Amie Harwick’s ex-boyfriend pleads not guilty to murdering the sex therapist

A Los Angeles man has pleaded not guilty to killing his ex-girlfriend, a prominent family therapist and former fiancee of comedian Drew Carey.

Dr Amie Harwick died on February 15 after she was thrown over the third-floor balcony of her Hollywood Hills apartment, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said. An autopsy determined she had been strangled first.

Drew Carey dated Harwick for two years before the pair split in 2018, months after announcing their engagement.

‘I hope you’re lucky enough to have someone in your life that loves as much as she did,’ Carey said on Twitter in February upon learning of her death.

Gareth Pursehouse, 41, was charged with one count each of murder and first-degree residential burglary with the special circumstance allegation of lying in wait, prosecutors said.

Pursehouse was initially arrested shortly after Harwick’s death and posted $2million bond. He was re-arrested this week on a no bail warrant.

Gareth Pursehouse, 41, of Los Angeles, has pleaded not guilty to killing his ex-girlfriend, Dr Amie Harwick, 38, a prominent family therapist 

The Playboy model-turned sex therapist was formerly engaged to the Price is Right host Drew Carey (left) but the pair split in November 2018 

Detectives learned Harwick had expressed fear about an ex-boyfriend and had previously filed a restraining order against him, according to a police statement.

Harwick was a prominent Hollywood marriage and sex therapist. She appeared on TV and radio shows and wrote a book called The New Sex Bible for Women.

Pursehouse was ordered to return to court on June 24.

The special circumstance allegation of lying in wait would make Pursehouse eligible for the death penalty if he was found guilty at trial.  

A decision on whether to seek capital punishment will be made at a later date, prosecutors said.

Last week, Harwick’s autopsy revealed that she fought with her killer before her death.  

Last week, Harwick’s (pictured holding her book The New Sex Bible for Women) autopsy revealed that she fought with her killer before her death

The coroner’s office ruled Harwick’s death a homicide and attributed the cause to blunt force injuries, according to its website

The more detailed autopsy report showed injuries to Harwick’s hands and fingers

An autopsy report released by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner indicates how Harwick was found with wounds on her hands and fingers ‘consistent with a combination of defense and assault type wounds, suggestive of an altercation’. 

She was found with blunt force injuries to the head and torso and had been strangled but the new report suggests that she had been fighting for her life in the final seconds before her fatal fall. 

Officers found evidence of a struggle and a forced entry to the home, police said. 

The autopsy report which was first seen by The Blast also has a statement from a sheriff’s deputy describing how Harwick’s roommate ‘was awoken by sounds of a female screaming’.

‘He was able to tell the screaming was coming from up above his residence and could hear sounds of some type of physical fight; he then realized that it was [Amie] screaming.’ 

The report details Harwick ‘sustained severe injuries of her brain, liver, and pelvis in an apparent fall from a height’. 

‘Injuries of her neck, particularly strap muscle hemorrhage, are consistent with manual strangulation.’

Pursehouse had dated Harwick 10 years ago but had allegedly continued to stalk her in the years since. She had filed two restraining orders against him but the final one had expired in 2015. 

Pursehouse (left and right) had dated Harwick 10 years ago but had allegedly continued to stalk her in the years since. She had filed two restraining orders against him but the final one had expired in 2015

Harwick was found unconscious after falling from a third-floor balcony of her home (pictured)

Harwick, who was a well-known sex therapist and former Playboy model, issued restraining orders against the photographer, Pursehouse, in 2011 and 2012 detailing a series of physical attacks. 

Court documents reviewed by DailyMail.com earlier this year detailed how he once pushed her out of a car on the freeway, and in another incident forced her onto the ground and viciously kicked her in the face.

Harwick accused Pursehouse of trying to suffocate her in May 2011, saying he brutally beat her until she was unable to walk. 

‘There were multiple arguments in which Gareth Pursehouse choked me, suffocated me, pushed me against walls, kicked me, dropped me to the ground with force, force-restrained me, slammed my head into the ground and punched me with a closed fist,’ she wrote in court paperwork dated June 22, 2011.

On June 18, 2011, Pursehouse is said to have pushed her out of a car and left her on the freeway late at night.

Harwick obtained a temporary restraining order against Pursehouse in 2011 and was granted another one less than a year later, which expired in April 2015.

In California the maximum length of a restraining order is five years.

Harwick had seen Pursehouse in January this year at the XBiz adult-industry awards ceremony in downtown Los Angeles where he was working as a photographer.

She was a guest at the show, hosted by porn star Stormy Daniels, and was pictured posing on the red carpet.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk