On Monday morning, a gray speckled cat stretched two long paws up the steps of the sepia-toned three-story home at 417 West Chew Ave. Moments later, a man dressed in a white suit gently kicked a blue-bootied foot in its direction.
No unauthorized personnel would be entering the Olney “House of Horrors” anytime soon — feline or otherwise — not on the watch of the FBI and Philadelphia police.
Monday marked the beginning of a fresh week of investigative work inside the home that became known for the drug, sex, and porn enterprise Raymond “R.C.” Horsch ran inside the brick walls. Horsch, who died last year at 82, is now linked to at least seven missing women, and left behind a trove of photos and videos investigators believe show real and staged violence and, possibly, murders.
Police declined to discuss what investigators are looking for, only revealing that law enforcement would be in the area until around mid-October.
However, yellow and red crime tape and police cars around the perimeter wouldn’t curb the curiosity of pedestrians, workmen, food delivery drivers, students, children, and former neighborhood residents who passed by the scene Monday.
The scene outside the former home of Raymond “R.C.” Horsch on Chew Avenue. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Throughout the morning, residents ducked under crime tape only to be chastised by police. Cars slowed to a stop as they drove perpendicular to West Chew and caught a glimpse of the law enforcement vehicles clustered around the home. When a toddler wearing a backward baseball cap and plaid shirt pointed at the home, his guardian turned their walk around.
Around noon, 31-year-old Fernanda Gabriela Armijos Nugra parked her car around the block and got out wearing white sweatpants, a scrunchie in her hair, and turquoise bands in her braces. She lives seven houses away from Horsch’s, she said.
Knowing what went on so close to her and her girls, ages 5, 8, and 15, has transformed her attitude about the neighborhood, she said.
“I walk around here with my daughters, and we really are afraid about what happened in that house,” she said in Spanish.
Though she never suspected the home could be linked to violence or murders, she said she had a bad feeling about the men who lived there, Horsch and his son, Eugene. Eugene Horsch is now in prison on federal charges from a June car stop near Independence Hall in which authorities recovered the fake ID of a missing woman.
“I used to see the son sitting on the steps of that house all the time and I’d tell my husband, ‘There goes a man with a really mean look on his face,’” she said. “When I saw the news, I was in shock.”
She’s only lived in the area two years and is now contemplating moving. The same is the case for Imani Hardy, 30.
“I don’t want to be here,” Hardy said from her parked car as she watched investigators come and go. “I just want to provide a different life for my kids.”
She and her sons didn’t encounter Horsch, as far as she knows, but the knowledge that his operation was so close is haunting, she said.
It’s chilled the atmosphere in the neighborhood. And something about that change feels permanent, she said.
“We still have to live our normal lives, but being as though we were in a neighborhood where someone was doing horrific things to people … It makes people be more alert,” Hardy said.
A member of the FBI Evidence Response Team outside on Monday during the beginning of a fresh week of investigative work inside the homeTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Officers and reporters lifted police tape to help people on the cordoned-off block get out in their cars. Police kept watchful eyes over everyone who came and left, whether it be a neighbor on a bike or two workmen rolling boxes on a dolly up to the front door of a home beside Horsch’s. A squirrel darted toward the Horsch home on a telephone wire and turned back once the whirring of a drone grew louder.
Alexis Velez, a befreckled 18-year-old with Shirley Temple-esque corkscrew curls, lives about five minutes from the Horsch house. It’s smack between her and her grandmother’s home. She used to walk by the Horsch house daily to catch the bus to get to high school. She thinks about what could have been if she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“It’s terrifying, just thinking about it. I could have been one of those victims. I’m in the vicinity,” she said.
She’s now a freshman at La Salle University studying psychology, she said. Maybe one day she’ll come to learn what possesses the human mind to pursue violence. But, for now, it’s hard to wrap her head around it.
“I just think it’s insane,” she said.
The neighborhood had felt like a safe place where people looked out for one another, Velez said.
As she headed home, she struck up a conversation with two women. Sisters Theresa Yantz, 64, and Diane Matynka, 68, grew up in the Olney neighborhood but both now live in Lebanon, near Hershey. The two wanted to show Yantz’s daughter, Cara, 35, where they grew up and just how near it was to the Horsch house.
“We wanted to drive by and show her, how close that we hung out,” Yantz said after she and her sister whipped out their phones and started taking photos. “That’s why we’re here being so nosy.”
Yantz, Matynka, and Velez chatted about how the neighborhood changed since the sisters were children. Both sisters lived in Olney in the mid-1960s to late 1970s, and Yantz did another stint there in the early 1980s.
When Yantz and Matynka were young girls, they’d play on their bikes outside until the street lights came on. Decades later in the same neighborhood, Velez has had to persuade her protective father that he doesn’t need to chaperone her to class each day anymore.
Lately, though, she’s had a change of heart.
“After this, I might have him walk me a couple times,” she said.
The scene outside the former home of Raymond “R.C.” Horsch on Chew Ave. on Monday.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Residents, police, and elected officials gathered in an Olney house of worship Sunday afternoon to discuss how the investigation into the infamous “house of horrors” down the street would play out in the coming weeks.
“You’re going to see a lot of equipment,” Philadelphia Police Homicide Unit Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom said.
Ransom alsotold the crowd of about 100 inside the Olney Baptist Church that there could bea large police presence around the home of the late Raymond “R.C.” Horsch on West Chew Avenue on Monday and Tuesday. But he declined to say exactly what investigators would be doing there.
Police leadership leave Olney Baptist Church on Chew Avenue on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, after a community meeting organized by the Philadelphia Police Department ahead of another planned search of the home of Raymond “R.C.” Horsch a few blocks away.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Horsch, who died last year at 82, ran a drug, sex, and porn operation out of the three-story, brick twin home. He left behind more than a million photos and videos in a vast digital archive,which investigators believe shows real and staged violence, and, possibly, murders.
Horsch is now linked to at least seven missing women.
“This is still a very active and ongoing investigation,” First Deputy Commissioner John Stanford told the crowd.
Starting on Oct. 5, police said they will be bringing in “heavy”equipment onto the 400 block of Chew Avenue.
Police declined to say more about the kind ofequipment or what exactly they would be looking for. Even though the investigation would focus primarily on Horsch’s home, Ransom said there would be street closures — mostly during daytime hours — and parking restrictions through Oct. 16.
Residents would still be allowed in and out of their homes, Ransom said, 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.
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.
When asked whether the operation would be concluded by Oct. 16, police said it could take longer.
“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,” Stanford said.
Residents didn’t probe for too many details about the investigation, mostly asking about logistics, crowds, social media influencers lingering around the area, and the future of Horsch’s dilapidated home.
“Hopefully, when you’re finished, you’ll tear it down,” resident Alice Hunter said.
One local business owner, who declined to identify himself to a reporter, expressed concern aboutthe street closures affecting his business.
“I lost a ton,” the man said of investigation-related disruptions.
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.”
During the meeting, a lone police cruiser sat outside Horsch’s home. Stanford said residents should expect to see a cruiser there indefinitely.
Police remain outside the home of Raymond “R.C.” Horsch on Chew Avenue on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, while a few blocks away residents were attending a community meeting organized by the Philadelphia Police Department ahead of another planned search of the home.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
It was early on a Friday evening, a week after her ninth birthday. Ashley Rivera, already in her pajamas, walked from her home to the 7-Eleven across the street to grab a snack. She was within eyesight of her stepdad, who sat on the front porch of their Kensington home, smoking Newports, crutches at his side.
Ashley left the convenience store and noticed a man in his 60s in a green Jeep. He had long, greasy, stringy hair and had been slowly circling the block.
At first, she didn’t pay him much attention. She lived in Kensington, where throngs of people suffering from addiction crowd the sidewalks, and sex workers linger under the El tracks. She figured he was just another guy looking to pay for drugs or a woman.
But he had his eyes on her.
The man pulled up, rolled down his window, and asked her to get into his car. He called her sexy.
Ashley moved away. But the man jumped out and gripped her arm tightly. She screamed for help as he dragged her toward his Jeep.
Even now, 17 years later, she remembers his eyes. “He looked very evil,” she said.
Sasha Rivera posed for a portrait at her home on Tuesday. Her daughter was 9 when accosted by Raymond Horsch in 2009.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Ashley Rivera, who is 26, was stunned to learn this week that the man who tried to abduct her was Raymond “R.C.” Horsch, the shock-seeking pornographer now linked to at least seven missing women.
Horsch’s Olney home, and his bizarre past, have been at the center of a sprawling local and federal investigation since June that has uncovered a trove of disturbing digital evidence suggesting he may have killed women he lured off the streets of Kensington.
He died in 2025 at the age of 82. His son, Eugene, with whom he shared the Olney twin, is in prison on federal charges from a June 19 car stop near Independence Hall, in which authorities recovered the fake ID of a missing woman. Eugene Horsch has not been accused of any violent crimes involving the deaths or disappearances of the women.
Rivera’s account is the first known instance of Raymond Horsch attempting to victimize a child, and shows his violent obsessions may have extended beyond the women in addiction he exploited for decades. It also offers new insight into how Horsch evaded consequences.
“I really do feel like I escaped something big,” Rivera said. “He could have kidnapped me. He could have done the same thing to me that he did to those women. He could have raped me, killed me.
“I was a 9-year-old girl. I was just a kid.”
An unforgettable face
Rivera credits her stepfather with helping her escape Horsch’s grip that evening in March 2009.
When he heard her scream, she said, he hobbled off the front porch and hit the back window of Horsch’s Jeep with one of his crutches. Horsch sped off.
Rivera ran inside, crying to her mother, Sasha, who called 911.
Sasha Rivera, in an interview this week, said she then ran outside and saw Horsch circling their block.
“I chased him with a baseball bat,” swinging it at the Jeep as he drove by, she said. “I thought he was going to kill her. If he had taken her, I may never have found my daughter.”
Sasha Rivera talks about the night that Raymond Horsch tried to abduct her daughter, who was 9 years old at the time. Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Police arrived to find Horsch near the 3200 block of Kensington Avenue, according to an arrest report. Inside his Jeep, officers found a pair of high-powered binoculars, a digital camera, a telephoto lens, an eye patch, and a condom.
Officers asked Ashley and her mother if this was the man who had tried to lure her into his car.
There was no question it was him.
“I couldn’t forget that face,” Ashley Rivera said.
‘I just broke down crying’
Police arrested Horsch, and he was charged with luring a child into a motor vehicle and corrupting the morals of a minor.
Several months later, in January 2010, Rivera appeared in a courtroom in the decaying former Family Court building on Vine Street to testify against Horsch.
Rivera shook as she walked to the stand to testify. Horsch and his lawyers sat just a few feet away. She said he glared at her, with one eye looking straight ahead and the other bulging out crookedly.
“I was so scared, and he just kept staring at me. I just broke down crying,” she said. “I felt like I was looking at a killer.”
Rivera said her testimony had to be cut short.
“They made me get off the stand because I was crying so much,” she said.
The prosecutor on the case, Jill Fertel, said Rivera had to sit through Horsch’s attorneys accusing her of lying and saying she was not as innocent as she appeared because she grew up in a rough neighborhood.
“They said the morals of a girl from Kensington were harder to corrupt than a girl from Chestnut Hill,” Fertel said, referring to a wealthier neighborhood near the city limits.
The memory she can’t escape
Common Pleas Court Judge Roger Gordon convicted Horsch of both counts and sentenced him to 2½ to 5 years in prison.
The conviction meant Horsch would have been required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law, but he requested a “trial de novo,” or a new trial, in Common Pleas Court.
Unlike a typical appeal — in which a higher court reads the transcript of the lower-court proceedings to check for any legal or procedural errors — a trial de novo wipes the slate clean.
Ashley Rivera would have to testify again.
When she learned this, she begged her mother not to make her go back to court. Sasha Rivera, who is 46, said she could not put her daughter through such trauma again.
“I thought he and his family would do something to us,” Sasha Rivera said of Horsch.
A new prosecutor took over the case. But without Ashley Rivera, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office dropped the charges against Horsch. The original conviction was vacated and, in 2015, Horsch successfully petitioned for the case to be expunged.
Fertel said Rivera’s experience was “horrible.”
“The system was not designed for children,” she said. “There is a difference between being able to confront your accuser and being able to intimidate a victim.”
The state upgraded the crime of luring a child under the age of 13 to a felony in 2013. Fertel also said courts now more frequently allow children to testify on camera from another room to avoid their abuser.
Records from the case, including a psychological examination of Horsch, are at risk of being destroyed. The Inquirer has filed a motion with the court to preserve them and make them public, and a judge ruled Wednesday that they should not be immediately destroyed.
Ashley Rivera, who said she supports unsealing the records, said the incident with Horsch left her scared to play outside as a child. Even today, she said, she struggles with anxiety.
“When men stare at me, I’m instantly scared,” she said.
It has also affected the way she raises her son, who is the same age she was when Horsch grabbed her. She said she is afraid to let him go anywhere alone.
“We have a park down the block from my house, literally on the corner of my block,” she said. “He asks me, ‘Hey, Mom, can I go to the park by myself?’”
She tells him no. She’ll go with him. “And then he doesn’t want to go because he doesn’t want to go with his mom because all the other kids are by themselves.”
“I tried to get that memory out of my head,” she said. “But I can’t. It stays with me.”
Rivera now works as a receptionist in Northeast Philadelphia. She never realized Horsch walked free after she didn’t appear at his second trial. She said she feels guilt because had she been able to testify again as a child, perhaps the case would not have fallen apart.
“Maybe it’s my fault that he was free,” she said. “I thank God every day my stepdad was there to save me because I could be missing or dead. I feel really lucky.
“But I feel so bad for all the victims and their families. I didn’t have to go through what they went through.”
A Philadelphia judge on Wednesday ordered a temporary halt on the destruction of court records related to Raymond Horsch’s 2009 conviction for attempting to lure a 9-year-old girl into his car in Kensington.
The ruling comes in response to an emergency motion The Inquirer filed seeking to preserve records of the child endangerment case that Horsch had expunged from his record in 2015.
The news organization argued that preserving the records is a matter of public interest because of the ongoing criminal investigation into the violent pornographer, whom police have now linked to seven missing women.
Horsch was arrested in March 2009 after approaching 9-year-old Ashley Rivera on East Ontario Street and attempting to lure her into his green Jeep Wrangler.
“Come here, in my car, sexy girl,” Horsch said to Rivera, according to an arrest report.
Horsch, who died last year, spent decades prowling Kensington seeking sex workers to film or photograph nude. Until the incident with Rivera, he had not been publicly accused of targeting children.
Rivera ran home, and her parents called the police, according to the arrest report. Officers found Horsch driving in the area hours later in the green Jeep, the report said. They searched his vehicle and recovered a pair of high-powered binoculars, a camera with a telephoto lens, and a condom, according to a news report at the time.
Horsch was charged with two misdemeanor counts of attempting to lure a child into a vehicle and corrupting the morals of a minor. At a bench trial, Rivera gave a tearful statement about the incident as Horsch glared at her from across the courtroom.
He was found guilty and sentenced to 2 ½ to 5 years in prison, and was required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law. However, Horsch’s lawyers sought a new trial in the Common Pleas Court and the case collapsed after Rivera was too afraid to testify a second time.
“I was so scared, and he just kept staring at me. I just broke down crying,” Rivera said this week, recounting her testimony at the first trial. “I felt like I was looking at a killer.”
The Inquirer reported on the 2015 expungement and the existence of the court records on Tuesday, after reporter Ellie Rushing learned the documents remained on file at the Criminal Justice Center. When Rushing sought to review them, a clerk denied the request, saying the records should have been destroyed after the expungement.
Rushing, on behalf of The Inquirer, wrote a letter to administrative judges on Monday requesting that the records be preserved.
Horsch is now dead, she wrote, and the records may “hold pieces of information that are irreplaceable and important to the public and the criminal investigation.”
Kaitlin M. Gurney, an attorney for The Inquirer, filed an emergency motion reiterating those points and seeking an order allowing the news organization “access to inspect and copy all filings.” (Gurney’s husband, Patrick Kerkstra, is a managing editor at The Inquirer.)
State expungement laws, Gurney wrote, extend only to criminal histories — such as arrest records — and not to judicial records.
“Allowing court records to be expunged and permanently destroyed — not just sealed — would create significant tension with the press and public’s constitutional and common-law rights,” the motion said.
Newspapers have a constitutional right to inspect court records, except in the “most extraordinary cases,” Gurney wrote.
“These rights to access do not disappear simply because a record has been deemed expunged,” she said, adding that in this case, Horsch’s subsequent actions and suspected involvement in the deaths of multiple women had effectively invalidated the expungement.
“Given the unusual circumstances of this case, and the strong public interest in Horsch’s activities, any expungement order should be vacated,” she wrote.
On Wednesday, Common Pleas Court Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi, the supervising judge in the criminal division, ordered the Office of Judicial Records to cease “destroying or deleting any records” related to the case until further notice.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for Monday.
David Rudovsky, a prominent civil rights attorney, said that even with a deceased defendant and significant public interest, the case represents uncharted legal territory. A ruling to overturn the expungement could have far-reaching consequences, he said.
“It’s an extraordinary case,” Rudovsky said. “But I don’t know of any precedent in which an expungement can be reopened, even after the death of a defendant.”
“Come here, in my car, sexy girl,” Horsch told the girl, according to an arrest report.
When police found Horsch circling the neighborhood that March night, officers recovered a pair of high-powered binoculars, a digital camera, a telephoto lens, an eye patch, and a condom from inside his Jeep, the prosecutor on the case said.
Horsch was convicted of two misdemeanor counts of luring a child into a motor vehicle and corrupting the morals of a minor at a trial in Municipal Court in 2010. He was sentenced to 2½ to 5 years in prison, and would have been required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law, said Jill Fertel, the prosecutor who handled the case.
But Horsch insisted he did nothing wrong, and requested a new trial in Common Pleas Court. Another prosecutor took over the matter.
The victim and her mother became too afraid to testify in court again, according to two people familiar with the matter. The case fell apart and prosecutors dropped the charges. The original conviction was vacated, and in 2015, Horsch successfully petitioned a Common Pleas Court judge to expunge the case.
Fertel, in an interview Tuesday, said Horsch — and that outcome — had “haunted her for the last 16 years.”
Horsch was known to prowl Kensington to recruit women in addiction to appear in his violent pornographic works in exchange for drugs, cash, and a place to stay at his home. But the details of the expunged conviction, which have not been previously reported, indicate Horsch may have also sought underage girls — and suggest that law enforcement was alerted to his troubling behavior nearly two decades ago.
(Top from left) Gabrielle Amarando, Nicole Fusaro, Maribel Fresses, Amy McHale, and Blair Tonzelli. Nicole Fusaro, Gabrielle Amarando, and Maribel Fresses are presumed dead. Blair Tonzelli and Amy McHale are still missing, but last seen at Horsch’s home.Obtained by The Inquirer
Now, the court records in the case — the sole known sex crime Horsch is believed to have been charged with — are at risk of being destroyed.
The records are on file at the Criminal Justice Center, but when The Inquirer sought to review them on Monday, a clerk denied that request.
Because the case had been expunged, the clerk said, the records should have been destroyed years ago. The filings could not be reviewed, he said, and would ultimately be destroyed in accordance with state law.
The Inquirer sent a letter Monday night to administrative judges in Philadelphia’s First Judicial District, asking that the records be preserved in the interest of the public, and that they be unsealed because of the ongoing investigation into Horsch’s connection to missing women.
“Horsch is dead, and this case has extraordinary public interest and news value,” the newspaper wrote. “The filing could hold pieces of information that are irreplaceable and important to the public and the criminal investigation.”
Fertel — who left the district attorney’s office in 2018 — said there are likely essential records of the case that remain in the court file, including notes of testimony, psychology examinations, and letters from Horsch’s defense lawyer submitted as part of his sentencing hearing.
She said the sex offenses triggered a sexually violent predator assessment of Horsch, and recalled that the psychologist was “horrified” by Horsch’s pornography and feared he could be violent.
“This is the only sexual offense he was ever convicted of, that I know of,” Fertel said in an interview Tuesday. “His conduct and his films and video were part of the sentencing. What he was doing [in Kensington] was part of the sentencing. That record is important to have, if we’re to prevent this from happening again.”
Police said they have so far recovered footage on hard drives inside Horsch’s home that appears to show five women dead — including a video of Horsch filming himself while strangling a woman to death with a zip tie. Two other women, including Horsch’s ex-wife, were last seen at the home but remain missing.
Luring a child
Around 7 p.m. on March 20, 2009, the 9-year-old was walking on Ontario Street when Horsch, in a green Jeep, slowed next to her.
“Yo, come here,” Horsch said, before getting out of his car to approach her and calling her “sexy,” according to the arrest report.
The girl ran home and told her mother an old man in a green Jeep had asked her to get into his car. The mother ran outside and chased after the Jeep, which circled the block and drove off, the report said. They called police, who responded and found Horsch in his car near the 3200 block of Kensington Avenue, the report said.
The girl identified Horsch as the man who approached her, the document said.
Fertel said that during the trial, the victim cried on the stand, at times prompting the judge to leave the bench to comfort her as she testified before Horsch, who was standing just feet away.
Horsch was released on bail.
While Horsch was facing those charges in Philadelphia, in July 2009, police responded to his home in Chalfont — where he lived before moving to Olney in 2013 — after a 21-year-old woman called to report a break-in. When officers arrived, they found 455 marijuana plants and two shotguns spread among five partitioned rooms in the basement, according to the Bucks County Courier Times.
Officers also recovered bondage gear, photographs of bleeding women, and a homemade movie labeled with the word “rape,” the newspaper reported.
Court records show that the woman who called police later told investigators she struggled with a heroin addiction and had met Horsch while doing sex work in Kensington. (That woman died of an overdose in January 2016 when she relapsed, her mother said in an interview this week.)
When Horsch returned home that night in July to find police raiding the property, he ran down his tree-lined suburban street, according to the news report.
He was later arrested and pleaded guilty in federal court to manufacturing drugs and illegal gun possession, and was sentenced to 54 months in prison, plus five years’ probation.
Ligature marks on the arms of an unidentified woman in Raymond Horsch’s 2003 two-volume photobook “Eroto: To The Prurient Interest.”Obtained by The Inquirer
Fertel said that, as she prosecuted Horsch in Philadelphia, she learned details of the Bucks County drug raid — including that officers had found disturbing pornography, guns, and explosive materials at his suburban home. That became part of her case, she said, and led her to ask that Horsch be sentenced to the maximum penalty of five to 10 years in prison.
Common Pleas Court Judge Roger Gordon — who presided over the case — sentenced Horsch to 2½ to 5 years.
But then Horsch appealed, and the case collapsed after the child and her mother became too scared to testify against him again.
Fertel said the materials found in Horsch’s home, and the psychologist’s fears of his potential threats to the community, have been seared in her memory ever since.
“He was able to treat women in this fashion for decades and no one has stepped up to protect them. No one was able to stop him,” Fertel said this week. “Everybody knew about it.”
A ‘fabricated thing’
Horsch, who died in May 2025, boasted about his criminal career as a drug manufacturer and document forger. He also spoke openly about how he recruited drug-addicted women in Kensington to appear in his violent pornographic photos and films that featured drug use, overdoses, and staged hangings, drownings, and killings.
But Horsch vehemently denied ever trying to lure a child into his car. He spoke about it years later, in a 2013 interview with the Rialto Report podcast, and said the 9-year-old girl had lied.
“It’s just a totally weird, fabricated thing,” he said. “All you have to do is go to the state sex offender list and you won’t find my name there.”
In his 2003 movie Slaves, Horsch played a semiautobiographical character who, in one scene, described approaching a young girl in a mall. The girl’s mother, Horsch’s character said, then yelled, “Get away from my daughter!”
“The place froze, literally froze. Time stood still. Every eye was on me, from every direction, hundreds of eyes,” Horsch said in the movie. “And I realized in an instant that, to every single person there, I was a child molester.”
Raymond “R.C.” Horsch in character for film role, 2014.S. E. Stokowski / Wikimedia
As Philadelphia police sort through more than one million photos and videos on the hard drives recovered from Horsch’s home on West Chew Avenue in Olney, they have encountered what they believe was staged violence as part of his art — and also photos and a video of what they now believe were real missing women, dead inside Horsch’s home.
So far, police have identified five women in the footage who they now believe are dead: Maribel Fresses, Gabrielle Amarando, Nicole Fusaro, a 25-year-old woman who has not been identified at the request of her family, and another woman investigators are still working to identify.
Two other women who were last seen at Horsch’s Olney home — Blair Tonzelli and Amy McHale, his ex-wife — remain missing.
Police have so far reviewed only about 30% of the materials on the hard drives.
Fertel said she hopes revelations about the 2009 case will draw more attention to the exploitation of women in Kensington.
“No one was getting arrested for what Raymond Horsch was doing,” she said. “This is an opportunity for people to recognize that this is wrong and that we can’t let it happen again. We can’t let this happen to more people.”
Years before police launched an investigation into the missing women connected to Raymond “R.C.” Horsch, the late pornographer stood inside a Kensington art gallery and presented what appeared to be the autopsy photos of a dead, unidentified woman.
His exhibition at the 2014 show ended with a video of the woman’s body being loaded into an incinerator — footage that he said was filmed at “a Kensington warehouse where the city morgue would send unidentified remains,” according to a review published on an art blog at the time.
“The Medical Examiner totally botched the autopsy and didn’t even bother to sew her up properly. My horrible photograph is all that is left of her, the only trace of her short, sad existence,” Horsch wrote in a release promoting the exhibition. “She has nothing else, not even a name.”
While Horsch was known to distort, embellish, or completely fabricate events, a law enforcement source and people familiar with this period of his life said this much is true: The pornographer had access to a Kensington crematorium connected to the notorious Garzone Funeral Home, which was shuttered over illegal body parts sales.
There, sources said, Horsch gave an employee drugs and cash in exchange for access to the crematorium so he could photograph and film the remains of the dead.
The funeral home and crematorium operated until 2007, when state authorities brought charges against the family-run business alleging the owners were selling body parts on the black market, according to court records and news reports.
Horsch, who died in May 2025 of a lung condition, was not named or charged in that scandal.
But police are looking into Horsch’s relationship to the crematorium as part of a sprawling local and federal investigation into at least seven missing women, according to a law enforcement source who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe.
No bodies have been found, and five women police have identified as likely deceased went missing from 2016 to 2023, years after the crematorium connected to the Garzone Funeral Home had closed. Police are still investigating the women’s whereabouts, including ongoing searches for evidence in Horsch’s Olney home and basement.
The case has been complicated by Horsch’s tendency to blur fact and fiction, and many of his pornographic works featured staged death scenes and fake blood. But police have also recovered numerous videos and photos from Horsch’s home they have said seem to show real violence and actual killings.
At least as far back as the early 2000s, Horsch was known to prowl the streets of Kensington, offering drugs and cash to women in exchange for starring in his violent pornographic films.
He was public about his obsession with taking degrading photographs of women in addiction. Years after Horsch staged his 2014 art show in Kensington, he uploaded a photo series to his website featuring women “imagining and acting their own deaths” interspersed with images of fatal overdose victims. In a description of the gallery, Horsch wrote he took the photos in “unknowing collaboration with the Philadelphia Medical Examiner,” as well as local paramedics.
The Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office declined to confirm whether the city sent unclaimed corpses from the morgue to the Garzones’ crematorium.
Louis and Gerald Garzone, who together operated the crematorium connected to the funeral home under the name Liberty Cremations, pleaded guilty to selling over 240 corpses to a New York-based biomedical tissue company in 2008. The tissue cutters illegally stripped the bodies for bones, tendons, and organs, then sold them to hospitals.
