Raymond Horsch, who went by R.C., died in May 2025 at the age of 82, at his home in the Olney section of Philadelphia. He had spent more than half a century making erotic photographs, films and books, and he had a criminal record that ran from counterfeiting in the 1970s to a federal marijuana case in 2009. He was never charged with harming anyone in the house.
A little more than a year after his death, a park ranger's stop of his son's car near Independence Hall set off an investigation of the house that drew in Philadelphia homicide detectives and the FBI. By August 2026 police said images and videos recovered from hard drives in the house appeared to show two missing women alive and then dead. By September they had linked seven women to the property and said five of them appeared lifeless in the material. One video, police said, appeared to show Horsch himself strangling a woman. In October law enforcement sources told CBS News Philadelphia that investigators consider him a suspected serial killer.
No body has been found. The Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office has said it cannot formally declare anyone dead without remains, and a three-week search of the house and yard that ended on October 23, 2026, turned up no human remains. Because Horsch is dead, no court will ever weigh the evidence against him.
Horsch was born in 1943 in East Stroudsburg, in northeastern Pennsylvania, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. His father had been a glider pilot in World War II. He grew up on a farm there and later moved with his family to Chalfont, in Bucks County. He graduated from Central Bucks High School in 1961 as a National Merit Scholar, and the Inquirer later described him as a bookish young engineer.
In 1964 he married his high school sweetheart, who was 19. The couple lived near Rittenhouse Square, and she taught in the public schools while he ran a small avant-garde film house in Philadelphia called Underground Cinema 16. He joined the Pennsylvania National Guard but deserted, the Inquirer reported, when it appeared he would be sent toward service in Vietnam, and he went to New York to work in film and photography. His first wife left him in 1970. She later described him to the Inquirer as emotionally abusive but not violent.
In 1973 Horsch's first feature film premiered at a Philadelphia theater. The Inquirer reported that it was financed by Sam LaRussa, a Philadelphia nightclub owner and mob associate who was a friend of Nicodemo Scarfo, the man who later ran the Philadelphia-area Mafia. LaRussa died in 1996. The Inquirer described the film as violent and said its themes became a lasting focus of Horsch's work: sexualized violence against women, often women struggling with addiction.
In 1974, according to the Inquirer, the Secret Service broke up a counterfeiting operation in Doylestown, Bucks County, in which Horsch was involved, seizing phony $10 bills with a face value of more than $1 million. He served two years. In 1977 he was arrested for running a methamphetamine laboratory in Philadelphia. He skipped bail and ran.
He fled with his girlfriend, whom he later married. Using the identity of a real chemist and a forged Stanford diploma, he settled in Timaru, a port city in New Zealand, and worked at a chemical plant for an alternative fuels company. The couple married in Nevada in 1980 under his assumed name. Their son, Eugene, was born in New Zealand in 1981. In 1984 Horsch was caught reentering New Zealand with five fake passports and left for the United States before he could be charged. The FBI arrested him in Orlando, Florida, in 1985, and he was returned to Philadelphia and sentenced to four years in federal prison.
His wife died in 1989, at 39, the Inquirer reported. Horsch raised their son, then 7, alone in Chalfont.
In September 2004 Horsch married Amy McHale. They divorced after a few years; the Inquirer gave the year as 2008. That same year, 2004, he inherited the Olney house from an aunt. He later transferred it to his son for $1; the Inquirer reported the transfer in one article as following Eugene's release from prison in 2006 and in another as taking place in 2007.
In 2009 police in New Britain Township, Bucks County, went to Horsch's home in Chalfont after a woman called to report hearing noises. Robert Scafidi, then the township's police chief, told 6abc in September 2026 that officers found a marijuana-growing operation and, after obtaining a warrant, seized nearly 200 plants. The Inquirer put the number at 455 plants, along with two shotguns. Scafidi said officers also found firearms and identification cards belonging to several women, which the district attorney's office took to follow up; he said he never learned what came of it. Horsch pleaded guilty to three felonies in federal court and was sentenced to 54 months in prison, with credit for time already served in the Bucks County jail. The Inquirer reported that he was released in 2013 and that he lost the Chalfont home after the drug case, moving with his son into the Olney house. Scafidi said Horsch "always got light sentences."
For decades Horsch made films, photo books and novels. The Inquirer reported that in the late 1990s he ran a website that sold violent videos, that he later ran a paid membership site through at least 2019, and that archived material showed an escort-related solicitation site from 2017 to 2021. A 2017 documentary was among his later films. In 2014 he staged an exhibition at a gallery in Kensington.
According to the Inquirer, he recruited women in Kensington, in Philadelphia, to appear in his work, offering them cash and drugs, and some lived in the Olney house, sometimes for years. Law enforcement sources described him to CBS News Philadelphia as intelligent and said he preyed on vulnerable women. The Inquirer counted at least three dozen women in his published work, many of them still unidentified, and reported that his websites had once displayed about 2,100 distinct images.
Among them was his longtime companion, who lived in the house on and off from 2016. Her friends told the Inquirer that Horsch was never violent toward her and that she cared for him. She died in August 2025, three months after him, at 47.
Horsch also wrote and self-published novels and photo books, several of which were later pulled from Amazon, CBS News Philadelphia reported. In some of them he cast himself as an "empathetic" serial killer who targeted vulnerable women. One book, Empathy, published in 2014, was billed as the autobiographical memoir of a caring, empathetic serial killer; CBS reported that in it Horsch claimed to have strangled a woman he had been involved with. The books were presented as true stories but mixed real details of his life with admitted fiction, the Inquirer reported, and Horsch said he wanted readers to separate fantasy from reality. The Inquirer closed its August 2026 profile with a line he once wrote: "Would it surprise you... to learn that I'm lying?"
In a 2013 podcast interview, according to CBS News Philadelphia, he talked about his adult film career and about playing villains, and joked that he was "a natural" as a perverted serial killer.
When police later began searching the house, investigators had to decide how much of this was fantasy. "I haven't come across a case like this before," Vito Roselli, a retired FBI special agent, told CBS in August 2026.
Amy McHale was 44 in June 2016, a mother and a grandmother of three. Although she and Horsch had divorced, she kept returning to his home, the Inquirer reported, and in June 2016 she was staying at the Olney house. She went there on June 13. The next day she left a voicemail for her daughter. The Inquirer reported that she said she was "OK"; her daughter told 6abc in 2026 that the message said she was at the house where "Ray" lived. She has been missing since.
Her family reported her missing. CBS News Philadelphia reported that investigators interviewed Horsch in June 2016, soon after that report, and that police opened an extensive investigation. Horsch told police that McHale had been drinking, that he went to bed, and that when he woke up she was gone, according to the Inquirer; her daughter told 6abc he gave the family and detectives the same account. Frank Vanore, a deputy Philadelphia police commissioner, said in September 2026 that Horsch had been interviewed at length in 2016 and that police had found nothing clearly wrong at the time beyond the fact that the women were missing and had last been seen with him.
Her mother told the Inquirer that McHale "would never leave her daughter and grandchildren." Her daughter said her mother "would not want to disappear" from her life. When the 2026 search began, she told 6abc, "I immediately thought they had found my mom." Ten years on, the family said they hoped for closure.
Blair Tonzelli was 35 when friends reported her missing in February 2023, after months without hearing from her. Her Facebook page says she attended Archbishop Ryan High School in Philadelphia, the Inquirer reported. A friend she lived with described her to the Inquirer as loyal. He said she sometimes went away with a man from Olney and told him she was visiting a man named Raymond; he last heard from her after August 2022. Another friend said he and a third person called police in February 2023 and told them she had last been seen at the Olney home of a man who frightened her. She was estranged from her relatives, who declined to comment.
Horsch met Tonzelli in Kensington, according to the Inquirer, and later said she had worked for him as a home health aide before she disappeared in August 2022. A woman who spoke with police after Eugene Horsch's 2026 arrest said Tonzelli had worked as a home health aide in the house and that she and Eugene had argued over money. The Inquirer, using archived copies of Horsch's website, reported in August 2026 that he had posted a photograph of Tonzelli on his homepage around 2020 and kept it among his lead images for years, including after she was reported missing. Police declined to say whether officers had ever visited the house or interviewed Horsch about her. She remains missing.
Police raided the Olney house in May 2025 during a drug investigation, the Inquirer reported, but did not appear to connect it to any missing women at that time. Horsch died that month, at 82. The Inquirer gave the cause as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung condition, and reported that he died in the Olney house. Three days after his death, a cigarette started a fire in a second-floor bedroom. Police found guns and a marijuana-growing operation, and his son was jailed again. Five urns of cremated remains were later found in the house; police said in September 2026 that three of them were believed to hold the ashes of Horsch, his sister and a friend, and that the other two had not been identified.
On June 19, 2026, a U.S. park ranger on Independence Mall, near Independence Hall, came upon a black BMW parked in a restricted area. According to the criminal complaint, as reported by 6abc, the ranger saw signs of drug use and heard a woman in the car say, "You're going to hurt me." The driver was Eugene Albert Horsch, 44, Raymond Horsch's son. Police said he showed false Drug Enforcement Administration credentials bearing his photograph. Officers found two loaded handguns, one with an obliterated serial number, along with knives, other weapons, handcuffs and crack cocaine, 6abc reported. Police said he was barred from having guns because of earlier felony convictions.
The woman in the car gave police an identification card in the name of Blair Tonzelli, missing since 2023, and told them Eugene Horsch had given it to her. Police determined she was not Tonzelli; her name has not been released. CBS News Philadelphia reported that police cited the evidence, and the timing of a World Cup match in the city, as reasons for concern, and obtained several search warrants. The trail led to the house in Olney, which Eugene owned and where his father had lived.
Investigators in hazardous-materials suits entered the house on June 26, 2026. Vanore said chemicals found in the basement raised safety concerns. Police and federal agents found another gun, ammunition, drugs and evidence of a marijuana-growing operation, hidden compartments, a 55-gallon drum connected to water lines, more than 20 containers of unknown chemicals and oily substances, supplies for making false identification, fake FBI and DEA credentials, the five urns, and several fake IDs and a bank card in Tonzelli's name, according to the Inquirer, 6abc and PhillyVoice. A source described the basement to CBS as looking like an old high school science laboratory. Federal investigators also found an unsigned, handwritten letter that referred to hurting unnamed people and mentioned Ted Bundy; its author was not established. Police did not name R.C. Horsch as a person of interest at that stage.
Early tests disappointed investigators. Law enforcement sources told the Inquirer that what looked like a "significant amount" of blood was not blood, and that no DNA of Tonzelli or McHale was found on the items tested. Detectives obtained a warrant in late June to search the pipes, and in July the city water department helped dig up the sewer lines; two clogged sewer laterals were removed and sent to a laboratory. By August 12 police had executed more than 95 search warrants at the house, the Inquirer reported. The containers of chemicals and oily substances were sent to a federal laboratory in Chicago; no results had been announced.
Eugene Horsch had a long record of his own. In 2003, the Inquirer reported, he crashed into another car while drunk, leaving the other driver in a vegetative state for 16 years until that driver's death; in 2004 he pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and aggravated assault and served about two years. He was in prison when Amy McHale disappeared in 2016, the Inquirer reported. 6abc listed later drug convictions in 2014 and November 2025.
After the June 2026 stop he was held at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility on $500,000 bail on state gun and drug charges. In early July a federal grand jury indicted him on charges of possessing firearms as a convicted felon, including one with an obliterated serial number, and of possessing fake DEA and FBI credentials, 6abc and CBS reported. On August 6, 2026, an assistant district attorney withdrew the city's charges in court and told the judge that the U.S. Attorney's Office would handle the case, the Inquirer reported. His federal trial, first set for January, was rescheduled for March 22, 2027, according to court records cited by the Northeast Times.
He is accused in that case and has not been convicted. He has not been charged in connection with any of the missing women. His lawyer, Jerome Brown, told 6abc in July that the chemicals and laboratory items in the house belonged to his client's father, and in October told CBS News Philadelphia that he and his client were negotiating the federal case with the U.S. Attorney's Office.
On August 12, 2026, Inspector Raymond Evers of the Philadelphia police told reporters that homicide detectives had found, on a hard drive from the house, images and videos showing two missing women alive inside the house and then appearing to be dead. He called the material "graphic and dark." Neither woman had been linked to the case before. Evers said the women's families had been told that morning, and that the families did not know Horsch or his son. Pieces of the video were still missing, he said, and he called the case "new territory" for the Homicide Unit because there was no body.
The Medical Examiner's Office said it could not conclusively declare the women dead without a body or remains, but that based on its review it "would believe the individuals depicted in the images are deceased." The Inquirer reported that the office said the women are dead if the images and videos are authentic and unaltered, and that the question would likely go to Orphans' Court. Police were still working to establish when the deaths occurred.
Investigators said the hard drives and other devices, about 50 in all, held more than 600,000 images, 70,000 videos and 10,000 pages of writings and drawings, and that only about 5 percent had been reviewed. Evers declined to say whether investigators believed Eugene or his father was involved in the deaths, but noted that both had lived in the house for a long time. Police declined to say how the women knew either man.
Maribel Fresses was 27 when she was reported missing in 2018. She was known as Bella. She grew up in Holland, in Bucks County. Her father told the Inquirer that she had called him every day until the calls stopped, and he described the last time he saw her, in Kensington, when they shared a slice of pizza and he gave her $50. He reported her missing soon afterward.
Gabrielle Amarando was 22 when she went missing in September 2012. PhillyVoice reported that she was born in 1990. She grew up in Doylestown and was interested in modeling, and she was close to her father, her stepmother told the Inquirer; she often visited her stepmother in North Carolina. The family lost touch with her in 2012 and for 14 years hoped she would turn up. A cousin left flowers on the porch of the Olney house, and a photograph of her and a message from her family were later placed on the front step. Her mother told 6abc she hoped police would give the family more answers.
After the August announcement, attention shifted from the son to the father. CBS News Philadelphia reviewed hundreds of pages of Horsch's writings, and reported on August 18 that police had spent hundreds of hours at the house, including digging up sewer lines and searching hidden compartments, and had sent 50 containers of an oily substance to the federal laboratory. Police declined to comment on the books. The Inquirer reported that the FBI was reviewing his works along with the other material taken from the house, and that a woman had told investigators Eugene Horsch claimed to know how to dispose of a body with chemicals. Investigators had to determine whether passages in the father's novels were simply fiction.
At a news conference on September 16, 2026, police gave their fullest account. Deputy Commissioner Vanore said investigators had identified 58 people in the photos and videos, most of them alive; 16 had been interviewed and 25 more interviews were scheduled. At least five women appeared lifeless or unconscious in the images. Ten people had overdosed, police said, none of them at the house. Seven women in all were now linked to the property: the five who appeared lifeless and two, Blair Tonzelli and Amy McHale, who were known to have been there and had not been seen in years.
Beyond Fresses and Amarando, police described three more women. One, who appeared in a video with Horsch, had been 27 and had been reported missing. Another had been 25 at the time of the images. Police said two of the three had been identified, but withheld their names, and one remained unidentified. The Medical Examiner's Office had reviewed images of the three women; according to a police release, if the images were authentic and unaltered the women appeared to be dead, but without remains the office could not determine a cause or manner of death. Vanore said investigators had not yet found corroborating evidence that "would prove what we think."
Wayne Jacobs of the FBI estimated that the review of the evidence was about 30 percent complete and said thoroughness mattered more than speed. More than 100 FBI agents and analysts had begun working through over a million images and videos, CBS reported. Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said there was no current threat to the community.
Police said one video appeared to show Raymond Horsch strangling a woman. Law enforcement sources confirmed to CBS News Philadelphia that the video showed Horsch strangling her, and sources said it would implicate him in murder. Police did not release the woman's name. A police spokesman, Sgt. Eric Gripp, later said the department had withheld it out of deference to some of her relatives.
Her cousin identified her publicly as Nicole Fusaro. She was 27 when she was last seen in Kensington on July 19, 2018, and she was reported missing that year. She was an only child. Her father died in 2009, and her mother searched for her for years before dying in January 2020, the Inquirer reported. The cousin, who had lived overseas and lost touch with the family, reconnected in 2020, learned she was missing, and in 2024 filed a report with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. He said he named her because he wanted her story known. A paternal relative, told in August that police believed she was dead, had asked police not to release her name.
The cousin said he and his mother had been told by homicide detectives only that Horsch had filmed himself strangling her, and he was horrified to hear far more detail described at the public news conference. He wrote to Mayor Cherelle Parker and the City Council calling the officials' conduct "appalling" and said he wanted to know whether police had broken any laws or internal policies. Gripp said detectives had traveled to northern New Jersey to speak with family members before the news conference. The mayor's office referred questions to the police.
The September disclosures raised questions about whether police had done enough when the women were first reported missing. City Councilmember Jim Harrity said he would support measures to prevent a repeat, but asked what those measures should be. "This guy isn't the first," he said. Vanore said Horsch had been interviewed extensively in 2016. "But when family reported them missing, they were talked to," he said. Mayor Parker's office declined to comment on the investigation and said it would follow the police department's lead.
A clinical psychologist who reviewed the case for CBS, Dr. Geri-Lynn Utter, said Horsch showed a pattern of sadistic behavior and violence and liked to be in control, and called the house a "preying ground."
In late September forensic investigators in protective suits removed whole sections of the interior, and the FBI made a 360-degree image and a three-dimensional photographic record of the house, CBS reported. On October 2, 2026, CBS News Philadelphia reported that multiple law enforcement sources had confirmed that investigators believe Raymond Horsch may have been a serial killer. Police had not said so on the record. The same report said police believed three of the women, Amarando, Fresses and Fusaro, were dead. Chemicals and pipes had already been removed from the property for testing.
A new phase began on October 5. Police closed nearby streets and restricted parking, and police and the FBI went back inside to search for possible human remains, examining floors, drywall and plaster and removing furniture and other items for forensic testing. On October 6 they took apart the basement laboratory and carried out containers and trash bags. On October 8 they brought in a police dog trained to find hidden electronic storage devices. Sources told CBS on October 13 that human DNA had been found, and later reports said it would be tested to see whether it matched any of the missing women. A safe was found behind a wall, 6abc reported.
By October 14, FBI agents and Philadelphia detectives were excavating the backyard, removing soil one layer at a time and sifting it under a tent. On October 15 bones were found there, and the Medical Examiner's Office was called to recover them. Tests showed they were animal bones. PhillyVoice reported on October 21 that a spokesman for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, Jason Brooks, had said: "To this point, no human remains have been identified by MEO staff." Police said they were not confirming reports of possible human remains, and the FBI and the police declined to say more.
Jerome Brown, Eugene Horsch's lawyer, told CBS News Philadelphia on October 16 that the investigation had become a "runaway train." He said the claim that the elder Horsch was a serial killer did not fit the man he knew. He said his client's father took "weird photographs" and recreated death scenes, but that he had not suspected him of murder. Brown, who CBS reported had also represented the father, called it the most unusual search he had ever seen.
Investigators finished their work at the house just before noon on Friday, October 23, 2026, after about three weeks, and left without finding human remains, CBS News Philadelphia reported. Items were sent for testing, the human DNA from the basement was still being tested, and investigators planned to return to reviewing the videos. CBS reported that Horsch had also made films at his earlier home in Chalfont, but that none of those showed the level of violence found in the Olney material. Police have not searched the Chalfont property, 6abc reported in September; its current owners found a large safe built into the foundation, which was sealed off.
As of October 23, 2026, police linked seven missing women to the house and believed five of them were dead, but no death had been confirmed by a body, no cause or manner of death had been determined for any of them, and no one had been charged in connection with any of the women. Raymond Horsch cannot be charged. Police have not said publicly whether the recovered material is enough to show what happened to the women, or who was responsible.
Whether anyone died in the house. Police and the medical examiner believe several women in the images are dead, but the medical examiner's opinion depends on the images being authentic and unaltered. Vanore said in September 2026 that investigators had not yet found corroborating evidence that "would prove what we think," and detectives were still working, 6abc reported in October, to determine what in the material may have been staged and what may have recorded real events. No human remains have been identified.
Whether Raymond Horsch killed anyone. The one video police have described in public appeared to show him strangling a woman, and law enforcement sources call him a suspected serial killer. He died before the material was found and was never charged or tried.
Whether his books are confessions. Empathy and other books describe killings told in the first person, but they were billed as a mix of fact and fiction. Investigators have not said that any passage matches a real event.
Eugene Horsch's role. Police have declined to say whether they believe the son was involved in any death or disappearance. He has not been charged in connection with any of the women, and his lawyer says he did nothing wrong.
The handwritten letter. The unsigned letter that mentioned Ted Bundy and hurting people has not been publicly attributed to either man. Eugene Horsch's lawyer has said the chemicals and laboratory items in the house belonged to the father.
1943: Raymond Horsch is born in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.
1961: Graduates from Central Bucks High School as a National Merit Scholar.
1964: Marries for the first time; the marriage ends in 1970.
1973: His first feature film premieres in Philadelphia.
1974: Secret Service breaks up a counterfeiting operation in Doylestown; he serves two years.
1977: Arrested over a methamphetamine laboratory in Philadelphia; skips bail and flees.
1980: Marries his girlfriend in Nevada under an assumed name; they live in Timaru, New Zealand.
1981: His son, Eugene, is born in New Zealand.
1984: Caught reentering New Zealand with five fake passports; leaves for the United States.
1985: Arrested by the FBI in Orlando and sentenced to four years in federal prison.
1989: His wife dies.
2004: Inherits the Olney house from an aunt; marries Amy McHale in September.
2009: Arrested at his Chalfont home in a marijuana-growing case; later sentenced to 54 months in federal prison.
2012, September: Gabrielle Amarando, 22, goes missing.
2013: Released from federal prison; gives a podcast interview in which he jokes about being "a natural" as a serial killer.
2014: Publishes Empathy.
2016, June 13 to 14: Amy McHale goes to the Olney house and leaves her daughter a voicemail; she has been missing since. Police interview Horsch.
2018: Maribel Fresses, 27, is reported missing; Nicole Fusaro, 27, is last seen in Kensington on July 19.
2022, August: Blair Tonzelli is last heard from.
2023, February: Friends report Tonzelli missing.
2025, May: Police raid the Olney house in a drug investigation; Horsch dies at 82; three days later a fire breaks out in a bedroom.
2026, June 19: A park ranger stops Eugene Horsch near Independence Hall; a woman in his car has an ID in Tonzelli's name.
2026, June 26: Investigators begin searching the Olney house.
2026, early July: Eugene Horsch is indicted on federal firearms and false-credentials charges.
2026, July 22: Police and the FBI excavate sewer pipes outside the house.
2026, August 6: The district attorney withdraws the state charges against Eugene Horsch in favor of the federal case.
2026, August 12: Police say images and videos appear to show Maribel Fresses and Gabrielle Amarando dead.
2026, September 16: Police link seven women to the house, say five appear lifeless in the material, and describe a video that appears to show Horsch strangling a woman; her cousin identifies her as Nicole Fusaro.
2026, October 2: Law enforcement sources tell CBS News Philadelphia that investigators consider Horsch a suspected serial killer.
2026, October 5 to 23: Police and the FBI search inside the house and excavate the yard; human DNA is found and sent for testing; bones found on October 15 prove to be animal bones; the search ends without human remains being found.
2027, March 22: Eugene Horsch's federal trial is scheduled to begin.