48 Hours - The Life and Death of Amie Harwick - Encore

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

An investigation into the death of a Hollywood therapist. Did the system do enough to protect her from alleged killer Gareth Pursehouse? Her former fiancé Drew Carey calls for updated laws. "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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ConstantContact.ca This is Dr. Amy Harwick, licensed marriage and family therapist. She would be a therapist by day. This video is going to be all about what is a sex therapist. And then go-go dancer at night. And I thought that was so cool. Hey, this is Amy Nicole, and welcome to my Fit to Rock workout video. You know, one day she's doing a performance breathing fire. The next day she's lecturing at Pepperdine.

So many layers to her. This is the sex talk. I was aware that she had a stalker. What did she tell you about Gareth Purcells? She was afraid of him from the first time she told me about him. This is what she wrote in May 2011. There were multiple arguments in which Gareth Purcells choked me, suffocated me, pushed me against walls, kicked me. The violence she describes is very severe.

Maybe you decided to stay away from somebody that wasn't healthy for you. Two years after they stopped dating, he had apparently broken into her house. She called me. She's like, I think he broke into my house and stole my photo albums and my computer. There's something wrong with my computer. Can you come look at it? It had been wiped. She believed it was him.

She couldn't prove it. She didn't have cameras. Occasionally, she would get comments on Instagram from fake accounts, and she was fairly certain of who it was him. She couldn't prove it. She didn't have cameras. Occasionally, she would get comments on Instagram from fake accounts, and she was fairly certain of who it was. A thing would happen, and, like, she'd be worried for a couple days, and then, like, you know, kind of like, eh, but then, like, then it would be okay, and then, like, you know, wouldn't talk about it. I think when she met Drew...

Have you ever had that rush of excitement when you meet somebody new? She was finally starting to see, okay, I want to settle down with a normal guy. Wasn't Amy actually engaged to Drew Carey? Oh, yeah, Amy and Drew got engaged. Was she sad when the relationship ended with Drew Carey? Yeah. You know, so it didn't work out, but they were still friends. They were still amicable.

The video today is on how to survive the breakup after that first 30 days she never looked back she always was going forward tell me about the events of january 16th um she texted me and she said something really weird happened she told me that she'd gone to this award show she wanted to just take some photos on the red carpet and just mingle and meet people and and it was probably 10 minutes into that that gareth um saw her she's like i saw this photographer i was like oh crap it's it's gareth he immediately freaked out yelling at her and putting his head in his lap he was kind of rocking he's like i've lost everything because of you and all these kind of things. You could tell she was in fear. She told me that she was going on Amazon to order mace. She wanted to have mace in each room.

And I know that she followed everything that she would have advised a client. The nature of stalking is such that they can't stop themselves from the compulsion to pursue. My first thought was, just this can't be true. How could this happen to Amy? Thank you. Darkness descended over the famed Hollywood Hills, February 14, 2020. Valentine's Day fading. 38-year-old Amy Harwick arrived home after a night out with friends. Officers rushed out early Saturdayurday morning after getting 9-1-1 calls we texted i sent her my last text at probably 11 o'clock at night she responded to me at like 101 a.m robert koshland is amy's best friend when i woke up around 7.30 or so, there were two calls from her roommate to me, which seemed weird.

There was a message saying Amy had been assaulted. I was trying to call and eventually sending texts. I sent her a text, are you okay? Finally, I heard from her roommate. He called me and he's like, you need to come to the police station. from her roommate. He called me and he's like, you need to come to the police station. Robert soon learned that just minutes after he and Amy had been texting, an intruder attacked her.

Investigators would later say she was strangled and thrown from her balcony. Amy would later die at a local hospital. Police say Harwick, a famed Hollywood therapist, was killed in what may have been a case of domestic violence. Her legacy, it's my new thing. Honoring her and making sure people know about her. It's my new goal, life goal.

She was that special. Yeah. Amy Harwick seemed to have a natural feel for people and what they needed, even a helping hand. She was always super positive. She was very fascinated with the field of psychology and mental health, and she was really passionate about it, too. Hi, I'm Mo. I'm Dr. Amy.

