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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Eugene and Raymond Horsch · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:49
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in
0:53
Speaker 2: an effort to raise public awareness, invite witnesses to come forward,
0:57
Speaker 2: and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated by
1:00
Speaker 2: law enforcement. While we value insights from family and community members,
1:05
Speaker 2: their statements should not be considered evidence and point to
1:08
Speaker 2: the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases. We
1:12
Speaker 2: remind listeners that everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty
1:16
Speaker 2: in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast is
1:19
Speaker 2: intended to state or imply that anyone who has not
1:22
Speaker 2: been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
1:26
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
1:30
Speaker 1: At around 8 o'clock in the morning on June 19, 2026,
1:32
Speaker 1: federal park ranger Paul Schultz was parking his patrol vehicle
1:39
Speaker 1: near the corner of 6th and Market Streets in Philadelphia
1:42
Speaker 1: when he noticed a black BMW parked behind him. The
1:46
Speaker 1: BMW was illegally parked and it was parked next to
1:50
Speaker 1: a fire hydrant. So the Ranger got out and approached
1:53
Speaker 1: the BMW and the man in the driver's seat, 44-year-old
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Speaker 1: Eugene Horsch. And as the Ranger walked toward the driver's
2:02
Speaker 1: side of the car... he heard a woman's voice coming
2:05
Speaker 1: from the back seat, a voice that said, you're going
2:09
Speaker 1: to hurt me. The ranger noticed sores on Eugene Horsh's
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Speaker 1: arms and face, and when he looked in that back seat,
2:17
Speaker 1: he saw that the female passenger also had sores on
2:20
Speaker 1: her body and was behaving in what the ranger described
2:24
Speaker 1: as a twitchy and agitated manner. In the driver's door,
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Speaker 1: he could see a butane lighter and saw that Eugene
2:31
Speaker 1: was holding a pair of tweezers, the ranger believed what
2:35
Speaker 1: he was seeing was consistent with drug use. So he
2:38
Speaker 1: asked both of them for their identification. The BMW came
2:42
Speaker 1: back registered to Eugene Horsch. But when the ranger ran
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Speaker 1: the name that was given by the woman in the
2:48
Speaker 1: back seat, something unexpected happened. The name on the ID
2:54
Speaker 1: was Blair Tonzelli, who had been reported missing in Philadelphia
2:58
Speaker 1: years earlier. But the woman sitting in Eugene Horsch's BMW...
3:03
Speaker 1: was not Blair Tonzelli. Meanwhile, Ranger Schultz had noticed several
3:09
Speaker 1: pairs of scissors around the front seat of the BMW,
3:12
Speaker 1: so he ordered Eugene to get out of the car
3:14
Speaker 1: so that he could search him. When the Ranger opened
3:18
Speaker 1: the driver's door, Eugene reached under the seat, and a
3:22
Speaker 1: second Ranger, Sean Carey, put Eugene in handcuffs. While the
3:27
Speaker 1: Rangers were trying to figure out what was going on here,
3:30
Speaker 1: they searched Eugene. They found a switchblade knife and glass
3:34
Speaker 1: drug pipe in Eugene's pockets. And when Ranger Carey reached
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Speaker 1: underneath the driver's seat, the place Eugene had just reached toward,
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Speaker 1: he pulled out two loaded guns. One was a Taurus G2S.
3:46
Speaker 1: 40 caliber semi-automatic pistol. The other was a. 38 special
3:50
Speaker 1: revolver with the serial number filed off. The Rangers got
3:55
Speaker 1: the woman out of the backseat of the car and
3:57
Speaker 1: put her in handcuffs. And then, according to the affidavit,
4:01
Speaker 1: Eugene Horsch said something without being asked. His comment was, quote,
4:07
Speaker 1: they're not hers. She's a good girl, end quote. After
4:12
Speaker 1: being advised of his Miranda rights, Eugene said again that
4:16
Speaker 1: the drugs and guns didn't belong to the woman. He
4:19
Speaker 1: told the Rangers that there was crack cocaine in a
4:22
Speaker 1: compartment beside the steering wheel. The ranger asked Eugene Horsch
4:27
Speaker 1: whether he was a convicted felon, and Eugene said yes,
4:30
Speaker 1: that he was. So the federal rangers searched the BMW further.
4:35
Speaker 1: They found white powder and what appeared to be crack cocaine.
4:40
Speaker 1: And they also found some other things, a cattle prod,
4:44
Speaker 1: a collapsible baton, police handcuffs and handcuff keys in the
4:48
Speaker 1: front console, plus a second switchblade. And then in the trunk,
4:53
Speaker 1: they found a canvas bag. containing something particularly strange. Inside
4:59
Speaker 1: were two DEA badges and identification cards with Eugene Horsch's
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Speaker 1: photograph on them, identifying him as a DEA agent named
5:08
Speaker 1: Eugene Frederick Steiner. But Eugene Frederick Steiner does not exist.
