Blood, a broken necklace and a poison-filled syringe are evidence in Amie Harwick's violent death

The Final Hours of Amie Harwick

Case update: On Sept. 28, 2023, Gareth Pursehouse, 45, was convicted of first-degree murder for throwing 38-year-old Amie Harwick from the third-floor balcony of her Hollywood Hills home in the early morning hours of Feb. 15, 2020. On Dec. 6, 2023, he was was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Our earlier story is below. 


[This story previously aired on Feb. 12, 2022. It was updated on Sept 3.]

More than two-and-a-half years ago, prominent Hollywood therapist Amie Harwick was found fatally injured beneath her bedroom balcony just hours after Valentine's Day -- a former boyfriend has been charged with her death. In his first extensive TV interview, Drew Carey, host of CBS' "The Price Is Right" and Harwick's onetime fiancé, offers "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty a raw, honest account of unexpected love and unbearable loss.

In the early morning hours of Feb. 15, 2020, police found Amie Harwick, a high-profile family therapist, clinging to life beneath the balcony outside her home.

As Amie was rushed to the hospital, investigators immediately questioned her traumatized roommate who had called 911. They set out to interview neighbors and look for surveillance camera video - anything to explain what had happened to her.

Amie Harwick during her Valentine's Day hike with friend Cleopatra Slough. Amie acted as a local tour guide as they climbed the winding Hollywood Hills streets. Robert Coshland

Hours earlier, Amie's Valentine's Day had started peacefully with a sunrise hike with her friend, Cleopatra Slough.

Cleopatra Slough: So, I got to her house ... She invited me in because she still hadn't gotten ready yet. ... We went up to her bedroom, which was very beautiful. It had this nice balcony, all this natural light. ...And she was frantically getting ready and at the last minute, she grabbed this little red cardigan sweater and said," it's Valentine's Day, I am just going to throw this on."

Amie acted as a local tour guide as they climbed the winding Hollywood Hills streets.

Cleopatra Slough: She was pointing out all these different landmarks she liked, telling me different history about the neighborhood.

They stopped for breakfast at the Beachwood Café.

Cleopatra Slough: She talked a lot about how happy she was. How ... she felt really accomplished and happy with where she was in life and very much, like, at peace ...

Erin Moriarty: Did she seem worried about anything that day?

Cleopatra Slough: No.

Erin Moriarty: Did she talk about what her plans were that night?

Cleopatra Slough: Yes. ... They were all going to a burlesque show. And she was really excited to get dressed up and go to that.

Erin Moriarty: What was she wearing that night?

Miss Tosh: She was wearing her rosary necklace, her leather jacket, her purse and her boots and a velvet dress.

The necklace would later become a key piece of evidence.

Amie's friend, known as Miss Tosh, says the burlesque show started around 7 p.m.

Miss Tosh: They brought a little Kodak camera and taking all these film photos together ... And I could see them even when I was on stage just, like, cheering and standing. The best time.

 Around the time that Amie and her friends were taking pictures at the show, Amie's roommate Michael Herman - asleep in his room on the first floor - would later tell authorities he thought he heard the sound of a smashing plate. He thought it was Amie, a floor above, and drifted back to sleep. Investigators now believe it was an intruder breaking the glass of the French door to her home.

Amie Harwick, left, Miss Tosh, second from left, and friends at the burlesque show on February 14, 2020. Miss Tosh

Erin Moriarty [looking at photo]: In this moment, everybody, you know, looks happy.

Miss Tosh: We're all on a high of thrill of celebrating the show ... we were just having so much fun.

Amie, still at the Globe Theater, caught up with Miss Tosh in the lobby after the show around 9 p.m. Miss Tosh asked her to come to the after party.

Miss Tosh: And she's like, "no, I'm just going to have tea with my friends" ... and that was my last moment with her was just, you know," I love you. I'll see you again soon."

Amie and her friends left the Globe Theatre and they ended up at the Nomad until 12:18 a.m.

At around 1 a.m., Amie pulled into her driveway, and she texted her friend Sara Rollins to send pictures from the Nomad: "Send me pics on the green couch!" The time is 1:02 a.m.

Moments later, police believe she climbed the stairs to her third-floor bedroom and was viciously attacked. Police theorize that Amie's assailant had been lying in wait for four hours.

Amie's roommate was jolted out of sleep by her screams. He later testified that he heard the sound of bodies falling to the floor and more screams that seemed muffled, as though someone had put a hand over her mouth.

Unable to find his phone, Amie's roommate first just tries yelling to scare the assailant away. When he runs for help, he gets trapped inside the courtyard, and has to scale a tall metal fence, cutting himself, but he still makes it over to the neighbor, knocking repeatedly, and nobody comes to the door.

It was now 1:08 a.m., Amie's roommate is frantic. He then runs across the street and again no one answers the door. Then, he sees someone walking up the street who happens to have a phone. They call for help. It is now 1:14 a.m.

In the early morning hours of February 15, 2020, police found Amie Harwick clinging to life beneath the balcony outside of her Hollywood Hills home. Police noted that Amie had severe injuries and deep marks on her neck, signs that she had been strangled before she fell from the balcony. Robert Coshland

That's when police found Amie lying 20 feet below her bedroom balcony. She was struggling to breathe.

Police noted that Amie had severe injuries and deep marks on her neck - signs that she had been strangled before she fell from the balcony.

At 2:05 a.m., Sara Rollins, who had no idea Amie was clinging to life, texted that photo of her on the green couch. But, by then, Amie was on her way to Cedar Sinai Medical Center. She died at 3:26 a.m.

Inside her home investigators discovered evidence of a violent struggle. There was blood on a bedroom door. There was also a trail of those rosary beads that she'd been wearing earlier that night that went from her TV room, through her bedroom and onto the balcony. And that's where they recovered a syringe filled with liquid.

 Considering Amie did not smoke, drink or do drugs, the syringe seemed out of place. Was it left by Amie's attacker? And why?

LOVE AND LOSS

As dawn broke over Los Angeles on the morning after Valentine's Day in 2020, hearts began breaking.

Robert Coshland: It's like the sun was ripped from the sky.

Amie Harwick's close friends Cleopatra Slough, Grace Stanley and Robert Coshland, were hearing the news that the 38-year-old woman they'd loved and leaned on was gone.

Cleopatra Slough (cries): I didn't believe it.

Grace Stanley (cries): She's not there anymore.

Robert Coshland: The police called me...and said, "Hey can you come down to the Hollywood station."

In 2018, on a special Valentine's episode of "The Price Is Right," host Drew Carey introduced Amie Harwick to the world as his fiancée. "I fell so hard for her," Carey says. "She was really smart." Eddy Chen/CBS

Word quickly reached her onetime fiancé, too: Drew Carey, comedian and host of "The Price is Right" on CBS. He introduced Amie to the world on the Valentine's Day edition of the show in 2018, just two years before her death.

Drew Carey: You want an intimate relationship where you can open up to somebody completely ... and she was that for me.

Carey is giving his first extensive television interview about Amie Harwick: A raw, honest account of unexpected love and unbearable loss.

Erin Moriarty: How'd you meet her?

Drew Carey: I ... met her at - there's this producer that would throw these like, amazing big Hollywood parties.

It was 2017. He says he saw stars all over the room that night, but especially when he saw Amie Harwick, who was moonlighting as a bartender.

Amie Harwick at Disneyland during her first date with Drew Carey. Robert Coshland


Drew Carey: Our first date we went to Disneyland. ... And ... I was, like, so amazed by her ... I was telling people at work. ... "Wow, I met this great girl. Her name's Amie."

Like Drew, Amie Harwick had grown up in middle America. In her case, a small Pennsylvania town.

AMIE HARWICK [modeling agency video]: It was always just a challenge to figure out where I belonged ... And it took a really long time for me to figure out who I was as a person.

She had been adopted and had, at one point, briefly been in foster care. As a teen, she was drawn to an offbeat crowd.

Sharon Little: We would go to the bathroom and do our makeup together and skip class.

The ladies' room wasn't just where Sharon Little and Amie Harwick went to goof off; it's where they first met. One day in tenth grade, Sharon says she was sobbing after hearing a close friend had died, when someone she didn't know offered her a hug.

Sharon Little (crying): She saw me crying and just held me.

Both craving understanding, Sharon says they seemed to understand each other instinctively.

Sharon Little: I felt she knew exactly what I was feeling.

In 2001, Amie settled in LA, planning to get a psychology degree, but she needed money.

Drew Carey: She worked her way through college ... she worked, like, bartending, go-go dancing.

"She had a fire act that she would do. And like really hustled," said Drew Carey. Robert Coshland

She got gigs at nightclubs and parties around town.

Sharon Little: She was blooming. She was eating fire ...

Drew Carey: She had a fire act that she would do. And like really hustled.

Amie's hustle, smarts and passion for personal growth eventually paid off.

Armed with a master's degree in clinical psychology and eventually a Ph.D. in human sexuality, she opened a private practice and worked with clients who were often shunned.

AMIE HARWICK ("Good Morning La La Land"): I work with sex workers or people that might be previously sex workers ...

Amie brought her unique mix of compassion and charisma to a YouTube audience, too.

AMIE HARWICK (YouTube): Hey, this is Dr. Amie Harwick ...

AMIE HARWICK (YouTube): You communicate what you're looking to do ... what your boundaries are ...

Part of what made her so interesting, say friends, were her own colorful interests.

Grace Stanley: Taxidermy and things like that.

"Well, this is a collection of her poison bottles," Robert Coshland tells "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty. CBS News

But while Amie seemed to have a morbid fascination with mortality ...

Robert Coshland: She was obsessed with death ... and in fact, at one point she had bought her own coffin.

... she also had a zest for life and living.

Grace Stanley: She did everything ... and I don't know where she got the energy from.

Drew Carey: I fell so hard for her.

Erin Moriarty: You even said that you were lucky enough to have that love of a lifetime, what did you mean by that?

Drew Carey: It was. It ... felt to me like finally, here's like everything I ever wanted.

He says Amie offered what any person would want: unconditional love.

Drew Carey: I have a lot of body issues about the way I look, and- but I would, like, take my shirt off around her and not care, and she would love me. ... like, she didn't care. She just always thought I was sexy and hot.

They got engaged in 2017.

Drew Carey: We had a great time together ... we would be, you know, in the kitchen and just start dancing.

But there were serious problems, too.

Drew Carey: There would be an article like, "Oh, Drew Carey and Amie Harwick at a thing."

The couple's celebrity outings sometimes brought unwanted attention to Amie.

Drew Carey: And then the next day, two days later, there'd be something.

Something would almost always appear online: negative, anonymous comments on websites that reviewed doctors, he says. And Amie feared her reputation as a therapist would be ruined. She was convinced they were written by a jealous ex-boyfriend. His name: Gareth Pursehouse.

Drew Carey: And she's like ... "I wish you weren't famous!" 

Erin Moriarty: If this was this great love, and you guys so meshed, what happened?

Drew Carey: Well, you know, we had some problems, and - I don't wanna get into it.

But Carey told "48 Hours" they tried hard to make it work.

Drew Carey: We went to therapy as much as we could and, you know, finally just had to call it a day. ... And it was really upsetting for both of us.

Friends say the breakup was amicable and the couple eventually fell out of touch. Carey, by then in a new relationship, says he was thrilled when, on the night before Valentine's Day in 2020, Amie suddenly reached out with a text.

Drew Carey on the text ex-fiancée Amie Harwick sent two days before her death

Drew Carey (reading text): "I would love to get together with you and talk." And I said, "Yeah, I would love to do that. I love you."

Erin Moriarty: Are you sad you never got that chance?

Drew Carey: I never got it.

Each of Amie's friends handled her death in a different way, but when asked who they thought would hurt her, one name came to mind.

Grace Stanley: My friend is terrified of one person.

Robert Coshland: It's Gareth.

Erin Moriarty: She thought he was dangerous.

Grace Stanley: She did ... she knew what he was capable of.

ACCUSATIONS OF ASSAULT

Robert Coshland went down to the Hollywood police station and told investigators what he knew about Gareth Pursehouse, an ex-boyfriend Amie had dated years before. He was a software engineer, wannabe comedian and photographer.

Robert Coshland: They asked ... Who I thought might have done this and ... did she have any enemies? ... "this ex of hers, Gareth ... if anyone ... it would be this guy."

Robert Coshland says he instantly knew who might have done this to Amie: Gareth Pursehouse, an ex-boyfriend who Amie had reported for assaulting her before they broke up in 2012. She feared he was stalking her.  Facebook

Coshland also told them that Amie said Pursehouse had assaulted her on more than one occasion.

"48 Hours" tracked down numerous police reports and two restraining orders that Amie obtained against Pursehouse.

Erin Moriarty [reading]: So, this is what she wrote in April 2011:

"Gareth Pursehouse forced me to the ground, covered my mouth to prevent my yelling, kicked me.

In mid-May, there were multiple arguments in which Gareth Pursehouse ... choked me, suffocated me, pushed me against walls, kicked me, dropped me to the ground with forced force, restrained me, slammed my head into the ground, and punched me with a closed fist."

Robert Coshland: They would get in ... yelling fights. And one time she threw a pillow at him. And he hit her and bashed her head against the floor.

Robert Coshland: And then immediately he would make up and be all like," I'm really sorry" and "I love you" and all this kind of stuff.
But it was a very different relationship when the couple first started dating, as Grace Stanley remembers.

Stanley says Amie introduced her to Pursehouse back in 2008 at a photo shoot for Bench Warmer trading cards. Back then, Amy was a model going by the name Amie Nicole.

Grace Stanley: It was very obvious when I met him that he was taken by her. ... always taking pictures of her.

Grace Stanley: I honestly think she was looking for the nice guy, the safe guy, the guy who wasn't going to break her heart or cheat on her. ... when there's somebody who is that into you, you don't think that they're going to hurt you.
Rudy Torres: He was - he was loud ... charming. A little goofy.

Pursehouse posted videos on social media.

Stanley says there was no sign of a relationship in trouble in the beginning, but something now strikes her as strange.

Grace Stanley: I never saw her and him together while they were dating ... and I kind of wonder if he was kind of keeping her away from her friends.

Eventually, Amie could no longer hide the signs of abuse. Friends say she started documenting her injuries.

Erin Moriarty: He was hurting her. Does that fit the Amie you know? To stay in a bad situation like that?

Robert Coshland: Actually, yes, it does ... she really would wanna make relationships work ... even if they weren't working for her. ... She did not like to lose at all. So, I think a relationship breaking up ... would feel like a loss ... and she was very much about maintaining things that she had, even if they weren't good.

Grace Stanley: I just remember doing the friend thing ... "leave him, leave him. Like, that's not a relationship you want to stay in."

Erin Moriarty: And how did she react to saying get out of that relationship?

Grace Stanley: She absolutely agreed.

Amie finally ended their relationship in 2012.

Rudy Torres: Gareth didn't take that very well at all. He would start to get obsessive.

Rudy Torres: He always wanted to know where she was at ... he used to want me to be his go-between, which, I did not wanna do. He'd always ask me to send her ...  photos, send her links to sappy love songs. ... and he wouldn't take no for an answer.

Rudy Torres: And he just kind of blew up and said ... "you have to pick, it's either me or her." ... and I went with her and after that he cut me off.

AMIE HARWICK (YouTube): The video today is on how to survive the breakup.

Amie Harwick was a practicing therapist with a master's degree and a Ph.D.,  Genevieve Marie


Amie was determined to move on from Pursehouse. Not only did she survive, she thrived. But nearly four years after the breakup, someone broke into her home.

Robert Coshland: She called me she's like I think he broke into my house and stole my photo albums and my computer ... It had been wiped.

Robert Coshland: She believed it was him, she couldn't prove it, she didn't have cameras.

Grace Stanley: She felt as though maybe he was watching somehow ... she felt like he could maybe have bugged her things.

Amie was convinced Pursehouse was behind some of the insulting and derogatory online comments she had been getting for years. Gareth had also sent messages to her friends designed to sabotage her friendships.

Grace Stanley: It seemed ridiculous. ... Surely, he's moved on by now.

But then, on January 16, 2020, they crossed paths for the first time in eight years. The prominent sex therapist received a last-minute invite to the annual XBIZ awards, an adult film industry gala.

That's where she spotted Pursehouse working the event. She tried to stay calm, but she later told Robert Coshland when Gareth saw her, he went ballistic.

Robert Coshland: And he was yelling in her face saying, "You've ruined my life." And reciting text messages she had sent to him in 2012. And like, you know, created a giant scene.

Robert Coshland: There's like a hundred people in this room and he's screaming. He is working the event. He's a big guy and he's screaming at her, sobbing ... falls to the ground in a fetal position wailing.

After the show, Amie spent 45 minutes speaking privately with Pursehouse, away from everyone, but still within view of security guards.

Robert Coshland: She told me she went into therapist mode ... and tell him, like ... he needs to, like, get on with his life ... but in a non-confrontational, as best possible way. ... she felt like she had talked him down.

Robert Coshland: But ... she was unnerved by the whole thing ... After that, she was like, "I want to share my phone location with you." ... "If anything ever happens to me ... it's him."

Grace Stanley: She wanted to up the security in her house. She wanted pepper spray. She was taking the steps of somebody who was scared.

Two weeks after the run-in with Gareth, Amie called her parents, with an unexpected request.

Robert Coshland: She ... told them that, if I die, I want to have an open casket funeral and I want an elaborate headstone and ... like, very explicit wishes.

Then, just a day before Valentine's Day 2020, there was that text from Amie reaching out to Drew Carey.

Drew Carey: I was really happy ... I was like, "Oh, it'd be great to see her again."

But Carey would never hear from Amie again. Robert Coshland would deliver the heartbreaking news.

Drew Carey: And he goes, "Hey - Amie was murdered." And - I just started like, "What?" And I - and I just started crying ... And I just - I couldn't even stand up. And - I - you know, I didn't think that was possible.

News of Amie's death exploded across the country.

And within hours, detectives tracked down Gareth Pursehouse at his home, and charged him with her murder. Now, prosecutors set out to build their case against him.

Rhonda Saunders: It's going to be a fight.

A LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE

In September 2021, a year-and-a-half after his arrest, Gareth Pursehouse appeared at the Los Angeles Superior Court for a preliminary hearing. Rudy Torres, once Pursehouse's good friend, wanted to be there - for Amie.

Rudy Torres: You want to know what those last moments were like for her. And you just need to be there because someone has to be in that room for her.

Cameras were not allowed inside the hearing itself, where a judge would determine if there was enough evidence to try Pursehouse for the murder of Amie Harwick.

Rhonda Saunders: You know, there's no such thing as a slam dunk case, ever.

Rhonda Saunders was a deputy district attorney in LA for 33 years. She is not involved in this case but reviewed court records at "48 Hours" request. At the hearing, prosecutors discussed Amie's autopsy, which documents apparent defensive wounds on her arms and hands. There was also a pattern of broken blood vessels around Amie's eyes called petechiae, which can be evidence of strangulation.

Rhonda Saunders: There not only were the petechiae, but there were bruises on her neck.

But was Gareth Pursehouse the intruder on the night of February 14, 2020? Prosecutors presented evidence of DNA recovered from the French door and the living room floor, which they said was a match to Pursehouse.

Rudy Torres: The word of the day was septillion. ... That's the one with 24 zeroes. ... Most of the stuff went over my head, but I can remember septillion.

Torres is correct - investigators said the chance that the DNA belonged to anyone other than Pursehouse was less than one in one septillion. And perhaps more disturbing, they say Pursehouse's DNA was on Amie's fingernails. Torres says he's disturbed by the idea of Amie's last moments alive -the roughly 6 minutes after she sent her last text and before her roommate knocked on the neighbor's door for help.

Rudy Torres: Six minutes. Her last moments on earth were six minutes. And that's probably the most scary part of all this, that she - doesn't sound like a long time, but she fought for six minutes.

At the hearing, the defense questioned whether that DNA was collected and tested correctly, and they questioned whether Pursehouse was there at all. But a neighbor's home security video from the night of Valentine's Day - played in court - shows an intruder that Torres believes is Pursehouse.

Rudy Torres: He puts his hand over the camera so it doesn't see him ... but you know somebody for that long it's like seeing him from a distance. It looked like him.

Gareth Pursehouse's DNA was found on Amie Harwick's fingernails and in her home. He was arrested and charged her murder. He pleaded not guilty. Instagram

Gareth Pursehouse pleaded not guilty, and his defense attorneys argue that none of the evidence collected by the state proves murder. They say even if that intruder was Pursehouse - and they don't agree it was - he could have gone there just to talk to Amie, and her fall off the balcony could have been an accident.

Rudy Torres: That's ridiculous. ... He's tall. And she's tiny. ... She's unmatched in any way you can quantify.

Robert Coshland: He may have wanted to say some things to her, but I think he went there to kill her.

Police found Amie Harwick  lying 20 feet beneath her bedroom balcony in the courtyard outside her home. Inside, blood on a door and on the balcony, and a syringe containing a liquid that lab tests later revealed to be nicotine - which can be a lethal poison. Robert Coshland

Then there's that syringe that police say they found on Amie's balcony. Lab tests later revealed that it contained nicotine, which can be a lethal poison. Robert Coshland believes that syringe could only have been there for one reason.

Robert Coshland: That just really, I think, showed that he had intent - murderous intent, because there's no benign reason to have a syringe of nicotine, ever.

Although very rare, there have been murder cases involving lethal doses of nicotine - notably one that "48 Hours" covered: the case of Paul Curry who was found guilty of the 1994 poisoning of his wife Linda with the toxin.

Dr. Neal Benowitz: If you take it orally by mouth or by skin, then it takes much longer because absorption takes a while ... But if you have it intravenously, then you can die within minutes.

Dr. Neal Benowitz, a leading expert on nicotine, who wrote a report about the Harwick case, spoke to "48 Hours" in 2014 about how someone could make a high concentration solution of the drug.

Dr. Neal Benowitz (holding up a vial): This would be a concentrated nicotine solution that could kill somebody.

Police say they later found a syringe in Pursehouse's home similar to the one filled with nicotine. Prosecutors argued that the presence of that poison at Amie's home is evidence of Pursehouse's murderous intentions.

Rhonda Saunders: The prosecutor has to show that intent to harm her, to kill her. Why else would there be a syringe with that toxin in it?

At the hearing, Amie's friends testified about her fear of Pursehouse, and the measures she had taken-including the home security system, buying pepper spray, and allowing Robert Coshland to track her phone. After her death, Robert located Amie's email password, and says he found what may be the most haunting evidence against Pursehouse, written by Amie herself.

Erin Moriarty: You found something in her Gmail.

Robert Coshland: Yes.

Erin Moriarty: That became very important, didn't it?

Robert Coshland: Yeah.

Amie used her email to document her frightening encounter with Pursehouse at the XBIZ awards show. She wrote:

"He started screaming ... you shouldn't be here, why are you here ... He was sobbing. ... He was distorting his face up and shaking violently ..."

Erin Moriarty: What does that say to you - that kind of reaction with just running into a woman that he has not had contact with for years?

Kris Mohandie: This was terrifying to her and ... She should have been terrified, because that's not normal.

Forensic psychologist Kris Mohandie.

Kris Mohandie: This email is a voice, you know, of what Amie Harwick was experiencing.

In it she also writes, "It terrifies me that he's been obsessed with me for nine years ... He's malicious, highly intelligent, and focused on harming me."

Rhonda Saunders: What that email shows is that there is no way after writing that even to herself, that she would have invited him over, that she would have had anything to do with him, that she was afraid of him.

The question now is for the judge to decide. Is there enough evidence to take Gareth Pursehouse to trial? Amie's friends have no doubts.

Erin Moriarty: Do you think she fell off the balcony?

Cleopatra Slough: No.

Robert Coshland: No. ... not at all.

Robert Coshland: She literally said, "if anything ever happens to me, it's Gareth." She told  those exact words to me.

WANTING BETTER FOR AMIE

Grace Stanley: You know, she'd had other relationships that hadn't ended well. But they never came up.

Amie's close friend Grace Stanley also testified at the Gareth Pursehouse hearing-about texts she had from Amie relaying her fears about him.

Grace Stanley: She never really liked to text much about Gareth. She certainly didn't like to use his name.

Erin Moriarty: Why? Did she think he might see it?

Grace Stanley: She felt as though maybe he was watching somehow. She'd always felt that.

After six days of evidence and arguments, the judge ruled there was more than enough to bind Pursehouse over for trial for the murder of Amie Harwick.

Erin Moriarty: Will you go to the trial?

Rudy Torres: Yes. ... There's a small group of us and we've agreed that, no matter what, there will always be somebody in that room for her.

Musician and friend Sharon Little intends to be there too.

Sharon Little: I want the judge to see how important she was. And, you know, and I wanted to be there for her.

Psychologist Kris Mohandie thinks the state's case against Pursehouse, if true, reflects a deep obsession with Amie, first documented in those long-ago court records that was reignited after that chance encounter on the red carpet.

