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Family therapist Amie Harwick killed in Hollywood Hills, police say

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Amie Harwick, a well-known family therapist, was killed Saturday at her Hollywood Hills home by a former boyfriend, authorities said.

The Los Angeles Police Department on Saturday afternoon arrested Gareth Pursehouse, 41, of Playa del Rey on suspicion of murder in Harwick’s death, according to a release from the agency. He is being held on $2-million bail, according to county jail records.

Harwick was previously engaged to TV star Drew Carey, and the therapist appeared in the 2015 documentary “Addicted to Sexting.”

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LAPD officers responded about 1:16 a.m. to a call of a woman screaming in the 2000 block of Mound Street. When officers arrived, they were met by her roommate in the street. He informed officers that Harwick was being assaulted in her home. The roommate had jumped a wall and went to neighboring residences to call for help.

When officers got to the home, they found the victim on the ground beneath a third-story balcony, gravely injured in a manner consistent with a fall, police said. The Los Angeles Fire Department took Harwick to a hospital, where she later died from her injuries, police said.

LAPD investigators found possible evidence of a struggle as well as forced entry to the residence. A canvass of the area found further evidence of an intruder entering the property and leaving after the incident.

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Detectives learned that Harwick had recently expressed fear about a former boyfriend and had filed a restraining order against him. The restraining order had expired, and the victim had seen the former boyfriend two weeks ago.

On Saturday afternoon, an FBI-LAPD Fugitive Task Force arrested Pursehouse outside a residence in the 8100 block of Cabora Drive in Playa del Rey.

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