Murder With My Husband - 238. The Stalking of Amie Harwick

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

In this episode, Payton and Garrett explore the tragic case of Amie Harwick, a therapist found dead after a brutal attack. Detectives uncover evidence of relentless stalking by a former partner. They delve into Amie's past for clues to her tormentor's identity and the motive behind the crime. Links: linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: CBS News - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amie-harwick-drew-carey-gareth-pursehouse-violent-death-evidence/  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amie-harwick-suspicious-death-timeline/  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amie-harwick-killer-hollywood-therapist-gareth-pursehouse-evidence-48-hours/  Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office - https://da.lacounty.gov/media/news/man-convicted-killing-former-girlfriend-hollywood-hills Deadline - https://deadline.com/2023/12/amie-harwick-murder-verdict-guilty-1235559168/  CNN - https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/29/us/gareth-pursehouse-guilty-amie-harwick-killing/index.html The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/07/amie-harwick-murder-convicted ABC 7 - https://abc7.com/amie-harwick-gareth-pursehouse-murder-case-sentenced/14148385/ Law & Crime Network - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg0Huiwv_WE  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiPDU14FgJk  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmU0kIkMtcY  LA Times - https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-29/man-convicted-of-killing-noted-family-therapist-amie-harwick Court TV - https://www.courttv.com/news/gareth-pursehouse-to-be-sentenced-for-ex-girlfriends-murder/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Morland. And I'm Garrett Morland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. If you're watching on YouTube, yeah, I look like a goblin.

No, we're not gonna talk about it, okay? I called the makeup this morning and they said, not today, and I said, oh, fine. Peyton looks great. Don't let her do that. Don't let her say that. Well, if you guys didn't know, we stream on Twitch and you really need to go check it out.

We live stream on Twitch and we talk about all kinds of things and we spill the tea over there. We watch lots of videos. But my only reason I'm even telling you this is Twitch chat tells me that my face card never declines. So you can always count on Twitch chat, you know, your face card doesn't decline, baby. Twitch chat is so nice We stream on Tuesday's Peyton's a get ready with me and we talk about I don't random stuff Like Peyton says tea gossip Thursday. We talk about random stuff, but we also watch true crime videos Sundays Cash kind of just casual hanging out if you don't know what twitch is. It's literally a platform

to watch live stream and You can also watch a video at the same time So me and you can watch the same video and then you can see Garrett and I react to it live It's really cool. I really need you to go check it out plug it away, baby Plug it cool. And while I'm plugging that, I also thought I would tell you guys that you literally need to pause what you're doing right now. Stop what you are doing and go follow Garrett and I

on Instagram. OK, anything else? And Into the Dark podcast and Murder With My Husband podcast, you can literally mute us for all I care. You just need to follow, OK. You just need to follow, okay? You just need to follow. We also post pictures that go with the podcasts, okay? And other fun stuff, so.

It's true. It's not, this is, it's a, you know, this is the part of the podcast that sucks, but this is the part we have to do, okay? So if you could just do it for me, and then I can report back to the people Podcast gods and be like look look at this amazing Okay, I'm gonna hop into my 10 seconds. Um, we got pulled over this morning. Oh

And guess what? I didn't get a ticket. I didn't get no dang ticket. I'm not getting a ticket I'm gonna take it. I'm not gonna take it. Didn't get a ticket got pulled over apparently I ran a stop sign. I don't know Apparently I ran a stop sign where kids cross for school. I don't know. Don't ask me I just said cop came over he said hey do I'm pulling you over? I said no, I don't And he said you ran a stop sign. I don't even argue. I said, okay, and he kind of looked at me for a second I gave him my stuff.

He went back to his motorcycle. Honestly, I hope he's not listening to this, but he kind of twiddled his thumbs for a little bit. They came back over and said, Hey, are you okay with the warning? He said, yes, I'm okay with the warning. And he said, okay, you live right around the corner, don't you? I said, I do. He said, all right, well, just make sure you're careful

because there's kids crossing for school. I said, sounds good. And I went on my merry way. I don't want to make it sound like you blew through a stop sign at a kid's crossing. No, I didn't. You didn't make a complete stop. And debatable, I'll be honest.