Kris Mohandie: There may have been a lull through these years, but at that awards event it got the pursuit started all over again.

Pursehouse has not been charged with stalking and has pleaded not guilty to Amie's murder. But Kris Mohandie believes that if the state's allegations are true, his alleged crime would fit the pattern of what he calls obsessional pursuit. He also says it's likely that Amie was responding to Gareth with sympathy and not safety for herself as her first concern.

Erin Moriarty: In hindsight, was it a mistake for her to try to calm him down, defuse the situation?

Kris Mohandie: I'm not sure I would call it a mistake. I would call her decision to talk with him twice that evening to try to calm him, to be her humanity.

However, the safest course of action for stalking victims, Mohandie says, is never to engage their stalker if they can help it. Well-meant human kindness can be twisted by stalkers' delusions and fuel their rage.

Kris Mohandie: And that rage, they don't heal from it. They - it becomes this living thing that they nurture and feed. And what you see in in this case, if true, is a nine-year window of that.

Amie's friends say she was never going to let her fear of Pursehouse shut down her life.

Robert Coshland: You can't live your life in fear. ... If you wanna live in fear, you're giving that person control over you. And that's not who she was. She was her own person and she was gonna control her own destiny and she would never give him that power. Ever.

Erin Moriarty: This is - it's almost two years. The pain has not gone away, has it?

Robert Coshland: No. (Cleopatra Slough, sitting beside Coshland, shakes her head, "no.") I don't think it ever will.

"I feel like a widower, you know, in a lot of ways, because I wanted to marry her, and then we had this horrible breakup," Drew Carey said. "And then before I could talk to her again, somebody killed her." Robert Coshland

Erin Moriarty: Is Valentine's Day hard for you?

Drew Carey: Terrible. Yeah (emotional) ... Yeah. Valentine's Day sucks now. That's not a good day to remember.

Erin Moriarty: Do you have regrets?

Rudy Torres: Yeah. I think we all do. You know, you always think, I could have done more, I should have done more, I should have been there, I should have listened more.

But one thing Rudy Torres is clear on is what he can do now. He calls on other men to join him.

Rudy Torres: A lot of this is a problem because men need to hold other men accountable.

Drew Carey says he hopes Amie's death and the attention it has received will help bring more awareness to intimate partner violence and the very real dangers of stalking.

Drew Carey: You can't be a person in this country and not know a woman who hasn't been a victim of domestic violence. You just can't. ... And it's really a problem that not enough people acknowledge.

Erin Moriarty: What will you miss about her the most? Is there one thing? That you just think...?

Robert Coshland: Her. Just her. Her, you know, sittin' next to me. You know, I hear her voice in my head every day.

Sharon Little: Every time I feel depressed, and I don't feel like getting up in the morning and I - I just say, "She can't get up. You've gotta do it for - you've gotta get up for her."

Amie's parents shared a statement:

"As we approach the 2 year anniversary of Amie's death, we remain thankful for the unwavering support of our extended family and friends.  Many of Amie's close friends communicate with us regularly, attend court hearings, and update us on those proceedings.  We are very grateful.

Our hope is that 2022 will bring justice for Amie and focus on her life, her work, and her accomplishments."

"... she helped so many women, and she would've helped so many more,"  friend Rudy Torres said of Amie Harwick. Earl Fulcher

Drew Carey: She cared so much about helping people. That was her life's purpose. She just wanted to help people. Especially women.

Erin Moriarty: You really miss her, don't you?

Rudy Torres: It's like, I may have lost a friend and a lot of us lost a friend. But she was en route to just help so many people ... In her chosen field, she helped so many women, and she would've helped so many more. ... it's more than just losing a friend.

If you or a loved one are a victim of domestic violence, the National Domestic Violence Hotline offers free, confidential help 24/7 at 1-800-799-7233.

Amie's friends are planning to build a memorial to honor her and victims of domestic violence. 


Produced by Sarah Prior, Murray Weiss and Josh Yager. Greg Fisher and Michelle Fanucci are the development producers. Gregory F. McLaughlin, Grayce Arlotta-Berner, George Baluzy, Michael Baluzy and Greg Kaplan are the editors. Kathryne Teurfs and Shaheen Tokhi are the field producers. Anthony Batson is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer. 

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