he was just laying around in her room. I mean, it's just beyond disturbing. Well, for this, he was charged with both murder and lying in wait. To no one's surprise, this coward pleaded not guilty in her murder. But some of the most damning evidence came out while he was awaiting trial.

Now, two friends visited him in prison, and though Gareth refused to speak candidly about the details of the crime, he hatched a few ill-advised plans for his future in prison. Such a dumbass. Listen to this, guys. Yeah, so they kept the mood kind of light here. They were cracking jokes and laughing for whatever reason, but when his friends asked how he was doing, he casually said, "'Shitty.'"

Speaking frankly, he told them, yeah, so shit's not great. I'm not getting out of here. He then joked, I guess I'm officially a bad guy now. No, you're an idiot. Man, you've always been a bad guy as well. So after asking his friends to help his brother move his things out of his apartment, he instructed them to cash in on his arrest, saying, quote, obviously my name is like a big thing right now. So if you could sell stuff of mine to like weird collectors, you should be able to get more money for it.

Like, I hate this guy. I hate this guy. He just wants to be famous so bad. He also instructed his friends, quote, I also told, he probably won't do it, I told him to get all the 6,000 jokes I've written from my Google Docs. I told him to get them and turn them into a book and then sell it online as my jokes.

He added, quote, right now, actually, try to find a publisher that'll give you money ahead of time for that. Like right now, you know what I mean? Just based on my name because of the media. Like that could be a million bucks. I don't know. I don't know how that shit works. He's completely insane. I mean, this is crazy. He's trying to...

sell his jokes to make money on a book because he thinks he's famous now because he's being accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend. And from prison. He also gave them a few new jokes that he made up in prison, bemoaning the fact that he didn't have access to a pencil or a pen, so he couldn't write them down. This is one of his jokes that he made up. I mean, I'm pretty sure I've heard this joke before.

What's the most feminine candy bar? Hershey's. That is such a dumb dad joke. It's so bad. It's something your 56-year-old New Balance-wearing dad would say to you while he's mowing the lawn. I have a really good joke for Gareth. Go. You're in fucking prison, bro.

That's my joke. That's way funnier. It's hilarious. So he also made a point of asking them to conceal the sex toys that he left behind at his house. Well, as news of Amy's death spread, Drew Carey issued a statement that said, quote,

And the really sad thing here is that Amy had actually reached out to Drew just two days before her death, and she asked if they could get together and talk.

He claims that he told her that he loved her and that the pair made plans to catch up soon. Now, when Gareth's trial began in August of 2023, his defense team surprisingly didn't try to dispute the fact that he had broken in and that that was directly what led to Amy's untimely death.

However, Gareth, through his defense attorney, Robin Bernstein-Lev, actually blamed Amy, claiming that he had just wanted to talk to her, and that afterward, he was actually planning on killing himself with the liquid nicotine.

He explained that she had become frightened and fought back, which he wasn't expecting and described her as the aggressor. You break into her house, hide inside her bedroom in her bed just to talk, and you murder her and you still bleed.

Blame her. Dude, it's just, I just can't sometimes with these defense attorneys. Just the bullshit that they come up with is truly moronic. It's so sad, honestly. Well, Robin explained, quote, We don't know who initiated the physical confrontation. Yes, you do. And it's just as likely, if not likelier, she preemptively attacked Gareth Pursehouse in order to subdue him because she was afraid of him.

No shit. Wild take. No shit. She's afraid of this guy. Obviously, she's going to fight back. This rando, not rando, but this weirdo is laying in wait in her room, in her bed. She's going to fight back. I can't imagine how frustrated her family and her friends were hearing that bullshit. Oh, yeah. They must have just been super pissed at this. Well, after their scuffle, he says that he left in a panic and can't

and can be seen jumping back over the neighbor's fence and fleeing through their yard. But when it was time to call their expert defenses to testify that she had fallen or jumped and not actually been discarded over the balcony after their confrontation...

The defense opted not to call any witnesses, despite having promised to do so in their opening statements. Because they didn't have any. Yeah, exactly. And his attorney, Robin, did make a ploy for the sympathy vote, describing their breakup as excruciating for Gareth. His father had also passed away the previous July, and Robin claimed that he was suffering severe emotional distress from the combination of these traumatic events—

You and Amy broke up so long ago. Like, he acts like this just happened. Yeah, it's like, I was in a really bad way because she just broke up with me. Bro, it was nine years ago. And the death of his father was eight months earlier. So you're saying nine years ago, he was in a breakup, and eight months earlier, his dad died. So that justifies him murdering her? It's just so clear that they were grasping at straws here. Truly. So...

I feel like this is actually a perfect time to really quickly talk about Gareth's dad because he was also reportedly a stalker, by the way. There is a court case between him and a woman named Debra, his ex-fiancee, from August of 2010. And here is the quick rundown. One year earlier, in August of 2009, actually around the time of Amy and Gareth's meeting, you know, when they met for the first time at that party,

Deborah had filed an application for a restraining order against Gareth's father, Paul, to stop his harassment against her. She said in her application, quote, For the past eight weeks, Paul has been harassing me by phone, by email, in person, and through my friends.

I live in a gated senior community and he has been showing up to about three of my community events per week for the past few weeks in an attempt to see me and talk to me. I have told him repeatedly that we are over and that I want nothing to do with him, yet he refuses to leave me alone and his harassment and obsession with me seems to be escalating.

And this ended up going to court because he appealed this restraining order. I mean, it's not like it's super relevant to Amy's story, but we did want to mention it to you guys because maybe that's kind of where Gareth is getting some of his personality, this obsession personality. Exactly. It's too weird not to mention. And just so everybody knows, uh,

The court concluded that his appeal was without merit and they granted the restraining order. And then, of course, as we know, about 10 years later, he passed away. And then just...

just months after the restraining order was granted is when Amy and Gareth reportedly stopped seeing each other and that that breakup happened after two years of them seeing each other. But anyway, back to Gareth's trial on Amy Harwick's murder. This was in 2023, so three years after her murder. During the trial, Robin said that due to his father's death and the breakup with Amy from years earlier, quote,

Gareth was consumed by emotions and in a crisis. Her death was never his goal. Gareth sat looking mostly unaffected throughout the trial, even occasionally cracking a smile. But in the end, he was found guilty of Amy's murder on September 27th, 2023. On December 6th, 2023, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole at the age of 45.

Dr. Amy Harwick was buried in Ambler, Pennsylvania, with many attending to show their love and support for Amy for an inspiring and beautiful life taken far too soon by a monster. ♪♪

Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure that you go and share this story, that you go check out the photos that are associated with this case. We have socials. Go to our socials. Go follow us. We're on Instagram at Going West Podcast. We're also on Facebook. Yeah. And if you guys want to see a video of Amy, we'll post that. Of course, photos of her, photos of Gareth.

I am going to post that clip from the comedy podcast, just from him at the comedy store. Oh, yeah, definitely. So that you guys can see his movements and him while he's saying these terrible jokes. If you guys want to hate him even more than you already do. If that's even possible. Yeah. Well, we love you guys so much, and we will have an all-new episode of Going West for you guys on Tuesday. Oh, yeah. So for everybody out there in the world... Don't be a stranger.

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