That's very, very, very debatable. Not gonna argue, not gonna argue. If the cop, it's the reason they get a ticket is because I'll be honest. That's very very very debatable not gonna argue not gonna argue if the cop It's a reason to get a ticket is because I don't argue I just go. Yeah Look, I'm just have a point now where I'm like if you want to give me to give me a ticket If you don't you don't and for some reason that energy always works for me and I never get tickets So I'm gonna keep that same energy. I didn't get a ticket for anyone who saw on social media We put up a poll if I got a ticket. I didn't get a ticket for anyone who saw on social media. We put up a poll if I got a ticket. I didn't get a ticket. And I was pretty ecstatic about that. And now I'm gonna have to start stopping at stop signs

for like five to 10 seconds, make sure nothing bad happens. There's no kids crossing. And then I'm on my merry way. We also have illegal tent on our cars. So I did make sure to roll the windows down right when he was behind me. So we didn't get ticketed for that.

I will say it's actually funny that you got pulled up, not funny, but like interesting because like Garrett said, we do live right next to an elementary school and we are very vigilant because kids walk to school right in front of our house. And so we are very vigilant about like backing up, making sure every single like crosswalk is safe. And so it's just kind of ironic that that's that he pulled you over and said there's kids crossing

like I when like we are literally so vigilant about it. I know it was pretty funny. Yeah, I know it. I didn't like run a stop sign. I think it just maybe looked like I didn't stop long enough and that's okay. I'll accept that. Okay, but can I just tell you guys something? Sure. There was a car in front of Garrett and it's like a stop and Garrett let a car go. I don't know.

I'm not gonna argue. So like how do you not do a complete stop if you waited for a car to go and then went? Yeah, I don't know. I'm not gonna argue because he didn't give me a ticket. So it's whatever. And look, we gotta do our our jobs everyone has to do their job I understand it. Maybe he just thought you were cute. Maybe he thought I was cute pulled me over you didn't tell me I was cute that's okay next time. I mean he kind of did by saying do you want a warning? Honestly

he was pretty nice so I give him props for that and, I'm saying honestly a lot, but I think it's also because I haven't gotten a ticket in six, seven years. So my record is clean. Actually, I think it's been like four because you got that ticket driving in the rain, remember? Yeah, that was like five, six years ago, I think now. Oh, I know. Time's flying.

Time's flying. Okay, let's hop into today's case. We love you all. Thank you for supporting. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Thank you for downloading. Thank you for leaving a review. Thank you for following us on Instagram. Thank you for tuning into our Twitch streams. We love you guys and we're going to tell you about a case. Our case sources for this episode are CBS News, Los Angeles County District's Attorney's Office, Deadline CNN, The Guardian, ABC 7, Long Crime Network, LA Times, and Court TV.

So, I mean, I think it's pretty obvious to say that connections are a big part of what makes life worth living. Like the people around you, whether they're friends, family members, or romantic partners, they can bring joy, they can push you to try new things, they can support you, love you, but obviously there can be a danger to letting people get too close to

you. And when you let someone in, you're also vulnerable around them emotionally and physically. And Garrett and I have actually talked about this. It is absolutely kind of bonkers that like we just sleep in the same bed at night. Like you could literally wake up and kill me. Like I am the in the most vulnerable position, but I am trusting another human being to not take advantage of that vulnerability. And like it's actually kind of bonkers. I see what you're saying. Considering that like another human is the most dangerous thing for sure but also if you look at of it from like percentage wise the percentage of people who actually kill people very very low in considering how

many people are in the world so bonkers crazy yes statistically less bonkers okay but also statistically as a woman, you are the most dangerous person. Correct. For me. Again, statistically the amount of men who kill their wives, really small percentage. Bonkers, yes. Less bonkers, yes. Anyways, I just think it is like,

I think the trust that we put in other human beings, even if we love them and we think they're good people, like at the end of the day, that is the most dangerous thing that you could be sleeping next to. So in today's story, we're gonna talk about someone that took advantage of that kind of vulnerability, the vulnerability of letting people

get a little too close to you. So on the night of Valentine's Day, 2020, Michael Herman was asleep in his bedroom and he lived with his friend, Amy Harwick. And she had kindly let him stay in her spacious three-story house in Beverly Hills. So they are not dating, They're just friends. And Michael lived on the bottom floor and Amy's bedroom was on the third floor and the

middle floor of the house was the common area kitchen living room. So basically Amy, the owner of the house, had the top floor. Her friend Michael had the bottom floor and then they shared the middle floor. Okay. Anyway, so he must have been particularly tired that Valentine's day night in 2020 because he was already asleep at 7 p.m. And at around that time, he abruptly woke up when he heard the sound of breaking glass come from the floor above. So he figured Amy had dropped a plate while she was getting dinner ready. sound of breaking glass come from the floor above. So he figured Amy had dropped a plate while she was getting dinner ready.

I mean, it is only 7 p.m. So it's not that weird this Amy would still be awake. So he thought nothing of it. He rolled over and he went back to sleep. And then he stayed in bed dreaming peacefully for six more hours. That was until just after one in the morning. And that was when he was woken up

by an even more disturbing sound. This time, it was a scream followed by a thump. It sounded like someone had fallen onto the ground. But again, Michael's first thought is, okay, nothing serious is going on. He figures Amy might've just been startled by something, like she was upstairs, she was awake, slipped, fell. He doesn't know, but maybe it just made her yelp and alarm.

So he sits there, he's like, he's not that worried. But then he hears it again and he realizes Amy is still screaming. Like she keeps continually screaming. So while Michael sat and listened, he heard some shouting, but then those shouts became muffled. And to him, it sounded like Amy was yelling for help and someone was covering her mouth.

And so Michael immediately is like, me and Amy are not in this house alone. Not only had someone probably broken in, they were hurting his roommate, Amy. So now Michael is terrified. He literally sitting here going, okay, do I run up and try to help Amy? And he's like, okay, first things first, I'm actually going to grab my cell phone and call 911. But he was too panicked to actually remember where he had left his cell phone. So for seconds, he is like frantically running around his room looking for his phone while his roommate is upstairs with muffled screams. And once it's clear that he's not going to find the phone, he begins shouting instead.

And his hope was that if he began shouting, the intruder would hear him and scare, like run away before Michael would even have to beat him or hurt him to try to get him off Amy, which is the major reason why most people have alarm systems. Alarm systems don't, I mean, the response time is great, but the amount of people that an alarm goes off, they just come and see and actually catch the person very low. It's usually the alarm goes off, the Robert goes, oh crap, nothing runs away. Exactly right.

He's screaming, he's shouting, but he can still hear the thumping, the sounds of struggle. He is like, okay, this isn't stopping. Something terrible is happening to Amy. And he wasn't helping her at all by yelling from inside of his room. So finally he runs out into the hallway. He screamed obscenities up the stairwell, not that that did anything to stop the attack. And then instead of running upstairs, he sprints outside to go ask a neighbor, wake up a neighbor for help, but to get to the next house over, he actually had outside to go ask a neighbor, wake up a neighbor for help. But to get to the next house over, he actually had to jump a metal fence and it

cut his hands. But Michael was so desperate for help. He doesn't care. Like he cuts up his hands. He keeps running. He gets to the neighbor's place. He knocks on the door begging for them to come out, but nobody answers. Maybe they're dead asleep or perhaps they're just too afraid to come to the door when a man is knocking and screaming at them at 1 a.m. So when that doesn't work, he goes to another house, except he also isn't let in. The minutes at this point are ticking by like Michael's running around looking for help while Amy's probably still inside with this attacker.

So finally he actually sees a passing pedestrian in the middle of the night who's on their phone and he runs over, he says, hey, someone's broken in my house, my roommate's in there. Can we please call 911? So the person uses their phone calls 911 and at this point is 1 11 a.m. And Michael has lost precious minutes

just trying to track down a phone. But at this point, at least 911 has been called and emergency responders are on their way. Michael has lost precious minutes just trying to track down a phone. But at this point, at least 911 has been called and emergency responders are on their way. And as soon as the police and the paramedics get there, they realize that at this point, Amy actually isn't inside her home anymore. She was badly hurt and she was lying on the ground outside the home. Specifically, she was beneath the third story balcony with injuries consistent from a fall from it. Wait, what?

Yes. So she has fallen off the balcony and is now laying on the ground outside. So they load her up into the ambulance, they transport her to the hospital, but sadly she only lives for about two more hours. And then she's finally dead at 3 26 a.m. And the cause of the death was not from falling off the balcony. Instead she had severe injuries on her neck consistent with a strangling. So she had basically been strangled to death but it just took a long time too much damage damage had been done, all of that. So right away back at the house, the police are surveying the scene.

They are trying to determine who had done this, who had attacked Amy and ultimately killed her. All right, you guys, breathing is the most essential act of our bodies. It's why congestion, sinuses, allergies, and colds can take a big toll on our wellbeing. And you will be happy but sad to hear I am currently sick. If you can't hear my voice then good for you,

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checkout on the planet. And that's no industry secret. That's Shopify. Learn more at Shopify.com slash enterprise. So the second they set foot inside the house, they find that it has been trashed. There's blood everywhere. There's clear signs of a struggle. Her purse, jacket, and other personal items are thrown on the floor.

