A historic wave of departures at the CIA and deep cutbacks at the Office of Personnel Management are swamping the spy agency’s retirement system, leaving former spies with monthslong waits to get their first pension check, according to former intelligence officials and internal agency messages.
While precise numbers are classified, current and former officials say the pace of retirements and resignations from the CIA outstrips anything in recent memory. They are being fueled in part by President Donald Trump’s push to shrink the federal government, including deferred resignations offered to workers last year.
The CIA, in a recent note to alumni, acknowledged the problem and pleaded for patience.
“The Retirement Branch is currently processing an unprecedented number of retirement cases, and is working diligently around the clock to expedite these cases,” the note said. “We appreciate your understanding and patience as we navigate this challenging period. Rest assured that our team is committed to processing your annuity payments as efficiently as possible.”
It gave retirees two toll-free numbers to call if more than six months had passed since they’d received their final paycheck.
One former official said she recently spoke to a colleague who retired in March and had just received their first, partial retirement check.
“The question is how do you pay for your mortgage, and how do you pay for your kids’ college,” the former official said.
As CIA workers prepare to retire, they are eligible to take a one-week, in-house seminar called “Horizons” that is meant to help them navigate life outside the spy agency’s cloistered halls — like how to prepare a job-hunting resumé that doesn’t disclose classified information.
Lately, those in the seminar are being told they may not see their first full retirement check for up to nine months, or longer, after they depart the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Va.
The retirement crush mirrors trends across the federal government, where, data show, there are unprecedented numbers of people leaving, creating lengthy delays in retirees receiving their benefits. Last year, there were more than 330,000 departures, most of which were voluntary.
The situation is particularly poignant at the CIA, where officers often serve in danger zones, rarely receive public recognition and share a culture of not complaining publicly outside the spy agency’s walls.
CIA officers who until recently recruited agents, prepared classified reports on world crises or developed high-tech espionage tools are feeling the squeeze, said the former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal CIA dynamics.
“If military retirees were told they had to wait a year or more for earned pension benefits, Washington would be apoplectic. Intelligence officers serve in the shadows, and their discretion should not become a shield for institutional failure,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the issue.
“If agency and congressional leaders were not aware of this problem before, they are now,” he said.
In response to the crunch, the CIA has surged personnel to the Retirement Branch, including people with experience with that work.
“CIA is committed to ensuring that retired officers who dedicated their careers to our mission receive their hard-earned benefits as quickly as possible,” a CIA spokesperson said in response to questions from the Post.
“Under Director [John] Ratcliffe, CIA is focused on returning the Agency to its mission of recruiting spies, and recently hired our largest class of operations officers in two decades,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
President Donald Trump and CIA Director John Ratcliffe at Camp David last month.Nathan Howard
The size of the CIA’s workforce and the number of employees who have left since the start of Trump’s second term are classified. Overall, the CIA workforce was believed to be about 22,000 in early 2025, U.S. officials said. Many hundreds of people — perhaps more than 1,000 — have since left, one of the former officials estimated.
Some former officials describe the agency’s downsizing as the largest since the CIA was significantly cut back in the early 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
In May 2025, the Trump administration told Congress it planned to reduce the CIA workforce by 1,200 over several years, mostly through attrition and reduced hiring. Agency workers were among the tens of thousands of federal employees who took a deferred resignation package the Trump administration offered to shrink the government’s ranks. Others simply decided it was time to leave.
Administrators responsible for processing retirement requests are among those who have left, worsening the crunch, said two former intelligence officials.
Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, speaks to reporters on June 11.J. Scott Applewhite
“The men and women of the CIA protect our country and make Americans safer every day, often without any acknowledgment or recognition,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The least our government can do is ensure they receive the benefits they deserve when they decide to leave.”
“Again and again, this administration has mistreated our public servants, including those in the CIA. And whether it’s incompetence or disrespect that is creating the delay, the administration needs to figure out how to fix it,” Warner said.
Some CIA officers have pulled back their retirement requests because they can’t afford to go long periods without being paid, one of the former officials said. Others are falling back on savings or taking out second mortgages to cover the gap.
“Start looking now, hoard cash, plan for a longer period of time” before receiving retirement pay, said a retired CIA official who left last fall. “More thoughtfully and aggressively pursue jobs before you leave.”
The official said it took four to five months before he was paid for unused annual leave — a sum that can be substantial for some retirees — and another month after that before he saw his first retirement check.
The CIA has a tradition of treating its retirees well, former officials said. Among the reasons: Angry ex-employees with heads full of secrets are a target for adversary intelligence services. “We are creating a massive [counterintelligence] risk,” said the official who left last fall.
Like other federal officials, former CIA officers are banned from taking certain jobs for a set period after retirement, such as lobbying on issues they handled while in government or working for foreign governments.
CIA retirement packages are initially handled within the agency, which can take several months. Retirees are given an estimate of what their benefits will be.
Many factors can complicate the process. Departing officials may have served undercover, using a different identity; spent time in the U.S. military or at another intelligence agency; or have a spouse who also worked at the CIA.