5:15
Speaker 1: So what had started with a park ranger noticing an
5:18
Speaker 1: illegally parked BMW had now produced drugs, two loaded guns, weapons, restraints,
5:25
Speaker 1: fake federal credentials, and a connection to a woman who'd
5:29
Speaker 1: been missing for years. The woman in the BMW told
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Speaker 1: investigators that Eugene had made that false Blair Tonzelli ID
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Speaker 1: for her and instructed her to use it if she
5:39
Speaker 1: got into trouble. The real Blair Tonzelli had been missing
5:43
Speaker 1: since February of 2023. She was 35 years old, and
5:48
Speaker 1: according to police records reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Blair's
5:52
Speaker 1: friends said they had actually stopped hearing from her months earlier,
5:56
Speaker 1: sometime around August of 2022. One of Blair's friends had
6:01
Speaker 1: told police something particularly important when Blair was reported missing.
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Speaker 1: Blair had last been seen at a house located at
6:11
Speaker 1: 417 West Chew Avenue in Philadelphia's only neighborhood. That house
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Speaker 1: belonged to the Horsch family. Eugene, who had prior felony
6:20
Speaker 1: convictions and so was not allowed to own firearms, was
6:23
Speaker 1: arrested and he was taken into custody. Little did the
6:29
Speaker 1: ranger know that day that this routine encounter was about
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Speaker 1: to open the door to an investigation involving multiple missing women,
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Speaker 1: a deteriorating house in North Philadelphia that has been described
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Speaker 1: by the media as a house of horrors, tens of
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Speaker 1: thousands of videos that depicted at least two dead women,
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Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of images, vats of chemicals, fake federal credentials,
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Speaker 1: and questions police are still nowhere close to answering. I'm
6:56
Speaker 1: Katherine Townsend. Over the past eight years of making my
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Speaker 1: true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned that there's
7:02
Speaker 1: no such thing as a small town where murder never happens.
7:06
Speaker 1: I have received hundreds of messages from people all around
7:09
Speaker 1: the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's
7:12
Speaker 1: affected them, their families, and their communities. If you have
7:16
Speaker 1: a case you'd like me and my team to look into,
7:19
Speaker 1: you can reach out to us at our Hell and
7:21
Speaker 1: Gone murder line at 678-744-6145. That's 678-744-6145. Or you can
7:30
Speaker 1: send us a message on Instagram at hellandgonepod. This is
7:35
Speaker 1: Hell and Gone Murder Line. After arresting Eugene Horsch, investigators
8:25
Speaker 1: started taking a fresh look at Blair's disappearance. According to
8:30
Speaker 1: later reporting, they discovered that Blair had spent significant periods
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Speaker 1: at the Chew Avenue property, where Eugene's father, Raymond Charles Horsch,
8:39
Speaker 1: known as R.C., had said she worked as his home
8:42
Speaker 1: health aide. Friends described Blair as someone who had struggled
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Speaker 1: with drugs and had become estranged from her family, but
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Speaker 1: also as a person who was intensely loyal. One friend
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Speaker 1: remembered her as the kind of person who would give
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Speaker 1: somebody her last couple of dollars. According to law enforcement
9:00
Speaker 1: sources cited by the inquirer, one witness told investigators that
9:04
Speaker 1: Blair and Eugene apparently had a disagreement involving money. This
9:10
Speaker 1: information does seem to be significant, but it's important to
9:13
Speaker 1: note this is an ongoing investigation, and that is not
9:17
Speaker 1: proof that Eugene harmed Blair in any way. As of
9:21
Speaker 1: August of 2026, Eugene Horsch has not been charged with
9:25
Speaker 1: any crime connected to Blair's disappearance or with harming anyone else.
9:30
Speaker 1: What happened after that encounter at Independence Hall escalated really quickly.
9:36
Speaker 1: Investigators obtained a warrant for the Chew Avenue property. The
9:39
Speaker 1: initial federal investigation concerned fraudulent government identification. But when authorities
9:45
Speaker 1: entered the house, they found a lot more than fake credentials.
9:49
Speaker 1: There was another firearm, marijuana-growing equipment, and what police described
9:53
Speaker 1: as a complicated collection of chemicals and equipment in the basement.
9:58
Speaker 1: Investigators reported finding a 55-gallon drum connected to hoses or pipes,
10:03
Speaker 1: as well as numerous containers holding unknown chemicals and oily substances.
