A Hollywood sex therapist and former fiancee of comedian Drew Carey appears to have been strangled before she was thrown off the third-floor balcony of her Hollywood Hills apartment, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said Thursday.
Amie Harwick, 38, died Saturday and her ex-boyfriend Garth Pursehouse was charged with murder and first-degree residential burglary with the special circumstance allegation of lying in wait, making him eligible for the death penalty, prosecutors said.
Pursehouse’s arraignment has been postponed to March 4. The public defender’s office, which is representing the 41-year-old, did not immediately return a request for comment.
The coroner’s office ruled Harwick’s death a homicide on Monday and attributed the cause to blunt force injuries, according to its website.
Amie Harwick, 38, died Saturday and her ex-boyfriend Garth Pursehouse was charged with murder and first-degree residential burglary with the special allegation of lying in wait
The coroner’s office ruled Harwick’s death a homicide on Monday and attributed the cause to blunt force injuries, according to its website
Harwick’s autopsy showed evidence of ‘manual strangulation,’ coroner’s spokeswoman Sarah Ardalani said Thursday in an email, noting that the fatal fall from the balcony occurred after an ‘altercation.’
Officers found evidence of a struggle and a forced entry to the home, police said.
Detectives learned Harwick had recently expressed fear about an ex-boyfriend and had previously filed a restraining order against him, according to a police statement. The restraining order had expired.
Harwick’s website described her as a marriage and sex therapist. She appeared on TV and radio and wrote a book called ‘The New Sex Bible for Women.’
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. CBS canceled the ‘Price is Right’ game show for the week while he mourns.
Pursehouse was initially arrested Saturday and posted $2 million bond. He was re-arrested Wednesday on a no bail warrant.
The special circumstance allegation of lying in wait means that he is eligible for a death penalty sentence in California if he is convicted.
Harwick was formerly engaged to the Price is Right host Drew Carey but they split in November 2018 after dating for more than a year
Cops were called to Harwick’s Hollywood Hills home in the early hours of Saturday morning after reports of a ‘woman screaming’.
She was suffering grave injuries and died in hospital from blunt force injuries to the head and torso.
Authorities said she was attacked and Pursehouse was subsequently arrested in connection to her death. He was freed on bond Tuesday but re-arrested Wednesday.
Pursehouse appeared in court on Thursday.
The arrest comes after it emerged that Harwick allegedly suffered a catalog of abuse at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, who became obsessed with her after she dated him a decade ago.
Harwick, who was a well-known sex therapist and former Playboy model, issued restraining orders against the photographer in 2011 and 2012 detailing a series of physical attacks.
Amie Harwick, 38, died Saturday and the LA coroner says she was manually strangled in an altercation and then thrown from a third-floor balcony
Ex-boyfriend Garth Pursehouse was charged with murder and first-degree residential burglary with the special circumstance allegation of lying in wait
Harwick was found unconscious after falling from a third-floor balcony in her home, pictured
Court documents reviewed by DailyMail.com detail 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 suffocated her in May 2011, saying he punched her, slammed her head onto the ground and covered her mouth to keep her from yelling after they got into a fight. He then kicked her leaving her covered in bruises and 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.
Harwick and Pursehouse saw each other at the XBiz Awards on January 16, which was said to reignite his obsession with her
Pursehouse pictured circled in red at the XBiz Awards, was working as a photographer and allegedly harassed Harwick. The porn star Stormy Daniels, pictured in the silver dress, hosted the event
A friend told the Los Angeles Times that seeing her seemed to ‘reignite his obsessive preoccupation with her’.
Harwick was the author of the book The New Sex Bible for Women.
She was formerly engaged to the Price is Right host Drew Carey but they split in November 2018 after dating for more than a year.
She received her degree in psychology from California Polytechnic University in Pomona, California. Harwick also earned her masters of arts in clinical psychology from Pepperdine University.
In 2015, Harwick appeared in the popular online documentary titled Addicted to Sexting.
She offered weekly therapy sessions at $200 per session, according to her site.