Once completed, the packages are transmitted to the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources agency. Before the cases are finalized, OPM issues interim payments to retirees that are typically 60 to 80% of their eventual checks. The government eventually makes up the difference.
John Hatton, staff vice president of policy and programs at the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, said there is no legal recourse for retirees who want to get their benefits sooner, and the government will not owe interest for delayed payments.
“It’s a tough situation,” he said.
The OPM’s workforce declined by a third, from just over 3,000 in fiscal year 2024 to 1,980 in fiscal 2026, according to the agency’s data. Though the OPM expanded the main office responsible for retirement services to handle the wave of departures, the team still shrank by 16%, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
OPM data show it is taking longer on average for the agency to process retirement claims, from 79 days in October 2025 to 109 days in July.
In between his shifts as a guard at the State Correctional Institute at Chester, David Lemmon sent multiple child pornography videos to users on an encrypted messaging app, according to court documents obtained Thursday by The Inquirer.
After sending one video involving a girl that appeared to be between 5- and 7-years-old performing a sex act on an adult man, Lemmon, 45, bragged about his collection, the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest said.
“I have quite a bit I can share,” he told an unidentified person in a June 12 conversation.
Lemmon, of Clifton Heights, was charged last week with more than 100 counts of possessing and distributing child pornography after detectives in the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Arik Benari, whose law firm is representing Lemmon, declined to comment Thursday. Lemmon, who was freed after posting $10,000 bail after his arrest, did not respond to a request for comment.
The investigation into Lemmon began in March, after county detectives received the tip that an IP address connected to Lemmon’s email had uploaded a video to Snapchat of an adult man sexually assaulting a girl between 3 and 6-years-old, according to the affidavit.
Detectives served a search warrant on Lemmon’s cell phone in June, and found nearly 190 child pornography files on the device.
The warrant also showed Lemmon had been sending some of those files through Session, an end-to-end encrypted messaging application that detectives said is commonly used to share child pornography, the affidavit said.
Within those chat logs, Lemmon also discussed having sex with another user who told him she was 17, the affidavit said. Detectives noted that Lemmon “sent more [child pornography] than he was receiving.”
Maria A. Bivens, press secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, said Lemmon has not worked at SCI Chester since his arrest last week, and that the department is moving to suspend him.
Lemmon is scheduled to appear before a district judge for a preliminary hearing on Sept. 24.
Think you know your news? There’s only one way to find out. Welcome back to our weekly News Quiz — a quick way to see if your reading habits are sinking in and to put your local news knowledge to the test.
Question 1 of 10
What’s SEPTA’s name for its new bus route changes and updates?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
This weekend, the region’s transit agency will roll out the first phase of its New Bus Network, the bus system’s first significant update since the agency was formed in the 1960s. Once dubbed Bus Revolution, the project began in 2021 after transit agencies around the country saw massive declines in ridership. SEPTA’s Bus Revolution was set to launch in 2025 but faced significant community pushback and coincided with the state funding crisis that halted many planned transit initiatives. Two years after being shelved, a slimmed-down version of the plan has a new name and a new approach.
Question 2 of 10
In an interview with Kevin and Michael Bacon about their Philly roots, Kevin revealed he indulges in this treat, which he’ll snag at Wawa, every time he’s in town.
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
“I go to Wawa and get a Tastykake Jelly Krimpet,” Kevin said. “The secret to eating a Jelly Krimpet is you delicately peel back the cookie dough, and extract a jelly ball. You actually hold the jelly ball in your hand, and pop it in your mouth. And then you can eat the rest of it.”
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Question 3 of 10
A small town in this state will attempt to break Philly’s record for the world’s longest cheesesteak on Sunday:
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
The bad news: Lewiston, Idaho, is coming for Philly’s newly established “longest cheesesteak” world record. The good news: It’s an unofficial attempt — preserving Philly’s Guinness honor — and the proceeds are going to charity, which is kind of hard to bash.
Question 4 of 10
Viral French musician Plumes, known for serenading wild animals around the world, took his talents to the Philadelphia Zoo. When he first arrived in the city on Tuesday, he greeted these animals first with a tune:
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
He visited the zoo Tuesday — after running up the Rocky steps — and serenaded the tortoises ahead of sessions on Thursday and Friday, where he played for other animals.
Question 5 of 10
Crossing Broad reported that this store was keeping LeBron James jerseys behind the counter to avoid theft. But store managers told The Inquirer that wasn’t the case:
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
A representative from the Dick’s Sporting Goods corporate offices, located in Coraopolis, Pa., confirmed that no jerseys were reported stolen. Jerseys were initially kept behind the checkout to boost sales, but are in the process of being moved to the floor. Some stores already have them on the floor.
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What is being proposed to replace the current site of the Walnut Gardens beer garden on Walnut Street and the previous site of three historic buildings demolished after fire damage?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
The proposed building is a two-story retail site with a roof deck. The property is owned by the Gridmark Group, which was founded by Ari Weber, a Brooklyn-based real estate investor. The building is being designed by Philadelphia-based JKRP Architects. After Weber acquired the property, he said he eventually planned to build a 30-story apartment building on the site. Now he has decided that conditions are not favorable for such a large-scale project.