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Speaker 1: There were also five urns containing what appeared to be
10:13
Speaker 1: cremated human remains. Again, we don't know who those remains
10:17
Speaker 1: belonged to, or how the people whose remains were reportedly
10:21
Speaker 1: in the urns died. Investigators later excavated portions of the
10:26
Speaker 1: property looking for human remains and biological evidence, but no
10:31
Speaker 1: bodies belonging to any missing women have been recovered. There
10:36
Speaker 1: were more strange discoveries. Investigators found supplies that could be
10:40
Speaker 1: used to manufacture counterfeit identification and they found Blair Tonzelli's
10:45
Speaker 1: bank card. And, according to an affidavit, they discovered a
10:50
Speaker 1: multi-page handwritten document that described harming people and referred to
10:55
Speaker 1: serial killer Ted Bundy. The more police learned about 417
11:00
Speaker 1: West Chew Avenue, the more complicated its history became because
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Speaker 1: Blair Tonzelli was not the first woman to disappear after
11:09
Speaker 1: being linked to that address. Ten years earlier, another woman
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Speaker 1: had apparently vanished from the same house. Her name was
11:18
Speaker 1: Amy Teresa McHale. Amy was 44 years old when she
11:22
Speaker 1: disappeared in June of 2016. She was a mother and
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Speaker 1: a grandmother, and her family knew that she had problems
11:29
Speaker 1: and had struggled with addiction and mental health issues. There
11:33
Speaker 1: had been occasions when Amy would disappear for a short
11:35
Speaker 1: period of time before resurfacing. But Amy's family said there
11:40
Speaker 1: was a fundamental difference between disappearing for a couple of
11:43
Speaker 1: days and simply walking out of their lives. Amy adored
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Speaker 1: her daughter and her grandchildren. Amy's daughter Amanda was preparing
11:52
Speaker 1: to get married that September, and Amy was supposed to
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Speaker 1: be there. Amy also had a long and complicated connection
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Speaker 1: to that house on Chew Avenue. She had once been
12:02
Speaker 1: married to Eugene Horsch's father, Raymond Charles Horsch. After going missing,
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Speaker 1: Amy was never found, and almost a decade after she disappeared,
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Speaker 1: Raymond Horsch died in May of 2025. The Chew Avenue
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Speaker 1: house had a long history of police involvement. In 2016,
12:23
Speaker 1: authorities did a drug raid there But it took that
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Speaker 1: extraordinary chance encounter near Independence Hall in June of 2026
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Speaker 1: to finally cause authorities to start examining whether these disappearances
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Speaker 1: and this house might be connected. By late June of 2026,
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Speaker 1: 417 West Chew Avenue was surrounded by investigators. They went
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Speaker 1: down to the basement, they went into the yard, and
13:01
Speaker 1: eventually they dug up the plumbing beneath the property. This
13:05
Speaker 1: is a developing story and there has been a lot
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Speaker 1: of conflicting information coming out. At first, reports suggested that
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Speaker 1: investigators might have found a significant amount of blood inside
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Speaker 1: the house. But subsequent forensic testing produced a very different result.
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Speaker 1: The substance that was initially believed to be blood was
13:22
Speaker 1: apparently not real blood. Other reports said it might have
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Speaker 1: been fake blood. And testing did not identify DNA belonging
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Speaker 1: to the missing women. In July, crews removed sections of
13:36
Speaker 1: pipe And while they were tearing out that plumbing, local
13:40
Speaker 1: law enforcement sources told CBS Philadelphia that detectives were looking
13:45
Speaker 1: for evidence of alkaline hydrolysis, sometimes called water cremation, a
13:50
Speaker 1: process in which chemicals are used to break down human remains.
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Speaker 1: Police were doing that because they had reportedly received information
13:58
Speaker 1: that Eugene Horsch claimed to know how chemicals could be
14:02
Speaker 1: used to dissolve bodies. And investigators were confronted with a
14:05
Speaker 1: basement containing a large drum, piping, and an unusual collection
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Speaker 1: of chemicals. But then investigators started going through the electronic
14:15
Speaker 1: evidence seized from the house. And there was a massive
14:18
Speaker 1: amount of data. Approximately 600,000 images, around 70,000 videos, and
14:22
Speaker 1: 10,000 pages of writings and data. There was so much
14:28
Speaker 1: material that as of August of 2026, police say they
14:33
Speaker 1: have only reviewed about 5-7% of the material at this point.
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Speaker 1: But with what they have seen so far, police have
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Speaker 1: said they were able to identify two women, not Amy
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Speaker 1: McHale or Blair Tonzelli, but two other women who have
14:49
Speaker 1: been missing for years on some of those images. Their
14:52
Speaker 1: names were Gabrielle Amarando and Maribel Fresas. Gabrielle had been
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Speaker 1: missing since 2012 and Maribel had been missing since 2018.
