Drew Carey Has Found Closure After Former Fiancée’s Murder: ‘She’s with Me Always’ (Exclusive)

When Drew Carey met Amie Harwick at a Hollywood party in 2017, the comedian struck up a conversation with the marriage and family therapist and got her number.

Their relationship proved something of a whirlwind. The pair got engaged in 2018 and ended things later that year, but Carey has since said their love was very much real.

“Amie and I had a love that people are lucky to have once in a lifetime,” he previously told PEOPLE.

Harwick’s life came to a tragic end in February 2020 when she was killed by blunt force trauma at age 38. Police later charged her ex-boyfriend Gareth Pursehouse with burglary and her murder, alleging he waited outside Harwick’s Hollywood Hills apartment for her to return before attacking the therapist inside her home. Harwick had been granted two restraining orders against Pursehouse prior to her death.

In September 2023, Pursehouse was convicted of her murder, which had devastated Carey. But the sentencing finally brought him some closure.

“I can barely remember the guy's name — that's how much I've put him out of my life — but ever since the final sentencing, it feels like we've all let out a breath and are able to finally move on,” Carey tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “The whole process is over now, and there's nothing else to be done and nothing else to worry about. …  Just speaking just for myself, it's been quite a load off.”

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But The Price Is Right host, who had Harwick on the game show for a special Valentine’s Day episode back in 2018, still keeps her close to his heart. Pictures of her remain around his house, and Carey has a photo of her in his dressing room on set that he looks at on his way out the door every day on the way to the stage.

“She’s with me always,” he says. “A lot of times I’ll feel like I’ll be thinking things through, and it’s almost like I can hear her voice saying, ‘Well, really, it’s because of this and that.’ It’s really nice, honestly.”