Question 7 of 10
This local journalist’s likeness is at the center of an ongoing catfishing scheme, emailing authors and other personalities about being interviewed on their show — for a fee:
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
A recent string of scams and catfish-style attempts, targeting stars and other media personalities, are using Philly’s own Terry Gross as the bait. Writer Bruce Vilanch says he was the latest victim. WHYY says it’s investigating.
Question 8 of 10
Philly is one of three finalist cities to host the 2028 Democratic National Convention. What are the other two?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
In addition to Philadelphia, the Democratic National Committee said it is also considering Denver and Boston on its narrowed short list of cities to hold the next presidential nominating convention. The announcement means that Atlanta and Chicago, which were on a previous list of five potential host cities, have been eliminated from contention.
Question 9 of 10
A new food vendor is replacing Poe’s at Human Robot’s Kensington and Brewerytown locations. Who is it?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Poe’s will be replaced by Cantina La Martina, the acclaimed Mexican restaurant from James Beard-nominated chef Dionicio Jimenez and his wife, Mariangeli Alicea Saez. The move is both an expansion of the couple’s relationship with Human Robot — Cantina La Martina has been serving brunch, tacos, and enchiladas at the brewer’s Jenkintown location since 2024 — and a homecoming.
Question 10 of 10
Which local university will, for the first time, require most freshmen students to live on campus for the 2027-28 school year?
CorrectIncorrect. XX% of other readers got this question right.
Temple University will require freshmen under the age of 21 to live on campus, with certain exceptions for students living locally with parents or guardians and others facing financial hardship. The university’s decision comes as the school makes an effort to improve the first-year experience and stem a declining retention rate. It’s a significant change for a university that for much of its history was largely a commuter school and only transitioned to a major research university with an on-campus living community in recent decades.
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In the early hours of a summer Sunday morning, vapors snuck out of an overfilled oil storage tank and snaked through the hulking Gulf Oil Refinery smeared along the Schuylkill in Southwest Philly.
What happened next was so destructive, and so deadly,it was assigned a chilling and haunting label: “Refinery Holocaust.”
The overfilled storage tank, which at the time was being filled from a Venezuelan tanker, contained more than 70,000 barrels when the fire started.
The explosion at the sprawling refinery Gulf called Girard Point drew a massive response from local fire departments.
Teams coated the oil-slicked flames with firefighting foam, and the six-alarm blaze was declared under control just before 9 a.m.
Eight hours later, a second explosion rocked the refinery, spreading to more storage tanks and sending racing flames through waist-deep pools of water mixed with oil and chemicals and engulfing a group of firefighters standing in those pools.
The second explosion elevated the inferno to 11 alarms.
Ruin and ashes
Under thick clouds of charcoal-gray smoke a day later, three Gulf employees steered a rowboat over the toxic pools to shut off a valve that was spewing liquid naphtha. The highly flammable chemical used in the refining process was fueling the last fire, and the last dangerous threat.
On Aug. 26, nine days after the escaped vapor silently swept through the refinery and ignited a blaze that wreaked $10 million (or more than $60 million today) in damage, the last of the flames were finally and fully extinguished.
The Daily News noted that the occasion was celebrated by those in attendance with cigars and watermelon.
Investigators ultimately concluded that inattentive employees had let the tanks overfill, and the buildup of flammable vapors ultimately led to the explosions. The city cited and fined the corporation for code violations.
Many large storage tanks, the refinery’s office building, and an assortment of pipelines and processing units were wiped out.
Six firefighters died at the scene, two others succumbed later to severe burns, and more than 30 were injured — two critically — in what is considered one of the deadliest days in the department’s history.
“The tanks, the line — maybe you can replace them,” Bill Zahner, then a Gulf fire safety man, told the Daily News in 1975, “but the bodies you just can’t replace.”
CUMBERLAND COUNTY, N.J. — Taxidermy and weathered photos line the walls at Higbee’s Bait and Tackle in Fortescue, artifacts from bygone days when the sleepy Delaware Bay town was truly the “weakfish capital of the world.”
The taxidermy is a dusty, 12-pound “tide runner,” the nickname fishermen bestow on the biggest, trophy weakfish, a member of the drum family with a tan, often iridescent body and a reputation for fighting hard on a fishing line. The black-and-white photo shows a single fisherman standing beside his catch, about 30 weakfish of various sizes.
Tide runners are unicorns today, a rarity on New Jersey coasts and across the bay, in Delaware. Catch limits enacted by state fisheries would prevent a single fisherman from catching dozens of fish today, though most would be happy with one legal keeper they could fry up in lemon and butter.
Fishermen have plenty of theories about where all the weakfish have gone. They blame dolphins and dogfish for gobbling up the young; nuclear power plants; the rise of other popular game fish, like striped bass; and offshore seafood trawlers.