Some of the tissue was infected with disease, officials said at the time, and was transplanted into patients without their knowledge. Law enforcement seized the crematorium and funeral home as part of the criminal case, court records show.
Horsch once bragged that he had access to the crematorium through an employee named “George,” whom he paid with drugs, and had filmed a scene for a movie there, according to a woman who worked with Horsch on several films beginning in 2003. She spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid being publicly linked to the pornographer.
Gerald Garzone said in a phone interview that he had never heard of Horsch and had no knowledge of corpses being photographed in his former business. He acknowledged knowing a man named George from the neighborhood but declined to say whether he had ever employed him.
“I don’t know anything about that,” he said.
A 2007 file photo of the Garzone Funeral Home at 1830 E Somerset St., in Philadelphia.Laurence Kesterson / Staff Photographer
Four people familiar with Horsch and Garzone’s business operation identified the man as George Newsome, a Kensington resident who lived a block away from the crematorium at a house on Ruth Street that Horsch was known to frequent.
Newsome was arrested for heroin possession in 2011, court records show, and again for cocaine possession in 2013. He died a year later, according to an obituary.
Investigators continue to sort through more than a million photos and videos on hard drives recovered from Horsch’s home on West Chew Avenue. Local and federal investigators said they have reviewed about 30% of the materials so far and have identified 58 different people in the footage.
Among them, police said, are images of four women who appear to be dead: Maribel Fresses; Gabrielle Amarando; a 25-year-old whose identity relatives asked to remain private; and a woman in her mid-20s whom investigators are still working to identify. Police said they also recovered footage of Horsch filming himself choking 27-year-old Nicole Fusaro with a zip tie until she was dead.
Police began searching Horsch’s Chew Avenue property shortly after a chance car stop on June 19 involving his son, Eugene, uncovered an ID in the name of Blair Tonzelli, who was reported missing in 2023.
Investigators then began reexamining the disappearance of Amy McHale, Raymond Horsch’s ex-wife, who was last seen at the Olney home in 2016.
Inside the property, police found five urns full of cremains, two of which police are still working to identify. The basement contained vats of unknown chemicals and a 55-gallon drum with connections to a sewer drain. There were also pages of writings that referenced serial killer Ted Bundy and described how someone enjoyed hurting a woman with a zip-tie.
Raymond Horsch had previously written in self-published novels about dissolving a woman’s body in chemicals. Police have sent the chemicals and liquids recovered from the basement to a specialized lab in Chicago for testing.
Eugene Horsch remains incarcerated on federal gun and drug charges. He has not been accused of any violent crimes involving the missing women.
Jonathan Halloran-Koren said he watched with horror as Philadelphia police brass described the graphic details of his cousin Nicole Fusaro’s killing during a Wednesday news conference.
Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said investigators recovered videos that show Raymond “R.C.” Horsch giving her drugs and money, then handcuffing her to a bed. Horsch, naked and holding a camera, with another mounted in the corner of the room, then used pliers to put a zip tie around the woman’s neck until she fell unconscious, Vanore said.
None of this, Halloran-Koren said, had been shared when he and his mother had met with homicide detectives about her case just four hours earlier. All they were told, he said, was that Horsch had filmed himself strangling her.
“I didn’t need to know that. The public didn’t need to know that,” Halloran-Koren said of the details shared in the news conference. “I’ve seen some really graphic and horrible things in my life, but to turn around and hear how my cousin died in a press conference, all I could feel was deep sadness, sorrow, and rage.”
On Thursday, Halloran-Koren, a security consultant, sent a letter to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and members of City Council, calling the action of city police officials “appalling.”
(Top from left) Gabrielle Amarando, Nicole Fusaro, Maribel Fresses, Amy McHale, and Blair Tonzelli. Nicole Fusaro, Gabrielle Amarando, and Maribel Fresses are presumed dead. Blair Tonzelli and Amy McHale are still missing, but were last seen at Horsch’s home.Obtained by The Inquirer
Sgt. Eric Gripp, a spokesperson for the police department, said detectives traveled to northern New Jersey to speak with the family members ahead of the news conference Wednesday, though he declined to discuss the details of a private conversation.
The department did not name Fusaro during the news conference, in deference to other relatives.
“Our deepest sympathy remains with every family whose loved one may be connected to this extraordinarily complex and deeply troubling investigation,” Gripp said, and police will “pursue every lead, work to locate the missing women, and provide verified information to their families as responsibly and compassionately as possible.”
Joe Grace, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, referred questions to the police department.
Fusaro’s case is part of a sprawling local and federal investigation into the drug, sex, and porn operation Horsch ran out of his home on West Chew Avenue in Olney. Police now say Horsch, who died last year at 82 from lung disease, is linked to seven dead or missing women.
Police tape entrance of the home of Eugene Albert Horsch on West Chew Avenue in the Olney section of Philadelphia as investigators search for possible evidence Tuesday, July 21, 2026.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
While sifting through more than a million photos and videos recovered on Horsch’s hard drives, police said, investigators have recovered footage that appeared to show five women lifeless, including Fusaro, Maribel Fresses, and Gabrielle Amarando. There are also two unnamed women: a 25-year-old whose identity relatives asked to remain private, and a woman in her mid-20s investigators are still working to identify.
Two other women — Blair Tonzelli, reported missing in 2023, and Amy McHale, Horsch’s ex-wife, who disappeared in 2016 — were also reportedly last seen at the Olney home, which Horsch shared with his son, Eugene. The younger Horsch is in prison on federal charges stemming from his June 19 arrest after a car stop near Independence Hall. In the car, a federal park ranger found a fake ID with Tonzelli’s name, which launched the investigation.
Fusaro, 27, was last seen in Kensington on July 19, 2018. Her mother, Diane, spent years searching the streets for her only child before she died in January 2020. Fusaro’s father, Thomas, died in 2009.
Halloran-Koren had fallen out of touch with his family after years living overseas, but reconnected with them in 2020 and learned his cousin was missing, he said. He started working with friends of his aunt and cousin to try to find her.
In 2024, he said, he filed a report with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, and Fusaro’s information was later entered into the national database.
Nicole Fusaro was reported missing in 2018 when she was 27. Police believe she was killed by Raymond “R.C.” Horsch in his Chew Avenue home.Courtesy of Jonathan Hallo
In August, after police identified Fusaro as the woman Horsch appeared to have killed, detectives met with one of Fusaro’s paternal relatives to notify them of the discovery. The relative, who declined to speak with an Inquirer reporter, asked police not to publicly release her name.
Several weeks later, that relative told Halloran-Koren what police had told him: that they believed his cousin was dead. Halloran-Koren, a cousin on Fusaro’s mother’s side, then identified her publicly because he said he wanted her story to be known.
“Nicole deserved to have people fighting for her when she was missing. She deserves people fighting for her now,” he said. “I will make sure that happens.”
Halloran-Koren later contacted city police and requested additional information. Detectives scheduled a meeting with him and his mother on Sept. 16 to formally notify them of her likely death.
He learned more, he said, from watching his television several hours later.
In his letter to Parker and Council members on Thursday, Halloran-Koren said he understood the police department had “an obligation to provide information to the public and answer legitimate questions from the press.”
“But there is an enormous difference between legitimate public disclosure and providing a victim’s family with less information about their loved one’s death than is subsequently provided to the public only hours later,” he said.
He said he hopes to review the department’s handling of the case, and whether police violated any laws or internal policies in their communication with his family.
“Our family deserved better,” he wrote. “Nicole deserved better.”
The case of Eugene Albert Horsch has captured national attention after he was arrested at what seemed like a routine traffic stop near Independence Mall.
And for weeks, it has only gotten stranger.
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Police say they believe that at least three women were killed in Horsch's Olney home — a dilapidated, mysterious property at the center of the investigation. Horsch, 44, remains in federal custody on illegal gun possession and related charges, and has not been charged with any violent crimes.
For weeks, federal and local authorities have been searching his house on the 400 block of West Chew Avenue, turning up mountains of bizarre evidence. At least two other women connected to Horsch and his late father, Raymond "R.C." Horsch, were last heard from at the property.
Unknown chemicals, falsified law enforcement credentials, urns, and disturbing writings have been uncovered in the home since searches began two months ago. Answers into what exactly was going on there, however, remain elusive as the investigation continues.
Horsch's initial arrest in the case came after what started as a routine traffic stop near Independence Mall. A U.S. park ranger saw Horsch's black BMW stopped on Sixth Street in a restricted area, and approached the vehicle to speak with the driver.
The ranger, police said, heard a woman in the vehicle say, "You're going to hurt me." She then produced an ID identifying herself as Blair Tonzelli, a 38-year-old woman who was reported missing in February 2023 — an alias the passenger said she used because of open warrants for her arrest, sources told The Inquirer.
Police searched Horsch's vehicle, and recovered two firearms with obliterated serial numbers, along with cocaine, fentanyl, and marijuana, according to an affidavit. Police, sources said, also found a fake U.S. Drug Enforcement badge with Horsch's photo on it next to the name "Eugene Frederick Steiner," as well as switchblade knives, a cattle prod, and a collapsible baton.
Horsch was arrested and charged with illegal gun possession and drug crimes, and was held on $500,000 bail at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility. Federal drug enforcement officers, with assistance from Philadelphia police, began searching his Olney home that day.
Eugene Albert Horsch, 44, of Philadelphia.Courtesy of Philadelphia police
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June 26
Searching the Chew Avenue house
After a week of searching, investigators had uncovered a trove of bizarre items. Among them, Inspector Raymond Evers later said, were a home lab in the basement, a marijuana grow operation valued at about $280,000, and a number of containers filled with an unknown oily substance.
Investigators also found an illegal gun, a fake FBI badge with Horsch's photo, five urns containing what police believe are cremated human remains, bottles of liquid investigators could not immediately identify, and a 55-gallon drum with water lines leading to a hole in the ground, according to an affidavit. Additionally, the search revealed bank cards in Tonzelli's name, and an unsigned handwritten document that referenced serial killer Ted Bundy, among other items.
“We just don’t know what he’s doing, if he’s producing something, if he’s making something, if he’s irrigating something," said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore at the time. "We don’t know."
As the search continued, suspicions were renewed about Horsch's late father, Raymond Horsch, who died last year. The elder Horsch's ex-wife, Amy McHale, was reported missing in 2016, and, like Tonzelli, was last heard from at the Chew Avenue house. Police, however, said that it was too early to say whether any of the evidence recovered would reveal anything related to Tonzelli or McHale.
“This is much ado about nothing,” said Horsch’s attorney, Jerome Brown, of the missing persons investigation at the time. "They're barking up the wrong tree."
Investigators search the home of Eugene Albert Horsch on West Chew Avenue in Olney on June 26.Gabriel Coffey / Staff
June 30
Horsch held in federal custody
Horsch was arraigned on a federal firearms charge in connection with his June 19 arrest. Previously, city prosecutors charged him in the case, but with the federal charge, Horsch would be unable to post bail and would remain detained until trial.
During an appearance in federal court, Horsch spoke little beyond responses to routine legal questions.
“We believe Mr Horsch is innocent," Brown, Horsch's attorney, said in July.
July 22
Excavation at Horsch's home
In the month that federal and local authorities had been examining Horsch's house, investigators used a number of tools, including canine teams from the New Jersey State Police. But by late July, the focus turned to what was beneath the property.
Authorities announced they would unearth a pipe under the house, and examine it for "any evidence that may be present," said Philadelphia police spokesperson Sgt. Eric Gripp. That pipe, Evers later said, was a sewer line.
On the day of the excavation, investigators began digging early, tearing through a small, overgrown garden, as well as the sidewalk and street in front of the property. In the late morning, investigators, with assistance from the Philadelphia Water Department, pulled a piece of pipe from the ground and took it to be examined.
Workers and police investigators excavate a pipe at the home of Eugene Albert Horsch on West Chew Avenue on July 22.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
Days later, Evers said, more than 20 containers of an unknown substance found in the house were delivered to a lab in Chicago for testing and analysis.
Early August
Two new victims identified
During the search of Horsch's home, investigators discovered about 50 hard drives and other electronic devices, and sent them to the Regional Computer Forensic Lab. In total, those devices contained more than 60,000 images, 70,000 videos, and 10,000 pages of writings and drawings.
In early August, during the search of a hard drive, investigators found what Evers described as images and video of "what appeared to be two deceased females." Those women have been identified as Maribel Fresses, who was 27 when she went missing in February 2018, and Gabrielle Amarando, who was 22 when she went missing in September 2012.
Neither woman had previously been linked to the case, but police believe they were killed inside the Horschs’ Olney home. Investigators, however, had not recovered human remains in the home, Evers said. Police are trying to determine when the women died. They have stopped short of blaming either Horsch.
Evers added that after reviewing the photos and video, the Philadelphia Office of the Medical Examiner said that "if the images and the video are real and not altered in any way," the women were dead.
Gabrielle Amarando, (left) missing since 2012 and Maribel Fresses, 27, reported missing in 2018. Police believe they were killed inside the Olney home.Obtained by The Inquirer
Horsch had been in federal custody for more than a month at this time following his arrest in June. Neither Horsch nor his attorney appeared in court during the hearing where Assistant District Attorney Alyssa Amoroso withdrew the charges.
Hours before a news conference announcing the new developments, authorities contacted the women's families, Evers said. The "graphic and dark" depictions of what appeared to be their dead bodies, he added, seemed to confirm their deaths.
Ricardo Fresses, 61, said that deep down, he knew his daughter Maribel Fresses was dead.
“She called me every day. Absolutely every day she called me, and one day she stopped calling me,” he said. “And as the years went by I knew she was gone.“
Lora Timmons, Amarando’s stepmother, said she was devastated by the news.
”I always hoped I’d see her again," she said. “I didn’t want to think the worst.”
Because their bodies had not been found, the medical examiner's office cannot declare the two women dead. Authorities expect a "protracted" investigation, Evers said, and any declaration of their deaths would likely have to go through Orphans' Court.
In total, Evers said, authorities had served more than 95 search warrants on the property to discover an "astonishing" amount of evidence. Investigators, he added, had only reviewed about 5% of the digital materials, and it was not yet clear when the women died.
“Eugene lived there. He lived there for a long time. His dad lived there for a long time,” Evers said.
Inspector Raymond Evers speaks during an Aug. 12 news conference.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
Aug. 28
Fifth missing woman linked to Olney house
As investigators continued to review digital evidence from the home on Chew Avenue, they found what they believed was video footage showing Raymond "R.C." Horsch killing a woman on camera, law enforcement sources said.
The footage, which police found on a hard drive inside Horsch's house in Olney, appeared to show the older Horsch strangling the woman at his home. Police did not disclose the woman's identity, but notified a relative, the sources said.
Investigators had not recovered the woman's body, and it was unclear when the footage was taken. But with the video's discovery, the woman became the fifth known missing person tied to the Chew Avenue property.
Sources told The Inquirer that police expected the number of missing women connected to the home to grow as the investigation continued.
An unidentified woman in what appears to be Raymond "R.C." Horsch's home on Chew Avenue in Olney. The image is among several photographs in his book "Eroto: To The Prurient Interest,” Volumes I & II.Obtained by The Inquirer
Sept. 11
Latest victim publicly identified
Family members identified the fifth missing woman tied to the Chew Avenue house as Nicole Amanda Fusaro, who had been missing since July 2018.
Fusaro was 27 when she went missing, and was last seen in Kensington. She was raised in Northeast Philadelphia, and attended George Washington High School, according to her Facebook page. A family member told The Inquirer that Fusaro's parents both struggled with addiction, and that she began using drugs in her late teens before drifting to Kensington.
Investigators previously recovered a video on a hard drive taken from Horsch’s home while in search of clues for other missing persons linked to the property. Law enforcement sources said they believed the video shows the older Horsch strangling Fusaro to death.
“Hopefully more attention will be made to missing persons so this doesn’t happen again,” said Jonathan Halloran-Koren, Fuscaro's cousin.
Nicole Fusaro was reported missing in 2018 when she was 27. Police believe she was killed by Raymond "R.C." Horsch in his Chew Avenue home.Courtesy of Jonathan Hallo
Sept. 16
Seven dead or missing women linked to Olney house
The number of dead or missing people linked to Horsch's Olney home increased to seven after investigators recovered images that appeared to show two more women dead inside the property, Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said.
Among the images, Vanore added, were photos that showed a 25-year-old woman unconscious inside the home with injuries on her body. Vanore declined to identify the woman at her family's request.
Additional images showed another woman who appeared to be dead inside the property, and investigators have not yet identified her. She appeared to be in her mid-20s, Vanore said.
In total, investigators identified 58 people in digital evidence collected from the home, Vanore said. Of those, 16 were located and interviewed by police, and 25 others were located but not yet interviewed.
FBI Philadelphia Special Agent in Charge Wayne Jacobs (center) looks to Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore (left) during a press conference.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Staff Contributors
Reporting: Nick Vadala, Max Marin, Ellie Rushing, Barbara Laker, and Ryan W. Briggs
Editing: Molly Eichel, Dan Rubin
Copy Editing: Brian Leighton
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Police have recovered images they believe show two additional women dead inside the residence of the late Raymond “R.C.” Horsch, officials said Wednesday — bringing the total number of dead or missing women linked to the violent pornographer’s Olney twin home to seven.
The discovery marked the latest turn in a sprawling local and federal investigation into the drug, sex, and porn operation Horsch ran out of his home. Horsch left behind a digital archive of more than a million photos and videos that detectives now believe shows a mix of real and staged violence — as well as potential killings.
During a news conference Wednesday, Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said investigators recovered photos that showed a 25-year-old woman unconscious, with visible injuries, inside the Chew Avenue home where Horsch and his son, Eugene, lived for decades.
The woman, who was from Philadelphia, had not been reported missing, police said. Vanore declined to identify her at the request of her family.
Detectives also recovered images showing another woman lifeless with injuries. Investigators have not yet been able to identify her, Vanore said, but she appeared to be in her mid-20s.
Nicole Fusaro was reported missing in 2018 when she was 27. Police believe she was killed by Raymond “R.C.” Horsch in his Chew Avenue home.Courtesy of Jonathan Hallo
Vanore also confirmed that police recovered a video that appeared to show Horsch strangling a woman. Horsch used two cameras — one mounted in the room, and another that he held — to film the assault, he said. In the video, he said, the woman used drugs before Horsch gave her money and handcuffed her to the bed. He was naked and tightened a zip tie around her neck until she became unconscious, Vanore said.
Police last month also announced they recovered images that appeared to show two women dead inside the home: Maribel Fresses, who was 27 when she was reported missing in February 2018, and Gabrielle Amarando, who went missing in September 2012 at the age of 22.
Vanore said the metadata of those images shows both were photographed in 2017.
Police have not recovered any human remains.
Gabrielle Amarando, (left) missing since 2012 and Maribel Fresses, 27, reported missing in 2018. Police believe they were killed inside the Olney home.Obtained by The Inquirer
Horsch died last year at age 82 of lung issues.
Special Agent Wayne Jacobs, of the FBI in Philadelphia, said federal agents have been assisting city homicide detectives in downloading and sorting through the excessive amount of digital evidence. So far, he said, they have reviewed about 30% of the existing materials.
“The objective here is thoroughness, not simply speed,” he said.
Vanore said investigators have identified 58 people in the images and videos they have reviewed. Of those, five women appeared to be dead.
There are 10 other women who subsequently died of an overdose elsewhere, he said. Police have interviewed 16 people who are still alive, he said. They are still working to track down 25 others.
The investigation has been protracted, in part because Horsch spent decades producing pornography that often focused on the brutalization of women in addiction — producing photos and videos for books, movies, and his website that featured women in various staged scenarios, including being drowned, shot, and strangled.
“Some of this is playacting, and some of it we believe could be real,” Vanore said. “But we’re not there yet. We don’t want to end our investigation before it even — we’re not even in the middle of it. There’s a lot more to unpack.”
Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel (left) looks on as Ryan Gallagher, of the forensics lab, speaks Wednesday.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel also counseled patience. A large team of detectives, he said, was diligently and carefully reviewing the materials and working to ensure any identified victims and their families are handled with care.
“We have a duty to those families who are all concerned about whether their loved one lost their lives in that house, or maybe somewhere else,” he said. “And so we’re going to take the time, we’re going to put the effort in. We’re going to do all the things that we have at our disposal.”
Police started searching the home of Raymond Horsch, and his son Eugene, at 417 Chew Ave. in June. Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
Police will search the home again
Police started looking into Horsch and his son, Eugene, in June, after a car stop near Independence Hall.
A U.S. park ranger encountered Eugene Horsch and a woman inside his black BMW on June 19, police said. When the officers questioned them, the woman produced a fake ID in the name of Blair Tonzelli, a woman who had been missing since 2023. Police searched the car and found two guns, drugs, a cattle prod, and a phony federal drug enforcement badge.
Local and federal law enforcement spent weeks searching the home on Chew Avenue and found additional drugs and weapons, as well as a basement holding vats of mysterious fluids and a 55-gallon drum leading to a water line.
