Mother Of Four Wrote Haunting Petition For Order Of Protection Before She Was Found Dead
The woman, Amy Hargrove (also known as Amy Gang), died of "manual strangulation," according to the King County Medical Examiner's Office.
"A piece of paper isn't going to save my life when he finally gets me, but at least you will know who killed me," Hargrove wrote in a 2012 petition for a protection order against her ex-boyfriend, father to her third child.
Hargrove first sought protection from the man in 2012 during a custody battle. She said she endured years of horrific abuse from him, according to court documents cited by the Times.
She claimed her ex harassed her, stole her debit card to drain her account, fractured her eye socket, assaulted her while she was pregnant, raped her at gunpoint, and forced her to have sex with another person. Hargrove told a court that her former boyfriend even led police on a high-speed chase, reaching up to 120 miles per hour and eventually flipping the car, with her children inside.
"The detectives are pretty confident that if it wasn't him, it was someone who knew her," Kirkland Police Lt. Mike Murray told the Kirkland Reporter. "It wasn't some random assault."
The Times also spoke with another former-girlfriend of the man in question. In 2009, he allegedly punched her in the face eight times with a closed fist, stole her cellphone, and forced her into his house. When contact Thursday night, she sobbed after learning about Hargrove's death. "Oh my God, oh my God," she said before declining to talk further.
Hargrove leaves behind four children.
"If the mood was sour, Amy would be that person who'd make everyone happy and try to make people not stress," Nickolas Bartth, a longtime friend of Hargrove's, told King 5 News.