A routine police encounter has opened the door to one of Philadelphia’s most disturbing investigations. Inside a home linked to filmmaker Raymond “R.C.” Horsch, investigators have uncovered more than a million photos and videos, disturbing material involving women, drugs, weapons and chemicals—and evidence that has now connected the property to seven missing women. With five of those women believed by investigators to appear in footage that may show them dead, authorities are trying to separate fact from fiction in a vast collection created by a man who spent decades making violent, graphic films. What really happened inside the Horsch home, and how many secrets are still buried there?
This is going to be a huge case. We suspect there will be more episodes to come based on what police uncover, so today we are going to run through the backgrounds of those involved and everything we know to date chronologically.
The Philadelphia Inquirer has done an amazing job of covering this case and we have linked many of their articles on our blog.
Raymond Charles Horsch ‘R.C’ was born on May 5, 1943 and grew up on a farm in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. We will refer to him ongoing as R.C. as that is what most media reports refer to him as.
R.C. would say that he had a ‘strict but fair’ father and a ‘salt of the earth’ mother. The family later moved to Chalfont, Bucks County, where R.C attended Central Bucks High School. He graduated in 1961, was a National Merit Scholar and edited a school magazine.
Later in life, he described himself as a childhood outsider who was fascinated by villains rather than heroes.
R.C. was married for the first time in 1964. He would have been around 24 and his wife was described as his 19-year-old high school sweetheart. According to the Inquirer, this woman would later describe R.C. as emotionally abusive and said he had an inflated ego. She did not describe him as being physically violent towards her.
We cannot confirm the name of this wife. She is said to have left R.C. around 1970.
In the late 60s/70s, R.C. became interested in Philadelphia’s counterculture and underground film scene.
He ran Underground Cinema 16, later known as the Roxy, and became increasingly interested in erotic photography and filmmaking.
In 1973, he directed his first major pornographic film, ‘The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig.’
The film contained extremely violent sexual themes, including rape and bondage. It was financed with assistance from Philadelphia tavern owner and mob associate Salvatore “Sam the Barber” La Russa.
There is evidence of R.C’s criminal history beginning in the 1970s. He pleaded guilty to passing bad checks and was later accused of producing counterfeit money and possessing fake identification.
In 1977, federal authorities raided what was described as his home laboratory and seized equipment allegedly intended for methamphetamine production.
R.C subsequently fled to New Zealand, later returned to the United States and at one point used the alias Richard Harris.
In 1980, R.C. married Myroslawa Anna Ferkuniak in Nevada. In 1981, they had a son they named Eugene. R.C. was still a fugitive at this time. He was captured in 1985 and spent time in prison while Eugene was a young child. He was sentenced to three years in prison at the time.
Anna died in 1989 aged 39 after an accidental overdose of glutethimide and codeine. Glutethimide is an old, non-barbiturate central nervous system depressant that was used to treat insomnia, but it is rarely prescribed today due to high risks of addiction, abuse, and dangerous overdoses.
R.C later spoke about his wife’s death, describing his reaction as anger because he felt she had “left” him with a child to raise.
R.C. and Eugene moved back to Pennsylvania in the 1990s, and they lived in Chalfont. R.C continued his photography and pornography work, increasingly photographing women involved in Philadelphia’s drug scene.
Former classmates recalled Eugene as a very good student, but his father’s occupation was a source of embarrassment.
One former friend later said R.C was considered “creepy” by some of Eugene’s classmates.
According to the Inquirer, in the early 1990’s, R.C hired a teenage girl as a housekeeper. This female was said to be addicted to heroin. Her mother later alleged that R.C wanted to use the girl for pornography.
In 1994, R.C. directed and starred in a film titled ‘Lovers.’ The themes of this movie were again sexual violence and bondage. Over the years, he increasingly portrayed women suffering from addiction in his work.
R.C and the girl we previously mentioned applied for a marriage license in 1999, although they never married.
Around this time, R.C. began photographing women from the Kensington drug scene.
As some info into the area, Kensington was once a major industrial and manufacturing neighbourhood, but as factories closed from the mid-20th century onward, the area experienced severe unemployment, vacant properties and economic decline. Those conditions helped create an environment in which illicit drug markets expanded.
By the 1970s, methamphetamine was being sold in the area. Crack cocaine became prominent in the 1980s, followed by high-purity heroin in the 1990s. Kensington eventually became one of the most significant open-air drug markets in the northeastern United States, with buyers travelling from surrounding areas.
The neighbourhood became particularly associated with heroin and, later, fentanyl. Open-air markets developed around Kensington and Allegheny Avenues and along abandoned railroad corridors. In 2017, the city cleared a large encampment along railroad tracks that had become an open-air drug market and shooting-gallery area.