Some are introspective.
“I’ll be real honest. It’s us. Back in the day, in the ’80s, we fished these things so hard,” said Mike Rothman, captain of the Bonanza II, a 65-foot charter boat out of Fortescue. “We did it to ourselves, and I’m the first one that — 100% — we did this to ourselves.”
A weakfish hangs on the wall of Higbee’s Bait and Tackle located at the Higbee Marina on Monday, Aug., 3, 2026. Once known as the “Weakfish capital of the world,” locals are curious where the fish has gone.Tim Hawk / For The Inquirer
Jessica Gorzo, a scientist with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, who’s studied weakfish, said the population has been on the decline since the mid-2000s. She said the decline over those two decades is the result of natural mortality from predators, not fishing.
“The prevailing thought is the majority of predation is likely dolphins, offshore, in the winter. It’s estimated that 55% of the mortality can be attributed to dolphins,” Gorzo said. “Coming in second, a far second at 21%, is attributed to striped bass, but the dolphins are taking the lion’s share.”
Like all things under the sea, however, there’s a degree of mystery involved in spawning stock estimates. Gorzo said weakfish spawning stock estimates, in 2017, were 1,922 metric tons, which was a low number.
“To have a healthy weakfish population, the spawning stock threshold would be 6,170 metric tons,” she said.
The Marine Mammal Protection Act protects dolphins, and most fishermen and beachgoers agree their populations have grown along the Jersey coast in the summer for decades.
“More than ever,” said Joseph LoBianco, owner of Cape May Bait & Tackle. “When I go out on the Delaware Bay, I see them year-round. They are here all the time, and they’re eating a lot of the smaller fish.”
‘I would’ve released all those tide runners’
In 2010, New Jersey tightened weakfish regulations, allowing fishermen to keep just one fish, 13 inches or longer, per day, but many said it was too late to stop the population free fall.
“Back in the day, you were allowed to keep 15 fish per fisherman,” Rothman said.
Mike Rothman looks at a picture of weakfish, from 1920, that hangs on the wall of Higbee’s Bait and Tackle located at the Higbee Marina, Monday, Aug., 3, 2026. Once known as the “weakfish capital of the world,” locals are curious where the fish has gone.Tim Hawk / For The Inquirer
Gorzo said tight regulations on weakfish should result in a comeback. That’s what happened with striped bass, arguably the most popular sport fish along the Jersey Shore, a species that seems more abundant today than it was decades ago.
“Striped bass do seem to be doing really well,” she said.
Striped bass are also voracious and grow large enough to swallow bigger weakfish.
“They are the vacuum cleaners of the ocean,” Rothman said of striped bass.
In May, Gorzo appeared on the Finnsylvania podcast to discuss the decline of weakfish. The episode was titled “The Ghosts of Cape May,” another longtime weakfish destination for anglers. Host James Suleski reminisced about catching them during childhood summers there.
“They were just so abundant,” Suleski said.
Suleski, in his podcast, described the population collapse as one of the biggest mysteries in marine biology.
Around the same time the episode was released, avid fisherman Frank Ruczynski posted on Facebook, reminiscing about Fortescue’s claim to be the “weakfish capital of the world.” It received close to 700 likes and 200 comments, many of which discussed theories or dismissed the issue.
“They are probably cyclical like many species,” one man wrote.
Another said you could almost walk across the backs of weakfish in the bay at one time.
“If I would’ve known, I would’ve released all those tide runners,” another wrote.
Weakfish caught by New Jersey angler Frank Ruczynski.Frank Ruczynski
Ruczynski, who also works for NJDEP, said 2026 was especially bad for him.
“Overall, I think it’s a mix of 100 different things going on,” he said in May, in Fortescue. “They just disappeared. It’s a shell of what we had here, back in the day.”
Ruczynski said he’s followed weakfish north, up into Cape May County and even into New York, and he wondered whether water temperatures were prompting the species to move. He said he received a message from a man in Portugal — straight east from New Jersey — who claimed that he caught a weakfish there.
Weakfish caught by New Jersey angler Frank Ruczynski.Frank Ruczynski
Rothman, the mayor of Downe Township, which includes Fortescue, said he can take customers out and still catch weakfish, but he relies on other species, or whale and dolphin sightseeing, and even dinner cruises, for the bulk of his business.
“I’m in the entertainment business these days,” he said.
Fortescue has never been bustling as far as Shore towns go. There are no traffic lights, few businesses, and plenty of biting greenhead flies. Fishermen will always go there, but the loss of the weakfish gives it a bit of a ghost-town feel at times.
“We had a world-class fishery here, right in our backyard,” Ruczynski said.
Across the road from Rothman’s boat, at the tackle shop, owner Cliff Higbee Sr. said there were far larger weakfish in the Delaware Bay than the taxidermy on his wall.
“We had 16-, 17-pounders in here,” he said. “Used to at least.”
Higbee isn’t waiting for the tide runners to return, though. The family tackle shop is for sale for just under $400,000.
Cliff Higbee Sr. owner of Higbee’s Bait and Tackle located at the Higbee Marina, talks about the lack of weakfish, Monday, Aug., 3, 2026. Once known as the “Weakfish capital of the world,” locals are curious where the fish has gone.Tim Hawk / For The Inquirer
A shuttered veterinarian’s office in Wayne may become the new site of a local courthouse.
Radnor Township has set its sights on purchasing 405 W. Wayne Ave., the former home of St. George Hunt Memorial Veterinary Hospital, for $1.45 millionand converting the building into its magisterial districtcourt.
The building would be owned by the township and leased back to Delaware County, which pays for and operates the county’s 30 district courts. District courts are the first level in Pennsylvania’s state court system and typically handle traffic cases, minor criminal cases, and civil cases involving amounts up to $12,000.
Radnor’s district court cases were previously split between Marple and Newtown Townships, meaning Radnor residents looking to challenge a speeding ticket or sue a faulty contractor would have to do their legal business in another town. Three years ago, a realignment of the court once again gave Radnor its own court, but a struggle to find a home has forced Radnor’s court proceedings to take place in Newtown Square.
Radnor’s district judge is Sloan Walker.
Officials said bringing Radnor’s district court home would make hearings more convenient for residents and law enforcement officers, would save the police department on gas and overtime expenditures, and would, the next time court realignment occurs, send a message to the state that Radnor should retain its own court.
“Eventually there’s going to be pressure, some other district is going to want a judge, and when the Supreme Court looks at Radnor and we haven’t had a magistrate in Radnor for 15 years, they’re going to say, ‘Well, they don’t really want one,’” Township Commissioner Jack Larkin told attendees at a July meeting, warning of the consequences of continuing to hold Radnor’s legal proceedings in Newtown Square.
Why is Radnor’s district court judge still sitting in Newtown Square? The cash-strapped county has been unable to afford the high cost of renting a space in Radnor, Larkin said.
Officials said they looked far and wide for commercial space in the township that would fit the court’s needs. Though “there are other places that are probably better locations” in the township, Larkin said, the Wayne Avenue site is already zoned for commercial use, has ample parking, is within the county’s price range, and is, most importantly, available.
Under the proposal, officials say, the county would pay the township back for the cost of purchasing the building and retrofitting it as a courthouse over the course of 10 years.
Township Commissioner Moira Mulroney said Radnor has “exhausted every option” during its three-year search.
At a meeting this week, residents pleaded with the commissioners to find another location for the court, citing concerns over traffic, parking, and the safety of having court proceedings happening in a neighborhood full of children.
“Respectfully, this is a square peg going in a round hole,” resident Jason Bologna said. “This is a court that is being put into a residential neighborhood, and that is not appropriate for our neighborhood.”
Diane Edbril, another resident, said the commissioners’ proposal is “an idiotic solution” and “ridiculous.”
“I am absolutely terrified by the idea of shackles and handcuffs in my backyard. I don’t think that that should be in anybody’s backyard,” resident Marciana Bradley said.
Larkin told residents that it is “incredibly early in the process” and that there will be a “lot of opportunities for feedback.”
In order to move the court into the old vet building, the township board of commissioners would need to approve and finalize the sale, and the county would need to agree to a lease price.
Radnor Township is planning to hold a public meeting in September, where residents will be able to ask questions and learn more about the district court.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
In September 2023, seven months after Blair Tonzelli was reported missing, a nude photograph of her appeared prominently on a local pornographer’s website.
She is staring at the camera, with what appears to be a black eye and blood running down her lower lip.
While it is unclear when it was taken, Raymond “R.C.” Horsch first uploaded the picture to his website’s homepage around 2020, sometime after he had met Tonzelli in Kensington, and he used it as one of several lead images on the site for years, according to archived website data reviewed by The Inquirer.
Horsch’s website is now inactive. But it was up and running when Tonzelli’s friends reported her missing in February 2023, telling officers she was last seen at Horsch’s home the previous summer.
Police have not said whether officers ever visited the home or interviewed Horsch about her disappearance — or if they were aware Tonzelli’s nude photo was featured on his public website. Officers raided the home as part of a drug investigation in May 2025, but investigators in that case did not appear to link the property to any missing women at that time.
A Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.
Tonzelli’s disappearance did not appear to gain attention from law enforcement until June of this year, when police arrested Horsch’s son, Eugene, who was with a woman carrying a fake ID in Tonzelli’s name.
The discovery ignited a two-month search of Horsch’s home, where police unearthed an array of disturbing evidence — including “graphic and dark” photos, videos, and writings on hard drives. Police on Aug. 12 said the footage reviewed so far suggests two other missing women had died inside the property: Maribel Fresses, reported missing in 2018, and Gabrielle Amarando, who went missing in 2012.
Police have found no human remains, and have not said whether Tonzelli was featured in any of the materials on the hard drives. She remains missing.
Tonzelli was 35 when she was reported missing. Her Facebook page states she went to Archbishop Ryan High School. Her family could not be reached for comment.
She is among at least three dozen women, many still unidentified, featured in Horsch’s works. Website data showed his online pages once displayed at least 2,100 unique images spanning decades, though The Inquirer was able to recover only a fraction of them.
Blair Tonzelli, in one of her Facebook posts. Tonzelli was last seen at the Horsch property on West Chew Avenue in 2016.Facebook account of Blair Tonzelli
The elder Horsch died in May 2025 at the age of 82 from lung issues. He was well-known in pornographic and erotic art circles for publishing more than a dozen photo books, films, and novels. Some of Horsch’s writings describe a nearly autobiographical character who is an “empathetic” serial killer, murdering addicts to end their suffering. He built a small following, in part, by leaving viewers wondering what was real or fake.
Vulnerable women, desperate to stay off the streets and out of withdrawal, were often used as props for his violent fantasies as he profited off footage or images of them appearing to be strangled, drowned, hanged, or crucified.
Beneath the rotating photos of gaunt and dazed models, Horsch’s homepage also contained a chilling quote, attributed to him.
“I fear what I love,” he wrote. “And destroy what I fear.”
While Horsch claimed all his scenes were staged and consensual, he openly acknowledged that he recruited women in addiction with cash and drugs to enact his “psychosexual” fantasies.
“Without exception, their singular interest is their drug,” Horsch said in a 2006 interview. “Provide that — or the means — and they will do anything.”
Tonzelli had battled addiction for years, according to her friends. Horsch was in his late 70s when met her in Kensington, while she was living at a known drug house. He later claimed she worked as a “home health aide” before she went missing in August 2022.
The recent search for Tonzelli also led police to reexamine the disappearance of Amy McHale, Horsch’s ex-wife and onetime film collaborator, who was last seen at the family home in 2016.
McHale is also among the women Horsch featured on his website, in films and music videos.
So is Krista Killen, Horsch’s longtime companion, who died of an overdose last year. Killen lived at the Olney house, where she acted in several of Horsch’s publicly released films, on and off for years.
Several other women who cycled through the Olney house died of overdoses. Another woman who appeared in Horsch’s films and photographs overdosed in 2016 and a man was charged after leaving her dead body on the side of the road.
While some photos he took were more conventional erotic portraits, Horsch also published galleries of work on his website that portrayed women as dead or covered in blood. One series — titled “Thanatopsis,” a Greek term for the contemplation of death — shows a woman hanging from a noose. Horsch noted that the series also contained photographs of the real corpses of fatal overdose victims.
In a 2007 interview, Horsch said he focused on people addicted to opioids because he saw their need as a mirror of his own desires for increasingly “extreme” forms of sexual gratification.
“My motivation goes beyond desire and well into the realm of obsession,” Horsch said. “I am very much addicted to sex. And the more I do and the more I experience, the more jaded I become and the greater the stimulation, and extreme, I require. This is an obvious parallel to heroin addiction.”
But Horsch also sought to profit.
A surveillance camera is mounted near a boarded-up second-floor window at the home of Eugene Albert Horsch on West Chew Avenue in the Olney section of Philadelphia as investigators dig for possible evidence on Tuesday, July 21, 2026.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
Through at least 2019, Horsch ran a membership program on his website, with subscription tiers ranging from $3 a day to $20 a year that offered paying customers “unrestricted access” to his photographs and videos.
Other archived images and video reviewed by The Inquirer show that Horsch used his personal website to solicit an escort service from 2017 through 2021, and reviews suggest that clients may have visited the Olney house.
Philadelphia police are in the process of sorting through the trove of digital materials recovered inside the home, and have said they may return to the property to continue searching the premises for evidence connected to the women.
Eugene Horsch, 44, remains in federal custody, charged with illegal gun possession. He has not been charged with any crimes connected to the women’s deaths or disappearances. His lawyer has declined to comment.
Police have declined to say whether they believe the younger Horsch played a role in his father’s business. Still, Inspector Raymond Evers said earlier this month, he resided in the house now linked to at least four missing women and a cache of disturbing documents.
“Eugene lived there,” he said. “He lived there for a long time.”
Like scattered billiard balls, 16 Early Head Start children scampered across a rubber-matted playground in Southwest Philadelphia last week.
Vigilant for tumbles or conflicts, four teachers calmly monitored the 1- and 2-year-olds in their high-energy frolic at an early learning center run by KenCrest, a nonprofit that operates Head Start and other programs in seven neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia.
Head Start’s low ratio of one teacher for every four toddlers is a hallmark of standards for the 61-year-oldfederal program that provides free education, health, nutrition, family support, and daycare services for low-income children from birth to age 5.
But now, advocates say, Head Start risks being eviscerated by changes proposed by the Trump administration.
The vaunted teacher-child ratio, along with other foundational principles that make Head Start unique, is being threatened by plans to “deregulate” the program — overhauling the way it operates by eliminating more than 1,400 regulatory mandates that dictate how the program is administered.