So in 2012, therapist Moshumi Gose was only too happy to give Amy the internship that launched her career. Well, we wanted to talk about dating emotionally unavailable people. I was excited to have someone like Amy in the practice. Specializing in relationships and sex therapy. She was passionate about destigmatizing the way we see sexuality. She really wanted to normalize it. And in no time, Amy had her own practice. This girl had her own practice. This girl had so much energy. I mean, that's incredible.

It was incredible, yeah. She even started up her own YouTube channel. But jealousy is not love. Jealousy is fear. She was passionate about people that, like, sometimes get marginalized by society, sex workers in particular. Don't be ashamed. Reach out. She has this deep sort of compassion and empathy that I think is present with those that are struggling or suffering. Hernando Chavez was one more therapist who saw Amy's passion up close. She was a helper. She was a healer.

But there were some things and some people that even Amy had trouble with. His name is Gareth Purcells, a wannabe comedian, software engineer, and a photographer. Back in 2011, Amy was dating him when Gareth allegedly turned abusive. She told me about a time where, you know, they were getting, like, yelling fights, and one time she threw a pillow at him, and he hit her and bashed her head against the floor. Now it was Amy's turn to ask for help,

and two separate times, beginning in June 2011, she went to court and requested a restraining order. What does that say about how much she feared him? Oh, yeah, no, obviously she was very afraid of him. Amy told authorities Purse House pushed her out of a car onto the side of a freeway and in other incidents, choked and suffocated her. In 2012, he was ordered to stay away from Amy and the glamorous therapist went on with her life, her career and her friends. I went through a divorce from a very long-term relationship and

during that time she was really there for me like and that was something she did for her friends. time she was really there for me like and and that was something she did for her friends amy refused to be defined by others she was impossible to pigeonhole she was you know a doctor by day and at night she would still dance ashley willis was a friend too. Part of Amy's other life. That electric, wild Hollywood world. You were never bored around her.

She would do a lot of performance art, and she learned how to do the batons, and also lighting those batons on fire, and she actually would put the batons with fire in her mouth. She was a performer. She was a model. She was a talented photographer. She had a magic that few people possess. She was a superstar.

And it seemed inevitable that at some point, another superstar would take note of Amy Harwick. She met Drew. Drew took her to Disneyland. The next week, Drew wanted to meet all her friends, so he told her, hey, you know, get your best friends together and we'll all go. It was a lot of fun. Drew Carey, the host of CBS's The Price is Right, would later announce that he and Amy were engaged.

Did she love him? Yeah. Did he love her? Yeah. Yeah, very much. But the romance wouldn't last. And in November 2018, ten months after Drew and Amy got engaged, they called it off.

And I was very sad that the two of them didn't work out. They both put in as much as they could into the relationship. It was just over a year later, January 2020, that a chapter Amy Harwick thought was closed, came back with a vengeance. We drove together, and when we arrived, we went immediately to the red carpet. It was a celebration of the adult industry, and she was excited to go. She had this black dress on, and she looked ravishing. When she sees a camera, she turns into a model. Then, out of nowhere came a photographer, seemingly covering the event. It was Gareth

Purcells. The allegedly abusive one-time boyfriend approached Amy. He looked upset, agitated, distressed. Was she scared after that confrontation? She was. Scared of what? Scared of the what-ifs. Amy would later tell Robert about Purse House's public meltdown. He was yelling in her face,

you ruined my life, and reciting text messages she had sent to him in 2012, and like, you know, created a giant scene. She was traumatized. After that, she was like, I want to share my phone location with you, or if anything ever happens to me, it's him. A month later...

A well-known therapist was killed at her Hollywood Hills home. Amy Harwick was dead. They were like, you know, do you know who might have done this? And I was like, yeah, Gareth. You thought that immediately? It was the only thing I thought. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park.

They have to alert the military, and when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island.