Investigators also found a trail of beads that ran from her bedroom to the third story balcony which she ultimately fell from and they realized that this was a rosary that Amy had been wearing and given that she was also strangled the police actually think that the attacker had been strangling her with it at some point and it broke during the attack and then Amy must have gotten away from them, tried to escape, but instead the broken rosary had left beads all the way to the balcony. Now presumably she went out there to get away from her attacker so she either slipped, fell over, or was thrown over the edge of the balcony. And the most

disturbing discovery actually might have been a syringe that was found in the house that was full of liquid. And at first, based on the color and consistency of the fluid, detectives are like, okay, we think that's heroin. But when they questioned Amy's friends and family, they were like, hmm, she doesn't use drugs.

She'd never do heroin or even keep a syringe of it in her home. So the detectives still weren't sure. So they sent the syringe off to a lab to confirm what was in it. And when the tests came back, they realized it was filled with liquid nicotine. Now, if you inject a large enough dose of nicotine into your body, it will actually kill you. It is highly lethal. So clearly this wasn't something that Amy was probably using recreationally. Instead, they figured that Amy's killer had probably originally planned to inject the syringe

in her to poison her. That seems so odd though. Right. But in their mind, their theory is she probably fought off the attacker, knocked the syringe. They don't know, but it's just weird to find that at a murder scene. Right. And further searches showed that a set of glass French doors had also been shattered, but the police hadn't realized this right away because whoever broke the doors down had positioned them. So the break wasn't actually visible from the outside. So the assumption was that when Michael heard

glass breaking at 7 p.m. that was actually the sound of someone breaking those glass doors. And Amy hadn't been home at that time. She wasn't home at 7. Michael didn't know that but she had spent the evening out with friends. So actually at seven, when the glass doors were being broken in her home, presumably because that's what Michael said, she had been watching the opening number for a burlesque show. So after the show was over,

she went to get a late night tea with her friends and they stayed at the restaurant until about midnight. I am so confused. About? The fact that this guy broke in supposedly five hours before she even came home. And stayed in there while someone was asleep in the bottom floor?

Yeah, I don't know. That's creepy. Yeah, it's insane. It's insane. So she actually doesn't get home until 1 o 2 a.m. She parks her car out front of her house and she sends a text to one of those friends and she reminds the friend to forward some photos that they'd taken at the show and then she goes inside failing to notice the broken doors and just six

minutes later give or take Michael wakes up to the sounds of her screams and then obviously he places the 911 call at 111 a.m. So she sends that text at 102 a.m. and then he's calling the police at 111. Meaning only nine minutes passed from the time that Amy got home until the police and ambulances were called. So it all happened very quickly. So based on all of this, the detectives figured that between 7 p.m. and a little after 1 a.m., the intruder must have sat in the house and waited for Amy.

Holy crap. Which, that's not gonna happen if this is an ordinary burglary. This means that someone was targeting Amy. They were waiting for her. They laid in wait for her to get home. Her bed was also unmade, even though Amy had only gotten back

a short while before the attack. She clearly hadn't gone to sleep in those nine minutes. And the people who knew her knew that she always made her bed. So the police actually think that the killer who broke in was tired and laid in her bed waiting for her. And as soon as she got home and stepped into her room, the killer was waiting and attacked her.

So this means this murder was clearly premeditated, not only because the killer had broken into her bedroom and waited in her bed, but also because they had apparently tampered with a neighbor's ring camera so they wouldn't be caught on camera. So the police go to the neighbors and are like, hey, can we like check your ring camera?

And they say, sure. And they pull it up. And what they see is earlier that night, someone walks up wearing a glove, covers the camera very sneakily, and then disconnects the ring doorbell. Isn't, wasn't he already caught on camera going up to the camera?

Was he dressed and covered from head to toe? Do you know? Does that make sense? No, I think the way they went up to the door made it impossible to identify them. They had just kind of snuck around to the camera. Obviously this means it wouldn't record them actually going into Amy's house.

Unfortunately, the intruder knew what Amy's house. Unfortunately, the intruder knew what they were doing. Although, like I said, their face does appear on the footage. It's only for a brief moment because they kind of worked around it and they weren't in focus. And since the ring didn't record anything after it was deactivated, there's no way to actually identify them. So after a very brief investigation, the police thought they actually understood how Amy had died, but they still didn't know who had done it. So to answer that question, they decided to look into Amy's past, just like any detective would. She'd grown up in a small town in Pennsylvania, but Amy's personality was always bigger than her humble beginnings.

She was a bit of a daredevil who skipped class. She wasn't afraid to stir the pot. And this may have been because it took her a while to actually daredevil who skipped class. She wasn't afraid to stir the pot. And this may have been because it took her a while to actually find her place in the world. She grew up in a series of different foster homes before she was adopted. And as she got older, she felt fiercely protective of other misfits. She would seek out classmates who were going through hard times, just needed a friend and she'd find a way to be there for them. And then after graduation, she moved to LA where she

wanted to become a counselor to help people with mental health problems. And to pay her way through school, she actually became an adult dancer. She tended at a bar. And at some point she even modeled for Playboy. And that's just who she was. Someone who didn't let the world tell her what kind of life she was allowed to leave. She's like, I will model and do what I can to pay for school so that I can help people. And when she got her degree as a counselor, she decided that she wanted to work with people who didn't have a lot of support and resources. Namely, she actually wanted to work with sex workers. In particular, she specialized in offering counseling for adult film performers, which there were a lot of given that she was

based in Los Angeles. And since a lot of sex workers couldn't afford mental health care on their own, she wanted to get very involved in the nonprofit world. Amy wanted to make sure that there were always the funds to help the people who needed her services. All to say, Amy did work that a lot of counselors wouldn't even consider doing. And she was outspoken and proud of what she did. She became an advocate. The good news was that the world was ready

to hear what she had to say. And before long, her YouTube channel was taking off and she was lining up book deals to talk about the intersection of sex and mental health. YouTube. Right. I mean, we are in 2020. Yep. And even as her career was heating up, so was her love life.

Amy had her share of flings and relationships. One was with a man named Gareth Pursehouse. The two of them met and began seeing each other in 2010 when Amy was in her late 20s. Gareth was in his mid 30s. Their relationship lasted for about a year and a half and during that time it was serious. They lived together before ultimately breaking up in 2012. And then a few years after that in 2017, Amy began seeing a famous Hollywood celebrity named Drew Carey. And like I mentioned before, Amy had tended bars to pay her way through college. And over a decade later, even after she'd become a well-known therapist, she would still

actually pick up occasional bartending gigs here and there. And one night in 2017, she agreed to work at a fancy party full of celebrities. And as soon as Drew walked into the room, he had his eyes on her. They began talking. Drew asked Amy out. She said yes for their first date.

Drew Carey took Amy to Disneyland. Disneyland. And they got to know one another at the most magical place on earth only to have a truly magical relationship. They fell in love. And 2018, a year later, Drew brought Amy onto an episode of The Price is Right to publicly announce that they were engaged.

He proposed, Amy said yes, but sadly Amy and Drew never made it to the altar. They were both private about their relationship and they haven't publicly spoken about why they ultimately broke off the engagement. But Drew did drop some hints in an interview with CBS news, suggesting that Amy was concerned that marrying a famous celebrity would hurt her career. It was hard to make her clients feel safe and like their work would be confidential if her face was also like appearing with Drew at times. Okay. I could see that.

I'm not sure if that's the main reason that the couple called it quits. What I do know is that they didn't just call off the wedding, they also decided to go their separate ways to break up. Amy and Drew agreed to stay friends and keep in touch. Now, breakups are rarely easy. And that was the case for Amy too. She dated several men.

And when these relationships ended, there was often pain, regret, hurt feelings. But one of Amy's exes took their breakup especially hard and it wasn't Drew Carey. It was the one back in 2011, 2012, Gareth. Oh my gosh, Gareth. Sounds too close to my name. I can't say it. And the reason she broke up with him was because he had been violent while they were dating.

And I'm not talking about a one-off incident. Multiple times, Gareth hurt Amy badly enough to leave visible bruises. Yeah, okay. He was very controlling. He didn't like Amy to go out with her friends, have any kind of life outside of him. Now, Amy knew enough to understand

this wasn't a good situation, but like I mentioned before, she was passionate about helping outsiders and people who didn't feel like they fit in. And even though she knew she didn't deserve to be treated like this, she is a fixer. Like she wanted to help Gareth. She thought that if she stayed in his life, she'd be able to show him, you know, how to defeat his demons and become a better version of himself. The amount of people that hit people to solve their issues blows my mind. Blows my mind. It's just, I mean, it's horrible obviously, but it's also so immature.

It just, it's just immature because you don't know how to control your emotions. You don't know how to control yourself. And so the first thing you can think of is violence and it just bugs me, bugs me a lot. So the thing we do know is that nobody can make anyone else change. I mean, you can try. But eventually, Amy realized she wasn't actually

helping Gareth. All she was doing was staying in a bad relationship. So finally, when the abuse got too severe for her to tolerate, she left him. Apparently, this is going to be shocking that Gareth wasn't willing to accept that things between them were actually over. So he began stalking Amy insane. He approached their mutual friends, demanded that they give him updates on

everywhere. Amy went who she was going out with. What a freak, what a loser. Lots of words. I mean, based on the way he treated her in their relationship, it's not surprising that this is way he treated her in their relationship, it's not surprising that this is how he's acting after their relationship. Some of the friends refused to help gareth. They knew that the things he was asking for weren't reasonable and when those friends told gareth that they weren't going to help him harass Amy, he cut them out of his life, which meant he was becoming increasingly obsessive and there weren't many people around him that knew Amy that could keep him in check.