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Speaker 1: And police now say the material recovered from the house
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Speaker 1: appears to show both women alive inside 417 West Chew
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Speaker 1: Avenue and later apparently dead. After 14 years of unanswered
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Speaker 1: questions in one case and eight years in another, two
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Speaker 1: missing women had apparently resurfaced in the same place. Gabrielle
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Speaker 1: Amarando had been missing since September of 2012. She was
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Speaker 1: 22 years old and grew up in Philadelphia. Her childhood friend,
15:35
Speaker 1: Ashley Levin, later remembered meeting her in the third grade.
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Speaker 1: Gabrielle was described as artistic, interested in fashion, and constantly
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Speaker 1: experimenting with her appearance. She changed her hair frequently and
15:48
Speaker 1: had what her friend remembered as an enormous personality. She
15:52
Speaker 1: was described as funny and creative. And like a lot
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Speaker 1: of women whose lives would eventually intersect with the Chew
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Speaker 1: Avenue investigation, Gabrielle also struggled with addiction. For almost 14 years,
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Speaker 1: Gabrielle's disappearance remained unsolved. And there's a lot of mystery
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Speaker 1: still because there still is no body. There's no autopsy,
16:15
Speaker 1: which means there's no medical examiner's determination explaining how Gabrielle died.
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Speaker 1: Investigators are reportedly still working to authenticate the photos and
16:24
Speaker 1: the videos. They're looking through all of those digital materials
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Speaker 1: and they're trying to figure out precisely when they were
16:30
Speaker 1: created and whether any of them were altered. But Philadelphia
16:35
Speaker 1: Police Deputy Commissioner James Evers was unusually direct when he
16:39
Speaker 1: described what detectives had seen. He said, if the things
16:44
Speaker 1: that detectives have seen are genuine, police believe Gabrielle is dead.
16:50
Speaker 1: Maribel Yvette Freses was born in 1990, the same year
16:55
Speaker 1: as Gabrielle. She was 27 years old when she disappeared.
16:59
Speaker 1: She grew up in Bucks County and attended Council Rock
17:02
Speaker 1: High School South before eventually spending time in Philadelphia. Like Gabrielle,
17:08
Speaker 1: Maribel struggled with drugs. By 2018, members of her family
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Speaker 1: had lost contact with her and were trying to find her.
17:16
Speaker 1: There is some confusion in the public record about the
17:19
Speaker 1: exact chronology of her disappearance, but police in Philadelphia now
17:23
Speaker 1: describe Maribel as having been reported missing in February of 2018.
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Speaker 1: Other missing persons information has placed her last known contact
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Speaker 1: later that year. Either way, for eight years, her friends
17:36
Speaker 1: and family have had no answer. Until 2026, when police
17:40
Speaker 1: contacted them and told her family... they had seen Maribel
17:44
Speaker 1: in the images from the digital archive from the house
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Speaker 1: on Shoe Avenue. As with Gabrielle, police told her family
17:52
Speaker 1: the material appears to depict Maribel alive inside that property
17:56
Speaker 1: and later apparently dead. And as with Gabrielle, no body
18:00
Speaker 1: has been recovered. Police have said they may ultimately have
18:05
Speaker 1: to pursue the unusual legal process of having the women
18:08
Speaker 1: declared dead without their remains ever having been found. So
18:13
Speaker 1: what happened to these two women and where are their remains?
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Speaker 1: Maribel's mother, Patricia Fresas, has publicly said even after hearing
18:22
Speaker 1: what police believe the videos show, she still wants the
18:25
Speaker 1: physical certainty of knowing where her daughter is. Without Maribel's body,
18:30
Speaker 1: there's still a gap between what investigators believe happened and
18:33
Speaker 1: the finality her family has been waiting for since 2018.
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Speaker 1: So police have now said, They believe they have evidence
18:41
Speaker 1: showing two missing women dead inside the same house. But
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Speaker 1: that doesn't mean police have publicly established who killed them,
18:48
Speaker 1: when they died, how they died, or that Eugene Horsch
18:52
Speaker 1: had something to do with it. It's possible that someone
18:55
Speaker 1: else in the house killed them. The Chew Avenue house,
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Speaker 1: as we've said before, did not always belong solely to Eugene.
19:03
Speaker 1: For decades, it was associated with his father, Raymond Charles Horsch,
19:08
Speaker 1: and Raymond Horsch had a complicated history of his own.
19:12
Speaker 1: Raymond was a photographer and filmmaker whose work frequently involved
19:16
Speaker 1: erotic and sadomasochistic imagery. Raymond was born in 1943 in
19:21
Speaker 1: East Stroudburg. Raymond described himself in his self-published book as, quote,
19:27
Speaker 1: an artist, filmmaker, composer, writer, and porn performer, but also
19:32
Speaker 1: a drug smuggler, art forger, counterfeiter, fugitive, sociopath, ex-convict, and
19:37
Speaker 1: all-out villain. Raymond also had a long criminal history, including
19:43
Speaker 1: convictions for passing bad checks, manufacturing drugs, and forgery. In 1977,
19:49
Speaker 1: federal agents raided his home laboratory and seized equipment that
19:52
Speaker 1: they claimed was for making meth. Then he fled the
19:55
Speaker 1: country to New Zealand. Later, he came back to California,
19:59
Speaker 1: but by then he was living under the name Richard Harris.
20:03
Speaker 1: the FBI arrested him in Orlando and they extradited him
20:06
Speaker 1: back to California. In 1985, according to media reports, Raymond
20:11
Speaker 1: was psychologically evaluated and the court-ordered psychologist determined that Raymond
20:16
Speaker 1: was very intelligent, that he had an IQ of 140,
20:20
Speaker 1: but that Raymond was, quote, severely emotionally disturbed. Raymond was married,
20:25
Speaker 1: according to media reports, at least three times. The first
20:29
Speaker 1: time was to his high school sweetheart at age 19.
20:32
Speaker 1: and then later to Anna, Furcuniak, Eugene's mother. She married
20:36
Speaker 1: him while he was living under the name Richard Harris,
20:38
Speaker 1: and in 1981, they had Eugene. Anna passed away in
20:43
Speaker 1: 1989 at the age of 39, after what was described
20:46
Speaker 1: in her obituary as a long illness. But according to
20:50
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Inquirer, what really happened... was that Anna accidentally
20:54
Speaker 1: took an overdose in the living room when Eugene was
20:57
Speaker 1: seven years old. So Raymond got custody of Eugene after
21:01
Speaker 1: that and raised him as a single father, which meant
21:05
Speaker 1: that while Eugene was growing up, he watched his father
21:09
Speaker 1: take in these women who were addicted to drugs and
21:11
Speaker 1: make pornographic films and photo shoots with them. Eugene seemed
21:17
Speaker 1: to be the guy with the creepy dad who made
21:20
Speaker 1: his female friends nervous. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Eugene
21:24
Speaker 1: was very intelligent and he did well in high school,
21:27
Speaker 1: making A's. After graduation, he enrolled in college. But he
21:32
Speaker 1: also started stealing things in high school and forging documents,
21:35
Speaker 1: according to sources who spoke to the newspaper. One person
21:39
Speaker 1: even claimed that Eugene forged his own diploma. While Eugene
21:45
Speaker 1: was at college in 2003, he was drinking and left
21:48
Speaker 1: a bar in Philadelphia. He had a car accident and
21:51
Speaker 1: that resulted in the other driver going into a coma
21:54
Speaker 1: and eventually dying. After that, Eugene left school. Eugene pleaded
22:00
Speaker 1: guilty to DUI and was sentenced to two to four
22:03
Speaker 1: years in prison. After Eugene got out of prison, he
22:07
Speaker 1: moved in with his father, Raymond, who was still shooting
22:10
Speaker 1: porn and growing a massive amount of drugs. In 2009,
22:15
Speaker 1: federal agents raided the property. They seized 455 marijuana plants.
22:22
Speaker 1: This time, Raymond went to prison, but after his release,
22:25
Speaker 1: he went back to the home in Olney, and father
22:27
Speaker 1: and son were once again reunited. Raymond continued his pornography
22:32
Speaker 1: career even as he got older. In his later years,
22:35
Speaker 1: he was weaker and sick and wore an eye patch.
22:38
Speaker 1: But interesting factoid, no one, according to the Inquirer, seemed
22:43
Speaker 1: sure whether Raymond was wearing that eye patch due to
22:45
Speaker 1: an actual eye condition or whether he wore it because
22:49
Speaker 1: he wanted to look more like an outlaw. In 2000,
22:53
Speaker 1: Raymond's art appeared at an expo in Reno. Some of
22:56
Speaker 1: it also appeared in an anthology of erotic art in
22:59
Speaker 1: New York City with a preface written by Camille Paglia.
23:03
Speaker 1: In 2014, Raymond did a show in Kensington, the neighborhood
23:08
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia that was known for drug activity. The same
23:11
Speaker 1: neighborhood where he picked up a lot of women over
23:13
Speaker 1: the years. This show reportedly featured a lot of different
23:17
Speaker 1: women shown with needles sticking out of them. And as
23:21
Speaker 1: a finale, Raymond had an image of a naked woman
23:25
Speaker 1: who he claimed had died of a drug overdose in
23:27
Speaker 1: front of him. Then there was a video that showed
23:31
Speaker 1: this woman's body being cremated. a lot of people were
23:34
Speaker 1: apparently horrified by this art show. In his autobiographical work,
23:39
Speaker 1: which Raymond claimed was semi-fictional, Raymond portrayed himself as being
23:44
Speaker 1: a killer who humanely acted as a protector to women
23:47
Speaker 1: who were addicted to drugs. Someone who spoke to the
23:49
Speaker 1: Inquirer claimed that the truth was far more sinister and
23:53
Speaker 1: that actually what Raymond was doing was preying on women
23:56
Speaker 1: who were already vulnerable and desperate in order to satisfy
23:59
Speaker 1: his own sexual compulsions. No one knew what was really
24:04
Speaker 1: going on behind closed doors at that house for all
24:07
Speaker 1: those years, and much of that is still a mystery.
24:10
Speaker 1: There were multiple women living at the Horsch residence over
24:13
Speaker 1: the years, and it was believed that Raymond would give
24:17
Speaker 1: them drugs in exchange for posing nude for his photos
24:21
Speaker 1: or films. According to reporting by the Philadelphia Inquirer, one
24:36
Speaker 1: of the women who lived in Raymond's house was Krista
24:38
Speaker 1: Marie Killen. She was described in court papers as Raymond's caregiver,
24:43
Speaker 1: but she reportedly died in 2025, three months after he
24:47
Speaker 1: passed away. Raymond was considerably older than a lot of
24:51
Speaker 1: the women who lived in this house, and people familiar
24:55
Speaker 1: with the property described a regular stream of women coming
24:58
Speaker 1: and going from the home. Raymond was creating sexually explicit
25:03
Speaker 1: photography and films. So I wonder, how are police figuring
25:07
Speaker 1: out which of the photos and videos are real and
25:10
Speaker 1: which ones could be fictional or staged? Because Raymond wrote
25:16
Speaker 1: these semi-fictional autobiographies, it must have been hard because police
25:22
Speaker 1: couldn't just attribute every disturbing document to Eugene or even
25:26
Speaker 1: assume it represented an actual crime. This case is complicated.
25:31
Speaker 1: CBS News Philadelphia reported that police had looked through hundreds
25:34
Speaker 1: of pages of R.C. Horsh's books and described the content as, quote, graphic, disturbing,
25:41
Speaker 1: sexually explicit, and violent, end quote. I read one of
25:45
Speaker 1: his books called Empathy, a badly written, self-published book that
25:49
Speaker 1: purports to be an autobiographical memoir of a caring, empathetic
25:53
Speaker 1: serial killer. Raymond published it in 2014. he marketed Empathy
25:59
Speaker 1: as a semi-autobiographical memoir. He seemed to be kind of
26:03
Speaker 1: trying to play with his audience by giving real details,
26:07
Speaker 1: like using a reference to Chu, his address on West
26:12
Speaker 1: Chu Street. He would give real details, and then he
26:15
Speaker 1: would claim that the horrific detailed confessions of murdering women
26:19
Speaker 1: and dissolving him in his basement were also real. In
26:23
Speaker 1: one early chapter, Raymond describes killing a pigeon with a
26:26
Speaker 1: broken wing and humanely euthanizing it. He later portrays himself
26:31
Speaker 1: as this protector of women who are abusing drugs. In
26:34
Speaker 1: many of the passages, Raymond implies that these women were
26:37
Speaker 1: harming themselves and that they wanted to die and he
26:40
Speaker 1: was just helping them along. In one instance, he claimed
26:43
Speaker 1: that he strangled a woman and then destroyed her body
26:47
Speaker 1: by dissolving her in a bathtub full of sodium hydroxide.
26:50
Speaker 1: He wrote, quote, So now a lot of people are
26:53
Speaker 1: wondering if some of the writings in his book could
26:55
Speaker 1: be based on real events rather than just fiction. The
26:57
Speaker 1: digital evidence involving Gabrielle and Maribel... appears to have given
27:18
Speaker 1: investigators their first real indication that at least some of
27:20
Speaker 1: the material associated with this house might document real deaths
27:25
Speaker 1: rather than just imagined violence. And Raymond Horsch already had
27:29
Speaker 1: one very direct connection to a missing woman, Amy McHale,
27:33
Speaker 1: who had once been his wife. Amy met Raymond in
27:37
Speaker 1: the 1990s. She was in her 20s. He was approximately
27:40
Speaker 1: 30 years older. Amy's daughter, Amanda Stouffer, has said her
27:44
Speaker 1: mother was sick and had pneumonia around the time she
27:47
Speaker 1: met Raymond. She said her mother started to see Raymond
27:51
Speaker 1: as someone who had rescued her, in a sense. Raymond
27:54
Speaker 1: and Amy got married in September of 2004. They divorced
27:58
Speaker 1: in 2008. But even after that, Amy and Raymond stayed
28:01
Speaker 1: in touch, and she would sometimes stay at his house
28:04
Speaker 1: on Chew Avenue. Amy's family has been open about the
28:08
Speaker 1: fact that Amy was also struggling. Even though she went
28:11
Speaker 1: to school and became a paralegal, over the years they
28:15
Speaker 1: believed Raymond was continuing to enable her drug habit by
28:18
Speaker 1: supplying her with drugs, and that that was the draw
28:22
Speaker 1: for her continuing to stay at his house. On June 13, 2016,
28:27
Speaker 1: Amy argued with her mother, Gloria, and went over to
28:30
Speaker 1: Raymond's house. That night, Amy called her mother. Gloria later
28:35
Speaker 1: said she thought Amy sounded like she was drunk. So
28:39
Speaker 1: Gloria told her she could not take the subway in
28:41
Speaker 1: that condition to stay where she was. Amy also left
28:45
Speaker 1: her daughter, Amanda, a voicemail. She told her daughter that
28:48
Speaker 1: she was okay and that she was at Ray's house.
28:52
Speaker 1: After that, no one heard from Amy McHale again. When
28:56
Speaker 1: Amy's family asked Raymond what happened... Raymond reportedly said that
29:00
Speaker 1: he and Amy had been drinking vodka. He said he
29:03
Speaker 1: eventually went to bed, and when he woke up, Amy
29:05
Speaker 1: was gone. Amy's family did not believe she would voluntarily
29:10
Speaker 1: abandon them. Amy's mother also later said that the family
29:13
Speaker 1: was suspicious because in the past, when Amy would leave
29:16
Speaker 1: Raymond's house, he would later call them looking for her.
29:20
Speaker 1: This time, they say he didn't. Amy's family reported her missing.
29:25
Speaker 1: Amy's family says detectives were suspicious of Raymond at the time,
29:29
Speaker 1: but they lacked probable cause to search his property. Nothing
29:33
Speaker 1: proved that Raymond had harmed Amy or that Amy died
29:37
Speaker 1: inside that house. But Amy's last known communication placed her
29:42
Speaker 1: at the same address that would eventually become the center
29:45
Speaker 1: of one of Philadelphia's strangest missing person investigations. Both Eugene
29:51
Speaker 1: and Raymond at various points had connections with some of
29:54
Speaker 1: these missing women. But during certain periods, they were also
29:57
Speaker 1: demonstrably elsewhere. Eugene Horsch had spent periods of his adult
30:02
Speaker 1: life in prison. In fact, when Amy McHale disappeared from
30:07
Speaker 1: the Chew Avenue house in 2016, Eugene was incarcerated. No
30:12
Speaker 1: one has been charged in connection with Amy's disappearance. And
30:16
Speaker 1: Raymond died in 2025. There was also a connection between
30:20
Speaker 1: Raymond and Blair Tonzelli. According to people interviewed by the Enquirer,
30:26
Speaker 1: Raymond frequented a house in Kensington where drugs were common
30:29
Speaker 1: and where several vulnerable women spent time. This person said
30:33
Speaker 1: sometimes Raymond would come there looking for women to participate
30:37
Speaker 1: in photo and video shoots, and that one of those
30:39
Speaker 1: women was Blair Tonzelli. Blair had become estranged from much
30:44
Speaker 1: of her family and had cycled through addiction and incarceration.
30:48
Speaker 1: Blair spent extended periods at the Horshouse, where Raymond reportedly
30:53
Speaker 1: described her at one point as his home health aide.
30:56
Speaker 1: By this point, Raymond would have been in his late 70s.
31:00
Speaker 1: The last activity on Blair's Facebook account was in August
31:03
Speaker 1: of 2022. A friend of hers, David McCarty, said he
31:07
Speaker 1: stopped hearing from her at around the same time. In
31:09
Speaker 1: February of 2023, two friends finally reported Blair missing. One
31:15
Speaker 1: told police she had last been seen at the Chew
31:17
Speaker 1: Avenue house, but there was no evidence at that time
31:21
Speaker 1: of foul play. Then Raymond died in May 2025 at
31:25
Speaker 1: age 82 from a lung condition. Eugene remained in the house,
31:30
Speaker 1: and a year after Raymond's death came the strange encounter
31:33
Speaker 1: near Independence Hall that we started this episode with. Eugene
31:37
Speaker 1: was in the BMW, carrying illegal weapons and apparent fake
31:40
Speaker 1: federal credentials. And beside him, there was a woman carrying
31:44
Speaker 1: identification in the name of Blair Tonzelli. This discovery finally
31:49
Speaker 1: brought investigators back to Chew Avenue. This is a developing story,
31:54
Speaker 1: and there are more and more reports every day about
31:57
Speaker 1: what investigators are finding inside this house. They found the
32:01
Speaker 1: photos and videos and digital material, but they also reportedly
32:06
Speaker 1: have statements that Eugene allegedly made about reducing a body
32:10
Speaker 1: sufficiently enough so that remains could be flushed through the toilet.
32:14
Speaker 1: And investigators are taking a serious look at this because
32:17
Speaker 1: they have found what they've described as unusual plumbing in
32:20
Speaker 1: the basement of that home. Again, they have no proof
32:24
Speaker 1: that Eugene or Raymond actually killed or disposed of anyone.
32:28
Speaker 1: And again, they still haven't found any bodies. At an
32:33
Speaker 1: August 12th news conference, Philadelphia Police Inspector Raymond Evers attempted
32:38
Speaker 1: to explain the scale of what police are facing. He
32:41
Speaker 1: said more than 95 search warrants had been executed. He
32:45
Speaker 1: said they had reviewed only around 5% of the evidence,
32:49
Speaker 1: but he wouldn't publicly describe in detail what they watched.
32:53
Speaker 1: He said it was extremely dark and that there were
32:56
Speaker 1: gaps in the footage that police had located so far.
32:59
Speaker 1: Now investigators are trying to figure out if these videos
33:03
Speaker 1: and photos are real, if some of them are staged
33:06
Speaker 1: and made with fake blood. They're trying to figure out
33:08
Speaker 1: who recorded these things. Are they looking at fiction or
33:12
Speaker 1: are they looking at snuff films? They're also reportedly trying
33:16
Speaker 1: to figure out who the other women in the photos
33:19
Speaker 1: and videos are. They need to find out if they're
33:21
Speaker 1: alive or dead. Police have not publicly announced either a
33:27
Speaker 1: cause or manner of death for either Gabrielle or Maribel.
33:30
Speaker 1: And as of August 20th, 2026, no remains belonging to
33:35
Speaker 1: any of the four missing women have been recovered from
33:38
Speaker 1: that property. Police also haven't announced what they believe happened
33:43
Speaker 1: to Blair, the missing woman whose ID led them to
33:46
Speaker 1: this house of horrors in the first place. Blair is
33:49
Speaker 1: still missing and so is Amy. If investigators want to
33:54
Speaker 1: figure out what happened to these women, they're going to
33:56
Speaker 1: have to find surviving witnesses, and they may have to
33:59
Speaker 1: locate a lot of people who would be very afraid
34:03
Speaker 1: to talk to the police for one reason or another.
34:06
Speaker 1: This investigation also raises a difficult question about how many
34:10
Speaker 1: women passed through that house without anyone outside that world
34:14
Speaker 1: knowing that they had been there. Identifying all those women
34:17
Speaker 1: could take a long time. Meanwhile, Eugene Horsch remains in
34:22
Speaker 1: federal custody. His jury trial on the charges related to
34:25
Speaker 1: the false DEA credentials is set to begin on September 28th. Again,
34:30
Speaker 1: he has not been charged in connection with any deaths
34:33
Speaker 1: of Gabrielle Amarando, Maribel Fresas, Amy McHale, or Blair Tonzelli,
34:38
Speaker 1: or any violent crime against them. And this is what
34:42
Speaker 1: has me obsessed with this case. We're dealing with a
34:45
Speaker 1: situation where by early 2023, Philadelphia police had received missing
34:51
Speaker 1: persons information connecting two different missing women to the same address,
34:55
Speaker 1: Amy in 2016 and Blair in February of 2023. At
34:59
Speaker 1: that point, Blair's friends told police that she had last
35:03
Speaker 1: been seen at the Chew Avenue house. Why didn't police
35:07
Speaker 1: connect the dots and figure out that two different women
35:11
Speaker 1: had disappeared inside the same house? Police have barely started
35:16
Speaker 1: investigating what happened inside that house with boarded-up windows. And
35:21
Speaker 1: until they finish, nobody can say with certainty how many
35:25
Speaker 1: answers are hidden inside 417 West Chew Avenue or what
35:29
Speaker 1: other secrets could be buried there. The Philadelphia Police Department
35:35
Speaker 1: is asking that anyone who has visited the West Chew
35:38
Speaker 1: Avenue home or who had contact with Eugene Horsch or
35:42
Speaker 1: Raymond Horsch to call the tip line at 215-686-TIPS, or
35:48
Speaker 1: the Homicide Division on 215-686-3334. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is
35:56
Speaker 1: Hell and Gone Murder Line. Hell and Gone Murder Line
36:00
Speaker 1: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
36:03
Speaker 1: It's written and narrated by me, Katherine Townsend, and produced
36:06
Speaker 1: by Edelise Perez. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her
36:10
Speaker 1: research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review. Noah Kammer
36:14
Speaker 1: mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by
36:16
Speaker 1: Ben Salit. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L.C. Crowley.
36:22
Speaker 1: Listen to Hell and Gone ad-free by subscribing to the
36:24
Speaker 1: iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you
36:28
Speaker 1: are interested in seeing documents and materials from the case,
36:31
Speaker 1: you can follow the show on Instagram at hellandgonepod. If
36:35
Speaker 1: you have a case you'd like me and my team
36:36
Speaker 1: to look into... you can reach out to us at
36:39
Speaker 1: our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. That's 678-744-6145.