R.C. was said to offer the women from Kensington money or drugs in exchange for nude photos and videos. He eventually created an erotic website containing photographs and videos featuring women, including material depicting drug use and simulated violence.
Between 1999 and 2003, Eugene attended Drexel University. According to the Inquirer, he did not officially graduate.
In 2003, Eugene had been drinking and driving. He ran a red light and crashed into another vehicle. The other driver suffered a catastrophic brain injury and would pass away years later after being in a vegetative state the whole time.
In 2004, Eugene pleaded guilty to DUI and aggravated assault. He received a 2-4 year prison sentence. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that he was released in 2006, meaning he served roughly two years, at the minimum end of his sentence.
In 2004, R.C. inherited the ‘House of Horrors’ from his aunt. The address of the property is 417 W. Chew Avenue in Philadelphia’s Olney neighbourhood.
That same year, R.C. married Amy McHale. They divorced in September 2008. Amy will eventually become an important part of this case and we will get into more about her as this develops chronologically.
According to ABC7NY, R.C. lived in the Chalfont house until 2009. He was arrested after a marijuana grow was discovered in the basement. Dave Speldos was a contractor working for Defuso Property Preservation in Berks County at the time. The company was engaged to make foreclosed houses safe enough to be resold.
“The whole purpose of property preservation is to take bank-owned assets that are foreclosed on, secure them, and basically make it so that the house could be resold,” Dave said.
Dave said the home wasn’t only filthy; it was sickening. He was tasked with securing the property and cleaning it. But first, he had to photograph it to protect from liability.
“One of our biggest jobs was to make sure everything was photographed before and after,” he said. “Every room needed to be shown in a way that you could deter any liabilities.”
He photographed piles of wigs and women’s underwear, a box of sex toys, and mannequins that were anatomically correct.
He said what he found most disturbing was a plaster mold of a body, with a knife in the back.
He said there was one feature of the basement that stood out to him.
“A kind of old and in disrepair vault door, almost like a panic room. It was a full-size vault that you could almost walk in,” Dave explained.
In 2012, a woman named Gabrielle Amarando (22) disappeared from Philadelphia. A childhood friend of Gabrielle’s told Action News that loved ones grew increasingly concerned when they stopped hearing from her.
“She was a wonderful soul. She really was,” said Ashley Levin. “Drug addiction and mental health can take people to some really terrible places, but that doesn’t define that person. Gabby was just, she’s so much more than that.”
In 2014, Eugene was convicted of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance and was sentenced to another two to four years in prison.
In 2016, R.C’s former wife, Amy McHale, disappeared. She was last seen at the Chew property in June 2016. According to the Charley Project, Amy and R.C. had remained on friendly terms since their divorce. Amy suffered from addiction and substance abuse issues, and R.C would allow her to use in the Chew property.
The night before her disappearance, McHale called her daughter in an intoxicated state and said she was on her way home. Her daughter told her stay at Raymond’s because she was too drunk to safely take the subway home. The next morning, McHale called her daughter and left a message saying she was at Raymond’s house and was okay.
She has never been heard from again. When asked about her disappearance, Raymond said he and McHale had been drinking vodka together and eventually he went to bed, and when he woke up she gone.
Empathy – The Memoir of an Empathetic Serial Killer was released by R.C. in 2014.
“I’m a murderer … a caring, compassionate, empathetic serial killer,” the lead character of Philadelphia-based pornographer “RC” Horsch’s self-published novel, Empathy, confesses.
The book vividly describes a woman being dosed with drugs, chained to a bed – and choked to death.
R.C. wrote in Empathy of a killer who sought out drug-addicted women to “end their suffering”.
The book also describes using strong caustic soda (lye) to dissolve a body in a basement: “The roiling liquid turns brown and opaque and her defleshed, leering skull sinks out of sight.”
The resulting sludge is dumped into a household storm drain.
In 2018, Maribel Fresses (27) disappeared in Philadelphia. Maribel was last seen at her boyfriend’s home in Kensington in either June or July 2018.
Nicola Fusaro (27) also disappeared in 2018. She was last seen near Kensington and Allegheny Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 9:00 p.m. on July 19, 2018. Nicole was said to struggle with addiction at the time.
In 2020, a photo of a woman was uploaded by R.C onto his erotic website. This woman was shown with a black eye and blood around her mouth. The woman in the photo was later identified as Blair Tonzelli.
R.C met Blair in 2020 in Kensington. By 2023, Blair had been reported as missing. She was last seen in August 2022.
She was supposed to meet up with friends one afternoon, but never showed up, and she has never been heard from again. She frequented the neighborhood of Kensington, struggled with opioid addiction and had been arrested for drug and prostitution charges.
At the time of her disappearance, she associated with a man named “Raymond” who lived in the neighborhood of Olney and sold marijuana. She would drop out of sight to go see him, then return home eventually. After her trip to see “Raymond” in August 2022, she never returned home. As Tonzelli was estranged from her family, her friends reported her missing in February 2023 after months passed without contact.
In May 2025, at the age of 82, R.C. died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
In August 2025, a woman named Krista Killen died from an overdose at the age of 47. Krista had lived at the Chew house for a time with R.C. and Eugene. She had appeared in R.C.’s erotic material. Friends of Krista’s told the media that she considered R.C. to be a protector and that she was frightened of Eugene.
Her friends allege that there was an incident in which Eugene broke into Krista’s room carrying a gun and threatened her. R.C. apparently intervened and calmed the situation.
In November 2025, Eugene was again convicted of possession with intent to distribute, and was sentenced to more than a year in prison and three years of probation.
Just over a year after this father died, Eugene was stopped by authorities in June 2026. On June 19, a federal park ranger encountered Eugene near the Independence Mall in Philadelphia. He was in an illegally parked BMW with a distressed female.
The woman was said to be in the backseat and when she was questioned by authorities she said ‘He’s going to hurt me.’
“When he’s addressing the occupants, he hears what he believes the female to say, ‘you’re going to hurt me,'” said Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore.
Eugene was in the driver’s seat and was said to have sores on his arm and face. Officers said this is common among illegal drug users.
The woman produced an identification card with the name Blair Tonzelli on it. The photo was of the woman in the vehicle, not of Blair, the missing woman.
The woman told investigators that Eugene had given her Blair’s ID to use.
The woman in the car also appeared to have sores on her body and was “moving in a twitchy and agitated manner consistent with illegal stimulant drug use,” according to a complaint.
When the vehicle was searched, authorities found $US8000 in illegal drugs, including crack cocaine and heroin. There were two guns with their serial numbers removed, a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) badge and a DEA identification card bearing Eugene’s photo.
This incident led authorities to search the Chew house and the house of horrors began to unfold. Since June 2026 to now, end of September 2026, authorities have searched at least 95 search warrants at the home.
“I’m not going to get into exactly what I saw. It’s dark,” Philadelphia Police Inspector Ray Evers told media when first detailing the case.
“It’s real dark.”
A press conference was held on June 26, 2026. Chemicals, ammo and drugs had been found inside the Chew property.
in the city’s Olney neighborhood.
The items in the basement included a 55-gallon drum and connections to water lines. Vanore called it a “strange setup.”
Officials say the sheer quantity of chemicals found on the property raised red flags.
“Some of these chemicals, if they were to be put together and obviously ignited, they could cause some hazards,” Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said.
He said at that point, no human remains had been found. “We’re going to further search,” he said. “There’s a sump pump that looks like a hole in the ground, but there’s no bodies. I don’t have any bodies.”
“This is not like a TV show where you go to the commercial, come back and everything’s done,” Vanore said.
Documents obtained by Action News show that zip ties, as well as a handwritten note that mentions serial killer Ted Bundy, as well as ways to dispose of trash, were discovered at the home.
Authorities say the note didn’t have a signature.
On July 9, 2026, Eugene was indicted on federal charges for being a convicted felon in possession of guns, including one with an obliterated serial number, as well as being in possession of fake DEA and FBI credentials.
Police entered the home in August to find a second illegal gun, gun parts, narcotics and a marijuana crop worth $US280,000.
There was also another badge. This time, it identified Eugene’s face as that of a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent.
There they found a “homemade laboratory”, five cremation urns and 20 large containers of corrosive chemicals.
One of the urns carries Raymond “RC” Horsch’s name.
There was also a large selection of manuscripts, along with a collection of digital devices, including a phone, video and photographic cameras, computers, digital-video records, hard drives and flash drives.
We have mentioned that R.C was a pornographer so some of this was to be expected.
But on August 12, police said they had recovered approximately 600,000 images and 70,000 videos from hard drives found at the residence, including images from inside the Chew Ave. home that appear to show two women dead.
“Based on the video and photo evidence, if the images in the video are real and not altered in any way, based on their review, the M.E. would believe the individuals depicted in the images are deceased,” said Philadelphia Police Inspector Ray Evers.
They were identified as Gabrielle Amarando and Maribel Fresses.
“It’s dark. It’s real dark. What we saw is these two girls alive, there is a period of time, and what appears to us they are deceased,” Evers said.
On September 10, 2026, sources said that investigators recovered video that allegedly shows R.C, strangling a woman to death. A few days later, it was revealed that authorities believe the woman in the video is Nicole Fusaro.
By September 16, seven missing women had been linked to the case.
1. Gabrielle Amarando
Missing since 2012.
2. Amy McHale
Last seen at the Chew Avenue house in 2016.
3. Maribel Fresses
Missing since 2018.
4. Nicole Fusaro
Missing since 2018.
5. Blair Tonzelli
Missing since 2023.
Two additional women
Police say two other missing women appear in the digital evidence, but their names have not been publicly released.
We have now learned that more than ONE MILLION digital images and videos have been recovered from the home and scene. More than 58 people have been identified in the material. Some have been located and have spoken to police.
Others have been identified but have declined to cooperate. “There were also three people that called that said ‘you’re going to see images of us, but we’re not coming in to talk to you, and we’re not coming back’,” Vanore added.
Police also said approximately 10 people seen in the material subsequently died from overdoses, although those deaths occurred elsewhere and police did not say they were connected to the Chew Avenue property.
Police have said that at least five women are seen lifeless, injured and possibly dead in the images. Metadata suggests that one of the videos was recorded around 2017.
Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore further detailed one of the videos.
It reportedly shows R.C. in a bedroom with a young woman.
“Both are not wearing clothing,” he explained.
“There’s two separate cameras: one he’s controlling, and one that’s affixed somewhere in the bedroom where they’re at.”
The woman is given narcotics.
“She is then given money by Mr Horsch, and then affixed to the bed with handcuffs by him,” Commissioner Vanore adds.
“At some point during this, using a channel-lock tool of some kind, he puts a zip tie around her neck. And she becomes unconscious on that video. [She] appeared to be lifeless at that time.
“But it’s just appearing that way. I’ve got to caution you and emphasise: we did never recover a body here.”
Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore has said investigators believe some material could be real, while other material could be “playacting.”
As of September 23, 2026, Philadelphia police, the homicide unit and special-victims unit, with the help of the FBI, had managed to review just 30 per cent of the recovered data.
Eugene remains in custody on firearms and drug-related charges.
His lawyer, Jerome Brown, rejects any link between his client and the missing women.
“We categorically deny that Eugene Horsch is a serial killer,” Mr Brown told US media Saturday.
“He was incarcerated from some point in 2013 through 2017, during which period we know at least one person, Amy McHale, went missing,” his lawyer argued.
Eugene’s lawyer says police have no case against him: “As far as whether anyone living at that house was a serial killer, there’s zero evidence right now that anyone was killed at that location except for videos which might show merely staged killings.”
A huge search is planned of the Chew property in the next days and weeks. Residents, police, and elected officials got together just today to discuss how the search is going to play out.
“You’re going to see a lot of equipment,” Philadelphia Police Homicide Unit Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom said.
Inspector Ransom also told the crowd of about 100 inside the Olney Baptist Church that there could be a large police presence around the home on Monday and Tuesday this coming week. He said there would be street closures — mostly during daytime hours — and parking restrictions through Oct. 16. He also said that residents would still be allowed in and out of their homes, but cars that weren’t moved during the restricted hours would be towed to a neighboring street.
“We will not be ticketing cars,” he said.
Inspector Ransom said fliers would be posted in the neighborhood before Oct. 5 with more details about the parking restrictions.
“It’s going to be a large project,” Ransom said.
“I do wanna say to you, just for the purpose of being able to manage expectations, think in your mind that this is probably gonna be the month of October,” First Deputy Commissioner John Stanford said. “This is still a very active and ongoing investigation.”
Residents were also apprehensive about the “lore” surrounding the case, both locally and beyond, telling police that “TikTokers” are coming to take photos and videos of the Horsch home.
“You have the social media folks, people on YouTube-ers, just coming and taking photos and what not,” resident Sarah Duncan said. “That can be a disruption and alarm some of the kids.”
Commissioner Stanford said residents should expect to see a cruiser stationed outside the property indefinitely.
This is a developing story and this blog will be updated as information is released.
SOURCE LIST
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._C._H%C3%B6rsch
https://www.inquirer.com/news/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-missing-women-20260804.html
https://www.inquirer.com/news/raymond-horsch-olney-missing-women-psych-exam-20260903.html
https://6abc.com/post/exclusive-photos-show-inside-rc-horschs-chalfont-pa-home-2010/19859459
https://www.inquirer.com/news/olney-raymond-horsch-chew-avenue-house-police-activity-20260927.html