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Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Today, Gareth Purcells is known as the infamous alleged killer of sex therapist Amy Harwick. But before Valentine's Day, he was an unknown 41-year-old software engineer with a goofy social media presence. I'm going to rip you apart. In an Instagram video he posted in 2019, Purse House jokes about a scene from the television series Game of Thrones where someone is thrown from a tower.

Okay, Game of Thrones, first season, the brother and sister are up in the castle. We show that video to Chris Mohandy, a forensic psychologist who has written extensively about stalking. And the brother has to go and throw the kid off to kill him.

And even though it's evil, I feel kind of bad for the brother because even though he doesn't want to do it, his sister incested. What's your reaction to that? It's a bit disturbing that he's laughing about it. Given what we know now, it's almost prophetic. In February 2020, Purse House was charged with murder, lying in wait, and could face the death penalty. In April, he pleaded not guilty. This story is big, not just in Los Angeles, but it's a national story because there's so many variables here that people can identify with.

From what you know about Amy's former boyfriend, was he a classic stalker? He's pretty typical in terms of an intimate stalker. Lots of anger, violence, domestic violence, threats, property damage. It's all there. That's property damage. It's all there. And Amy spelled it all out in stark terms when she requested protection orders in 2011 and 2012. So this is what she wrote in April 2011. Gareth Pursehouse forced me to the ground, covered my mouth to prevent my yelling, kicked me. In mid-May, there were multiple arguments in which Gareth Pursehouse choked me, suffocated me, pushed me against walls, kicked me, dropped me to the ground, with forced force, restrained me, slammed my head into the ground, and punched me with a closed fist.

But that's a side that photographer Glenn Francis says he never saw. He's very handsome. He's very personable. And he's very smart. And girls liked him. Girls were very much attracted to him. Francis met Pursehouse back in 2008 at a photo shoot for Bench Warmer trading cards. The cards feature attractive women, one of whom was Amy, modeling under the name Amy Nicole. She's one of the most finest people I've ever known in my life. She's just really intelligent and wonderful to talk to and to be around and all of that. Glenn says he knew Amy and Purse House were dating and had no

idea there was any trouble. Neither did friend Rudy Torres, who knew the couple well. At the time, he was loud, charming, a little goofy. But he seemed a pretty fun guy to be friends with. And they seemed like a pretty fun couple and kind of nice to see, you know, friends get together. But then Amy and Pursehouse broke up. Gareth didn't take that very well at all. He would start to get obsessive. He always wanted to know where she was at.

He used to want me to be his go-between, which I did not want to do. He'd always ask me to send her photos, send her links to sappy love songs. And I used to tell him that's not a good idea. And he wouldn't take no for an answer and amy believed that purse house somehow had accessed her computer sending nude photos of her to potential employers costing her jobs says her friend robert koshland it was kind of like a hacker as a programmer and i think he may have installed something in her computer. So I went into her house to look at her computer, and it had been wiped.

The Windows was no longer installed on the computer. This is not something that, like, you know, happens easily. Most everyone who knew Amy eventually heard about the ex-boyfriend Amy considered violent. Had you heard the name Gareth Pursehouse? Yes, I did. She had told me about the story sort of early on that she had a stalker. Danny Beck dated Amy after Drew Carey, and Beck says Amy really opened up about her past

following the encounter with Purse House at that awards ceremony. It was after she ran into him that she sort of divulged a bit more information, but that he was violent, that he was obsessed with her. Running into Amy likely sent Purse House into a frenzy, Mohandi says, especially given the irrational way he behaved when he saw her. There's like a hundred people in this room and he is screaming. He's working in the event. He's a big guy and he's screaming at her, sobbing, falls to the ground in a fetal position, wailing.