Now in 2012, not long after the breakup, Amy was basically forced to file a restraining order against Gareth. And then when it expired, she filed another one. And the second one lasted until 2015. And you might think by that point, three years had gone by, Gareth must have moved on, but Amy was never entirely sure if that was true. See in 2016, someone broke into her house, stole all of her photo albums and her laptop, which is not like a normal burglary. Other than the computer, the intruder didn't take anything of financial value. It just doesn't make sense and Amy was convinced. She told multiple people.

This was definitely a hundred percent, a hundred percent, but since she didn't have any proof, she couldn't take legal action against him. She also had a problem with her online accounts. She had trolls obviously whenever she posted a new YouTube video or made social media posts to promote her work, people would make insulting negative comments. This is a normal part of online discourse. Unfortunately, but occasionally the comments were so personal and targeted that Amy was like. How do they know this? Is this Gareth like hiding behind these troll accounts? Whoever had written them understood exactly what to say.

And again, she's thinking it's him. But since she couldn't prove it, there was nothing she could do. And even by 2018, this is six years after the breakup, Gareth is still apparently obsessed with Amy. Around that time, anonymous users began review bombing her therapy business. And she was convinced that Gareth was the one making all of these negative reviews. He was trying to scare off potential new customers,

except she doesn't have proof. Like this is just suspicions and this is the awful part about stalking. It feels like there's nothing you can legally do. Dude, I swear. Sorry, I had to adjust myself and my chair because I'm getting serious. If someone tried to stalk me or pay in,

oh, I will kill you. I don't care. Don't cut that. Do not cut that out. Do not even get it. Don't cut it out. It's so dangerous. It's so dangerous.

It's insane. It's insane. And you can literally just ruin someone's life without any penalty. No pushback at all. Yeah, I will figure it out. So by 2020, Amy may have believed that she finally had Gareth out of her life.

She actually hadn't heard from him for a while. Nothing bad had kind of been happening randomly in her life that she could credit to him. It must've seemed like after all these years, he'd finally gave up, but that all changed at the X-Biz Awards, which are a ceremony to honor people in the adult film industry.

And after all these years, Amy was still very involved with sex workers and adult film performers. So she'd become kind of high profile enough that she got an invite to come to the gala as a guest. And it was a good opportunity to network with potential clients. And of course And it was a good opportunity to network with potential clients. And of course, Amy loves a good party.

She was especially excited because she'd get to walk down a red carpet to get inside. And Amy loved this stuff. She loved the glitz, the glamour, dressing up, having her picture taken. So the red carpet was a real highlight of the event, except Amy didn't realize that Gareth had been hired to work at the

ceremony as a photographer. Holy, so she's in line waiting for a chance to walk that red carpet creepy when she sees him walk past her with a camera and in an instant she is she's devastated all her excitement disappears. So sad she looks away, hoping he didn't see her. It's too late because this probably isn't by chance that he's working this event. As soon as Gareth turned his head and saw Amy in the line,

he ran up to her and he screamed at her causing a scene saying, you've ruined my life. He calls her a slur. And then he accused Amy of cheating on him, but not while they were together. He apparently thinks that she moved on too soon after their breakup and he took this to mean that she was cheating on him because it was too soon after they broke up. This is eight years later. Yeah. And he does this. He still had old text messages from the time memorized. He recited them to her without looking at his phone. He's like, well, remember when you texted me this and said I'm

verbatim texts from eight years ago, he was laying out all the evidence in his mind that she had betrayed him, that she was a bad girlfriend to him. And this is at full volume in front of everyone. So Gareth is obviously making a scene. He's crying, he's shouting, he's drawing attention to him and Amy and other people at the event just stare. I mean, this is very awkward. It was incredibly alarming and upsetting for Amy. She was so embarrassed.

I mean, she's like been invited as a guest to this gala that is the exact industry that she is trying to network and be taken seriously in. And this is what happens. Stalking is so hard. I mean, we've covered so many cases where it's so difficult to pinpoint something before something bad happens. Does that make sense?

And even if you do, the best they can be like, we'll just get a restraining order. Straining orders don't do anything. Yeah, you can go into witness protection program, but then that sucks because you lose your life, right? That's what I'm saying. Lose your life. It ruins people's lives.

We're just going to have to start killing all the I'm just kidding. But in all reality, it's it's it's awful. It's kind of like it's gaslighting, right? It's all these little things that just happen like over time, not that big. Then all of a sudden, boom, they kill you. And then the police are like, oh, well, like, I don't know. I don't know. She took out eight restraining orders

on him and called you guys eight times, but I don't know what there's nothing legally to do. I don't know what you're supposed to do about it. It's very difficult. So Amy's like, I'm just going to walk away, remove myself from the situation. But Gareth begins following her. He's yelling at her. He's calling her a hypocrite. He's shaming her for being at an adult industry event, one that he's working. He's like, he's calling her slurs for being there in public.

Just yes. Yes. So Amy turns around and she tries to calm him down. She's like, this is not good. This is a scene. She's literally just trying to deescalate the situation. She wants to try to find a way. She thinks if I can talk to him, he'll calm down. It was kind of a part of the pattern I mentioned earlier. She tended to put Gareth's comfort first ahead of her own sense of wellbeing or safety. So once Gareth had finished

yelling at her about what a terrible person she was. He collapsed on the ground in front of everyone and he curls up into a fetal position. Wow. Okay. So Amy bends down. She's like, Gareth, get up. Let's just go talk in privacy. And I say relative because she made sure

there were security guards with them when they went to go talk in private. They found a quiet corner where the other attendees couldn't watch. And for a full 45 minutes, Amy sits and talks to Gareth about his feelings. She goes full on therapist mode, which you try to deescalate the situation taking away from her night,

her special night that she was so excited for, to tend to his needs. I don't, I am in no way, this is no way her fault or blaming her, but I know we've covered a couple of cases and don't they say that once you start talking to a stalker too, like it just supposedly makes it worse? Do you wanna know the next line of my research? Yes, I do.

Now experts say this is the worst thing you can do, which she doesn't know she's trying to deescalate. She's trying to help. It's in no way her fault, but she's also a therapist. She's a therapist. It just sucks, but I have heard that the experts have said that the worst thing you can do is engage once you give them a little bit of attention. They take they take a freaking mile. Yeah, talking to a stalker at all or trying to reason with them. It could encourage their delusions. I'm not saying to victim blaming me. I'm

literally saying everything. Garrett just said she wanted to help like genuinely she's a good kind person. So she still cared about him like he had just called her slurs and yelled at her and made this huge scene and embarrassed her and she try to help him? Yes. But sadly, obviously he does not care about her feelings or her well-being at all. And Amy apparently understood this because she was deeply unsettled after calming Gareth down. She had planned to have a big night. She was going to go to the ceremony, then hit after parties.

Instead, she was so shaken by the confrontation that she canceled her plans. She and another attendee went out to dinner where she told her friend the full story about Gareth, how he'd been harassing her. She just needed to talk about it like it was traumatic for her. Amy wanted her friend to understand the entire context because she just had a sense in that moment that because of what had just happened, her running into Gareth was now going to mean that he was going to be a problem for her again. She wanted her friends to know how scared and uncomfortable she was. Her dinner companion was so worried on Amy's behalf that he actually offered

to spend the night at her house, help her feel safe. She declined. She reminded him, no, I have a roommate, Michael. She trusted Michael to be able to handle the situation if anything were to happen. But clearly she still wasn't feeling that secure because early the next morning at around 3am, Amy sent an email to more friends and she just said, I just want to tell you guys every, I want to document everything that happened tonight in detail, record, you know, create a record and paper trail in case I ever need to go to court. Like I think I need to start documenting every detail so I can prove that he's stalking me and how crazy it is. So it was right for her to worry because after this confrontation, Gareth's obsession came back full force. He found her phone number online. Presumably,

Amy had to change her number after the breakup, but somehow the day after the event he texted her to let her know that he had tracked her down. Gareth also asked Amy if there was any chance they could get back together. Could she go on a date with him? Amy wrote back a kind message, let him down gently, staying firm, you know, we're not back together, but I understand your pain. She was respectful, but Gareth clearly was not interested in respecting her or her boundaries because when she did this, he sent abusive replies attacking her for not giving him another chance said he can't let go of the idea that they're soul mates. They're meant to be together

basically no matter how much she said no, he didn't care. I just want to hit my head. Why are people I problem?, problems. Why, man? Like, ugh. So over the course of the next few weeks, Amy installed a new security system. She told her friends she was going to be buying pepper spray. She asked. They set up the Find My Friends apps so they would always know each other's location.