“We could be going to two staff members for 25 toddlers and two for 30 older kids,” said Melanie Brennan, executive director of early learning programs at KenCrest.
“What’ll bathroom time look like?”
The Trump administration defends its proposed changes as the building blocks for a better Head Start, which serves 700,000 low-income children nationwide, including an estimated 7,500 in Philadelphia.
“We are removing unnecessary bureaucracy, strengthening nutrition and physical health, trusting parents and local communities,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose department administers Head Startat the federal level.
That does not ring true to Head Start professionals in Philadelphia.
“It’s laughable to say all they’re trying to do is take away some bureaucracy,” Brennan said. “By ending rules that guide Head Start’s high, uniform standards, the administration’s real goal is to leave the education business.”
In Philadelphia, more than $70 million in federal funding for Head Start goes through the Philadelphia School District, the program’s largest provider in the city, said Diane Castelbuono, the district’s deputy chief for early learning.
KenCrest Director Josie Jones with staff and Early Head Start students.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
The district uses that money to directly operate Head Start programming in more than 60 school buildings, mostly elementary schools, throughout the city, she said. It also works with approved contractors who run Head Start classrooms at approximately 75 childcare sites in Philadelphia, Castelbuono added.
Asked for comment on the proposed changes, the school district said in a statement that the Head Start program has “positively impacted” students and that district officials “remain committed to preserving the robust standards that have proven essential to our program’s success.”
‘Stunned and sad’
While only Congress can repeal the statutory authorization for Head Start, which has an annual budget of about $12 billion, opponents of the Trump administration’s proposal warn the new rules would weaken the program to the point it became unrecognizable — or stopped existing altogether.
The plan, called “Reducing Federal Burden for Head Start Programs,” was released Aug. 7.
Public comment will be accepted until October, when the administration hopes to finalize the rules.
Kush Desai, a spokesperson for the White House, said the changes would enable the government to provide a stronger program that ensures services “are delivered effectively to children and families in need” by reducing “unnecessary administrative burden.”
Advocates who have spent their late-summer vacations reading the complex, nearly 200-page document say they are in the process of marshaling opposition, which they hope will delay or alter the administration’s plans.
“There’s so much to unpack,” said Kara McFalls, executive director of the Pennsylvania Head Start Association in Harrisburg. “We’re checking with experts to see if Head Start becomes gravely harmed.”
Advocates say initial readings of the new rule justify their concerns.
Beyond altering teacher-child ratios, the administration would lower the cap on Head Start administrative program costs from 15% to 5%, which means local programs could spend only up to 5% of their total budget on operational overhead like management, human resources, IT, and administrative salaries.
That would be “devastating,” McFalls said, making it harder for programs to pay staff working in these departments.
An Early Head Start student plays with a doll at KenCrest in Southwest Philadelphia.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
Additionally, the administration would require instruction to be conducted in English only — which could hit several Head Start programs across the city that offer bilingual education.
“That policy would be ridiculous and biased,” said Rachel Sanders, executive director of Your Child’s World Learning Center, which includes Head Start programs in Southwest and Northeast Philadelphia, as well as in West Oak Lane. “Our children speak multiple languages.”
While all primary instruction is in English, Sanders said, children who speak Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, or another language are taught the lessons either by teachers fluent in those languages or by translators brought in to help.She added that 50% of the students in the Northeast location do not speak English on the first day of instruction, but that the additional support helps them eventually learnthe language.
“No way would we ever discontinue translating,” she said.
Under the Trump administration plan, requirements for math and literacy curricula would be removed. Also gone would be stipulations that programs check on whether families have provided their children with immunizations, dental visits, wellness checks, and mental health consultations.
And hygiene training — including the Head Start tradition that children brush their teeth in class — would end.
The proposed changes “left me stunned and sad,” said Chandell Craig-Cromwell, 39, of West Philadelphia, a mother of two Head Start graduates who works in human resources in a city agency.
“This isn’t just education, or babysitting. It’s developmental support,” she said. “I’m upset for all the moms who’ll get this new version of Head Start.”
If the administration alters Head Start so profoundly, said Sharon Wolf, an early education expert at the University of Pennsylvania, she questioned whether the program should still keep its name.
“I fear we could be moving to weakened, ordinary childcare,” she said.“Then, is it Head Start anymore?”
Madison Marino Doan, a policy analyst in the Center for Education Policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, disputed the notion that the administration’s proposal represented an effort to eliminate Head Start.
“The current proposal under consideration is an effort to deregulate the program and give states greater flexibility to design programs that reflect the needs of their communities while maintaining current funding,” she said.
Doan added that Congress should simply end the program — a recommendation made in the foundation’s Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for a second Trump administration.
Some advocates warn the administration’s push to change the program has more to do with ideology than concerns about efficiency.
Tyrone Scott, a director at First Up, a Philadelphia-based early education nonprofit, said he often runs into people who self-identify as conservatives at public forums who say that part of Head Start’s true mission is to “indoctrinate kids with a political ideology that includes ideas like racial justice.”
But, he said, the mission of Head Start is a lot simpler than that.
“It teaches kindness,” he said. “That isn’t a political philosophy.”
Severe storms set off tornado and flood warnings on Thursday in the Philly region, and in some places turned the phrase “rush hour” into an oxymoron.
Intense thunderstorms took down trees and wires in parts of Chester County, and fallen trees blocked portions of heavily traveled Route 322 in Honey Brook, the weather service reported.
Streams came out of their banks, and flash flooded occurred in West Norriton and Lower Providence Townships, in Montgomery County, making “many streets” impassable.
A tornado warning had been issued for portions of Chester and Delaware Counties, but it was not known if a twister was sighted.
About 21,000 Peco customers were without power as of 8 p.m.
All of Philadelphia; areas to the west of the city, including the Main Line; northern Delaware; and in New Jersey along the Delaware River were under a flash-flood warning until 8:45 p.m.
Lines of storms gathered to the west and south of the region during the day with the approach of an eastward-moving front interacting with a volatile, energized atmosphere.
“It’s a pretty juicy air mass,” said Matt Benz, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather Inc. And more juice might be squeezed out of it over the next few days, especially Saturday.
It turns out that the front that set off the storms may return in a repurposed form during the weekend.
Disruptive storms came at a bad time
The storms arrived between 5 and 5:30 p.m. in the immediate Philly area, right when a lot of people likely would have been heading home.
The storms moved quickly, but the downpours were strong enough to set off flash-flood warnings.
The fact that the sun interrupted the afternoon gloom on Thursday didn’t help matters, meteorologists said. On a day when the air was so full of moisture and energy, that was about the last thing they wanted to see.
“It’s ironic, isn’t it,” said Joe Wegman meteorologist with the government’s Weather Prediction Center, in College Park, Md.
The solar heating likely provided a power jolt to an already charged atmosphere.
The outlook for the weekend
If you have outdoor plans Saturday, this is probably something you don’t want to read.
After the front clears the region, Friday should be a decent day, Wegman said.
But it’s likely to migrate back, this time as a warm front, said Wegman. Showers are possible Friday night, and might be tapping into a generous moisture supply on Saturday.
Said Benz, “I wouldn’t throw out the word washout, but it could be pretty wet on Saturday.” Steady rain is possible, as are more downpours Saturday afternoon into the night.
As for Sunday, you guessed it — another chance of showers.
Authorities have identified the pilot of a small plane who died Wednesday after colliding with a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter.
Paul Sokoloski, 57, of Hershey, died in the crash, the Cumberland County Coroner’s Office said Thursday morning.
Sokoloski was an emergency room doctor at Penn State Health, according to the health system, which described him in an emailed statement as a valued member of its team.
“We are focused on supporting Dr. Sokoloski’s loved ones and the members of our care teams who worked alongside him and are grieving his passing,” the statement said.
Sokoloski worked as an emergency physician since 1999, according to his LinkedIn profile. Since 2022, he had worked at three Penn State Health hospitals around Harrisburg and Lancaster. From 2017 through 2021, he was an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine.
The crash happened at Carlisle Airport, a small public-use airport about a half-hour southwest of Harrisburg.
Pennsylvania State Police were conducting a training exercise in a helicopter when it was struck by the Cessna 150 airplane piloted by Sokoloski, state police said Thursday.
“The Cessna 150 was attempting to land when, for an unknown reason, it veered off the north side of the runway and collided with the rear of the PSP helicopter, which was hovering in mid-air,” state police said in a statement.
Sokoloski was the only person in the plane, state police said.
Aaron McCarter, aviation accident investigator with the NTSB, confirmed at a Thursday afternoon briefing that a video clip circulating on social media did capture the collision. The video shows the helicopter hovering above a grassy area when the Cessna veers from the runway path and sheers off the top main rotor blade and the tail blades of the helicopter. The Cessna immediately breaks apart after contact.
A witness saw the Cessna pilot, who was a certified flight instructor, earlier performing maintenance on his plane, McCarter said. The pilot earlier on Wednesday then flew south before returning to Carlisle Airport in the evening.
McCarter said pilots who fly at small airports that do not have control towers, such as Carlisle, use a designated radio frequency known as CTAF, or common traffic advisory frequency.
The pilot of the Cessna, who was a certified flight instructor, “was made aware” of the helicopter’s activity at the airport, McCarter said.
On Friday, crews will transport the wreckage of the plane and the helicopter to a secure hangar in Clayton, Del., where investigators will work to find out “what brought those two vehicles together in such a violent way,” McCarter said.
Two state police troopers in the helicopter, Cpl. Bryce Corman and Trooper Jason Mills, were airlifted to Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, police said.
Corman has since been released, and Mills remained hospitalized in stable condition, police said.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Wednesday night called the injured state police troopers “heroes” and expressed his sympathy to their families.
“They are people who are absolutely essential to the operations of the Pennsylvania State Police, and we are so grateful they are going to be OK,” Shapiro said.
State police, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident, police said.
Staff writer Robert Moran contributed to this article.
