10
Loading video...
By Alia Shoaib and Joshua Rhett Miller
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Eugene Horsch is the 44-year-old Philadelphia man at the center of an investigation into seven missing women, after police recovered more than one million images and videos from his former home, including some that appear to show five deceased women.
Horsch shared the home, which has been dubbed a “house of horrors” by some media outlets, with his late father Raymond "R.C." Horsch, an erotic filmmaker and photographer whose work depicted sex, violence and death.
No human remains have been found and Horsch has not been charged with any crime connected to the women. He is currently in federal custody on weapons and drug-related offenses.
Read More on News
Attorney Jerome Brown, who represents Horsch, refuted allegations made Thursday by a former FBI agent following Wednesday's announcement by police that images and videos recovered in his Philadelphia home appear to show five women unconscious or lifeless. Police sources said two other missing women are also connected to the residence.
"We categorically deny that Eugene Horsch is a serial killer," Brown told Newsweek during an interview on Friday. "Secondly, he was incarcerated from some point in 2013 through 2017, during which period we know at least one person, Amy McHale, went missing. Further, in 2018, he was virtually paralyzed from the waist down and was hospitalized for several weeks and was in a rehab facility for three months, with six to nine months of rehab thereafter. As far as whether anyone living at that house was a serial killer, there’s zero evidence right now that anyone was killed at that location except for videos which might show merely staged killings.”
Brown previously told CNN that Horsch plans to enter not guilty pleas.
Horsch’s Arrest And Investigation
Horsch was arrested on June 19 after police found him parked illegally near Independence National Historical Park.
He had a woman in his car, who produced an ID bearing her photograph but the name of another woman who had been reported missing. A search of the vehicle uncovered firearms with obliterated serial numbers, other weapons, and fake Drug Enforcement Administration credentials bearing Horsch's photograph, police said.
A subsequent search of Horsch’s home, 417 West Chew Avenue in the city’s Olney area, found items including narcotics, unidentified chemicals, a “home-made laboratory” in the basement, and the vast collection of digital material across various devices, police said.
...
Five urns believed to contain human ashes were also found, one bearing Raymond’s name, who died in May 2025, aged 82.
Police said in a September 16 press conference that some of the recovered images and footage appear to depict injured, unconscious or deceased women. Investigators have so far reviewed about 30 percent of the material, with the help of the FBI.
They said that one video appears to show Raymond placing a zip tie around a woman’s neck until she appears to become unconscious and “lifeless.”
Police have cautioned that analyzing the footage is tricky as some of it appears to include staged videos made by Raymond.
“Let’s remember, he was making movies,” Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner Vanore said about Raymond. “Some of his movies are there on this digital evidence. So, that’s the part, where you know, some of this is play acting, and some of it we believe could be real.”
Authorities said they have identified 58 people in the material. Of those, 25 have been identified as alive and are scheduled to be interviewed, while 16 have been located and interviewed but were “not very cooperative.” Three others have declined to speak with investigators.
A Life Shaped by His Father
To understand the world Eugene grew up in, it is important to know about his father, Raymond "R.C." Horsch, who lived with him at the Chew Avenue property until his death.
An erotic photographer and filmmaker, Raymond’s work, produced over a five-decade career, depicted sexual and violent scenes and frequently featured women struggling with drug addiction, according to an extensive investigation by The Philadelphia Inquirer.
He was also a self-published author, whose novels include stories about an “empathetic” serial killer who kills drug-addicted women to end their suffering, the paper said.
Raymond also had an extensive criminal history that included convictions for counterfeiting, methamphetamine manufacturing and marijuana cultivation.
Eugene was born in 1981 to Raymond and Anna Ferkuniak in New Zealand while his father was on the run from U.S. authorities and using multiple aliases, according to reporting by the Inquirer.
The family later returned to the U.S., where Ferkuniak died of an accidental overdose in 1989, while a 7-year-old Eugene was in the room, after which he was raised by his father.
Eugene’s former classmates told the Inquirer that they found Raymond “creepy” and that his choice of career was an embarrassment to himself.
...
Raymond was sentenced to multiple prison terms, including two years for a 1974 counterfeiting conviction and four years after his 1985 extradition to Philadelphia on drug-manufacturing charges. He later served 54 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to growing marijuana.
Eugene’s Criminal History
Eugene, despite once being a straight-A student at Central Bucks West High School, never graduated, school administrators told the Inquirer.
It is not clear whether he completed his high school education elsewhere, but he was enrolled at Drexel University between 1999 and 2003, per the outlet.
However, Eugene’s life soon took a turn after a 2003 drunk-driving crash in which another driver suffered a catastrophic brain injury. The driver remained in a vegetative state for 16 years before dying. Horsch pleaded guilty to DUI and aggravated assault in 2004 and was sentenced to two to four years in prison, according to The Inquirer.
Over the years, Horsch was arrested at least 10 times for drug possession, dealing, assaults, and drunken driving.
This included a four to eight year prison sentence for drug trafficking after police discovered about $1.9 million worth of cannabis at the Chew Avenue property in 2013, court records cited by The Inquirer show. He was arrested again in May 2025 on marijuana and amphetamine possession charges and received three years' probation.
In March 2026, Horsch was charged with aggravated assault after police alleged that he stabbed a man in the stomach during a dispute. Prosecutors withdrew the case in May after a witness failed to appear, according to court records reported by The Inquirer.
None of those cases involved the women now under investigation.
The Women in the Videos
Police said in a release on September 17 that they had identified three additional women depicted in images and videos recovered from the home who appear to be deceased. This brings the total number of women apparently shown deceased in the digital evidence to five.
The three women are in addition to Maribel Fresses, 26, and Gabrielle Amarando, 27, whom police previously identified in the digital evidence. Both women were depicted alive and, in later images, appeared to be deceased.
One of the three additional women has been identified as Nicole Amanda Fusaro, 27, who went missing in 2018. A family member told NBC10 that police informed them Fusaro is believed to be the woman seen being strangled by Raymond Horsch in one of the videos. Police did not name Fusaro in their September 17 release.
A fourth woman has been identified but not publicly named, while the fifth remains unidentified and is being treated as a Jane Doe.
The Medical Examiner's Office reviewed images involving the three additional women and advised that, if the images are authentic and have not been altered, the women depicted appear to be deceased. The Medical Examiner's Office previously reached the same assessment after reviewing images involving Fresses and Amarando.
No human remains associated with any of the five women have been recovered. Without physical remains to examine, the Medical Examiner's Office cannot conclusively determine a cause or manner of death.
Two other missing women are linked to the investigation: Blair Tonzelli, whose identification was found when Horsch was arrested, and Amy McHale, who was married to Horsch's late father. Police have not said that either woman appears in the recovered images or videos.
Ongoing Investigation
The investigation remains ongoing, with authorities stressing the lengthy work required in analysing the vast trove of digital material. Police have not established whether the footage depicts genuine death, who was responsible for them, or whether Eugene Horsch played any role in them.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Cristina Diciu.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines