The Stalking of Amie Harwick

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.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast! This is Murder with My Husband.

I'm Payton Moreland.

And I'm Garrett Moreland.

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 going to talk about it, okay? I called the makeup artist this morning, and they said, "Not today." And I said, "Fine." Payton looks great, though.

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. We spill the tea over there, and we watch lots of videos. But the only reason I'm even telling you this is because 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 Tuesdays. Payton will do a "Get Ready With Me," and we talk about, I don't know, random stuff. Like Payton says, "Tea Gossip Thursday." We talk about random things, but we also watch true crime videos. Sundays are just kind of casual hanging out.

If you don't know what Twitch is, it's literally a platform to watch live streams. You can also watch videos at the same time, so you and I 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're doing and go follow Garrett and me on Instagram.

Okay, 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, okay? You just need to follow. We also post pictures that go with the podcasts, and other fun stuff.

It's true.

It's not... 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, then I can report back to the podcast gods and be like, "Look! Look at this amazing...!"

Okay, I'm going to hop into my 10 seconds.

We got pulled over this morning. Oh, and guess what? I didn’t get a ticket! I didn’t get no dang ticket! You think I’m getting a ticket? I’m not getting a ticket! 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.

The cop came over, and he said, "Hey, do you know why I’m pulling you over?" I said, "No, I don’t." And he said, "You ran a stop sign." I didn’t even argue. I said, "Okay." He kind of looked at me for a second. I gave him my stuff, and he went back to his motorcycle. Honestly, I hope he’s not listening to this, but he kind of twiddled his thumbs for a bit. Then he came back over and said, "Hey, are you okay with a warning?"

I said, "Yes, I’m okay with a 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, 'cause there are 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 kids' crossing. No, he didn't make a complete stop.

Debatable, I'll be honest. That's very, very, very debatable. But I'm not going to argue. Not going to argue with the cop. If the reason I didn’t get a ticket is because I don’t argue, I just go, "Yeah." Look, I’m just at the point now where I’m like, if you want to give me a ticket, 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 going to keep that same energy.

I didn’t get a ticket. For anyone who saw on social media, we put up a poll asking if I got a ticket. I didn’t get a ticket, and I was pretty ecstatic about that. Now I’m going to have to start stopping at stop signs for like 5 to 10 seconds, making sure nothing bad happens, there are no kids crossing, and then I'm on my merry way.

We also have illegal tint 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—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. So, we are very careful about backing up and making sure every single crosswalk is safe. So, it’s just kind of ironic that he pulled you over and said there are kids crossing. I'm like, "I see them! We are literally so vigilant about it."

Yeah, I know, it was pretty funny.

I know, I didn’t 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-let-a-car-go situation. I don’t know. I’m not going to argue, but 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 going to argue because he didn’t give me a ticket, so it’s whatever. Look, we all have to do 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, he didn’t tell me I was cute, but that’s okay.

Next time!

I mean, he kind of did by offering a warning. Honestly, he was pretty nice, so I give him props for that. And honestly, I haven’t gotten a ticket in six or seven years.

I think it’s been like four, 'cause you got that ticket driving in the rain. Remember?

That was like five or 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 us, thank you for being here, thank you for listening, thank you for downloading, thank you for leaving a review, and thank you for following us on Instagram. Thank you for tuning in to our Twitch streams. We love you guys.

Now, we’re going to tell you about a case. Our sources for this episode are CBS News, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, Deadline, CNN, The Guardian, ABC7, Law & Crime Network, LA Times, and Court TV.

So, I think it’s pretty obvious to say that connections are a big part of what makes life worth living. The people around you—whether they're friends, family members, or romantic partners—they can bring joy, push you to try new things, support you, and 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. Garrett and I have actually talked about this. It is absolutely kind of bonkers that we just sleep in the same bed at night. Like, you could literally wake up and kill me. I am in the most vulnerable position, but I am trusting another human being to not take advantage of that vulnerability. It’s actually kind of bonkers.

I see what you're saying, considering that another human is the most dangerous thing for sure. But also, if you look at it percentage-wise, the percentage of people who actually kill someone is very, very low, 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 for me, correct?

Again, statistically, the amount of men who kill their wives is a really small percentage. Bonkers? Yes. Less bonkers? Yes.

Anyway, I just think the trust we put in other human beings, even if we love them and think they're good people, is a huge deal. At the end of the day, that’s the most dangerous thing—you could be sleeping next to someone capable of anything.

In today's story, we’re going to talk about someone who took advantage of that kind of vulnerability—the vulnerability of letting people get a little too close to you.

On the night of Valentine's Day 2020, Michael Herman was asleep in his bedroom. He lived with his friend Amie Harwick, who had kindly let him stay in her spacious, three-story house in Beverly Hills. They were not dating; they were just friends. Michael lived on the bottom floor, while Amie's bedroom was on the third floor. The middle floor of the house was the common area with the kitchen and living room. So basically, Amie, the owner of the house, had the top floor, her friend Michael had the bottom floor, and they shared the middle floor.

Anyway, he must have been particularly tired that Valentine's Day night in 2020 because he was already asleep by 7 p.m. Around that time, he abruptly woke up when he heard the sound of breaking glass coming from the floor above. He figured Amie had dropped a plate while getting dinner ready. I mean, it was only 7 p.m., so it wasn’t that weird that Amie would still be awake. So, he thought nothing of it, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

Then, he stayed in bed, dreaming peacefully for six more hours. That was until just after 1 in the morning, 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 was that nothing serious was going on. He figured Amie might have just been startled by something, maybe slipped and fell. He didn’t know, but he thought perhaps it just made her yelp in alarm.

So, he sits there, still not too worried at first. But then he hears it again and realizes Amie is still screaming—continuously screaming. While Michael sat and listened, he heard some shouting, but then those shouts became muffled. To him, it sounded like Amie was yelling for help, and someone was covering her mouth.

At that moment, Michael immediately realizes that he and Amie are not alone in the house. Not only had someone probably broken in, but they were also hurting Amie. Now, Michael is terrified. He’s sitting there thinking, "Do I run up and try to help her?"

His first instinct is to grab his cell phone and call 911, but he’s so panicked that he can't remember where he left it. So for a few seconds, he’s frantically running around his room looking for the phone, all while Amie's muffled screams continue upstairs. When it’s clear he can't find the phone, he starts shouting instead, hoping the intruder would hear him and get scared, maybe run away before Michael had to confront them.

This is the reason most people have alarm systems—not because police will arrive in time, but because the noise often scares off intruders before things escalate. Michael is shouting, but he can still hear the thumping and sounds of struggle. Realizing that shouting isn't helping Amie, he finally runs out into the hallway and screams obscenities up the stairwell, though it doesn't stop the attack.

Instead of running upstairs, Michael sprints outside to wake up a neighbor for help. But to get to the next house, he has to jump a metal fence, cutting his hands in the process. Desperate, he keeps running, knocks on a neighbor’s door, begging for help, but no one answers. Maybe they’re asleep, or perhaps too scared to respond to a man knocking and screaming at 1 a.m.

When that doesn’t work, he goes to another house, but again, no one lets him in. Meanwhile, precious minutes are ticking by, and Michael is running around searching for help while Amie is likely still inside with her attacker.

Finally, he spots a passing pedestrian in the middle of the night, who’s on their phone. Michael rushes over, pleading, “Someone’s broken into my house, my roommate’s in there—can we please call 911?” The person uses their phone to call 911, and by this time, it's 1:11 a.m. Michael has lost crucial minutes just trying to find a phone.

When the police and paramedics arrive, they realize Amie isn’t even inside the house anymore. She was badly hurt, and she was lying on the ground outside. Inside the home, specifically, she was beneath the third-story balcony with injuries consistent with a fall from it.

Wait, what?

Yes, so she had fallen off the balcony and was now lying on the ground outside. They loaded her into the ambulance and transported her to the hospital, but sadly, she only lived for about two more hours before being pronounced dead at 3:26 a.m. The cause of death was not from the fall off the balcony. Instead, she had severe injuries on her neck consistent with strangulation. She had essentially been strangled to death, but it took some time. Too much damage had been done.

Right, so back at the house, the police were surveying the scene, trying to determine who had done this—who had attacked Amie and ultimately killed her. The second they stepped inside the house, they found that it had been trashed. There was blood everywhere, and clear signs of a struggle. Her purse, jacket, and other personal items were thrown on the floor.

Investigators also found a trail of beads running from her bedroom to the third-story balcony, which she had ultimately fallen from. They realized that this was a rosary that Amie had been wearing. Given that she had been strangled, the police believe the attacker had been using the rosary to strangle her, and it broke during the attack. Amie must have gotten away, trying to escape, but the broken rosary left a trail of beads all the way to the balcony.

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. The most disturbing discovery, though, might have been a syringe found in the house. It was full of liquid, and at first, based on the color and consistency, detectives thought it might be heroin.

However, when they questioned Amie's friends and family, they said she didn't use drugs. She’d never do heroin or keep a syringe of it in her home. The detectives, still unsure, sent the syringe to a lab to confirm what was in it. When the test came back, they realized it was filled with liquid nicotine.

Now, if you inject a large enough dose of nicotine into your body, it can actually kill you. It’s highly lethal. So, clearly, this wasn't something Amie was using recreationally. Instead, the detectives figured her killer had probably originally planned to use the syringe to poison her.

That seems so odd, though, right? But in their minds, their theory was that she probably fought off the attacker and knocked the syringe away. They didn’t know for sure, but it was just strange to find that at a murder scene.

Further searches revealed that a set of glass French doors had been shattered. However, the police realized right away that whoever broke the doors had positioned them so the break wasn’t visible from the outside. The assumption was that when Michael heard glass breaking around 7:00 p.m., it was actually the sound of someone breaking those glass doors.

Amie hadn’t been home at that time—she was out with friends. Michael didn’t know this. At 7:00, while the doors were being broken, Amie had been watching the opening number for a burlesque show. After the show, she went to get late-night tea with her friends, staying at the restaurant until about midnight.

I’m so confused by the fact that the intruder supposedly broke in five hours before Amie even came home and stayed there while someone was asleep on the bottom floor.

Yeah, I don’t know. That’s creepy.

It's insane, right? So, Amie doesn’t actually get home until 1:02 a.m. She parks her car out front, sends a text to one of her friends reminding them to forward some photos they’d taken at the show, and then she goes inside, failing to notice the broken doors.

Just six minutes later, give or take, Michael wakes up to the sound of her screams. He places the 911 call at 1:11 a.m. So, she sent that text at 1:02 a.m., and by 1:11, the police were being called. Only nine minutes passed from the time Amie got home to the time police and ambulances were on their way. It all happened very quickly.

So, based on all of this, the detectives figured that between 7:00 p.m. and a little after 1:00 a.m., the intruder must have sat in the house and waited for Amie.

Holy crap.

Which—that’s not going to happen if this was an ordinary burglary. This means someone was targeting Amie. They were waiting for her, lying in wait for her to come home. Her bed was also unmade, even though Amie 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 said she always made her bed. So, the police actually think the killer, who had broken 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 there and attacked her. This means the murder was clearly premeditated—not only because the killer had broken into her bedroom and waited in her bed, but also because they had tampered with a neighbor’s Ring camera so they wouldn’t be caught on camera.

The police went to the neighbors and asked if they could check the Ring footage. The neighbors agreed, and when they pulled it up, they saw that earlier in the night, someone had walked up wearing gloves, covered the camera very sneakily, and then disconnected the Ring doorbell.

Wait, wasn’t the intruder already caught on camera approaching the camera? Were they dressed head-to-toe or something?

No, I think the way they approached the camera made it impossible to identify them. They kind of snuck around it.

Okay.

Unfortunately, this meant the camera didn’t record them entering Amie’s house. The intruder clearly knew what they were doing. Although their face does appear on the footage briefly, it’s only for a moment, and they weren’t in focus. Since the Ring didn’t record anything after it was deactivated, there was no way to fully identify them.

After a brief investigation, the police thought they understood how Amie had died, but they still didn’t know who had done it. To answer that, they decided to look into Amie’s past, just as any detective would.

Amie grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania, but her personality was always bigger than her humble beginnings. She was a bit of a daredevil, known for skipping class and not being afraid to stir the pot. It might have taken her a while to find her place in the world. She grew up in a series of foster homes before being adopted, and as she got older, she became fiercely protective of other "misfits." She would seek out classmates going through hard times who just needed a friend, and she always found a way to be there for them.

After graduation, she moved to LA with dreams of becoming a counselor to help people with mental health issues. To pay her way through school, she became an adult dancer, tended bar, and even modeled for Playboy at some point. That’s just who Amie was—someone who didn’t let the world tell her what kind of life she was allowed to lead. She was like, "I will model and do what I can to pay for school so I can help people."

When she got her degree as a counselor, she decided to work with people who didn’t have much support or resources. Specifically, she 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. Since many sex workers couldn't afford mental health care on their own, she wanted to get very involved in the nonprofit world. Amie wanted to ensure there were always funds to help those who needed her services.

All this to say, Amie did work that many counselors wouldn't even consider, 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 discuss the intersection of sex and mental health. YouTube, right? I mean, we are in 2020.

Even as her career was heating up, so was her love life. Amie had her share of flings and relationships. One was with a man named Gareth Pershouse. The two of them met and began seeing each other in 2010 when Amie was in her late 20s and Gareth was in his mid-30s. Their relationship lasted about a year and a half, and during that time, it was serious. They lived together before ultimately breaking up in 2012.

A few years later, in 2017, Amie began seeing a famous Hollywood celebrity named Drew Carey. As I mentioned before, Amie had tended bar to pay her way through college. Even after becoming a well-known therapist over a decade later, she still picked up occasional bartending gigs here and there. 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, and Drew asked Amie out. She said yes. For their first date, Drew Carey took Amie to Disneyland, where 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 in 2018, a year later, Drew brought Amie onto an episode of The Price is Right to publicly announce their engagement. He proposed, and Amie said yes.

Sadly, Amie and Drew never made it to the altar. They were both private about their relationship and never publicly spoke about why they ultimately broke off the engagement. However, Drew did drop some hints in an interview with CBS News, suggesting that Amie 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 appearing with Drew at times.

Okay, I could see that. I’m not sure if that's the main reason 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. They broke up, but Amie and Drew agreed to stay friends and keep in touch.

Now, breakups are rarely easy, and that was the case for Amie too. She dated several men, and when these relationships ended, there was often pain, regret, and hurt feelings. But one of Amie’s exes took their breakup especially hard, and it wasn’t Drew Carey—it was Gareth from back in 2011 or 2012.

Oh my gosh. It sounds too close to my name. I can't say it!

The reason Amie broke up with Gareth was because he had been violent during their relationship. We're not talking about a one-off incident—multiple times, Gareth hurt Amie badly enough to leave visible bruises. He was very controlling and didn't want Amie to go out with her friends or have any kind of life outside of him.

Amie understood this wasn't a good situation. She was passionate about helping outsiders and people who felt like they didn't fit in. Even though she knew she didn’t deserve to be treated like this, she was a fixer at heart. She wanted to help Gareth, believing that if she stayed in his life, she could show him how to defeat his demons and become a better version of himself.

It's infuriating how many people resort to violence to deal with their issues. It really shows a lack of emotional maturity and self-control. It’s just so immature and troubling.

However, the truth is nobody can make anyone else change. You can try, but ultimately, you can't force someone to get better. Eventually, Amie realized she wasn't helping Gareth; she was just staying in a bad relationship. So when the abuse escalated to a point she could no longer tolerate, she left him.

Apparently, this was shocking to Gareth, as he wasn’t willing to accept that things were actually over between them. He began stalking Amie. He approached their mutual friends and demanded updates on her whereabouts, who she was going out with—what a freak! What a loser! It’s no surprise that after how he treated her during their relationship, he would act this way afterward.

Some friends refused to help Gareth, knowing his requests weren't reasonable. When they told him they wouldn’t assist in harassing Amie, he cut them out of his life, becoming increasingly obsessive. This left him without many people to keep him in check.

In 2012, not long after their breakup, Amie was basically forced to file a restraining order against Gareth. When that expired, she filed another one, which lasted until 2015. You might think that by that point, three years had gone by, and Gareth would have moved on. But Amie was never entirely sure if that was true.

In 2016, someone broke into her house and stole all her photo albums and laptop. This wasn’t like a normal burglary; other than the computer, the intruder didn’t take anything of financial value. It just didn’t make sense. Amie was convinced this was definitely Gareth—100%. But since she didn’t have any proof, she couldn’t take legal action against him.

Amie also had problems with her online accounts. She dealt with trolls who would leave insulting and negative comments whenever she posted a new YouTube video or made social media posts to promote her work. While this is unfortunately a normal part of online discourse, occasionally the comments were so personal and targeted that Amie started to wonder if Gareth was hiding behind these troll accounts. Whoever had written them understood exactly what to say.

She's thinking it's him, but since she couldn't prove it, there was nothing she could do. Even by 2018, six years after the breakup, Gareth was still apparently obsessed with Amie. 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 didn't have proof; these were just suspicions. 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 in my chair because I'm getting serious. If someone tried to stalk me or Amie, oh, I will kill you. I don't care. Don't cut that. Do not cut that out. It's so dangerous. It's so dangerous. It's insane! You can literally just ruin someone's life without any penalty—no pushback at all. Yeah, I will figure it out.

By 2020, Amie 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 have seemed like, after all these years, he’d finally given up. But that all changed at the XBIZ Awards, which are a ceremony to honor people in the adult film industry.

After all these years, Amie was still very involved with sex workers and adult film performers, so she’d become high-profile enough that she got an invite to come to the gala as a guest.

Oh, wow!

It was a good opportunity to network with potential clients, and of course, Amie loves a good party. She was especially excited because she'd get to walk down a red carpet to get inside. Amie loved this stuff: the glitz, the glamour, dressing up, and having her picture taken. The red carpet was a real highlight of the event.

Except Amie 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 the red carpet, when she sees him walk past her with a camera. Oh! In an instant, she is devastated; all of her excitement disappears. So sad. She looks away, hoping he didn't see her. Uh, 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 Amie in line, he ran up to her and screamed at her, causing a scene, saying, “You've ruined my life!” He called her a slur and then accused Amie of cheating on him—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, saying, “Well, remember when you texted me this?” He said it verbatim: text 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, and he's drawing attention to him, while Amie and other people at the event just stare. I mean, this is very awkward; it was incredibly alarming and upsetting for Amie. She was so embarrassed.

I mean, she's been invited as a guest to this gala, which is the exact industry that she is trying to network in and be taken seriously. 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? Even if you do, the best they can be like is, “We'll just get a restraining order.” Restraining orders don’t do anything for you. Yeah, you can go into the Witness Protection Program, but then that sucks because you lose your life. It ruins people's lives.

So we're just going to have to start killing all the—I'm just kidding. But in all reality, it's awful. It's kind of like gaslighting, right? It's all these little things that just happen, like not that big a deal, and then all of a sudden, boom, they kill you. And then the police are like, “Oh, [__]. Oh, well, like I don’t know. I don’t know; she took out eight restraining orders on him and called you guys 800 times, but I don’t know. There was nothing legally to do.” I don't know what you're supposed to do about it. It's very difficult.

So Amie’s like, “I’m just going to walk away, remove myself from the situation.” But Gareth begins following her. He’s yelling at her, calling her a hypocrite, shaming her for being at an adult industry event—one that he's working. He’s calling her slurs for being there in public.

Yes, yes. So Amie 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 well-being.

Gareth is yelling, “What a terror!” He collapses in front of everyone and curls up into a fetal position.

Wow. Okay, so Amie bends down. She’s like, “Gareth, get up! Let’s just go talk in private.” And I say “relative” because she made sure there were security guards with them when they went to talk in private. They found a quiet corner where the other attendees couldn’t watch, and for a full 45 minutes, Amie sits and talks to Gareth about his feelings. She goes full-on therapist mode to 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 am in no way 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, it just makes it worse?

Do you want to know the next line of my research?

Yes, I do!

Now, experts say this is the worst thing you can do. 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. It just sucks. But I have heard that the experts have said that the worst thing you can do is give them a little bit of attention; they take a freaking mile. Talking to a stalker at all or trying to reason with them could encourage their delusions.

I'm not saying to victim blame Amie; I'm literally saying everything Gareth just said. She wanted to help—like, genuinely. She's a good, kind person.

It's sad; she still cared about him. He had just called her slurs, yelled at her, made this huge scene, and embarrassed her, and she’s trying to help him. Yes, but sadly, obviously, he does not care about her feelings or her well-being at all. Amie 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 and then hit the 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 and how he’d been harassing her. She just needed to talk about it; it was traumatic for her. Amie 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 friend to know how scared and uncomfortable she was.

Her dinner companion was so worried on Amie’s behalf that he actually offered to spend the night at her house to help her feel safe. She declined, reminding 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 3:00 a.m., Amie sent an email to more friends.

She just said, “I want to document everything that happened last night in detail. I want to create a record and a paper trail in case I ever need to go to court. 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, Amie 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 Amie if there was any chance they could get back together—could she go on a date with him? Amie wrote back a kind message, letting him down gently, staying firm: “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.

When she did this, he sent abusive replies, attacking her for not giving him another chance. He said he can't let go of the idea that they’re soulmates—that 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 like this?

Over the course of the next few weeks, Amie installed a new security system. She told her friends she was going to buy pepper spray, and she asked them to set up the “Find My Friends” app so they would always know each other’s locations.

It was like she was convinced that something bad was going to happen. She was right. Before her attack, she even texted a friend and said, “Hey, if anything happens to me, it’s Gareth, okay? Like, it was Gareth 100%. I’m scared for my life, and you need to tell people it was him.”

The most disturbing detail might be a call she made to her parents in late January or early February of 2020, 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.” She said, “I want an open casket. I want this type of headstone.” She was just taking care of things.

Then, two weeks later, her parents got a phone call saying, “Hey, she’s dead.” Her parents then had the grim task of taking those things that Amie had told them and making them a reality. As soon as the police learned about Amie’s history, they were like, “Okay, let’s go find Gareth. We don’t even need to do anything else; this is who killed her.”

They began by looking at the broken glass on the shattered French doors. There were trace amounts of blood, as though whoever had broken in cut themselves. They compared those trace amounts of blood to Gareth’s DNA, and it was a perfect match.

They also called in some of Gareth’s friends to look at the ring camera footage. They thought maybe, since they now had a face, could someone make him out? Even when he covers the camera, you can obviously still see his body. It just looks like him. The friends were like, “Yeah, I mean, it’s his body language; it’s his posture; it’s his build.”

Finally, the police searched Gareth’s house. They found a syringe in it, and the syringe was very similar to the one that was at Amie’s house, as though he bought a set and just kept the spares at his house. This was enough that on February 15th, literally the same day that Amie died, Gareth was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Because the second the news got out that she died, every friend was like, “It’s him 100%.”

Now, during the trial, Gareth’s lawyers used an interesting strategy. They knew they could not deny the fact that he’d broken into Amie’s house because of the syringe and the blood— all of that. I don’t know; this is a topic for another time. I don’t know if I want to get into it right now. I’m just confused, and I’m sure a 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 deserves 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? 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 justice system, and there isn’t a perfect way to do it. Like, there isn’t a perfect system. I mean, everyone needs a defense, but it’s hard when you know they’re lying. It’s difficult, and I feel like, in general, America does have a—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. It’s just frustrating because unless there’s something that can tell if we’re 100% lying, like... I don’t know.

Yeah, well, we can 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. 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 left; he didn’t hurt her. Oh my God! Then Gareth says he never even saw her. And then when he left, someone else coincidentally snuck into the house the exact same night and wanted to hurt Aime. Since Gareth had broken down the door already, they just seized the opportunity and broken through after him. He had nothing to do with the murder. I mean, that’s the best defense they could probably come up with, so I don’t blame them.

Needless to say, this did not resonate with the jury. They seemed to agree with the prosecution, who argued that Gareth had killed Aime to punish her for rejecting him. He just couldn’t handle the word “no.” So on September 23rd, 2023, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Now, the most tragic part of this entire story may be that Aime only ever wanted to help people. Yep. 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, and ruined her life, she still tried to help him too. Sadly, he took advantage of that. He took advantage of her desire to help people, and then he took away her life.

That is the story of Aime Harwick—so tragic. So much to say. It’s just... yes. Talking, like I said earlier in the middle of the case, is very hard to deal with. Heartbreaking. I think that Aime should definitely be remembered for all of the good that she did, and I hope that we can honor her for that today. We will see you next time with another episode. I love it.

I hate it.

Goodbye!

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