It was like she was convinced that something was bad was going to happen. She was right. And before her attack, she even texted a friend and said, hey, if anything happens to me, it's gareth like it was gareth a hundred percent. I'm scared for my life and you need to tell people it was him and the most disturbing detail might be a call that she made

to her parents in late January or early February of twenty twenty right before the attack. Completely out of the blue one day, she reached out to them to tell them, hey, if something happens to me, like if I die, this is what I want the steps after my death to be. She basically lays them out. Here's what I want for my funeral. This is what I want you to do with this, this, this, this. She said, I want an open casket. I want this type of headstone. Like she's like, I'm just taking, I'm just taking care of things. And then two weeks later, her parents get a phone call saying, Hey, she's dead. Her parents then had the grim task of taking those things that they, the Amy had told them and making it a reality. So as soon as the police

learned about Amy's history, they're like, okay, let's go find Gareth. Like we don't even need to do anything else. They began by looking at the broken glass on the shattered French doors. They were trace amounts of blood as though whoever had broken cut themselves. They compared those trace amounts of blood to Gareth's DNA and a perfect match. It's a match. They also called in some of Gareth's friends to look at that ring camera footage like maybe since they now have a face, could someone make him out? Even when he like covers the camera, you can obviously still see his body.

That is actually just looks like him. Yeah. And the friends were like, yeah, I mean, it's his body language. It's his posture. It's his build. So finally the police search Gareth's house. They find a syringe in it and the syringe is very similar to the one that was at Amy's house as though he'd bought a set and had just kept the spares at his house. house, they find a syringe in it. And the syringe is very similar to the one that was at Amy's house,

as though he'd bought a set and had just kept the spares at his house. So this is enough that on February 15th, literally the same day that Amy dies, Gareth is arrested in charge with first degree murder because all of her friends, like the second the news gets out that she's dying, every friend is like, yeah, go like it's him a hundred percent. Now, during the trial, Gareth's lawyers used an interesting strategy. They knew they could not deny the fact that he'd broken into Amy's house because

of the syringe, because of the blood, all of that. I don't wonder, this is a topic for another time. I don't know. I don't know if I want to get into right now. I'm just confused. And I, I'm sure legal expert could explain it to me and I would still be confused and still be annoyed. It's just he obviously killed her and I get that everyone gets a right to a fair trial. I just, you know, do you understand what I'm saying? Why are we wasting money and resources when it was him?

And I get it because there are people who are innocent, 100%, it's just frustrating, wasting all this money and resources when he did kill someone and they're trying to figure out, well, how can we get around it? How can we pretend he didn't kill her? Oh, it's just the, and there isn't a perfect way to do the justice system.

Like there isn't a perfect way. I mean, everyone needs a defense, but it's hard when you know they're lying. And it's just, it's difficult. And I feel like in general, America does have a, I mean, compared to the rest of the world, we have a pretty decent justice system. So it's just hard.

There isn't a perfect way. And it's still so messed up. And it's still so messed up. It's just frustrating because unless there's something that can tell if we're a hundred percent lying like I don't know yeah. I'll stop here. We can keep going with the case. So what they say is yes, Gareth did break into the house, but he didn't go there to murder her. He was

trying to talk. He had some feelings that he wanted to talk through and he said they said yeah. He did bring the nicotine with him, but he only did that because he was planning on taking his own life. They said he was so disturbed and upset that he broke into his ex-girlfriend's house so he could kill himself in front of her, which again is so manipulative, but whatever.

Supposedly after Gareth broke in, he had a change of heart and he left. He didn't hurt her. Oh my gosh. He wasn't violent. And then Gareth says he never even saw her. And then when he left someone else coincidentally snuck in the house the exact same night and wanted to hurt Amy. And since Gareth had broken down the door already, they just seized the opportunity, broken through it after him. And he had nothing to do with the murder. I mean, that's the best offense they could

probably come up with, so I don't blame them. Needless to say, this did not resonate with the jury. They seem to agree with the prosecution who argued that Gareth had killed Amy to punish her for rejecting him. He just couldn't handle the word. No. So on September 23rd, twenty, twenty three, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Okay now the most tragic part of this entire story may be that Amy only ever wanted to help people like her legacy in this world. Her footprint was helping so many people. She became a counselor so she could support some of the most vulnerable people in society. And even after Gareth stalked her, stole from her, threatened her, harassed her, ruined her life, she still tried to help him too. And sadly, he took advantage of that.

He took advantage of her desire to help people and then he took away her life. And that is the story of Amy Harwick. So tragic, so much to say. It's just, yes, talking like I said earlier in the middle of the case, very hard to deal with, heartbreaking. I think that Amy should definitely be remembered for all of the good that she did and I hope that we can honor her for that today and we will see you next time with another episode I love it I hate it goodbye