LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: The opening statements for the murder trial against Gareth Pursehouse who killed his ex-girlfriend, Hollywood sex therapist Amie Harwick, started on Tuesday, August 29. Pursehouse is facing murder and burglary charges for Harwick’s death.
Investigators claim that a month before her death, Harwick met Pursehouse at an adult industry awards show on January 16, 2020, at the JW Marriott in Los Angeles. "Initially, he reacted with anger and hostility and he was yelling and she kind of jumped into therapist mode", the victim's friend Hernando Chaves said. Chaves said Pursehouse approached Harwick again after the show.
The victim filed a protective order against Pursehouse
The pair started dating each other in 2011, prosecutors explained in their opening statements. However, after a year, Harwick ended the relationship and filed a protective order against Pursehouse, claiming he physically and emotionally abused her. After cutting off all the communications, the two bumped into each other nearly eight years later.
Harwick was reportedly on the red carpet and Pursehouse had been hired as a photographer. “She rejected his advances, she cut off all communication with him, so he punished her, broke into her house, and killed her,” Deputy District Attorney Victor Avila explained according to Law and Crime.
Pursehouse texted Harwick after the event
Avila also claimed that following the event, Pursehouse found Harwick’s phone number and texted her. After a short conversation in which the defendant asked to speak with Harwick further, she refused, and set a boundary that their conversation at the event was all that was needed and to stop any further interactions.
Several of Pursehouse's texts, phone calls, and a crying voicemail were presented which showed that he insisted on seeing and talking to her, the state said.
The victim was scared after seeing Pursehouse
Harwick blocked Pursehouse’s number as she was concerned for safety. She even got new locks on her windows, and had a handyman install security cameras at her home, the prosecutor explained. Harwick emailed herself after the encounter what appeared to be a journal entry detailing how scared she was after seeing Pursehouse. She called him “obsessive and scary,” the email stated.
"It was a very tense, very anxious and very fearful night for her in many respects," Chaves said. Harwick went out for a fun night with some girlfriends to a burlesque show on the night of the murder. She returned a text from her best friend Robert Coshland when she got home around 1 am. It was about a restaurant he wanted to try in Scotland where he, his wife, and Harwick planned to visit in April.
"She responded, 'Wow, that looks great,'" he previously said. "And within 10 minutes, she was dead."
What did the investigators see after arriving at her home?
Crime scene investigators discovered the French doors leading into Harwick’s home had been shattered when they arrived on the scene. According to the prosecution, DNA which was gathered from a smear of blood on the doors and on a bloodstain on the floor matched Pursehouse’s DNA. DNA collected from under Harwick’s fingernails also matched Pursehouse’s DNA.
Detectives also found a syringe at the crime scene which they assumed was filled with heroin. Chemists at the FBI tested the syringe and confirmed it actually was a lethal dose of nicotine. “It was poison,” attorney Avila said.
How did Pursehouse kill Harwick?
As per detectives, Pursehouse grabbed Harwick inside her home and strangled her. He then dragged her to the third-floor balcony after he got frightened by her roommate’s scream and threw her over the ledge. Harwick’s pelvis was shattered and she sustained brain and liver damage, the prosecution said. She breathed her last at the hospital just after 3 a.m.
What did the defendant's defense say?
In its opening statements, the defense claimed Pursehouse was heartbroken and depressed. Defense attorney Evan Franzel started by listing the messages Pursehouse sent to Harwick. “I have a lot to say, please give me a chance to say it. Can we meet again? I wish is could do something more. Please, please,” the attorney said.
According to the defense, seeing Harwick at the event “sent him into a deep, debilitating depression he was not able to overcome.”
“The evidence will show that running into her at that event sent him into a thick fog of depression and made him feel that the only way he could get relief from that pain was to go and talk to her,” Franzel explained. “The evidence will show he never intended on killing her.”
While referring to the syringe found at the crime scene, Franzel claimed that Pursehouse broke into Harwick’s house to talk to her and he planned on killing himself, not Harwick. He also added that Pursehouse did not throw Harwick over the balcony ledge but instead, she ran to the railing and tried to climb over it to get away from her ex-boyfriend.
“He set a chain of motions into actions that led to her death,” attorney Franzel admitted.