Police also recovered five urns containing cremated remains. Ryan Gallagher, the police department’s assistant director of forensics, said authorities now believe those urns hold the ashes of Raymond Horsch, his sister, and a friend. Investigators are still working to identify the other two, he said.
Tests for DNA and of the chemicals in the basement remain ongoing.
FBI Philadelphia Special Agent in Charge Wayne Jacobs (center) looks to Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore (left) during a press conference, regarding the Raymond “RC” Horsch case, at the Philadelphia Police Headquarters on Wednesday, September 16, 2026.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
The case expanded when investigators learned Raymond Horsch’s ex-wife, Amy McHale, had been reported missing in 2016, and was also last seen at the home.
Police then excavated the yard of the home in search of physical evidence linked to the missing women.
Vanore said investigators have not recovered any digital evidence as to the whereabouts of Tonzelli or McHale.
Eugene Horsch, 44, remains in federal custody on drug and gun charges. Vanore said investigators have not found evidence that connects him to the dead or missing women.
Bethel said police intend to return to the Chew Avenue home in the coming weeks to recover additional materials, and will meet with neighbors.
Staff writer Barbara Laker contributed to this article.
The woman who police believe was killed by pornographer Raymond Horsch on camera has been identified by family members and law enforcement sources as Nicole Amanda Fusaro, who has been missing since July 2018.
Fusaro was 27 when she was last seen in Kensington, and after she disappeared, her mother, Diane, combed the streets of the Philadelphia neighborhood looking for her only child. Diane died in January 2020 without answers, and Fusaro’s father, Thomas, had died in 2009. That left Fusaro’s friends and her cousin, Jonathan Halloran-Koren, to continue searching and hoping that one day she might turn up.
Last month, investigators recovered a video on one of numerous hard drives recovered from Horsch’s decrepit Olney home while in search of clues for other missing persons linked to the property. Law enforcement sources said they believe the video shows Horsch strangling Fusaro to death.
Nicole Fusaro was reported missing in 2018 when she was 27. Police believe she was killed by Raymond “R.C.” Horsch in his Chew Avenue home.Courtesy of Jonathan Hallo
Police met with a member of Fusaro’s extended family several weeks ago to alert them of the discovery. Those relatives asked police not to publicly release her name. The relatives declined to speak with a reporter this week.
Halloran-Koren, in an interview, said those relatives told him Thursday that police had visited their home in recent weeks with the news of his cousin’s death.
He said he wants her name to be known so that she is not forgotten.
“Hopefully more attention will be made to missing persons so this doesn’t happen again,” he said, adding that he is still seeking additional information from law enforcement.
The police department is legally required to release the names of homicide victims, as they consistently do in a typical case. But because Fusaro’s body has not been found, the Office of the Medical Examiner has not ruled her death a homicide, creating a legal gray area.
Police also have no suspect to charge: Horsch died last year, at the age of 82, of a lung condition.
Sgt. Eric Gripp, a spokesperson for the police department, said the investigation into the Horsch home at 417 Chew Ave. remains extensive and ongoing. He said officials expect to provide an update to the public next week.
“As part of that investigation, detectives have spoken with numerous family members, witnesses, and other individuals, and continue to review evidence gathered during the investigative process,” he said in a statement. “Because this is an active investigation, we are not confirming the identities of any individuals who may be connected to specific evidence or discussing information that has been shared privately with families.”
Fresses’ and Amarando’s bodies have also not been recovered, and the medical examiner has similarly not ruled a cause or manner of death. Their families gave the department permission to release their names.
Investigators searched the home of Eugene Albert Horsch on West Chew Avenue (grey roof) in the Onley section of Philadelphia in June 2026.Gabriel Coffey / Staff
Fusaro is the fifth dead or missing woman to be tied to the home on Chew Avenue where Horsch lived with his son, Eugene, for decades. Raymond Horsch lured women in addiction with drugs and cash to star in his violent pornographic videos and photos.
Halloren-Koren said he had come to terms with the reality that his cousin likely died several years ago after so much time had passed without a sighting.
“I came to grips with that,” he said, of her death. “How it happened is something that is going to take me a little while.”
Fusaro, who was raised in Northeast Philadelphia, attended George Washington High School, according to her Facebook page. She had dark brown hair and striking, light eyes, and was known as an outgoing young woman who enjoyed being around friends and family.
Halloren-Koren said she was light-hearted and loved animals. As kids, he said, she enjoyed watching Vampire Diaries and listening to all types of music, from Green Day to the Notorious B.I.G.
After Halloren-Koren moved overseas for work in 2003, he said he only saw her at sporadic family reunions. His family, he said, was splintered and scattered across the region, and Fusaro’s parents both struggled with addiction. His cousin started using drugs in her late teens, he said, and she fell deeper into addiction in her 20s before drifting into the streets of Kensington.
When Halloran-Koren sought to reconnect with family in 2020, he learned his cousin was missing and tried to help his aunt’s friends find her, he said. He spoke to women across Kensington who knew her and heard various theories, including that she was last seen getting into a car near Kensington and Allegheny Avenues.
He asked the women, he said, whether there were any strange men in the neighborhood, and they scoffed — this was Kensington, and there were men like that everywhere.
But there were a few he said they mentioned: a guy who drove a van without a license plate, and a “creepy” man with the last name Horsch who picked up women on the Avenue.
Raymond Horsch underwent a psychological examination in 1985 with results showing an above-average intelligence, deep-rooted emotional problems, and a diagnosis of a paranoid personality disorder.John Duchneskie / Staff Illustration / Photo obtained by The Inquirer
Horsch was known to trawl the streets of Kensington in search of sex workers, photographing some from the shadows. He’d offer to pay them in drugs and cash to be featured in his films or photos, often using drugs and in fantasies of being beaten, strangled, or killed.
He had a lengthy criminal record for manufacturing drugs and other non-violent crimes. And while his ex-wife, Amy McHale, was last seen at his home in 2016 before she went missing, he was never charged with any crimes connected to her disappearance before he died last year.
The investigation into his connection to the missing women began June 19, after his 44-year-old son, Eugene, was arrested near Independence Mall.
A federal park ranger found a fake ID in the car in the name of Blair Tonzelli, another woman who was reported missing in 2023, and was last seen at Horsch’s home. Police then interviewed women who said Eugene Horsch had bragged about knowing how to use chemicals to melt bodies in his basement.
Eugene Horsch has only been charged with illegal drug and weapons violations and has not been linked to any of the disappearances. He is currently in a federal detention center awaiting trial.
After arresting Eugene Horsch, local and federal law enforcement searched the Horsch home, at 417 W. Chew Ave., even excavating the yard for clues to the disappearance of Tonzelli and McHale. They found drugs, guns, a 55-gallon drum and vats of liquid, as well as a mysterious letter referencing putting drug-addicted women out of their misery.
Police also recovered dozens of hard drives that they said contained hundreds of thousands of images and videos — including some that showed several women presumably dead at the home. Investigators continue to pore over those materials to determine how far Horsch’s crimes extended and who was involved.