It was one month before the murder. These kinds of events usually have a trigger, a precipitating event that gets the person started again. Do you think it's significant that he entered the house according to the indictment on Valentine's Day? You can't ignore the Valentine's Day occurrence. The selection of day that this violence is going to happen, that there's going to be a confrontation being Valentine's Day, I do not think that is an accident. Certainly, Amy took note of Valentine's Day. In her very last Instagram post, she mentioned couples feeling overwhelmed because they're in unhealthy relationships.

overwhelmed because they're in unhealthy relationships. It was something she knew all about. And the way she died has resonated with stalking victims everywhere. Other people that have been victimized and survived these experiences see what happens to Amy and say, that could have been me. News of Amy Harwick's death, allegedly at the hands of her stalker, hit Peggy in the gut. I couldn't stop shaking. I was sick to my stomach. I was, I did not leave my house all day. It was just as terrifying for this woman, Catherine. You can't stop crazy. You may think that you've created a safety bubble for yourself, but you can't stop crazy because I think that if they want to harm you, they will. Like Amy, Catherine, and Peggy, we agreed to use their first names only.

We're both stalked by former intimate partners. But oftentimes, it takes a high-profile case like this one to bring attention to the Catherine and Peggy's of the world, says forensic psychologist Chris Mohandy. This is going on every single day in America. There are anonymous victims who are being killed by their stalkers who were ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends. She is a symbol of all the people that we don't hear about that are happening every single day in our country. We first met Catherine and Peggy in 2017. They were determined to take the crime of stalking out of the shadows, speaking publicly about their own terrifying experiences despite the risk. I kept everything very small and very quiet and it didn't protect me.

Are you concerned at all about talking to me that you could anger him? I think that it doesn't matter what I do. I think that he's going to do what he's going to do no matter what I do. Peggy, an accomplished attorney and single mom, says her stalker has affected everything about her life. I don't vote. I don't have Facebook. I don't have Twitter. I can't be like a normal mom and post photos of my son on my Facebook page. When I say I can't, I mean I'm in fear to do that. He destroyed everything. It all started with a simple date, a seemingly nice guy Peggy met online after her divorce.

We had a good time. I think we dated for maybe about five months. Peggy says he broke things off in 2013. She moved on. But several months later, Peggy says she received threatening emails from him. The most damning, a death threat that still gives her nightmares. That he is going to come up behind me when I least expect it, it'd shoot me in the head. Before that, he had shown up uninvited to where Peggy was living at the time. I hear someone coming in the house, and he's standing in my living room,

and he starts yelling at me. He left after his rant, but a scared Peggy got a restraining order. Still, it didn't stop his reign of terror. Peggy says he branded the word whore on her lawn. It was so horrific to have to explain to my neighbors, and then I tried to put some green paint on it, and it made it stick out more. green paint on it. And it made it stick out more.

He also left menacing voicemail messages. I'm going to dedicate my whole life to wrecking yours. And when she thought things couldn't get any worse, they did. She says she saw her stalker run from her home, just as she heard a loud crash. He had thrown two cans of red house paint directly through the windows with such force. There was glass everywhere. There was red paint all over my son's toys. Peggy contacted the police thinking it would lead to an arrest. And he said, you know what? I don't believe you. And I said, what don't you believe? Do you not believe that he threw paint through my, that he did this?

You think I did this myself? And I said, you are mandated by law to write this up as a violation of my restraining order and to pick him up. And they did nothing. They gave me a report and they left the house. What is going on there? Unless you are physically harmed, they wait and they reinforced this feeling that no one was going to help me. That was until her stalker started vandalizing other women's property as well. Now, with multiple victims, the LAPD's Specialized Threat Management Unit got involved. They were astounded at what had happened, that nobody had done anything. Her stalker was finally arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. But after just two years, he was released on parole.

Nine months later, she got an email with an attachment, a screenplay. This is a complete articulation of every moment of my relationship with him and everything that he did to me. The names were slightly changed, but it was all there. The throwing of paint, the writing in the grass. I mean, this is a confession. Yes. And even worse, new threats. What were the worst threats? One was that he had dug a hole in the desert and he was going to bury me in the desert. And a number of his threats have been about killing me and everybody that I know. Peggy immediately sent the screenplay

to police. This time, they were able to charge him with making criminal threats. In February 2020, Peggy had to face him at a court hearing. You had not seen a man for six years. No. When I finally was able to look at him, he was unrecognizable. He looked like the monster he is. And just him trying to look at me, I guess I don't think most people feel that kind of fear in their life ever. With Amy Harwick's death, it has become even more terrifying. What was the very first thought? That's me. I'm dead. That's what you thought? That's what I thought. Why? Because I know he won't stop. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch.

