Raymond and Eugene Horsch update: 7 missing women linked to Chew Avenue home as chilling details emerge – who are they?
Seven women who disappeared over more than a decade ago have been linked to a Philadelphia house, where investigators found more than one million images and videos, including footage that police say appears to show women unconscious, injured or dead. Shocking new details have emerged amid an investigation into the “mystery house” in Philadelphia’s Olney neighborhood. Eugene Horsch’s house is now in focus, with “graphic” videos being recovered by police.
Five of the seven women connected to the house are believed to be dead. However, no bodies have been recovered, Philadelphia police said Wednesday, September 16.
The investigation centers on Eugene’s father Raymond “R.C.” Horsch, a photographer of sexually explicit material who died in 2025 at 82. He shared the house with his son.
Latest update on the investigation
Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said that investigators have identified 58 people depicted in material recovered from the house. Four of these people appeared lifeless or unconscious, per NBC News. Ten others reportedly later died of suspected drug overdoses at locations away from the property.
Police have found as many as 41 other people seen in the material. While 16 of them declined or were reluctant to be interviewed, detectives are now preparing to interview another 25, according to Vanore.
Hundreds of thousands of images and videos have yet to be interviewed by authorities. Investigators have reviewed only about 30% of the digital evidence. Authorities have not yet announced homicide charges in connection to any of the missing women.
Who are the missing women tied to the house?
Investigators have connected seven missing women to the property or the people who lived there. Only five of them have been named.
The five women who have been publicly identified are:
- Amy McHale – She disappeared in June 2016 and had previously been married to Raymond Horsch. Her family has claimed that she was last seen at the house.
- Nicole Fusaro – She went missing at the age of 27 in 2018. According to investigators, footage found in the house appears to show her unconscious and injured.
- Maribel Fresses – She was 27 when she disappeared in 2018. Investigators said video found in the property appears to show her unconscious and injured.
- Gabrielle Amarando – She went missing in 2012 at the age of 22. According to police, she appears unconscious and injured in footage they recovered from the house.
- Blair Tonzelli – She was 35 when she disappeared in 2023.
Police previously said that Maribel Fresses and Gabriella Amarando were found to have died during an investigation into the house.
How the investigation started
It all began when a park ranger stopped a BMW on the 600 block of Market Street near Independence Mall on June 19, 2026. Inside were a male driver and female passenger, Philadelphia Inspector Raymond Evers shared during a press conference.
The driver was identified as 44-year-old Eugene Horsch, and the woman provided fake identification with the name Blair Tonzelli. According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUS), Tonzelli went missing in 2023.
The park ranger found two handguns and $8,000 in illegal drugs inside the house.
Images and videos recovered from a hard drive found during the search of Horsch’s Chew Avenue home show what investigators believe are the bodies of two women, Maribel Fresses and Gabriella Amarando, Fox29 reported. While some videos showed them alive, others showed them appearing to be dead.
As many as 95 search warrants were issued for Horsch’s house on the 400 block of West Chew Avenue. Inside, the DEA and the Philadelphia Police Department found at least one more illegal gun, a marijuana grow operation, another fake FBI badge and five urns filled with cremated remains.
Authorities also found computer parts and what appeared to be a home lab with several containers of an unknown oily substance. The containers were sent to a Chicago lab to be reviewed.
In the beginning of August, a computer forensic lab started to review the digital evidence from the house. They reportedly went through 600,000 images, 70,000 videos and more than 10,000 pages of drawings and writings, which is just 5% of the digital evidence, according to Evers.
Eugene remains in federal custody on charges unrelated to the missing women.