It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman? Now we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear, but did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America. If you really

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Since 2015, Catherine has tried to put her stalker out of her mind, but he's always there somewhere. There's always a state of panic, and it just takes the right little microcosm of events to kind of set it off. Like Amy's death. Like Amy's death. Without a doubt. A frightening reminder, says the Los Angeles artist, that the passage of time offers no protection. The thing that really just stuck out was that there was that quiet period. She had a restraining order.

It kind of went dark. She went on and created this amazing life for herself and had a chance encounter with him after her order had expired that just set him off. Amy's death took Catherine back to her own private hell, to her own stalker, ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Gouda. Somebody asked him one time, why are you doing this? Why? Why are you persisting with this revenge? She ruined my life. I want to ruin hers. she ruined my life. I want to ruin hers. When we first spoke with Catherine,

she told us that Gouda's campaign of revenge started after a vicious fight in 2015. He got furious with me and I just got the hell out of there as fast as I could. And that's when I was like, he needs to be out of my life. And how did he accept that breakup? He never accepted that breakup. Catherine got a restraining order, but found it of little use. The order required him to stay 100 yards away from her, but he found a way around that. He would actually park his car at 105 yards and camp out. He was sleeping in his car. He was living out of his car at the end of my street. For how long? That went on for at least a good four to six

weeks, maybe. After that, he would somehow find her. No matter where in Los Angeles Catherine was, No matter where in Los Angeles Catherine was, from art exhibits to restaurants. I look out the window and all of a sudden I see his car. And his car is like circling the restaurant. Based on all the times she said she had been running into him, it was just too coincidental. And then the LAPD's threat management unit took over. 610, how do you show my status? While supervisor detective Eric Reed worked the case with his team, Catherine tried to make sense of it all.

It's one thing when he's in my neighborhood, but now it's been Chinatown and downtown and Studio City. Like, how is there has to be something on my car. And there was. Catherine discovered a GPS tracking device inside the bumper. I'm just like, there's like, you know, a GPS tracking device on my car. And detectives found another in the trunk. found another in the trunk. The tracker was underneath where my hand is, stuck to the inside of this on the, so it was in between the metal and the carpet. That meant that he was breaking and entering into my car. That was terrifying. Why was he doing this? I think it's motivated by,

by there's this part of him that can't let go, that just can't let go. The LAPD arrested Gouda and charged him with, among other things, felony stalking. It was because of the pattern of behavior that she was in sustained fear, for one. Secondly, he was willfully, maliciously harassing her all the time, and the fact that he was placing devices on her car to know where she was at all times. The defendant is a dangerous stalker. The defendant placed a tracker in her car on two occasions. Gouda pleaded guilty to felony stalking and was sentenced to five years of probation. Catherine was issued a 10-year criminal order of protection. So has it ended the problem? So has it ended the problem?

No. Even when I know there's absolutely no way that he can be anywhere near me, I'm still looking at every single car that follows me for more than 30 seconds. Since our last conversation, Catherine says she found some comfort when Gouda requested to serve his probation almost 3,000 miles away in Florida, close to his family. There was a chance that he would be in Florida for the five years and get the help and hopefully move on. And it was quiet for eight months. I had just gotten to the point where I could walk my dog and not have a panic attack in my neighborhood. But then that quiet was shattered one day when she was supposed to go to an event.

Somebody called me and said, do not go. Do not come down. Do not come to LADcom. Gouda is here. He's in California. But Catherine says he didn't have permission to be in L.A., so she called the police. He basically got off with a slap on the wrist and sent back to Florida and with no violation. Jeffrey Gouda's probation will expire in October 2021. Free Gouda's probation will expire in October 2021. What are your fears for October 2021? What are your biggest fears?

That he's going to move back to California and that he's going to start the stalking again and he's going to turn up at some event. And for me, it'll be back to Chinese water torture. Of the slow just picking away at you and in every possible way until your fear overtakes you. For women like Catherine and Peggy, it's the fear of being the next Amy Harwick. The amount of empathy I feel for her. I know what it's like to be in that kind of terror. And I can't imagine what she was feeling.

This beautiful girl. Hey, this is Dr. Amy Harwick, licensed marriage and family therapist, and in this video we're going to talk about relationship jealousy. Typically when people feel jealous, their first instinct is to grab onto their partner. Jealousy can become dangerous. There's a difference between jealous feelings and jealous behaviors. Amy Harwick had no way of knowing the advice she so lovingly offered others

would foreshadow her own shocking death. Safety is important. If we don't feel safe in our homes, in our neighborhoods, if we feel that we could be emotionally or physically attacked at any time, maybe we're being stalked or... Is it possible that even as knowledgeable as Amy was, that you sometimes underestimate the danger? 100%. You want to believe that people are capable of doing something so terrible. Amy's friend and mentor, Mo Goes. A violent person is a violent person,

and they can retaliate at any time. If there's a woman right now who's dealing with stalking, what would you tell her to do? What's the most important thing to do? The most important thing to do is to get a safety plan in place, which includes notifying law enforcement of what's happening, making police reports. Chris Mohandy says saving threats like texts or emails is imperative. As offensive as the material might be, you need to hold on to it because that's going to be what you hand over to law enforcement.

Also crucial, speaking up. They need to tell people that are part of their support system, and they need to break the isolation that empowers the offender to continue victimizing them. I knew she had a stalker. She talked about her stalker the last time I saw her. Jessica Everleth is a true crime TV executive producer. She worked with Amy and says she did take a lot of those precautions, but they weren't enough. She blocked her stalker online. She had the two restraining orders.

She had a home with security gates, security cameras. She did everything right. So how could something like this happen? Just days after Amy's death, the question of what legacy she leaves has already begun to get its answer. Drew Carey, who described himself as overcome with grief, has endorsed an online petition dubbed Justice for Amy. It's addressed to Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, California Governor Gavin Newsom, among others,

and calls for sweeping changes in domestic violence legislation. We'd like to have the laws changed to lower the threshold of what constitutes felony stalking. We'd have some sort of legislation, a bill, a law in Amy's name and honor. We can't just have this martyr who died for this cause. We actually have to do something about this. The petition calls for a national stalker's registry, similar to the kind that already exists for sex offenders. Therapist Hernando Chavez says there has to be change so that no more women suffer Amy's fate. Do you feel she was let down by the system, that it wasn't there to protect her? I would expand that to the entire system,

to our system of laws, our system of law enforcement. I think our system needs more preventative efforts, not reactionary efforts that are happening after crimes or after actions and behaviors have been done. We really need to rethink the length of things like restraining orders, mandatory treatment, or check-ins with probation officers or parole officers. A lot of things that people might say are a violation of rights, but the ultimate civil right is the right to be alive. Gareth Pursehouse stands accused of denying Amy that ultimate civil right, leaving those who loved her to protect how she's remembered.

When I was reading, it was about Drew Carey's fiancée. It was about the celebrity sex therapist. You know, one of my closest friends has just had her life taken from her, and she was so much more than those headlines. I hope the narrative will shift to domestic violence, to stalking, to how our laws are failing people. Be positive. Be fun to be around. Be a happy person. You can't live your life in fear. Robert Koshland says his best friend showed him how to be brave. And if you want to live in fear, you're giving that person control over you.

And that's not who she was. She was her own person and she was going to control her own destiny. And she would never give him that power, ever. What will you miss about her the most? Is there one thing that you just think? Her. Just her. Her, you know, sitting next to me. You know, I hear her voice in my head every day.

She was a superstar. Thank you. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list.

She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. This picture is not what you think it is. Here's the real story. I would have never thought that anyone would want to kill me.

Could you prove who wanted him dead? I'm the only person alive that has ever walked out of his own grave. 48 Hours, Saturday at 10, 9 Central on CBS. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.